Profile

Singer-songwriter Adele Adkins is one of the world's best-selling artists, with sales of over 100 million records. Better known simply as Adele, she’s also won nine Brit Awards, a Golden Globe and fifteen Grammys - not to mention an Oscar in 2013 for her singing in the Bond film Skyfall. This week she released her first new single in six years, offering her fans a first glimpse of her so-called ‘d...

British actress Cush Jumbo is best known for her starring role in US TV dramas The Good Wife and spin-off The Good Fight. Now she’s aiming to set the London theatre scene alight, playing ‘a new kind of Hamlet’ at the Young Vic. Only a handful of women have ever taken on the role before, and Jumbo is the first woman of colour to play the troubled Danish prince in a major production in Britain. It h...

Olaf Scholz is expected to be the new leader of Germany if he can construct a successful coalition. How did the former mayor of Hamburg appeal to the country's voters? With Adrian Goldberg.

By her own admission, Liz Truss is not always known as being diplomatic. As she takes on the role of Foreign Secretary, Profile investigates the influences and events that have taken her to one of the great offices of state, and finds that the journey has been far from usual. Mark Coles hears from Liz Truss’s brother, her student friend and keen watchers of her political career, and asks how this...

Sir Ed Davey is a mallet wielding, man on a mission. That mission is to demolish the Conservative 'blue wall' which he's already made a hole in after the surprise Liberal Democrat victory at the Chesham and Amersham by-election in June this year. With a First class degree from Oxford, he could have ended up as a spy, but instead chose the path well trodden for a PPE graduate, politics, taking a jo...

The seminal rapper and billionaire fashion mogul Kanye West's new album Donda is named after his late mother, who was an influential figure in his life. It's gone straight to number one in many countries, it's the most successful album of the year already, clocking up over 180 million streams in just 24 hours. Some consider Kanye West - who also calls himself Ye - a creative genius. Others have be...

Following a sometimes ugly campaign, Britain's second largest trade union, Unite, has elected its first woman leader, Sharon Graham. But who exactly is she? Jealously guarding her privacy, Unite's new 52 year-old head represents a significant break with the union's retiring chief, Len McCluskey and, it would seem, his close political links with the Labour Party. Instead, centering her campaign on...

With the fall of Kabul and the Taliban back in power in Afghanistan, this week Mark Coles profiles the man who’s become the public face of the strict Islamist movement - its political leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. Baradar was one of those who founded the Taliban almost thirty years ago. Now, after spending eight years in a Pakistani jail, many are tipping him to be Afghanistan’s next Presiden...

By the end of July this year, more than 80 million vaccinations had been administered in the UK. Mark Coles takes a look at the talented and determined scientist leading the Oxford University vaccine team, Professor Sarah Gilbert. Producers: Ben Crighton and Soila Apparicio.

George Mpanga, better known as George the Poet, is a British spoken word poet, podcaster and advocate for social change. Born in north London after his parents fled Uganda in the 1980s, he’s become an increasingly significant voice in the debate on race and class in the UK. His innovative style mixes music and poetry. It has won him critical acclaim both as a recording artist and a social commenta...

Last October, British sprint cyclist, Mark Cavendish, broke down on TV, fearing he’d cycled the last race of his career. Now the 36 year-old is making sporting history, against the odds. After illness and injury, the man dubbed the Manx Missile has now equalled the record – set by cycling legend Eddie Merckx - for the most Tour de France stage wins. And, if things go well for him on this last week...

For almost a decade Raheem Sterling has been one of English football’s most talked about players. Born in Jamacia and raised in the shadow of the Wembley arch, he burst onto the scene as a precocious 17 year old talent at Liverpool. But for all his talent on the pitch, Sterling has been just as defined by his battles off it. He has had frequent tussles with the tabloid press and has become one of...

He's 23, with 16 Grand Slam titles to his name and focused on winning his first Wimbledon singles title. Yet British wheelchair tennis champion, Alfie Hewett, is facing the end of his career because of a change in rules. The elite sportsman, from Norwich, Norfolk, is currently ineligible to compete beyond 2021 after being told by the International Tennis Federation that his disability is not sever...

