This Cultural Life

BBC Radio 4

In-depth conversations with some of the world's leading artists and creatives across theatre, visual arts, music, dance, film and more. Hosted by John Wilson.

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Episodes

David Hare
Yesterday
David Hare
The premiere of David Hare’s play Plenty at the National Theatre in 1978 marked him out as one of the UK’s most skilled and socially conscious playwrights. Plenty transferred to Broadway, Hare adapted it into a film starring Meryl Streep, and in the following years he became known as a writer for whom the political and the personal are deeply entwined. Often referred to as Britain’s pre-eminent ‘state of the nation playwright’, his plays in the 1980s examined a wide range of social and political issues, including the Church of England in Racing Demon, the judiciary in Murmuring Judges and party politics in The Absence of War. He tackled international geopolitics in Via Dolorosa - about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - and the invasion of Iraq with Stuff Happens and the Vertical Hour. Equally skilled as a screenwriter, his film screenplays for The Hours and The Reader saw him twice nominated for Academy Awards. David Hare was knighted in 1998 for ‘services to theatre’. He talks to John Wilson about how his lower-middle class background and family life in Bexhill-on-Sea stimulated his imagination. He pays tribute to some of the most formative people in his life: his Cambridge university tutor, the Welsh writer and academic Raymond Williams, whose maxim that ‘culture is ordinary’ had a profound effect on his life as a writer; the actress Kate Nelligan, who starred in several of Hare's plays, including Plenty; and his wife Nicole Farhi who, he says, transformed his idea of himself and who inadvertently helped inspire one of his best loved plays, Skylight. Producer: Edwina Pitman
Cynthia Erivo
06-02-2025
Cynthia Erivo
Born and raised in south London, Cynthia Erivo made her name with musical theatre in London, starring in shows including The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg and Sister Act. In 2015 she became a Broadway star and won Tony, Emmy and Grammy awards for her role in The Color Purple, the musical adaptation of the Alice Walker novel which had transferred from London. Her screen acting credits include the title role in Harriet, about the 19th century abolitionist and campaigner Harriet Tubman, a film which earned her two Academy Award nominations, including for Best Actress. Oscar nominated again for her lead role in the musical film Wicked, she became the first black British woman to receive multiple Academy award nominations for acting. An acclaimed singer, she performed a solo show of songs made famous by female artists including Aretha Franklin, Etta James and Barbra Streisand at the 2022 BBC Proms. Cynthia Erivo tells John Wilson about the influence of her Nigerian born mother, who raised her as a single mum. She remembers two mentors who encouraged her to perform at at young age; school music teacher Helen Rycroft, and Rae McKen who ran a local drama club. Cynthia recalls winning a place at the prestigious drama school RADA, and returning to become Vice President of the institution last year. She talks about the emotional pressures she underwent on playing Celie in The Color Purple, a story of abuse and survival, and how the themes of prejudice and acceptance explored in the musical Wicked, resonated so strongly with her. Cynthia also chooses the 2015 Alexander McQueen exhibition Savage Beauty at the V&A as a inspiring creative moment, and discusses her love of glamorous fashion. Producer: Edwina Pitman
Marin Alsop
30-01-2025
Marin Alsop
American conductor Marin Alsop was the first woman to lead major orchestras in the UK, South America and in the United States, becoming principal conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2007. Nominated for Grammy Awards five times, in 2013 she became the first ever woman to lead the Last Night Of The Proms, and is now regarded as one of the greatest conductors in the world. She talks to John Wilson about her professional musician parents who nurtured her love of music and supported her career choice from the age of 9 when she first revealed she wanted to be a conductor. Marin also talks about Leonard Bernstein, the great American composer and conductor, who inspired her ambitions and later became a mentor to her. She also chooses Carl Jung's work The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, and explains how his theories have helped her in leading orchestras