Break Out Culture With Ed Vaizey by Country and Town House

On this week’s episode we’re celebrating the power of ‘activist culture’ and the critically acclaimed play, ‘Grenfell: System Failure’.  The play follows on from ‘Grenfell:  Value Engineering’ and is based entirely on the words of those involved in last year’s final phase of the Inquiry into the tragic and avoidable fire that killed 72 people.  

The play has been performed at The Playground Theatre and The Tabernacle, both almost within a stone’s throw of Grenfell Tower, and is now at the new Marylebone Theatre for a final week. To discuss it with us are Anthony Biggs, Artistic Director at The Playground Theatre, and Nicolas Kent, who directed the play and co-edited the transcripts with Richard Norton-Taylor.  

This is a brilliantly illuminating play on a tragic, complex subject and a superb example of how culture at its best can make sense of a mass of data, allowing audiences to access the most significant evidence and make their own minds up as to how this terrible fire happened.  Every single word is taken from the enquiry and the reality is undoubtedly as shocking than anything anyone could make up.   It’s a dramatic often hard-to-believe account of heinous buck-passing and systematic failure, which meant numerous urgent safety warnings were simply brushed aside or ignored.  Tune in to hear how this play has moved the dial in terms of public and private responses to this lamentable tragedy.

On this week’s episode we’re talking about the exciting new exhibition of David Hockney’s work, ‘Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away)’.  It’s the first show to be staged at Lightroom, a brand new, vast space in London’s Kings Cross that uses revolutionary technology to create something entirely different.  The show has been four years in the making, and Lightroom’s CEO Richard Slaney is on the podcast to tell us all about what to expect.

The immersive show is made up of ‘chapters’ and throughout you hear Hockney’s voice, giving unprecedented access into his imagination and artistic process.  This is the first time that a living artist’s work has been exhibited in this way and so it’s not to be missed. It runs until 4th June. Tune in to find out more.

On this week’s podcast, we’re celebrating International Women’s Day on the 8th March and also talking about the great P.G. Wodehouse with William Humble, who’s written a new one-man play, called ‘Wodehouse in Wonderland’, a one-man show, touring Britain until the end of April. It stars Robert Daws, also on the podcast, as Wodehouse.

In Britain Wodehouse is feted and loved for his quintessentially English comic characters Jeeves and Wooster, but he was enormously famous in America too, where the play is set, for being a talented Broadway lyricist, contributing to 25 hit musicals, including ‘Anything Goes’.

William and Robert reveal less known fascinating sides to Wodehouse’s character, shedding light on his notorious Berlin broadcasts, which were manipulated by the Nazis for their propaganda and caused him great shame.

We also talk to Jude Kelly about the WOW Festival (Women of the World Festival) now in its 13th year and taking place at London’s Southbank between 10th and 12th March.  Jude set up the Festival in 2010 to celebrate the achievements of women and girls and confront global gender injustice, and it now it takes place in 30 countries.  Jude gives us the highlights of the London festival including a special screening of the play ‘Prima Facie’ starring Jodie Comer, followed by a discussion, and appearances by the American writer Roxanne Gay and  former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

This week we’re talking about the award-winning musical Standing at the Sky’s Edge, which finally transferred from Sheffield to The Olivier at London’s National Theatre.  It’s based on the music and lyrics of songwriter, guitarist and producer Richard Hawley who’s known both as a solo artist and for his work with the bands Pulp and The Longpigs.  He collaborated with the award-winning playwright, lyricist and theatre-maker Chris Bush who deftly wove Richard Hawley’s music into this compelling story.

The musical tells the story of one flat in Park Hill, Sheffield’s notorious brutalist housing project and moves from the early sixties, when Park Hill first opened, to today.  Chris Bush intertwines three tales of the characters who lived there: an idealistic young couple seeing Park Hill as a step up, three asylum seekers escaping the Liberian war and finally a young middle-class woman from London fleeing a broken heart.

It’s directed by Rob Hastie the Artistic Director of Sheffield Theatres and he tells us about how this extraordinary project came about and why what happened to Park Hill is so symbolic of recent British history, from post-war socialist optimism, via the decline of our major industries, to today’s attempts to regenerate our cities. It’s had rave reviews, and if you like Richard Hawley’s poetic music, you’re in for an absolute treat.  It’s fast-becoming the most talked-about play, so listen in to find out more.

As the BAFTA winners are revealed on Sunday 19th at a ceremony hosted by Richard E. Grant and Alison Hammond, we talk to the Chair of BAFTA, and a producer himself,  Krish Majumdar.  He runs us through the process of picking winners – quite a task when 214 were nominated for the Best Film Award alone. Krish gives us the lowdown on the top nominations from ‘All Quite on the Western Front’, with an astonishing 14 nominations, to ‘The Banshees of Ineshirin’, ‘Living’, ‘Tár’, ‘Aftersun’ and many more.

He also tells us about the prestigious EE Rising Star Award, celebrating its 18th year, and the only award at BAFTAs voted for by the British public.  The nominees this year are Naomi Ackie, Sheila Atim, Aimee Lou Wood, Emma Mackey and Daryl McCormack.

Krish’s enthusiasm for cinema as a treasured part of our culture is infectious. Anyone who likes movies or wants to feel inspired about what to see next should listen in and then head straight out to the cinema.

