Prominent Garrick Club members have written to the chairman to demand that a group of women including Dame Mary Beard, Cathy Newman and Juliet Stevenson are admitted to the male-only private-members’ club.
Letters are understood to have been delivered to Christopher Kirker, the chairman, on Wednesday in which the members, including Stephen Fry, Matt Frei and Sir Simon Jenkins, call for the group of seven women to be considered for entry if they are formally nominated.
Political figures Amber Rudd and Baroness Hazarika have also been nominated alongside Margaret Casely-Hayford, chairwoman of the trustees of Shakespeare’s Globe and Elizabeth Gloster, a former lady justice of the court of appeals.
“The following candidates are being proposed for membership of the Garrick Club. The usual forms will