around the world.Producer: Edwina PitmanMusic and archive used: Serenade in C major for String Orchestra, Op. 48; Valse, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, New York City Ballet Orchestra, 1986 Irish Spring commercial: "Clean as a Whistle" 1980 Leonard Bernstein, Young People's Concerts: "What is Classical Music?", CBS Television, 24 January 1959 Omnibus: Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story, BBC2, 10 May 1985 Archive of Leonard Bernstein and Marin Alsop at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, 1987 Leonard Bernstein, Young People's Concerts: "What Does Music Mean?", CBS Television, 18 January 1958 Archive of OrchKids concert, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Woman's Hour, BBC Radio 4, 26 July, 2005 Rhapsody in Blue, George Gershwin, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop Last Night of the Proms, BBC1, 7 September 2013 Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, "Resurrection", Gustav Mahler, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop
Isabel Allende
09-01-2025
Isabel Allende
Chilean author Isabel Allende became an international literary star after the publication of her 1982 debut novel The House Of the Spirits, an epic family saga set amidst violent political upheavals. Since then she has written 21 novels and five works of non-fiction, and has sold over 80 million copies worldwide. Isabel Allende tells John Wilson about her upbringing in Santiago and how, after her parents split, her grandfather became a hugely influential figure in her life, encouraging her love of storytelling. She recalls reading the classic Middle Eastern folktales the Thousand and One Nights aged 14 and explains how the themes of love, magic and fantasy, inspired her own fiction later in life. Isabel also discusses her relationship with Salvador Allende, her father’s cousin, who served as President of Chile for three years until he died during the coup of 1973. Having worked as a journalist and broadcaster, she felt increasingly unsafe under the rule of the military junta led by General Pinochet and fought refuge with her family in Venezuela. It was during a 13 year exile from her homeland that she began writing The House Of The Spirits, initially as a series of letters to her elderly grandfather in Chile. In 1992 Isabel Allende’s daughter Paula tragically died aged 29 having fallen ill and been in a coma for a year. Isabel recalls how she channel her grief, and celebrated her daughter’s life, in the bestselling memoir Paula. Producer: Edwina Pitman
Thelma Schoonmaker
07-11-2024
Thelma Schoonmaker
Thelma Schoonmaker has, for over five decades, been Martin Scorsese’s cutting room collaborator. Having edited his first feature film in 1967, she has worked on every Scorsese movie since Raging Bull, including Goodfellas, Casino, The Departed, Wolf Of Wall Street, right up to his most recent features The Irishman and Killers Of The Flower Moon. As the widow of the legendary British filmmaker Michael Powell, she has also played a key role in the restoration of classic Powell and Pressburger films including The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus and A Matter Of Life And Death. Thelma Schoonmaker has won three Academy Awards, more than any other film editor. Thelma tells John Wilson how enrolling on a six week film making course as a young graduate in New York led to her meeting and helping Martin Scorsese edit a short film he was making. He then asked her to edit his 1967 feature film debut, Who's That Knocking at My Door and their partnership began in earnest. She recalls how she and Scorsese were part of the editing team on Michael Wadleigh's music festival documentary, Woodstock for which she received her first an Oscar nomination for Best Film Editing - the first documentary ever to be nominated in that category. Thelma reveals the process of working with Scorsese in the cutting room and how, through him, she met her late husband Michael Powell, whose films with Emeric Pressburger, both she and Scorsese had so admired from childhood.Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive and music used: The Red Shoes, Powell & Pressburger, 1948 Who's That Knocking at My Door, Martin Scorsese, 1967 I Can't Explain, The Who, Live at Woodstock, 1969 See Me. Feel Me, The Who, Live at Woodstock, 1969 Star Spangled Banner, Jimi Hendrix, Live at Woodstock, 1969 Raging Bull, Martin Scorsese, 1980 Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie-editing, BBC4, 30 August 2005 Passion: Music for The Last Temptation of Christ, Peter Gabriel Sunshine of Your Love, Cream Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana, Pietro Mascagni Love Is Strange, Mickey & Sylvia Layla, Derek & The Dominos A Matter of Life and Death, Powell & Pressburger, 1946 Michael and Martin, BBC Radio 4, 30 June 2005
