Dua Lipa Interviews Patti Smith at London Literature Festival

Grammy and Brit award-winning global superstar and founder of the Service95 Book Club, Dua Lipa delivered a moving, personal interview with icon Patti Smith this evening at the Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall, receiving a rapturous standing ovation and marking another highlight in her curation of this year's London Literature Festival with her Service95 Book Club. The discussion followed yesterday's in-conversation events with author Zadie Smith and poet, singer, songwriter and film-maker, Mustafa. The festival is part of the Southbank Centre's 75th anniversary year, and runs until Sunday 1 November.

Opening the event, Dua said: 'I'm so excited to be here with you guys tonight, and it's such an honour to be here curating the London Literature Festival … and I couldn't think of a more special way to all spend our Sunday night than with the iconic, and the legendary, Patti Smith.'

In a third sold-out Royal Festival Hall event, the pair discussed Patti's captivating memoir, Bread of Angels. The intimate and wide-ranging conversation also touched on Patti's family and earliest experiences with art, from a formative experience with a Picasso aged 12 to leaving the church when she was told there was no room for art. This sense of resolute independence has carried through Patti's remarkable life, marking her out as a free spirit and a leading cultural influence. The pair discussed Patti's begrudging celebrity, and explored questions around the craft of writing and the healing power of art. They also movingly discussed Patti's beloved late husband Fred 'Sonic' Smith, and his seismic and enduring influence on her life.

Both women are world-renowned performers as well as passionate readers, and they explored the grounding potential of literature to anchor a life lived in pursuit of creativity, and the power of artistic freedom. They shared a tender and vulnerable discussion about the power of the written word to capture heavy experiences and hold difficult emotions, with Patti noting that 'books are precious,' and sharing reflections on the daily gestures, big and small, that constitute her bread of angels.

The in conversation event was a highlight in a rich and interdisciplinary line-up of events curated by Dua Lipa and her Service95 Book Club, with a programme including a meditation on the power of rhythm, form and sound in writing, Fierce Sounds with Kae Tempest (30 Oct); a life-affirming evening dedicated to Re-Writing Male Tenderness, exploring the power of prose to hold complex emotions, and asking how masculinity and vulnerability might coexist (31 Oct); an evening dedicated to today's finest Translated Fiction Showcase (28 Oct); and a timely and urgent meditation from journalists, writers and activists on the rising threats to free expression in Censorship Live! with English PEN (31 Oct).

Remaining London Literature Festival Listings

Service95 Book Club: Translated Fiction Showcase — Wed 28 Oct, 7.45pm, Purcell Room. Cross borders with some of today's most vital fiction in translation, read by the authors themselves: Nelio Biedermann, Gaël Faye, Intan Paramaditha and Samanta Schweblin.

Malorie Blackman: Noughts & Crosses at 25 — Wed 28 Oct, 8pm, Queen Elizabeth Hall. Celebrate the legacy of this bestselling YA novel with reflections from the author and special guests including Tinie Tempah and Candice Carty-Williams. Presented in association with the Service95 Book Club.

Tice Cin: Safe Spaces — Thu 29 Oct, 7.45pm, Purcell Room. Enter the world of the extraordinary new novel Safe Spaces in a multi-art form event, with a star-studded cast including BODUR, Tice Cin and more, with beats by KMNC, Tice Cin and Ikonika. Presented in association with the Service95 Book Club.

Service95 Book Club: Fierce Sounds — Fri 30 Oct, 8pm, Queen Elizabeth Hall. Writers Jacqueline Crooks, Omar Musa, Sufiyaan Salam, and Kae Tempest discuss how they make fiction feel alive, exploring rhythm, form and sound in writing.

Service95 and English PEN: Censorship Live! — Sat 31 Oct, 12pm, Purcell Room. Readings, real-life stories and expert discussion confronting rising threats to written expression hosted by Oliver Bullough, with readings of real messages that writers, journalists and members of the public have received.

Service95 Book Club: Rewriting Male Tenderness — Sat 31 Oct, 7.45pm, Purcell Room. A life-affirming conversation with writers about masculinity, vulnerability and the power of care with writer/film-maker Caleb Azumah Nelson, author Tomasz Jedrowski, and other special guests.

Hanif & Carlo Kureishi: Are You With Me Now? — Sun 1 Nov, 8pm, Queen Elizabeth Hall. Hanif Kureishi discusses his fiercely funny, unflinching account of survival – of creativity, desire and companionship persisting when the body falls apart, in conversation with Emma Barnett. Presented in association with the Service95 Book Club.

About the Southbank Centre

The Southbank Centre is the UK's largest multi-arts centre and engages the most diverse audiences of any performing arts organisation in the UK. Its biggest venue, the Royal Festival Hall (2,700 seats) is the lasting legacy of the 1951 Festival of Britain, and the ambition and values of that project – that arts, ideas, innovation and culture can heal communities and should be available and accessible to everyone – remain guiding principles today. The Southbank Centre offers a wide-ranging, inclusive and world-class artistic programme spanning contemporary visual arts, music, dance, performance, literature, comedy and spoken word across the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, the Hayward Gallery and free spaces. It is also home to the National Poetry Library, the National Academy for Social Prescribing (NASP), two resident organisations (Kinetika Bloco and Tomorrow's Warriors) and six resident orchestras (Aurora Orchestra, Chineke! Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Philharmonia Orchestra). www.southbankcentre.co.uk

About the Southbank Centre's London Literature Festival

London Literature Festival is the longest-running literature festival in the city that celebrates prestigious authors alongside rising literary stars and cultural icons. The festival was previously curated by Self-Esteem in 2025, and headliners in prior years include Ai Weiwei, Greta Thunberg, Malala Yousafzai, Margaret Atwood, Philip Pullman, Tom Hanks and Yulia Navalnaya. The festival – now in its 19th year – takes place across the Southbank Centre's iconic 13 acre site. It is made possible through the support of Bukhman Philanthropies.

About Service95 Book Club

Founded by Dua Lipa, the Service95 Book Club is the cultural and intellectual heart of Service95: a global cultural platform and community built around the belief that books, ideas, and the conversations they spark help make people more informed, more empathetic, and more alive to the world.

The Service95 Book Club is where Dua brings her personal reading life into public view: Monthly Reads chosen straight from her bookshelf, paired with reviews, contextual essays, and author interviews that go far beyond the surface of the page. Her conversations — with writers from around the world including Margaret Atwood, Olga Tokarczuk, and Ocean Vuong — have earned her recognition from The Telegraph as 'one of Britain's foremost literary tastemakers'. The Service95 Book Club podcast launched to critical acclaim, named among The Guardian's Best Podcasts of the Week and ranked as one of Spotify's Best Video Podcasts of 2025.

It is, at its core, a place where reading is treated as a community act — and where the right book, at the right moment, can change how you see everything.

Photo Credit: Pete Woodhead

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