Break Out Culture With Ed Vaizey by Country and Town House

This week we chat to one of Britain’s best-known artists, the indomitable Tracey Emin. Having wrestled with a particularly brutal and aggressive cancer, she is now setting up a foundation to help artists. In an extraordinarily generous philanthropic gesture, she has bought an Edwardian bath house in Margate and is transforming it into artists’ studios.  ‘I want to give artists everything I never had,’ says Tracey. It’s no secret she had a tough start in life, and she explains to us why that made her so determined to provide artists with clean, warm, safe studios. She’s also going to be drawing on her friends in the art world to visit the studios to teach, inspire and encourage the artists working there. Artists can apply from all over the world, but this is no school for dilettantes – you will have to prove you are truly motivated to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Tracey also tells us about a new exhibition at the Carl Freedman Gallery in April.  ‘A Journey to Death’ will comprise giant mono screen prints and self-portraits executed while she was just out of hospital. Plus, she chats away about the joy her two cats bring her – and much much more. Absolutely not to be missed – she is an example of extraordinary courage, resilience and a salutary lesson in how to grab life with both hands and make the most of it.

This week we focus on jazz for the first time and talk to the singer, songwriter, bandleader and sax player who’s been taking his fun, upbeat, distinctive style of swing, jazz and R&B to concerts, clubs and festivals all over the world since 1988.

Ray Gelato and his band The Giants have had a long-established residency at London’s famous Ronnie Scotts in Soho, have twice entertained Her Majesty the Queen, opened for Robbie Williams at the Albert Hall and played at Paul McCartney’s wedding. Ray tells us about his extraordinary life in music, beginning by busking on London’s streets with The Chevalier Brothers and ending up doing the rounds of huge venues like the Lincoln Centre and numerous jazz festivals – like Montreal, Blue Note and Umbria – where he’s played 12 times.  Listen in to hear some of his most famous songs – including Just a Gigolo and the song he wrote for Bar Italia, one of his favourite Soho haunts.

Ray’s latest album Locked Down and Not Out is available here

Ray and his band will be playing live at the Green Room, Leo Green’s speakeasy and residency at  QT Presents in the Middle Eight Hotel in Covent Garden. For two nights only: at 8 pm and 10 pm on Wednesday 9th March and at 8 pm and 10 pm on Wednesday 23rd March. Tickets available here.

If anyone’s seen it all in theatre it’s Nick Allott, who spent 40 years with Cameron Mackintosh, running it for 20. This week we chat to Nick about theatre’s glory days, from Cats and Phantom to  Les Misérables and Hamilton.  But he also sheds sobering light on how devastating the pandemic has been for the industry as theatres went dark for the longest time in their histories.  As the sector slowly starts to recover, Nick looks to the future while regaling us with a host of hilarious, entertaining anecdotes ranging from Princess Diana doing the splits in his office to Andrew Lloyd Webber drenching Barbra Streisand’s canapés in champagne.   

He also offers us a backstage pass to the real stories behind the headlines – why did Elaine Paige take over from Judi Dench in Cats? Why was Martin McCutcheon so panned in My Fair Lady?  Why did losing out to Jodie Prenger in the 2008 BBC Series I’d do Anything ultimately catapult Jessie Buckley to stardom? What’s Hugh Jackman really like? How did Nick end up with a gun in his fridge?  Listen in to hear what it’s really like to live your life behind the scenes of London’s leading West End theatres.

Produced by Audio Coast

Did you know Jewish Book Week is London’s longest running literary festival? Claudia Rubenstein, Director of Jewish Book Week, tells us about its extraordinary history and what to look forward to amongst the host of fun events that begin on Saturday 26th February.  

Those taking part include Elif Shafak, Michael Ignatieff, Julia Neuberger, Claudia Roden with Jay Rayner, Simon Schama, Howard Jacobson in conversation with Melvyn Bragg, Mike Leigh, Amy Bloom and Edmund de Waal delivering the 70th anniversary keynote speech. Plus Simon Kuper on football and celebrations of Sondheim and Lehrer, Dylan and Cohen. 

Closing the festival with a celebratory flourish on 6th March will be Don Black, talking to Michael Grade about his long, distinguished career and his book ‘The Sanest Guy in the Room’.  Don puts his sanity down to having a loving family and never having had an unhappy day in his life. To round off Marti Webb, Don’s long-time collaborator, will perform some of his best-known songs. Don also regales with us some hilarious anecdotes about working with a host of legends from Barbara Streisand to a young Michael Jackson.  ‘She was so ordinary,’ he says of Barbara Streisand, ‘but when you hear her sing you run out of goosebumps.’  Tune in to hear more.

Jewish Book runs at Kings Place from 26th February till 6th March

Produced by Audio Coast

Ed and Charlotte take a whirlwind tour through British culture with the man who’s been there, done that and seen it all – Dylan Jones. The irrepressible and legendary Dylan, who was at the helm of GQ for over two decades, is busier than ever with a new book and TV series on the '90s, another on Paul Weller, an exhibition of Dave Benett’s photographs, ‘Great Shot, Kid’, at J.D. Malat Gallery, and the jukebox musical he’s writing based on the music and lyrics of American songwriter Jimmy Webb. Listen in to hear his stories about David Bowie and his opinions on everything from the future of media to music.

