For step-free access from the Queen Elizabeth Hall Slip Road off Belvedere Road to the Queen Elizabeth Hall auditorium seating (excluding rows A to C) and wheelchair spaces in the Rear Stalls, plus Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer and the Purcell Room, please use the Queen Elizabeth Hall main entrance. Ola Olajide, a high-profile journalist, is marrying the love of her life in one month’s time. Young, beautiful, successful – she and her fiancé Michael seem to have it all. With their future on the line, Ola gives Michael an ultimatum to prove his innocence by their wedding day, but will the truth of what happened change everything for both of them?

everything about this book just made me very sad. what was the message? sometimes, very rarely, men are falsely accused of bad things. and it might be because they're cheating on you with a woman who has an insane boyfriend. and sometimes, very rarely, other men are accused of things (homophobia, violence) and it's TRUE but it's nuanced because they're actually secretly gay themselves!!! and if you call them out for the ways they were homophobic while in the closet, they might kill themselves so be careful. That was really a lot,” Adegoke says, eyebrows raised, when I mention it, and some of the other more questionable takes the two of them endured. “We were young and, at the time, excited for every opportunity. When we reread it … ” She pauses to reach for diplomacy. “That was: ‘Oohhh. Hmmm.’”It's a very readable and engaging book. Also I love that novels are exploring our digital lives and how the internet is intertwined in our relationships and bias because of what we consume. The List is uncomfortable in the way it bends the beliefs we would otherwise announce with conviction. It is the kind of book to send you in a tailspin, all while being utterly readable and absorbing. Why couldn't he have just been the love-to-hate-him book villain that his personality clearly wanted him to be??? why do we end on good terms?? It began as a crowdsourced collection of names and somehow morphed into an anonymous account posting allegations on social media. Utterly compelling, immersive and addictive” - Sara Collins, author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton

It’s probably not how Adegoke’s publisher would like their bright young star to be promoting her literary career. After all, The List, due later this month, is arriving with much fanfare and is one of the most anticipated books of the summer. But Adegoke, 31, is refreshingly self-assured, unafflicted by the self-doubt and low self-esteem that has become a millennial tic. There was a time when every industry had its own list [of alleged sexual abusers and predators] circulating, right? Music, film, media. I’ve seen names on lists where I’ve gone: ‘Gosh, I’ve heard about this before.’ And then there are others where your kneejerk is: ‘Oh. OH.’ I remember seeing one particular allegation and then later some information coming out that really complicated things.” There were aspects of this novel I liked; I believed in Ola and Michael's relationship, I cared about Ola, and I thought the choice she makes near the end of the novel is brave, both on the part of the character and the author. However, even this was undercut by a final twist that I felt was a real cop-out, like many a final twist at the end of a thriller (though this book isn't a thriller, at least not up to this point). It offers too neat a solution to the novel's central dilemma, and forecloses some of the interesting questions that it does raise. I think there will (and have already been) better things written on calling out and cancellation.It began as a list of anonymous allegations about abusive men. Now it has been published online. Ola made her name breaking exactly this type of story. She would usually be the first to cover it, calling for the men to be fired. Except today, Michael’s name is on there. second, I don't think we need a book about men being falsely accused of things and throwing themselves into traffic as a result. does it happen? sure, sometimes. rarely. BUT WE KNOW THAT ANYWAY. there is no shortage of people running to tell you about false accusations any time something happens. we don't need another book about it. I’d like to do a Normal People-esque Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones type thing – I want to find people who’re incredible and not that famous. Sheila’s too famous and Arinzé has an MBE [laughs]. I haven’t asked yet, but I’d love to involve them in some way because they’re phenomenal, but I really want to launch two new actors, too, and then maybe get someone more established to play Frankie or their parents or something. And finally, I know you’re also working on your next novel now. What can you tell us about it? Sitting across from me at a small round table, glass in one hand and phone in the other, she is a force of personality – charming, chatty, a whirlwind of laughter and hustle – so I don’t mind when it becomes clear that we’re only going to get through about five of my questions in the time she has. Or when she’s straining so hard not to answer directly that she runs us both around a loop of half-thoughts and non sequiturs until I agree that, yes, yes I do know what she means. That was interesting for me to explore because I grew up with sisters and have an almost entirely female friendship group, so my understanding of him was built through conversations with the very few male friends I do have. Not to generalise, but I think many men don’t feel like they can be as emotional as they’d like to be with their male friends, so when you’re a guy’s only female friend, you see a totally different side to them. I’m desperate to hear from more men who’ve read the book because I’m so interested in their perspective. So, once you’d finished the book, what was it like to see it become the subject of this intense bidding war?