Julie Taymor
24-10-2024
Julie Taymor
Theatre, opera and film director Julie Taymor is regarded as one of the most imaginative directors and designers working today. Her stage version of the Lion King is the highest grossing show in Broadway history, having made nearly $2 billion, and it recently marked its 25th year in London. The Lion King Julie two Tony Awards, including for best director of a musical in 1997, making her the first woman to do so. Julie Taymor has told Shakespearean stories on stage and the big screen including Titus, starring Anthony Hopkins and The Tempest with Helen Mirren. Her film credits also include Frida, a biopic of painter Frida Kahlo, and the Beatles jukebox musical movie Across The Universe. She tells John Wilson how seeing Rashomon, Akira Kurosawa's 1950 film, as a teenager, was a formative cultural experience. Kurosawa's ingenious approach to narrative opened her eyes for the first time about the possibilities of innovative storytelling. She also recalls how her travels around Indonesia and Bali after graduation, and in particular, witnessing a ceremony in the isolated Balinese village of Trunyan have had a profound impact on her work as a designer and director. Julie reveals how she came up with the ground-breaking concept and some of the designs for the stage version of Disney's The Lion King. She also gives her opinion on some of the difficulties faced by the ill-fated Broadway musical Spider Man: Turn Off The Dark, on which she was co-writer and director until being replaced during its previews. The production, which featured music and lyrics by Bono and The Edge of U2, was ridden with technical and financial problems, and resulted in several legal disputes.Producer: Edwina Pitman
Nile Rodgers
10-10-2024
Nile Rodgers
Nile Rodgers is one of the most successful and influential figures in popular music. As a songwriter, producer and arranger he has enjoyed a 50 year career with his bands Chic and Sister Sledge, and collaborations with artists including Diana Ross, David Bowie, Duran Duran, Madonna, Daft Punk and Beyoncé.Bringing his 1959 Fender Stratocaster guitar to the This Cultural Life studio, Nile tells John Wilson how the instrument has been the bedrock of almost every record that he worked on, and acquiring the nickname 'The Hitmaker'. He discusses his bohemian upbringing in 1950s New York with his mother and stepfather who were both drug users. He chooses as one of his most important influences his jazz guitar tutor Ted Dunbar who taught him not only about musical technique but also how to appreciate the artistry of a hit tune. “It speaks to the souls of a million strangers” he was told. Nile Rodgers reminisces about his musical partner Bernard Edwards, with whom he set up the Chic Organisation after the pair first met on the club circuit playing with cover bands. He discusses their song writing techniques and the importance of what they called ‘deep hidden meaning’ in lyrics. He also reflects on the untimely death of Bernard Edwards in 1996 shortly after he played a gig with Nile in Tokyo, and why he continues to pay musical tribute to his friend in his globally-touring stage show which includes the songs of Chic and other artists they worked with. Producer: Edwina Pitman
Kiri Te Kanawa
05-09-2024
Kiri Te Kanawa
The New Zealand born opera singer Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is one of the world's greatest sopranos. She enjoyed a 50 year career singing lead roles in opera houses around the globe, and on dozens of studio recordings. Since retiring in 2017 she has focussed on leading her Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation which supports young opera singers from her home country.Dame Kiri talks to John Wilson about her early life in Gisborne and Auckland, New Zealand. Of Māori heritage, she was adopted as a baby and cites both her parents as a huge influence on her choice of career and work ethic. As a teenager she loved musical theatre, her favourite being Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story which she was later to record in an operatic version conducted by Bernstein himself. Moving to London in 1966 to study at the Royal Opera Centre, her education in opera began in earnest under her teacher Vera Rózsa. Her breakthrough role came in 1971 when she was cast as the Countess Almaviva in the Royal Opera House's production of The Marriage of Figaro. Her Metropolitan Opera House debut followed three years later when she was asked at the last minute to replace the soprano singing Desdemona in Verdi's Otello for the opening performance. Dame Kiri discusses the fame and attention she attracted when in 1981 she performed at the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, watched live by 600 million people. After over 60 years of performing, she also talks about her decision to finally retire in 2017.Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used: Omnibus : Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story, BBC1, 10 May 1985 BBC Sound Archive, Kiri Te Kanawa interview with Andrew Sakley, 1966 Soprano Sundays, BBC2, 21 Dec 1975 Le Nozze di Figaro, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, 1971 Otello, Metropolitan Opera New York, 1974 BBC Sound Archive, The marriage service in St. Paul's Cathedral of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, 29 July 1981 Top Of The Pops, BBC1, 24 October 1991 Parkinson, BBC1, 18 March 1981 Going Live, BBC1, October 1991 Wogan BBC1, 25 Dec 1984
Lee Child
29-08-2024
Lee Child
Lee Child created his tough guy protagonist Jack Reacher, a former military policeman who roams America fighting crime, in 1997. Writing a book a year since his debut Killing Floor, Lee Child established himself as one of the most acclaimed and popular novelists in his genre, and has now sold over 100 million copies worldwide. The Reacher books have been adapted for a film starring Tom Cruise and, more recently, an Amazon Prime television series. Lee Child’s latest publication, Safe Enough, is a collection of short stories. Talking to John Wilson, Child recalls his upbringing in Birmingham and how his childhood passion for reading was fuelled by frequent visits to the local library. For This Cultural Life, he chooses a Ladybird book which told the Biblical story of David and Goliath as an early inspiration, acknowledging that the giant figure of Goliath probably inspired the physique of 6’5” tall Reacher. He also remembers the impact of a book called My American Home which depicted an array of houses and apartments throughout America, the country in which Child would later live and set his novels. He also discusses how working for 18 years as a Granada television producer, overseeing the transmission of dramas including Brideshead Revisited, helped forge his understanding of storytelling. His work as a union shop steward, which brought him into conflict with management and eventually led to him being made redundant, was the catalyst for his new career as a crime novelist in the late 1990s. His debut Reacher novel, a violent tale of vengeance and rough justice was, he admits, written out of anger following his dismissal from Granada. Lee Child also chooses the 1990 movie Dances With Wolves, directed by and starring Kevin Costner, as another influence on the creation of his fictional hero Jack Reacher. Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used: Reading from Worth Dying For by Lee Child, The Knight Errant: Lee Child - A Culture Show Special, BBC2, 20 Dec 2012 Clip from Brideshead Revisited, Granada Television, ITV, 12 October 1981 Clip from Dances with Wolves, Kevin Costner, 1990 Clip from Jack Reacher, Christopher McQuarrie, 2012
Peter Blake
04-07-2024
Peter Blake
The grandfather of British Pop Art, Sir Peter Blake is one of most influential and popular artists of his generation. A Royal Academician with work in the national collection, including Tate and the National Portrait Gallery, he is renowned for paintings and collages that borrow imagery from advertising, cinema and music. Having created The Beatles’ Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band sleeve in 1967 he became the go-to album designer for other musical artists including The Who, Paul Weller, Madness and Oasis. He was knighted for services to art in 2002.Sir Peter tells John Wilson how, after a working class upbringing in Dartford, Kent, he won a place at the Royal College of Art alongside fellow students Bridget Riley and Frank Auerbach. He recalls being influenced by early American pop artists including Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, and how he began making art inspired by everyday popular imagery. He chooses Dylan Thomas's 1954 radio play Under Milk Wood as a work which captivated his imagination and later inspired a series of his artworks based on the characters, and also cites Max Miller, the music hall artist known as 'the Cheeky Chappie'; as a creative influence. Sir Peter remembers how he made the iconic Sgt Pepper sleeve using waxwork dummies and life size cut-out figures depicting well-known people chosen by Peter and The Beatles themselves. Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used: Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas, performed by Richard Burton, BBC Third Programme, 25 Jan 1954 Max Miller, introduced by Wilfred Pickles at the Festival of Variety, BBC Light Programme, 6 May 1951 Max Miller archive from Celebration, The Cheeky Chappie, BBC Radio 4, 3 July 1974 Monitor: 89: Pop Goes The Easel, BBC1, 25 March 1962 Peter Blake: Work in Progress, BBC2, 21 February 1983 Newsnight, BBC2, 7 February 1983 Ian Dury, Peter the Painter
Simon McBurney
27-06-2024
Simon McBurney
Director and actor Simon McBurney, one of the founders of the ground breaking theatre company Complicité, reveals his creative inspirations and influences. For over four decades McBurney has created innovative and experimental works, from immersive staging to the reinvention of classic texts. His works include A Disappearing Number, The Encounter and Mnemonic, a landmark production which has been recently revived at The National Theatre. Simon McBurney tells John Wilson about his childhood in Cambridge where his father, an archaeologist, helped foster an early fascination with time and memory. For This Cultural Life he chooses the 1969 Ken Loach film Kes as a formative influence, offering an insight to a childhood very different to his own middle class upbringing. He recalls seeing the band The Clash whilst at Cambridge University, an experience that had a profound impact on his own creativity and political engagement through the arts. He also chooses the writer and critic John Berger as an inspirational figure, and recalls collaborating with Berger on the immersive Artangel project The Vertical Line in 1999. Simon McBurney also describes how the experience of meeting indigenous Amazonian people inspired his 2016 Complicité show The Encounter. Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive clips from: Kes, Ken Loach, 1969 The Clash Live at Rock Against Racism, Victoria Park, 1978 The Dead Class, Tadeusz Kantor, 1976 Friday Night...Saturday Morning: Cambridge Footlights, BBC1, Nov 1979 Ways of Seeing, Episode 1, BBC2, Jan 1972 The Vertical Line, Complicité, BBC Radio 4, 1999 The Encounter, Complicité, Barbican Theatre, May 2018 Face to Face, BBC2, Oct 1995 Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Christopher McQuarrie, 2015
Salman Rushdie
20-06-2024
Salman Rushdie
One of the world’s greatest novelists, Salman Rushdie has won many prestigious international literary awards and was knighted for services to literature in 2007. He won the Booker Prize in 1981 for Midnight’s Children, a novel that was also twice voted as the best of all-time Booker winners. In 1989 Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini declared that Rushdie’s fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, was blasphemous and pronounced a death sentence against its author. For over a decade he lived in hiding with close security, a period of his life that he wrote about in the 2012 memoir Joseph Anton. His most recent book Knife details the horrific stabbing he survived in 2022.Talking to John Wilson, Salman Rushdie recalls his childhood in Bombay, and the folk tales and religious fables he grew up with. He chooses Indian independence and partition in 1947 as one of the defining moments of his creative life, a period that formed the historical backdrop to Midnight’s Children. He discusses how, having first moved to England as a schoolboy and then to New York after the fatwa, the subject of migration has recurred throughout much of his work, including The Satanic Verses. Rushdie also explains how "surrealism, fabulism and mythical storytelling” are such an influence on his work, with particular reference to his 1999 novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet which was inspired by the ancient Greek tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. As Rushdie says, "truth in art can be arrived at through many doors”.Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used:BBC News, 12 Aug 2022 Newsnight, BBC2, 12 Aug 2022 BBC Sound archive, India: Transfer of Power, 15 August 1947 Nehru: Man of Two Worlds, BBC1, 27 Feb 1962 Midnight's Children, Book at Bedtime, BBC Radio 4, 27 August 1997 Advert, Fresh Cream Cakes, 1979 BBC News, 14 Feb 1989 The World At One, BBC Radio 4, 14 Feb 1989 BBC News, 28 May 1989 Today, BBC Radio 4, 27 April 1990 Clip from Curb Your Enthusiasm, Season 9, episode 3