‘Great Shot, Kid’ runs at JD Malat Gallery from 17th February till 8th March

Produced by Audio Coast

This week we chat to James Birch, gallery owner and author of Bacon in Moscow, about his life-long friendship with Francis Bacon, one of Britain’s most popular and controversial artists.  Having known him since childhood and been a regular Soho drinking companion, James gives us a fascinating often funny and moving insight Bacon’s life.  He tells us all about his new book, the extraordinary story of taking a Bacon exhibition to Moscow in the late eighties during Perestroika.  James also sheds light on the influences behind many of Bacon’s paintings showing in the brilliant new exhibition Francis Bacon: Man and Beast at the Royal Academy in London.

We also give you a run down on what to see in the art world this month. In London, there are  Van Gogh's Self-Portraits at the Courtauld Gallery, Louise Bourgeois at the Hayward Gallery, Helen Frankenthaler at Dulwich Picutre Gallery and Lubaina Himid at Tate Modern. Meanwhile, outside London,  there’s an exhibition of prints From Hockney to Hamid at Pallant House in Chichester,  Audubon's Birds of America opens at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh and Ai Weiwei’s exhibition The Liberty of Doubt opens at the wonderful Kettle's Yard in Cambridge.  We also suggest a visit to the glorious Yorkshire Sculpture Park to see Full Circle, an exhibition of drawings by David Nash.

And our top tip of the week? Beg, steal, cheat, lie, borrow to get to see Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley in Cabaret at the Playhouse Theatre, brilliantly converted into the KitKat Club in 1930’s Berlin. Cast changes on 21st March so move fast!

Produced by Audio Coast

On this week’s podcast, we’re talking to Royal Ballet’s principal dancer Marcelino Sambé about the challenges and joys of following in Rudolf Nureyev’s footsteps – and many more - playing Romeo in Kevin MacMillan’s much-loved ballet. Juliet will be played by Anna Rose O'Sullivan. Since Romeo and Juliet was first performed to Prokofiev’s score in 1965, it’s become a firm favourite and this version, with designs by the late Nicholas Georgiadis, has been filmed and will be streamed to 900 cinemas worldwide on Valentine’s Day. Find out where you can book it and catch it here here.

We also talk to Osman Yousefzada, the multi-disciplinary artist behind his eponymous fashion label, who dresses everyone from Beyoncé and Gwynneth Paltrow to Lady Gaga and Claire Foy.  He’s now written a brilliant book The Go-Between, about growing up in Birmingham. As the son of illiterate Pashtun immigrants from the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan, Osman grew up in a closed, hidden community and tells us movingly about what it was like and what happened to his sisters.  It’s a brilliant read and we highly recommend it.

Produced by Audio Coast

On this week’s podcast, we were honoured to talk to Bernardine Evaristo about the project she’s spearheading with Penguin to bring back forgotten black writers into circulation and help reconfigure black British literary history.  She tells us about five reprinted works of non-fiction, which she’s chosen and written the introductions for, and why it’s so important that their stories are retold today.

The books are A Black Boy at Eton by Dillibe Onyeama, Growing Out: Black Hair and Black Pride in the Swinging 60s by Barbara Blake Hannah, Britons Through Negro Spectacles by A.B.C Merriman- Labor, My Fathers’ Daughter by Hannah-Azieb Pool (highly recommended as a riveting page-turner about a young adopted woman going to Eritrea to meet her real father and huge extended family) and Sequins for a Ragged Hem by Amryl Johnson.

We go on to have an inspiring conversation with Bernardine about how she’s used her platform as the 2019 Booker Prize Winner for Girl, Woman, Other to champion black writing.  She tells us that she’s now going to be a little less visible as she gets to work on her next novel.  Watch this space!

We also talk to Alice Insley, co-curator of Hogarth in Europe at Tate Britain.  We discuss the controversy that the commentary that accompanying the exhibition has pprovoked, many critics claiming it was gratuitously ‘woke’. Listen in to hear what Alice has to say about it – and whatever anyone thinks about the commentary, we all agree that the paintings are superb and the exhibition is well worth a visit to see close up the details of Hogarth’s much loved, brilliant works. The exhibition runs till 20th March.

Produced by Audio Coast

In the first episode of 2022, Ed and Charlotte set out to discover who the mystery man is taking Hollywood by storm.  They talk to Londoner Alexa Jago who has produced a BAFTA-nominated mockumentary about Gatsby Randolph’s astonishing rise to celebrity status. How did he do it? Find out by listening in to her and to Gatsby himself, all the way from LA. See the trailer on YouTube here.

We chat to writer of epic historical blockbusters Kate Mosse about her eagerly anticipated latest novel The City of Tears, the second in The Burning Chamber series. It’s a gripping family saga set over 300 years and ranging from France to South Africa. Kate also tells us why women, from Hilary Mantel to Maggie O’Farrell, make such brilliant historical novelists.

And we transport you to Compton Verney, a beautiful grand house in Capability Brown parkland in Warwickshire, which is staging a fabulous exhibition of portraits painted by people who took part in the Sky Arts Portrait of the Year series.  Expect to see a host of famous faces from Graham Norton to Michaela Cole.  Exhibition 19th February. Book here.

Produced by Audio Coast

Kit Hesketh-Harvey on his Litvinenko opera and playing King Rat in Dick Whittington

We’re visiting:

A Generous Space : A celebratory exhibition of works sold via The Artist Support Pledge

Hastings Contemporary

https://www.hastingscontemporary.org/exhibitions/

Till 17 th April 2022

Miss Clara and the Celebrity Beast in Art 1500-1860

The Barber Institute, Birmingham

https://barber.org.uk/miss-clara/

Till 27 th February 2022

We’re booking:

Dick Whittington

The Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford

https://www.yvonne-arnaud.co.uk/whats-on/pantomime/dick-whittington

Till 9 th January 2022

Have a wonderful Christmas and we’ll be back on Sunday 16 th January