Break Out Culture With Ed Vaizey by Country and Town House

This week we recorded our panel discussion at Hay Festival with three outstanding writers for this podcast. Unfortunately, the Hay Festival Technical Team had a problem with our recording and could not retrieve it for us to broadcast.

On the panel were Karen Armstrong, former Catholic nun and now prolific writer andcommentator on religion, Jessie Greengrass, the award-winning short story writer and novelist, and Ellen Miles, guerrilla gardener, activist and founder of the campaign Nature is a Human Right. As this was Hay, the world’s best known book festival, they were of course all on the panel to talk about their books, which deal with protecting nature and our planet and fighting climate change in very different way but equally compelling ways. You can hear a very brief description of them by clicking onto the podcast.

The books are Sacred Nature by Karen Armstrong, The High House by Jessie Greengrass Nature is a Human Right, Why We’re Fighting for Green in a Grey World, edited by Ellen Miles, and we hope listeners will read the books, which we highly recommend.

We’ll be back on track next week talking to the founder and historians at the Chalke Valley History Festival. Meanwhile, on behalf of Hay Festival, we apologise again.

Today we’re talking about the 27th prestigious 2022 Prize for Women in Fiction, which honours outstanding ambitious original fiction written in English by women from all over the world. The entries are judged by a panel comprising Lorraine Candy, Anita Sethi, Dorothy Koomson and Pandora Sykes. The Chair of the Judges is Mary Ann Sieghart, prolific journalist, broadcaster and author of the bestseller The Authority Gap, Why We Still Take Women Less Seriously than Men and What We Can Do About It. She’s with us alongside her fellow judge Dorothy, herself a globally best-selling author known as ‘Queen of the Reveal’.

The shortlist incorporates a broad range of themes from ghosts, sisterhood and identity to mental illness, gender violence and the power of nature in global settings from Antarctica to Trinidad. Mary Ann and Dorothy discuss the six shortlisted entries by Lisa Allen-Agostini, Louise Erdich, Meg Mason, Ruth Ozeki, Elif Shafak and Maggie Shipstead.

We also talk about the role of a judge, the extraordinary stories on the shortlist, why men don’t read books by women and why this prize, founded by novelist Kate Mosse, is so important.

Just a month away from the summer solstice, we explore the mysteries that still surround Stonehenge. Our guest is Dr. Neil Wilkin, the extraordinarily knowledgeable curator of the British Museum’s exhibition ‘The World of Stonehenge’, which you still have time to catch as it runs till mid-July.  It’s not to be missed as it’s the first major exhibition on Stonehenge to be staged in London and there’s been no exhibition about it in Britain for 35 years. Over 430 objects have been gathered from all over Europe, almost two thirds are loans, and most have never been seen in the UK before.

Dr. Neil Wilkin guides us through the major exhibits: Seahenge, the circle of 54 oak posts discovered on remote north Norfolk beach in 1988, the Nebra Sky Disc, at 3,600 years old the world’s oldest map of stars on a portable disc, the Sun Pendant, the most significant piece of Bronze Age gold ever found in 2018 in Shropshire by a retired engineer with a metal detector, the gold lozenge buried with the Bush Barrow chieftan and the Amesbury Archer Treasures. Dr. Neil Wilkin brings the site to life with his vivid evocation of what life must have been like on Salisbury Plain 5,000 years ago.

This week we’re going back to the eighties, a time of momentous change, as chronicled by John Walsh in his new book Circus of Dreams. John, renowned literary editor, journalist, author and popular panellist on Radio Four’s The Write Stuff, persuades us that the eighties were probably the most exciting time to work in the literary world.  The decade was hit by a tsunami of talent as new authors like Martin Amis, Rose Tremain, Jeanette Winterston, Hanif Kureshi, Ian McEwan, Julian Barnes, Sebastian Faulks, Douglas Adams and Salman Rushdie and many more exploded onto the scene and changed the literary landscape forever.

Together with Sally Emerson, who was then Editor of Books and Bookmen and is now an award-winning and highly acclaimed anthologist, novelist, short story and travel writer, John takes us on a highly entertaining journey back to the days before computers when business was done in pubs or parties, office life was ramshackle and fun and writers were the great glittering stars of their day.   John brushed shoulders with everyone from Andrew Neil and Rupert Murdoch to every author you’ve ever heard of. It was an exciting time and John and Sally transport us back to it with their insider knowledge, much laughter and hilarious anecdotes.

On this week’s episode we hear from Guy Salter about London Craft Week, the capital-wide festival celebrating talented makers from all over Britain and around the globe, opening on Monday 9th May.  We also chat to Rosalind McKever about the extraordinary craft down the ages that’s gone into menswear.  Fashioning Masculinities,  in partnership with Gucci,  is on at the V & A until November and culminates in a celebratory ‘Finale Room’ showcasing three fabulous outfits – the tuxedo gown by Christian Siriano that Billy Porter wore to the Oscars, the Alessandro Michele for Gucci gown and tailored jacket worn by Harry Styles on the cover of Vogue and the Ella Lynch wedding dress worn by Bimini Bon Boulash in Ru Paul’s Drag Race.

No-one is more knowledgeable or passionate about the glories of craft than Guy and he provides the perfect guide to all that’s on offer this week, from learning about silk weaving with the Queen of Malaysia to knitting beanies out of upcycled materials.  Along the way, Pimlico Road will be open to all, Design Centre Chelsea Harbour hosts Artefact, an opportunity to meet the makers and much, much more. There will be over 300 events celebrating the capital as the global fulcrum of craft, putting craft firmly in the cultural mainstream and encouraging visitors to have the confidence e to assert their individuality and commission bespoke pieces.

