Alicia Keys, Vanessa Redgrave

Alicia Keys, the 15-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, best known for her hit Girl On Fire and her vocal on Jay-Z’s Empire State of Mind, discusses her early years growing up in Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan, and her success in the music industry at a very young age, which she describes in her new autobiography, More Myself. Vanessa Redgrave shares her VE Day poetry performance from the recital Voices of Remembrance, cancelled due to the lockdown, and describes the significance of the anniversary to her. Playwright Simon Stephens on his online adaptation of acclaimed stage work Sea Wall, starring 'hot priest' Andrew Scott (Fleabag, Sherlock Holmes), and performed in one room with only three cuts in single take, using a locked-off camera. BBC Sounds recently released a selection of free audiobooks of GCSE English Literature texts, including a wide range, from The War of the Worlds to The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. As part of Radio 4’s education initiative we’re asking writers to record introductions to the books, and today novelist Richard T Kelly offers his guide to the Sherlock Holmes mystery The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle. Presenter: John Wilson

Producer: Emma Wallace

Studio Manager: John Boland