If the poets of the past sat in their garrets dipping their quills in ink and waiting for inspiration to strike, our current Poet Laureate Simon Armitage has a more mundane and domestic arrangement. From his wooden shed in the garden, surrounded on all sides by the Pennine Hills and the Pennine weather, he scratches away at his reworking of the comic medieval poem The Owl and the Nightingale. Any distraction is welcome, even encouraged, to talk about poetry, music, art, sheds, sherry, owls, nightingales and to throw light on some of the poem's internal themes .

Actress Maxine Peake drops into the shed to talk about taking on a role and accents, which the birds in the poem discuss. Maxine talks about her TV break as Twinkle in Dinner Ladies as well as taking on roles such as Hamlet in the theatre. The conversation ranges from accents and being cast as a brassy Northerner to communism and rave culture.