This Cultural Life
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- 15. Okt. 2026
Über den Podcast
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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Viet Thanh Nguyen
Pulitzer Prize-winning author and academic Viet Thanh Nguyen talks to John Wilson about his formative influences and experiences. A child refugee, he moved to the United States with his family at the end of the …
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Pulitzer Prize-winning author and academic Viet Thanh Nguyen talks to John Wilson about his formative influences and experiences. A child refugee, he moved to the United States with his family at the end of the Vietnam War. He is best known for his 2015 debut novel The Sympathizer which has been translated into 30 languages, has sold more than a million copies worldwide, and was adapted as an HBO television series in 2024. Viet Thanh Nguyen has written widely about conflict, migration and identity in his fiction and, more recently, in his memoir A Man Of Two Faces. A professor of English and American Studies, he teaches at the University of Southern California.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Archive used:
News archive from Newsdesk, BBC Radio 4, 29 & 30 April 1975 Clips from Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola, 1979 Extract from The Quiet American, Graham Greene, 1955 Trailer for The Sympathizer, HBO, 2024
Liliane Lijn
Pioneering artist Liliane Lijn talks to John Wilson about her formative cultural influences. A leading figure in the development of kinetic sculptures in the 1960s, she is renowned for her use of light and …
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Pioneering artist Liliane Lijn talks to John Wilson about her formative cultural influences. A leading figure in the development of kinetic sculptures in the 1960s, she is renowned for her use of light and movement, creating sculptures and installations that draw inspiration from quantum physics and astronomy. She has worked with scientists at the CERN nuclear research laboratory and the Space Science Laboratory at Berkely University, and her art has involved spinning texts, plastic prisms and conical sculptures that emit light. Liliane Lijn’s work is held in museums and galleries around the world, including MOMA in New York, and the V & a. In 2025 she was the subject of a major retrospective show at Tate St Ives. She has recently published a memoir Liquid Reflections, which shares its name with one of her best known artworks.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Elif Shafak
Bestselling Turkish-British novelist Elif Shafak talks to John Wilson about her formative cultural influences. Renowned for epic stories that connect the past and the present, told from multiple perspectives …
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Bestselling Turkish-British novelist Elif Shafak talks to John Wilson about her formative cultural influences. Renowned for epic stories that connect the past and the present, told from multiple perspectives, her novels explore marginalised communities and exiled people. An activist who has campaigned for the rights of women and freedom of expression, she faced prosecution in Turkey in 2006, accused for ‘insulting Turkishness’.
Elif Shafak’s 2019 novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and her 2021 novel The Island of Missing Trees was a finalist for the Women's Prize for Fiction. Her books have been translated into more than 50 languages. In 2025, she was elected as President of the Royal Society of Literature. Her latest novel One Brief Moment All Eternity is a portrait of the French writer Gustav Flaubert told through the eyes of the women who shaped him.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Joel Meyerowitz
American photographer Joel Meyerowitz talks to John Wilson about his cultural influences and formative experiences. A pioneer of the artform, he first began capturing life on the streets of his native New York …
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American photographer Joel Meyerowitz talks to John Wilson about his cultural influences and formative experiences. A pioneer of the artform, he first began capturing life on the streets of his native New York in the early 1960s, and helped to establish colour photography as a fine-art medium. After travelling throughout Europe he made his name with a groundbreaking show at the Museum of Modern Art in 1968. Following the attacks on the World Trade Centre in 2001, Joel Meyerowitz became the only photographer to secure access to Ground Zero and, over several months, captured the scenes of devastation.
