David Ryan

Born in 1968, David Ryan grew up in Hartlepool, northeast England, the third and youngest child of a working-class family. After three miserable years studying for a physics degree, he decided to become a reporter instead. With a journalism school's prize for best student under his belt, he then worked on papers in Northumberland, Hampshire and Essex, winning more awards in the process. In 1999, he joined the Highbury & Islington Express (the High&I), when the gentrified London borough of Islington was a byword for Tony Blair's government. Working for the upmarket Ham&High series, he hurled himself into London's cultural scene, interviewing the likes of Ryan Gosling (then an unknown 20-year-old) and Boris Johnson (who'd just been hired as editor of The Spectator). He went freelance in 2001, in part so he could travel more; to date, he has visited about 70 countries. His first book, George Orwell on Screen, was one of the Times Literary Supplement's books of the year in 2018.