Celebrating the eclectic life of pioneering crystallographer Dame Kathleen Lonsdale: Electric Voice Theatre at Conway Hall for Bloomsbury Festival

“For a married woman with children, to become a first class scientist she must first of all choose, the right husband” 
        Dame Kathleen Lonsdale

Crystallographer Dame Kathleen Lonsdale (1903–1971) was the first female professor at UCL and the first female Fellow of the Royal Society. Her pioneering science led to breakthroughs in organic chemistry and medical treatments. Beyond science, Lonsdale was a prison reformer, women’s rights activist and pacifist, warning of the dangers of nuclear physics and wealth inequality in her book Is Peace Possible? 

As part of the 20th Bloomsbury Festival, Electric Voice Theatre will be returning to Conway Hall on 15 October 2026 for The Peaceful Crystallographer – and other songs celebrating the life of Dame Kathleen Lonsdale.

Electric Voice Theatre will be joined by UC8 – young acappella singers from University College London, and Clerkenwell Community Choir to perform music which reflects Lonsdale’s eclectic life, ranging through Irish folk song, music-hall, stirring anthems and ethical hymns, including works by Judith Weir and Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Lonsdale’s contemporaries like Elizabeth Maconchy, Shena Fraser and Clara Novello Davies and Conway Hall’s radical thinkers, Eliza Flower and Emily Josephine Troup.

There will be a post-performance discussion featuring science historian Dr Patricia Fara and Zoë Waller, Professor of Drug Discovery, Pharma & Bio Chemistry at University College London, and some of today’s women in science at UCL in the year of its 200th anniversary. 

Full details from Electric Voice Theatre’s website.