His work has been the subject of more than 350 exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world, and he is the recipient of many awards, most recently the prestigious Outstanding Contribution prize at the Sony World Photography Awards 2026.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Ray Winstone
Actor Ray Winstone talks to John Wilson about his formative cultural influences and inspirations. A schoolboy boxing champion, he built a reputation playing tough, working class characters after being cast in …
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Actor Ray Winstone talks to John Wilson about his formative cultural influences and inspirations. A schoolboy boxing champion, he built a reputation playing tough, working class characters after being cast in the borstal drama Scum at the age of 17. Winstone won huge acclaim for his performance as an alcoholic abusive husband in the film Nil By Mouth, directed by Gary Oldman, and Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast in which he played a bank robber forced out of retirement. Other big screen roles include the Martin Scorsese gangland drama The Departed, and Anthony Mingehella’s American civil war film Cold Mountain. On television, he’s played Henry the Eighth, Magwitch in Great Expectations and most recently, an imprisoned crime boss in the Netflix series The Gentlemen.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Nicholas Hytner
Theatre and film director Sir Nicholas Hytner talks to John Wilson about his formative cultural influences. Over a career spanning four decades, he has directed Shakespeare, contemporary drama and musicals …
Shownotes
Theatre and film director Sir Nicholas Hytner talks to John Wilson about his formative cultural influences. Over a career spanning four decades, he has directed Shakespeare, contemporary drama and musicals, including Miss Saigon which ran for over a decade in London and on Broadway. He served as artistic director of the National Theatre for 12 years, overseeing more massive box office hits including The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time and War Horse. Productions that he directed himself include One Man, Two Guvnors and The History Boys, one of several collaborations with Alan Bennett. In 2017, he co-founded London’s Bridge Theatre where his productions have included Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Guys and Dolls. One of the most influential and successful figures in British theatre, Sir Nicholas Hytner was knighted for services to drama in 2010.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Mitsuko Uchida
One of the world’s greatest living pianists, Mitsuko Uchida, talks to John Wilson about her cultural influences and her career in music. Born in Japan, and a British citizen for over 25 years, she is renowned …
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One of the world’s greatest living pianists, Mitsuko Uchida, talks to John Wilson about her cultural influences and her career in music. Born in Japan, and a British citizen for over 25 years, she is renowned for her interpretations of work by Schubert, Mozart and Beethoven, and for the intellectual rigour of her approach to musical manuscripts.
She has won two Grammy Awards, three Gramophone Awards, the Praemium Imperiale, presented by the imperial family of Japan, and the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society. She was made a Dame in 2009 for her services to music.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Sebastian Faulks
Author Sebastian Faulks talks to John Wilson about his influences and formative cultural experiences. Faulks won huge acclaim for his First World War novel Birdsong, which – along with The Girl At the Lion D’or …
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Author Sebastian Faulks talks to John Wilson about his influences and formative cultural experiences. Faulks won huge acclaim for his First World War novel Birdsong, which – along with The Girl At the Lion D’or and Charlotte Gray – forms part of a trilogy of historical novels set in France. Since it was first published in 1993 Birdsong has gone on to sell more than three million copies worldwide and is taught in schools and universities on both English and History syllabuses. His other novels include Human Traces, On Green Dolphin Street, Engleby and, most recently, Farewell To Eden. A team captain on the Radio 4 literary quiz show The Write Stuff for over a decade, Sebastian Faulks was made a CBE for services to literature in 2002.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Tania Bruguera
Cuban performance and conceptual artist Tania Bruguera talks to John Wilson about her career and cultural influences. Her work explores freedom of speech, political oppression and social justice, often …