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is one of Nigeria’s foremost literary voices. Her writing is noted for its touching examination of homeland, identity and feminism. For more than a decade she has been coaching and mentoring promising young authors through her yearly workshops in Lagos, bringing a new generation of African writers to mainstream attention. On the subject of transgender people and feminism,...

The military commando turned self-made tech millionaire who’s now Prime Minister of Israel. The right-wing, nationalist, supporter of Jewish settlement in the West Bank has formed an unlikely alliance of left and right, secular and religious, Jewish and Arab. Once the chief of staff to Benjamin Netanyahu, Naftali Bennett brought an end to his old boss’s 12 years in power. Presenter: Mark Coles Res...

The multi-talented performer has just made BAFTA history, after taking top honours for ‘I May Destroy You’, her drama about sexual consent. The TV show – which she created, wrote, directed and starred in - also won best mini-series. It was inspired by Michaela Coel’s own experience of sexual assault after her drink was spiked. Born in London to Ghanaian parents, 33 year-old Michaela Coel grew up w...

Joanne Anderson has just taken on what many might call one of the toughest jobs in local government - leading the Labour council at the centre of corruption allegations. Liverpool-born and bred, the 50 year-old single mum only became a Labour councillor in 2019. But she was encouraged to stand as mayor when her predecessor, Joe Anderson (no relation) stood down after being arrested over claims rel...

Kate Bingham took on one of the hardest jobs in the Covid pandemic - finding and procuring the necessary vaccines to stop people dying. A venture capitalist who invests in new drugs, she got the call from the Prime Minister who asked her to chair the UK’s Vaccine Taskforce. Once she had worked out which vaccines to back and order in advance, she and her team had to get the systems in place to roll...

Edwin Poots has been named as the new leader of the Democratic Unionist Party. A farmer from the outskirts of Lisburn, not far from Belfast. Mr Poots entered political life in 1997 - and, since then, he's slowly but steadily risen to the top. He's held four Ministeries including health and agriculture and is viewed across the sectarian divide as a shrewd political strategist. A devoutly religious...

It's been an eventful few weeks for the Labour Party - especially for its deputy leader, Angela Rayner MP. Over the course of a topsy-turvy weekend, leaked plans to sack her from her role as party chair and national campaigns coordinator triggered an outcry, which, in turn, led Keir Starmer to instead offer a major promotion. Her back-story is, however, unusual for one who has risen so high, so qu...

The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is hugely popular, credited with bringing stability and modernisation to his country in his 8 years of leadership. But his critics say lately he has been too absorbed with his political ambitions and not focused enough on protecting the country from the pandemic. Could the disastrous second wave of coronavirus that has engulfed India dent the unassailable ri...

Brexit, Coronavirus and now ‘Sofagate’. It's been a challenging year for the first female President of the European Commission, who’s been criticised for the EU’s response to Covid-19 and blamed for a delay in getting people jabbed. Now, the organisation she heads is suing vaccine manufacturer, AstraZeneca, over delays in supplying doses. This week, she told the European parliament how she'd been...

The rags to riches story of the billionaire brothers from Blackburn, Lancashire who have grown their business from a single petrol station in 2001 to a global empire of six thousand garage forecourts in less than twenty years. Notoriously private, the brothers became national news last year after buying the supermarket giant, Asda. Last week they added the fast-food chain, Leon, to their portfolio...

Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland - who's facing calls to resign over the policing of a republican funeral during the pandemic, sparking violent disorder and protests. Simon Byrne, who's 57, is a policeman through and through. He joined the Metropolitan police as a teenager, straight out of school. Rising through the ranks, he took on senior roles in Merseyside, Manchester,...

The billionaire banker whose finance firm has collapsed and who is now at the centre of a lobbying scandal involving ex-Prime Minister, David Cameron. Alexander "Lex" Greensill, grew up on his family’s sugar cane and melon farm in Queensland, Australia. After moving to the UK, he went into investment banking, founded a supply chain finance empire - complete with private jets - and, under David Cam...