On this week’s episode we’re honoured that our guest is Sir David Hare, not just one of Britain’s leading playwrights, but also a screenwriter and theatre and film director. He’s written over 40 full length plays, 19 staged at the National, including Plenty (which went on to be a star-studded movie), Skylight and many more. He talks to us about his new play Straight Line Crazy, directed by Nicholas Hytner and showing at The Bridge Theatre in London. It opened to many reviewers saying this was David’s most dramatically play for decades and stars Ralph Fiennes as Robert Moses, the man who set out to build parks and expressways across Manhattan in the 1950’s. It’s extraordinarily relevant to the way London is being developed at such a hectic pace, often with little or no concern for its residents. Moses wanted to extend the lower Manhattan expressway through the residential district of Washington Square where he was met by fierce opposition who managed to block the plans. One of his opponents Jane Jacobs, played by Helen Schlesinger, went on to write The Death and Life of American Great Cities about the ongoing battle between communities and the planners who oppose them.

David also talks about his frequent collaborations with Ralph Fiennes, who starred last year in David’s one-man play about battling Covid, Beat the Devil. He talks about the influence of America on his work and his period of self-imposed exile there after the critics panned Plenty. He laments the passing of an age in which theatre producers from Peter Hall to Richard Eyre took risks and stood by avant garde writers to be replaced by our ‘box office crazy’. He’s also full of sage advice for anyone wanting to write a screenplay and explains the differences between the two. Finally, he and Ed settle down to bury the hatchet and iron out their political differences. This is David Hare at the pinnacle of his game, reflecting on a life spent in theatre, television and film – not to be missed.

This week we’re celebrating Shakespeare’s 458th birthday with Robert McCrum, author of Shakespearean, and Editor-in-Chief at Faber and Faber for nearly 20 years, as well as literary and associate editor of The Observer.   Robert’s enthusiasm is infectious as he guides us through the best of this summer’s stage productions from Gregory Doran’s production of  Richard III at RSC Stratford from 23rd June, to Kathryn Hunter playing King Lear from 10th June and Julius Caesar from 3rd May, both at The Globe. We also chat about Henry V with Kit Harrington, filmed at the Donmar Warehouse and screening in cinemas via National Theatre Live and The Tragedy of Macbeth with Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand.

And happy birthday to Ralph Vaughan Williams too, who would be 150 this year.

We’re booking:

A Sea Symphony by Ralph Vaughan Williams with Hallé Orchestra conducted by Sir Mark Elder at Bridgewater Hall on 30th April

To Glorious John conducted by Sir Mark Elder at Bridgewater Hall on 12th May – tune into BBC Radio Three at 7.30 pm to hear the concert live

Phantasy Quintet by Ralph Vaughan Williams with Hallé St. Peter’s Chamber Series at Bridgewater Hall on 15th May

We’re reading:

My Year Off:  Rediscovering Life after a Stroke by Robert McCrum

This week the author Clover Stroud, known for writing ‘about the way life feels’,  talks to us about her new book The Red of my Blood. In it she recounts the year she spent mourning her sister Nell Gifford’s death, who died tragically of cancer aged just 46. The book is described as a Story of Death and Life, and on the podcast Clover describes her idyllic childhood in Wiltshire, which inspired Nell to start the magical Giffords Circus with her husband Toti in 2000.

The phenomenally popular Giffords Circus re-opens for its summer tour on 14th April at its home at Fennells Farm near Stroud in Gloucestershire. It will tour England till 22nd September when it will be open at Fennells Farm again until 2nd October.

Clover talks about Nell’s vision, her legacy and how the circus is changing and gives us an extraordinarily moving and searingly honest account of her struggle to come to terms with her beloved sister’s death.  Listen in as the podcast is also a valuable lesson in how to react to and behave around people who are grieving.

We’re taking a short break till Sunday 24th April. Happy Easter!

This week we’re going on a whirlwind tour of the movies with BAFTA committee member Anna Higgs. She tells us about the BAFTA winning movies, starting with Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast and moving on to Jeymes Samuel’s contemporary Western The Harder they Fall. We discuss some of the winning actors from Will Smith for King Richard, the film about the father of Venus and Serena Williams, Joanna Scanlon for Ali Khan’s After Love and Tony Kotsur, the first deaf male actor to win, for Coda (which means Child of Deaf Adult). We also chat about the inspiring acceptance speech given by Lashana Lynch, for her Rising Star award voted for by the audience, who shot to fame for her role as the next 007 in No Time to Die.

We’re airing just before the Oscars so Anna gives us her rundown and predictions on these too – why Andrew Garfield in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tick Tick… BOOM! and Olive Coleman in The Lost Daughter are in the running for an Oscar but weren’t nominated for a BAFTA.  We also discuss the smaller films making big waves like animated Danish film Flee and one of Anna’s favourites, Ali & Ava.

Listen in, and then head straight out to the cinema or get streaming – we give you enough good movie tips to keep you busy for weeks.

This week we celebrate the start of spring by giving you the lowdown on the best of Britain’s wonderful sculpture parks from Chatsworth, Farleys House and the Barbara Hepworth Garden to Forestry England’s woodland sculpture trails and On Form, Europe’s biggest exhibition of stone sculpture opening in Asthall, Oxfordshire in June.

No round-up of sculpture parks would be complete without talking about Henry Moore and the magnificent Yorkshire Sculpture Park, celebrating its 45th birthday this year. We chat to Godfrey Worsdale, Director of the Henry Moore Foundation and Dr. Helen Pheby, Head of Curatorial Programming at Yorkshire.  Helen tells us about working on a sculpture exhibition  in Kyiv, Ukraine and the role of sculpture in unifying communities.  We chat about Moore’s extraordinary legacy and what’s in store for visitors at both YSP and  The Henry Moore Studios and Garden in Perry Green, Hertfordshire this summer – definitely both worth a visit.