Jasper Vardag-Hunter

Accolades

Jasper’s achievements include: being the top fundraiser for local charities including rape crisis and homeless centres in the Cambridge Rag Jailbreak Challenge, winning the Winchester College Dancy Pot theatre competition with a play he wrote and directed, and acting in numerous acclaimed plays and comedy sketches at Cambridge.

Education

Jasper read Theology, Religion & the Philosophy of Religion at St John’s College, Cambridge. This involved studying such “variously interesting yet useless subjects” such as: medieval history (religious wars); cultural anthropology (cults, charismatics, mass movements, secularisation, disenchantment); classical and modern philosophy (Ancient Greece to the Enlightenment), the modern novel, the philosophy of technology, and Dostoevsky’s poetics.

Prior to this he attended St Paul’s Cathedral Choir School and Winchester College. At Winchester he received some of the highest examination results in both his year and in the country at Cambridge Pre-U Diploma, scoring particularly highly in Russian Language & Literature, and Philosophy & Theology.

Career

Barring a spell as a salesman at the technology company Beauhurst and some history tutoring here and there, Jasper’s career has been rooted entirely at Vardags. At Cambridge, he recruited talented students to the Vardags Graduate Training Programme, and worked during most of his holidays.

Languages

Jasper speaks Russian and French to a fairly advanced standard, and is proficient in Italian, German and Swedish. He is currently teaching himself Arabic in his spare time.

Personal

Jasper grew up in London. For two years from the age of 18 he lived largely abroad, in Italy and the Middle East. Using money earned from odd jobs, he was fortunate enough to travel widely, around Europe and Eastern Europe, the Arab states, the USA, Russia, Thailand and Pakistan.

At Cambridge, Jasper generally enjoyed acting in plays and sketch comedies and spending far too long in the pub. He briefly considered becoming a comedian.

An introvert by nature, he likes reading widely – whether poetry, history, politics, philosophy, sci-fi, or classic novels and plays – and talking to people about their deepest interests.

His favourite things to do are long-distance running, public speaking, going to the theatre, and making people laugh.