Peter Kosminsky’s eagerly awaited new drama series The State premiers in August on Channel 4. The show, by the award winning creator of BBC’s Wolf Hall, follows four young Britons who decide to join ISIS in Raqqa, Syria. A fictionalised story based on extensive research, it explores a journey which for some, ends in despair and for others in an ever greater commitment to the Caliphate.

Kosminsky spent months researching the current series and claims "Unless we understand why some of our young men and women chose to give up the lives they were living and travel to Syria, why men and women born and brought up in our liberal democracies opt to lay down those lives, how can we ever hope to combat this nihilistic creed?" 

Peter Kosminsky has form when it come to dramatising  political issues. The State is the latest work  exploring causes and effects of conflict in the Middle East. It follows The Promise (a love story set amid the Israeli-Palestine conflict), The Government Inspector (about the Iraq dossier row and the events leading to the death of Dr David Kelly, starring Mark Rylance) and Britz (about a British Muslim family who are pulled in radically different directions post 9/11).

This session, illustrated with clips, will discuss The State and also look back at some of the more telling moments in Kosminsky's previous series.

Following hotfoot on the Channel 4 broadcast this promises to be an extremely topical and memorable conversation. The event will take place at a location in central London.