Susie Dent is a writer and broadcaster on language, best known as the resident word expert on Channel 4’s Countdown, a role she has held for more than thirty years, and as a regular on its sister show 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. Radio 4 listeners know her from Woman’s Hour, Word of Mouth and Today, and she has appeared across television on everything from Newsnight to Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway. With Gyles Brandreth she hosted Something Rhymes with Purple, a podcast that ranges from the evolution of language to the way we talk to one another now.

Susie answers readers’ notes and queries on words and phrases in weekly columns for Radio Times, the i newspaper and The Week Junior, and has written for the Telegraph and the Times. She is the author of several books, among them An Emotional Dictionary: Real Words for How You Feel, from Angst to Zwodder. A spokesperson for Oxford University Press, she has judged the Costa Book Awards and speaks regularly on language and communication.

Ella Al-Shamahi is a palaeoanthropologist, evolutionary biologist and stand-up comedian, and one of the leading experts on Neanderthals. Educated at University College London and Imperial College, she has built a reputation for award-winning documentaries across the BBC, Channel 4 and National Geographic. In 2025 she presented Human on BBC Two, a five-part series on how our species came to be, which The Guardian gave five stars. While filming Viking Warrior Women for National Geographic she was credited with finding the first evidence of a battle injury on a female Viking warrior, and her expeditions have taken her into some of the world’s most unstable territories, from Iraq and Yemen to Nagorno-Karabakh, in a mission to draw attention to overlooked World Heritage sites.

Alongside the science sits a genuine comic talent. Ella performs science stand-up at venues from the Edinburgh Fringe to the National Geographic stage, and uses humour to make her subject reach further. She was named a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, hosts the BBC podcast The Conversation, which platforms remarkable women from around the world, and is the author of The Handshake, a Times Book of the Year. Her TEDx talk on the places scientists are too wary to explore has been watched more than two and a half million times.

We are donating £5 from every ticket to help fund the purchase of a Hero PRO bionic arm for Kitty.

Kitty is 11 years old and was born missing her lower left arm. Up until now, she has found a way to do most things with help from her family, friends and teachers. But as she moves to high school, she needs to be more independent and tackle activities she hasn’t done before, like design technology, different sports and carrying everything she needs.

She has always been independent and determined, achieving things people never thought she could. From abseiling to archery, playing the piano to winning swimming races, she usually finds her own way to do what she wants to do. But sometimes living with one hand can be tiring and get in the way of some things she wants to do, and that can be really frustrating.

A Hero PRO would help her with everyday tasks like helping around the house, opening doors while carrying things, lifting things without putting too much pressure on her body, and doing all the things she loves without having to have lots of different prosthetics.

She is lead singer in a band and one day she’d love to be able to sing and play the guitar on stage like Taylor Swift. She loves dancing and is starting at a new contemporary dance school in September, where having a Hero Arm would really help her express herself. She’s recently got into golf, and having two hands instead of a fixed attachment would help her improve her technique much quicker. She also loves doing her hair and could do so many more advanced styles with two hands.

Kitty’s proud of her little arm and doesn’t want to hide it – a Hero Arm would help her make limb differences more visible and be a role model for other kids and adults like her.

Her family are doing everything they can to raise money to buy her Hero PRO, but they can’t do it on their own. We are delighted to be playing a small part in supporting Kitty on her mission. If you would like to donate privately, there’s a QR code at the end of the film that will take you to her campaign page.