On this week’s episode, we’re delighted to be chatting with the eminent broadcaster and much-loved presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme for ten years, Ed Stourton.  Having worked in radio and television for 40 years, Ed’s now written a memoir called ‘Confessions: A Life Re-Examined’.  He tells us about looking back on his life, a process which he has referred to as a ‘reawokening’, re-assessing it in the light of today’s prevailing culture.

When he was sacked suddenly from Today, it was assumed it was because he was too posh, and now he puts the record straight.  He is a delightful story and regales us with tales from  his time as a student at Cambridge, becoming a newscaster and the perils of broadcasting live. He also describes having to reappraise his time at Ampleforth after the sex scandals emerged.  Finally, he talks movingly and candidly about living with cancer and how his life has been made richer and happier by his faith.

The acclaimed theatre, television and film director, Dominic Cooke, chats to us about his new production of Euripides’s classic tragedy, ‘Medea’, starring Oscar-nominated Sophie Okonedo as Medea, spurned wife of Jason, hellbent on brutal and bloody revenge.  Dominic explains why all the male parts are being played by Ben Daniels and tells us why he decided to stage it at Soho Place, the first new purpose built theatre in the West End for 50 years.

Most people will know the devastating, bloody climax to the story, and Dominic tells us why he wanted to direct such a harrowing play and elaborates on what Sophie Okonedo brings to the role.

We finish this episode with a tribute to Kit Hesketh-Harvey, the brilliant, wickedly funny entertainer, writer who has died suddenly. Kit and McConnel, his regular cabaret act with musician James McConnel, has been delighting and outraging audiences here and abroad for many years.   As our guest twice, we celebrate Kit’s extraordinary career and treat you to a clip of him talking to Ed and me about the joys – and importance -  of pantomime and playing King Rat in Dick Whittington.

If anyone can persuade you how crucial a museum can be to the wellbeing of a city, it’s this week’s guest Esme Ward. In 2018 she was the first woman to be appointed as director of Manchester Museum, which re-opens on the 18th February after a £15 million overhaul.  Esme is on a mission to make the 130-year-old museum more ‘inclusive, caring and imaginative’. The highlight is a new South Asia Gallery, in partnership with the British Museum, which is the first permanent gallery in the UK dedicated to the communities, experiences and histories of the South Asian diaspora.

The South Asia Gallery has been co-curated by 30 different community leaders, artists, historians, journalists and musicians of South Asian heritage and Esme passionately believes that its new immersive exhibits at the museum will give the community a strong sense of belonging - indeed there is a new Belonging Gallery.

As debate rumbles on about the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece, Esme talks convincingly about the multiple benefits of sending back some of their ceremonial items to Aboriginal groups, and the museum now boasts its first ever Curator of Indigenous Perspectives. 

Esme’s conviction of a museum’s power to spread a sense of well-being, alleviate loneliness and to act as a vibrant, unifying, cultural hub for the entire city is inspiring.  With infectious enthusiasm, Esme will eradicate any lingering doubt anyone might have about culture’s role in making society a better place.

We’re celebrating our 100th episode of Break Out Culture by talking about hope to Josef O’Connor, the young Irish-born artist and curator who’s on a mission to use art to spread a sense of optimism globally.

In October 2020 Josef launched CIRCA (the Cultural Institute of Radical Contemporary Arts) as a platform to showcase digital art with a purpose in the public sphere, starting with Piccadilly Circus’s famous lights screen.

Every night at 20:23 throughout 2023, Piccadilly Circus, and other screens around the world, will show newly commissioned work by artists on the subject of hope. The film will change every month.  January’s film is slightly longer, at three and a half minutes, because it contains a recorded message from the His Holiness the Dalai Lama– which you too can hear by tuning into the podcast.  He talks about the oneness of humanity in turbulent times and a three-minute animated film has been made with CIRCA to accompany his message.

£150 buys you a screen print of ‘The Art of Hope’ by the Dalai Lama till the end of 2023 and proceeds go to Tibet Hope Centre and to the #CIRCAeconomy.  What we also discover on the podcast is that subscribers to CIRCA will receive an original framed print monthly for just £1,000 a year.

Listen in to find out how Josef O’Connor is radically changing the way art can be distributed and hear about the success he’s had so far, working with artists ranging from Ai Weiwei and David Hockney to Patti Smith and Yoko Ono.

Happy New Year and welcome back to Break Out Culture. Given it’s January and we’re all trying to give ourselves a fresh start, we’re kicking the year off with a free therapy session, talking to Julia Samuel MBE, acclaimed psychotherapist, grief counsellor and author. In the wake of her popular podcast Grief Works, Julia launched Therapy Works last September, with her two psychotherapist daughters, Emily and Sophie. It’s already essential listening for anyone interested in finding ways of facing and dealing with life’s daily struggles, whatever they are.

The podcast’s guests have included Helena Bonham Carter, Alastair Campbell, Minnie Driver, Kate Ferdinand and Richard E. Grant, along with a range of lesser-known people and all display remarkable honesty as they discuss the issues they’re tackling, ranging from divorce, domestic violence, step-parenting, sexual abuse and miscarriage to addiction, sexuality, identity, grief, a life-changing accident, toxic masculinity and war.  It’s fascinating hearing Julia, Sophie and Emily discuss their different approaches to tackling their guest’s difficulties.  It’s a reminder that however insurmountable the obstacles in our lives seem, there are ways of dealing with them.