Save the world, then ice a cake: how women have to juggle life, work and art

Exhibition of celebrity female to-do lists, from Jilly Cooper to Cherie Booth, offers insight into busy 21st-century lives

Few “to-do” lists include “call Jason Donovan, buy secret Santa gifts and then write to Melinda Gates” but these were all in a day’s work for Emma Freud. The writer and campaigner is among female celebrities and performers who have revealed their lists for a London exhibition dedicated to the cult of the “to-do” list, which opens on International Women’s Day on 8 March.

The show, called The Pram in the Hall, created by artist Alice Instone, reveals that Emilia Fox needed to tidy her bedroom and then learn her lines for Silent Witness, while Sadie Frost had to brainstorm a new line of bikinis while preparing tea for her children. Human rights activist Shami Chakrabarti had to buy a Christmas tree and then re-read the counter-terrorism bill.

There were admissions at the school gate of adding completed tasks to make ourselves feel better!