One Track Minds

One Track Minds returns to Wilton's Music Hall on Monday 19 October, the storytelling night presented by VERYFINE. It's a format that's hard to pin down with a single label — they describe it as a cross between Desert Island Discs, TED Talks and The Moth Radio Hour — and the premise is as simple as it gets: five guests from all walks of life each tell the story of one song that changed their life, and then the audience hears that song played.

It's the kind of night that works on two levels. You can listen passively and just have a good time, or you can listen actively and, in the show's own words, change your life. The guests aren't always household names, but the show has built a following of writers, thinkers and musicians over the years. Past participants include Sir David Suchet, Katie Melua, Jane Horrocks, Harry Hill, Peter Tatchell, Inua Ellams, Jessie Buckley and Deborah Frances White.

There's a bit of history behind it too. The show won the Audience Award at Bitesize Festival 2024 and has been called 'a London institution waiting to happen'. The team also published an anthology of 25 stories from the first four years, crowdfunded through Unbound, with half the cover price of each book donated to the Samaritans. The anthology gives you a sense of the range the night covers — a few years of stories gathered into one volume.

Tickets are £10 to £18 full price and £7.50 to £15.50 for concessions, with the show running at Wilton's Music Hall in Graces Alley, London E1 8JB. It's a night that puts a single song and the story it tells at the centre of everything.