In the Studio

The Emmy and Oscar-nominated actor Elizabeth McGovern is about to star as the glamorous Hollywood legend Ava Gardner in a new play that she’s written about her life. Elizabeth is known all around the world for her portrayal of Cora Crawley, the Countess of Grantham, in the British drama series Downton Abbey. In this, her first play, she aims to capture the complexities of Ava’s life and the relationship with her biographer on stage at the Riverside Studios in London. Join Anna Bailey as she follows Elizabeth in rehearsals with her fellow creatives, exploring the action, set, sound and costumes.

Some people have called Phil Grucci "the firework king," but that’s a title he politely rejects, adding that if anything it really belongs to his father and his uncle – older generations of a family-owned fireworks business that was founded in Italy in 1850. Phil Grucci is president and creative director, and is responsible for planning and designing award-winning pyrotechnic spectaculars all over the world. He invites the BBC World Service into his studio as he prepares for another record-breaking performance.

Wudjang : Not the Past is Stephen Page's swan song after 30 years at the helm of Australia’s First Nation company, Bangarra Dance Theatre. This production is their biggest yet; a contemporary corroboree of story, poetry, song, dance and music, told by twenty-six performers on stage. This is a new work and as the last in Stephen’s long career as Artistic Director of Bangarra Dance, the pressure is on to create his crowning achievement in a short eight weeks where it will premier at Sydney Festival, a huge cultural event that takes place across Sydney in January. The work lives close to Stephen’s experience of family, drawing on his father’s lost language of Mibinyah from Yugambeh Country and the songlines of his Aboriginal heritage. It’s a work that addresses ancestors and new knowledge and connects the past with the present. It’s a fusion of form that elevates and strengthens the continent’s troubled culture and moves from the land and ritual to the stage. Join Regina Botros as she follows Stephen in his creative process from conception to completion. She’ll also talk with the other creatives in this very collaborative production including; award winning co-writer Alana Valentine, composer Steve Francis, designer Jacob Nash and dancer Daniel Mateo. Wudjang: Not The Past is the first co-production between Bangarra Dance Theatre, until recently, Australia’s only First Nations company and Sydney Theatre Company.

Do you have what seems like an impossible dream? Maybe it’s to complete a marathon, swim with dolphins or win the lotto. Or, maybe, it’s to bring the world’s first public opera theatre back to life? Well the latter is the "impossible dream" of Dr Paul Atkin, a business man and musicologist from the UK. 200 years after Teatro San Cassiano was demolished – apparently on the orders of Napoleon – Paul is attempting to recreate this lost opera house, so that the Baroque opera he loves can be performed in the very theatre it would have been composed for. In a tale that’s as dramatic as any opera or World Cup final, join Ella-mai Robey for an episode of In the Studio, which reveals - before even a brick is laid – what it takes to try and turn an impossible dream into reality.

For nearly five years, In The Studio has been at the forefront of the creative process - with extraordinary access to big names and exciting talent working in the creative industries around the world. Our reporters are right there as works are brought into being, whether that be in design, music, TV and film, photography, sculpture, writing, painting or performance. In this episode Laura Hubber delves into the archive to consider the enormous challenges artists face as they bring their projects to fruition. One of the major obstacles to all artistic endeavours in the last couple of years has been the worldwide pandemic. This programme features Turkish author Elif Shafak who tells how her writing life was shaken up during lockdown, Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company coping when Covid-19 closed the theatres and New Orleans’s oldest parading organisation, Krewe of Rex, working to keep the Mardi Gras Carnival flourishing despite social distancing and the wearing of very different kinds of masks. There are contributions too from producer Linda Wong Davies battling deadlines and culture differences to stage a western opera in Shanghai, Finland’s Kari Kola struggling in Ireland to mount the world’s largest illuminated artwork and animator Phil Tippett reflecting on the stress of making a film over the course of more than thirty years.