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Cuban performance and conceptual artist Tania Bruguera talks to John Wilson about her career and cultural influences. Her work explores freedom of speech, political oppression and social justice, often encouraging her audiences to become active participants in her performances, blurring the boundaries between art and viewer. Bruguera has exhibited at international museums including MOMA and the Guggenheim in New York, and at Tate Modern, where she made a major work for annual Turbine Hall commission. A new artwork of hers was in the inaugural exhibition at V&A East. Throughout her career in her homeland, Tania Bruguera has been repeatedly censored, arrested and detained by the Cuban authorities because of her political activism. She now lives in the US where she is senior lecturer at Harvard University.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Anish Kapoor
The artist and sculptor Sir Anish Kapoor talks to John Wilson about his career and cultural influences. Renowned for his innovative, often monumental works, Kapoor gained international recognition in the late …
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The artist and sculptor Sir Anish Kapoor talks to John Wilson about his career and cultural influences. Renowned for his innovative, often monumental works, Kapoor gained international recognition in the late 1980s. He represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1990 and won the Turner Prize the following year. His public artworks include Cloud Gate in Chicago, the Orbit sculpture next to the London Arena, commissioned to mark the 2012 Olympics, and the 110m-long structure of giant rings and connecting wires known as Temenos in Middlesborough. In 2025 a piece called Butchered, a collaboration with Greenpeace, was installed on to an active Shell oil rig in the North Sea as a protest against the fossil fuel industry. The Hayward Gallery in London is one of several cultural institutions around the world that is hosting major exhibition of the work of Anish Kapoor in 2026.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Frank Cottrell-Boyce
The writer Frank Cottrell-Boyce talks to John Wilson about his cultural influences and career. He started out as a screenwriter on the television soaps Brookside and Coronation Street, before publishing his …
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The writer Frank Cottrell-Boyce talks to John Wilson about his cultural influences and career. He started out as a screenwriter on the television soaps Brookside and Coronation Street, before publishing his debut children's novel Millions in 2004. The book won the prestigious Carnegie Medal and a screenplay version was made into a film by Danny Boyle. He also wrote five films for the director Michael Winterbottom, including Welcome To Sarajevo and Twenty Four Hour Party People. In 2012, Frank renewed his creative partnership with Danny Boyle as the writer of the opening ceremony of the London Olympics. After many bestselling children’s books including Framed, Cosmic and The Astounding Broccoli Boy, in 2024 he was appointed as the Children’s Laureate.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Kiefer Sutherland
John Wilson talks to the actor and musician Kiefer Sutherland. The son of Canadian actors Donald Sutherland and Shirley Douglas, he first made his mark in the 1980s and 90s with films including Stand by Me, The …
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John Wilson talks to the actor and musician Kiefer Sutherland. The son of Canadian actors Donald Sutherland and Shirley Douglas, he first made his mark in the 1980s and 90s with films including Stand by Me, The Lost Boys, Flatliners and A Few Good Men. His television portrayal of federal agent Jack Bauer in the crime series 24 became his signature role and earned him major awards, including an Emmy and a Golden Globe. He later starred in the political drama series Designated Survivor, playing an American president. Alongside his acting Kiefer Sutherland has also pursued a career as a singer songwriter, releasing a series of country-rock albums and performing live tours.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Liam Young
Australian-born artist, filmmaker and speculative architect Liam Young discusses his work and cultural influences with John Wilson. Young creates imaginary future worlds through films and art installations to …
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Australian-born artist, filmmaker and speculative architect Liam Young discusses his work and cultural influences with John Wilson. Young creates imaginary future worlds through films and art installations to provoke discussion about present-day social and environmental issues – including climate change, energy, migration, and technology. His films, including Planet City and The Great Endeavour, have been shown at the Venice Biennale and museums including MOMA and the Smithsonian and the Barbican Centre in London has staged a major exhibition of his work called In Other Worlds. He holds guest professorships at universities including Princeton, MiT and Cambridge. In the commercial sector, Liam Young works as a consultant to major brands and the film industry on designing visions of the future.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Kristin Scott Thomas
