The RSL is taking bookings from Members and Fellows only. For public tickets (£10/£8), available from 5 August, visit the National Portrait Gallery website or call or 020 7306 0055.

What meanings do we attach to appearance? And how are women’s lives formed and re-formed through embodied performances or their representations? For decades, Cindy Sherman transformed herself into an array of uncanny and unsettling characters, exploring the illusions and deceptions of everyday life. Marking the National Portrait Gallery’s major retrospective of Sherman, our panel discuss performance, in writing, image and on stage. Adjoa Andoh is an actor for stage and screen. In 2019, she directed and played the titular role in Shakespeare’s Globe’s Richard II as part of the first all women of colour production on a major UK stage. Esther Freud trained as an actress before writing her first novel, Hideous Kinky, which was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and made into a film starring Kate Winslet. Sophie Mackintosh’s debut novel, The Water Cure, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Her second novel, Blue Ticket, will be published in 2020.

This event is chaired by playwright, author and critic, Bonnie Greer.