For nearly five years, In The Studio has been at the forefront of the creative process, with extraordinary access to big names and exciting talent working in the creative industries around the world. Our reporters are right there as works are brought into being, whether that be in design, music, TV and film, photography, sculpture, writing, painting or performance. During that time, activism and public discourse around issues of contemporary politics has intensified, with others left trying to make sense of it all. Artists and creatives are no exception, often making work with a political agenda, or to encourage conversation, as they engage their artistic sensibilities with the events of the real world. In this episode, Laura Hubber takes a look at some of those In the Studio moments, when creative impulses come face-to-face with realpolitik. With contributions from Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, creator of a participatory light installation on the US-Mexican border Raphael Lorenzo-Hemmer, Zanele Muholi whose photographs address hate crime in South Africa and the team behind satirical television puppetry in Kenya The XYZ Show.

To say that balafon player Balla Kouyaté was born into a musical family is an understatement. His family line goes back 800 years to Balla Faséké, the first of an unbroken line of djelis in the Kouyaté clan. Djelis are the oral historians, musicians, and performers who keep alive the history of the Mandé people of Mali and Guinea. The balafon is the ancestor to all marimbas and xylophones. Played with mallets, it comprises of wooden slats with rows of gourds acting as natural amplifiers underneath. The story goes that back in the 13th century, when the emperor Sundiata overthrew the villainous Soumaora Kante, he appointed the Kouyaté family to protect the Sosso Bala, the original balafon. That instrument survives today, in the safe keeping of Balla’s father’s in Guinea. With all that history it’s no surprise that Balla is a virtuoso player of the balafon. Now living in Boston in the US, he’s a much sought-after collaborator, playing with the likes of Yo-Yo Ma in his Silk Road ensemble. As well as frequently touring with his own band, he also makes time to fulfil his responsibilities to his community as a djeli, playing traditional music at family events from weddings to baby naming ceremonies.

We follow the internationally celebrated choreographer Sir Matthew Bourne as he reimagines his popular work Nutcracker! for Autumn 2021. Taking Tchaikovsky’s ballet and in a set heavily influenced by the lavish Hollywood musicals of the 1930s, Bourne’s production is a spectacle as it journeys between Dr. Dross’ drab Orphanage, through a shimmering, ice-skating winter wonderland, and into the mouth-watering Sweetieland full of dancing sugar coated goodies. Complete with newly-refreshed delectable sets and costumes, combined with sparkling new choreography, Luke Whitlock explores with Bourne how this reinvention comes about. From preparations way ahead of the opening night of the tour, and then heading to London to light up the Christmas Season, the creative process for Bourne doesn’t stop.

Rankin has been described as one of the UK’s greatest photographers. Perhaps best known for his striking, playful and intimate portraits, he has photographed the likes of Britney Spears, David Bowie and Queen Elizabeth II. His work appearing in magazine’s like Vogue, GQ and Marie Claire. Join Anna Bailey for a ringside seat as Rankin shoots the casts of shows such as The Lion King and Tina Turner The Musical - capturing the moment when London’s theatres reopen after lockdown, for a new book and exhibition. Anna also discovers what lies behind Rankin’s creative vision as he experiments with beauty photography for his latest edition of Hunger Magazine.

In The Studio enters the dazzling world of American visual artist Devan Shimoyama as he makes a brand new installation for the recently re-opened Arts and Industries Building at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. Reporter Kristin Vermilya follows Devan in the months leading up to the Smithsonian’s Futures exhibition as he completes work on The Grove, an imagined future monument created in response to the police shootings among Black Americans during the tumultuous year of 2020. We hear the painstaking process of creating a shimmering urban forest of utility poles bedazzled with thousands of rhinestones and Swarovski crystals complete with gem-studded shoes and silk flowers dangling from their power lines. And how drag culture and his grandmother’s innate sense of style has inspired this radiant artwork which represents a space for both collective grieving, and the healing power of hope.