Award-winning actor Kristin Scott Thomas talks to John Wilson about her career and cultural influences. After a breakthrough role in the Evelyn Waugh film adaptation of A Handful Of Dust, she became a global …
Shownotes
Award-winning actor Kristin Scott Thomas talks to John Wilson about her career and cultural influences. After a breakthrough role in the Evelyn Waugh film adaptation of A Handful Of Dust, she became a global star with Four Weddings and a Funeral in 1994. Two years later, was Oscar nominated for The English Patient directed by Anthony Minghella. Her screen roles in the years since have included Gosford Park, The Horse Whisperer and more recently Rebecca and on television, Slow Horses. She has just made her debut as a director and screenwriter with My Mother’s Wedding, inspired by her real life family story. Her extensive theatre credits include Chekhov’s The Seagull, for which she won an Olivier Award, and she played The Queen in Peter Morgan's drama The Audience. Kristin Scott Thomas has also enjoyed a distinguished stage and film career in France, where she was awarded the Legion of Honour in 2005. In 2014 she was made a Dame for services to drama.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
George Saunders
The Booker Prize winning American author George Saunders talks to John Wilson about his cultural influences. He made his name as a writer of satirical or absurdist short stories which often explore contemporary …
Shownotes
The Booker Prize winning American author George Saunders talks to John Wilson about his cultural influences. He made his name as a writer of satirical or absurdist short stories which often explore contemporary consumerist society, always underpinned with a strong sense of human compassion and empathy. In 2017, his first full length novel Lincoln In The Bardo - about Presidential grief amid a cacophony of spiritual voices - won the Booker Prize and became a global bestseller. His latest novel Vigil once again explores death and the afterlife. George Saunders teaches creative writing at Syracuse University, New York, and is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in American literature.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Felicity Lott
The soprano Dame Felicity Lott talks to John Wilson about her distinguished career and cultural influences. One of Britain's best-loved sopranos, her breakthrough role was as a last minute stand-in for Pamina …
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The soprano Dame Felicity Lott talks to John Wilson about her distinguished career and cultural influences. One of Britain's best-loved sopranos, her breakthrough role was as a last minute stand-in for Pamina in The Magic Flute in 1975. Over the next four decades, she built an international career, performing at opera houses and concert halls around the world, singing works by composers including Richard Strauss, Schubert and Mozart. At home, she was seen frequently on television, sang regularly at the BBC Proms and was made a Dame in 1996. She was also the recipient of the Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest cultural award. Dame Felicity sadly died on 15 May 2026, shortly after this programme was first broadcast.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Music and archive used:
Ruhe sanft from Zaide, W A Mozart, sung by Felicity Lott Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer, courtesy of Felicity Lott The Last Night of the Proms, 1996, Ah! que j'aime les militaires from La grande-duchesse de Gérolstein, J Offenbach, sung by Felicity Lott Overture to The Magic Flute, W A Mozart An Die Musik, F Schubert, piano: Graham Johnston, sung by Felicity Lott Licht und Liebe, F Schubert, piano: Graham Johnson, sung by Anthony Rolfe Johnson and Felicity Lott Vier letzte Lieder: Im Abendrot, R Strauss, sung by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Closing scene from Capriccio, R Strauss Act 1 from Der Rosenkavalier, sung by Anne Sofie von Otter and Felicity Lott Act III from Der Rosenkavalier, sung by Anne Sofie von Otter, Barbara Bonney and Felicity Lott Vier letzte Lieder: Beim Schlafengehen, R Strauss, sung by Felicity Lott
Michael Frayn
Over a seven-decade career, Michael Frayn has been acclaimed as a novelist, playwright, journalist, translator & memoirist. From his comedies – including the stage farce Noises Off, and a screenplay for …
Shownotes