I wouldn’t say bruised. It’s like putting your hand in a fire. You learn from it. I’ve healed.” We circle around times when an article of hers has gone viral for the wrong reason or there’s been a racist pile-on in the comments section, but she glosses over how much she lets it bother her. The early-stage development project joins other A24 projects for the BBC including an adaptation of Booker Prize winner Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain and This is England creator Shane Meadows‘ The Gallows Pole, which is being made with Normal People indie Element Pictures and Big Arty. For all her wariness around her public image, things are going extraordinarily well for Adegoke. A year before she had finished writing her book, the TV rights were bought by the powerhouse combination of HBO Max, BBC and A24. You couldn’t dream up a more prestigious production force. The making of the show is now under way with Adegoke on board as creator and executive producer. Social media is like putting your hand in a fire. You learn from it. I’ve healed. It makes us question where do we draw the boundaries. To what extent is it morally right to reveal things on social media. What happens when intent and results do not match?.It began as a crowdsourced collection of names and somehow morphed into an anonymous account posting allegations on social media. Ola would usually be the first to support such a list - she'd retweet it, call for the men to be fired, write article after article. Except this time, Michael's name is on it. The List is, in many ways, a social media novel, and it looks at the idea of people, and women especially, feeling pressure to be “consistent” online. Why was that something you wanted to explore? Yomi Adegoke". The Independent. Archived from the original on 7 May 2022 . Retrieved 10 November 2018. so there is no mystery. there is no tension. it's not really a moral dilemma, because even if you answer the question "can you stay with a man and publicly not believe his accusers" with "yes," HE'S CHEATING ON HER ANYWAY. so you know they aren't going to stay together. in a book where tension is the only thing keeping things moving, you ruin the tension right off the bat. For access to the Queen Elizabeth Hall auditorium seating rows A to C and wheelchair spaces in the Front Stalls, please enter via the Artists' Entrance in the Queen Elizabeth Hall Slip Road (Level 1).

Bizarre [ laughs]. I literally never wanted to do TV again—I had a really difficult experience a couple of years ago with TV, but A24 were so encouraging and supportive and wanted me to be involved. It’s really early days now, but it’s been so exciting discussing it and making a start. It began as a crowdsourced collection of names and somehow morphed into an anonymous account posting allegations on social media. Ola would usually be the first to support such a list—she’d retweet it, call for the men to be fired, write article after article. Except this time, Michael’s name is on it. Throughout this book I truly couldn’t figure out if any of these characters were meant to be likeable which I must admit kept taking me out of the flow of the book; the pacing was also off with the story lagging at some points. But most importantly, I found that the book at times teetered on feeding into very harmful rhetorics about women making false accusations for vengeance purposes and that last chapter didn’t help my feelings about this at all! It’s probably easier to call it a cancel culture novel, or say it’s about #MeToo or feminism, but, first and foremost, it’s a book about the internet. This “consistency” thing is so interesting—with your personal life, political views, and opinions, we all leave this digital trail and everything you do becomes a receipt. If you do one thing on Tuesday and another on Wednesday, people immediately take that as evidence that you’re not exactly who you say you are, when the reality is that people are multifaceted and complicated. Laughing, Michael pulled her face toward him. He looked at her, taking her in for a moment with his eyes dopily half closed, and kissed her forehead.All of this is important material but I found the writing foggy and messy at times with extraneous exposition and descriptions that could have been cut or better integrated. There are also holes in the characterisation as people do things for the convenience of the plot: jarring instances are the opening scene where Ola and Michael are club-hopping, drinking champagne to celebrate their upcoming wedding, don't get home till 3 am... and then he doesn't stay the night as he's starting a new job the next day? All this just to separate the two protagonists when The List drops on social media. It’s true! Compared to nonfiction, where you’re transcribing and stating things more plainly, I struggled with it. I did end up having fun,” she adds, “but it took me a while.”