Patrons
Natalie Clein
Natalie Clein is a professional cellist. Her grandparents were Dutch Jews who went into hiding during the Nazi Occupation. She is the daughter of violinists, and at 16 she won BBC Young Musician of the Year 1994. Her many prestigious awards include an OBE for services to music. Along with her sister, actor Louisa Clein, Natalie featured in fellow Pascal Theatre Company patron Robert Rinder’s 2020 BBC TV series My Family, the Holocaust and Me.
Lord Haskel
Lord Haskel has served as Deputy Speaker and Deputy Chairman of Committees in the House of Lords since 2001. Simon Haskel was born in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1934, and came to the UK as a child, where he studied Textile Technology at Salford College of Advanced Technology (now the University of Salford). Following a prominent career as the founder of the international textile company The Perrotts Group, he was created a Labour life peer in the House of Lords in 1993, taking the title Baron Haskel of Higher Broughton. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1979 and has been a long-term supporter and champion of Pascal Theatre Company.
Barb Jungr
The daughter of Czech and German refugees, Barb Jungr is an internationally renowned singer, composer, lyricist and writer. Her performing career spans four decades and has included many collaborations and garnered numerous prestigious awards, including the Perrier Award for her work as part of Jungr & Parker. In 1998 she toured the show Sex, Religion & Politics, which was directed by Julia Pascal and featured in that year’s Edinburgh Festival.
Kenan Malik
Writer, lecturer and broadcaster Kenan Malik was born in India and brought up in Manchester. He originally trained in neurobiology but is best known for his works on political philosophy, multiculturalism and race. His 2009 book From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and Its Legacy was shortlisted for the 2010 George Orwell Book Prize. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Irenosen Okojie
Award-winning author Irenosen Okojie was born in Nigeria and moved to London at the age of eight. Her 2016 novel Butterfly Fish won a Betty Trask Award, and her short story ‘Grace Jones’ was awarded the 2020 Caine Prize for African writing. Her work has been published in numerous outlets, from the Guardian to the New York Times. She became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018.
Robert Rinder
Rob Rinder is a criminal barrister and TV presenter, best known for the long-running TV series Judge Rinder. His grandfather was a Jewish refugee from Poland who became a ‘Windermere boy’. Rob shared his explorations of his family’s wartime experiences on the TV programmes Who Do You Think You Are? in 2018 and 2020’s My Family, the Holocaust and Me. He also writes a regular column for the London Evening Standard.