Over a seven-decade career, Michael Frayn has been acclaimed as a novelist, playwright, journalist, translator & memoirist. From his comedies – including the stage farce Noises Off, and a screenplay for Clockwise starring John Cleese, and the novels Headlong and Skios – to the complex political, historical and scientific themes of his stage plays Democracy and Copenhagen, he has been prolific in a diverse array of genres and subjects. He is also renowned for his stage adaptations of the works of Russian writers including Anton Chekhov. At 92, Michael Frayn advised on a recent revival of Copenhagen for the Hampstead Theatre.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Archive used:
Extract from To A Skylark, Percy Bysshe Shelley, read by Timothy West, BBC Radio 4, 27 April 1998 Extract from Spies, Michael Frayn, read by Martin Jarvis, BBC Radio 4, 29 April 2002 Clip from Wild Honey, Michael Frayn/Anton Chekov, BBC Radio 4, 20 January 1989 Extract from Scoop, Evelyn Waugh, read by Robert Hardy, BBC Radio 4, 3 April 1998 Clip from Noises Off, Peter Bogdanovich, 1992 Clip from Clockwise, Christopher Morahan, 1986 Clip from Copenhagen, Howard Davies, 2002
Lubaina Himid
Turner Prize-winning Artist Lubaina Himid talks to John Wilson about her formative influences. She made her name in the mid-1980s as a pioneering member of the British black arts movement, organising …
Shownotes
Turner Prize-winning Artist Lubaina Himid talks to John Wilson about her formative influences. She made her name in the mid-1980s as a pioneering member of the British black arts movement, organising exhibitions to champion the work of fellow women artists. Having trained as a theatre designer, her paintings and installation pieces often have a strong narrative aspect, telling stories of race, history and identity. In 2017, at the age of 63, she became the oldest artist to win the Turner Prize, as well as the first black woman to do so. The following year, she was made a CBE for services to art. In 2026, Lubaina Himid will represent Britain at the international arts festival, the Venice Biennale.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Robert Icke
Theatre director and writer Robert Icke talks to John Wilson about his formative creative influences. Described by Variety magazine as ‘the great hope of British theatre’ and with his radical new versions of …
Shownotes
Theatre director and writer Robert Icke talks to John Wilson about his formative creative influences. Described by Variety magazine as ‘the great hope of British theatre’ and with his radical new versions of classic plays, Icke has built a reputation for revelatory productions. Born in Stockton on Tees in 1986, he made his name in 2015 with an epic new version of the Greek tragedy Oresteia, which he had adapted himself. It won several awards and, at 29, Icke became the youngest ever recipient of the Best Director award at the Olivier Awards. More acclaim followed for his 2017 production of Hamlet, starring Andrew Scott, his adaptation of the Arthur Schnitzler play The Doctor, and his new version of Oedipus which transferred to Broadway in 2025. His latest West End production is Romeo and Juliet, starring Sadie Sink of Stranger Things fame.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
David Szalay
Booker Prize-winning author David Szalay talks to John Wilson about his creative influences. His 2009 debut novel London and The South East, based on his experience of working in telesales, won the Betty Trask …
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Booker Prize-winning author David Szalay talks to John Wilson about his creative influences. His 2009 debut novel London and The South East, based on his experience of working in telesales, won the Betty Trask Award. The author of six books, his work often defies easy classification: his 2016 novel All That Man Is comprises nine standalone short stories which share the overarching theme of masculinity. His 2018 novel Turbulence follows 12 loosely-linked characters on a dozen flights around the world. In 2025 he won the Booker with Flesh, a rags to riches story told across several decades.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Archive used: Extract from T S Eliot, Preludes 1, read by Jeremy Irons, BBC Radio 4, 25 December 2021 Extract from T S Eliot, The Waste Land, read by Jeremy Irons, BBC Radio 4, 2 January 2022 Clip from trailer of Downhill Racer, Michael Ritchie, 1969 Clip from trailer of Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese, 1976 Extract from David Szalay, Flesh, read by David Szalay Clip from Barry Lyndon, Stanley Kubrick, 1975 Clip from 2025 Booker Prize ceremony
Danielle de Niese
John Wilson talks to the Australian born opera singer Danielle de Niese. A soprano renowned for her vibrant stage presence, she made her professional operatic debut with the Los Angeles Opera at the age of 15 …
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John Wilson talks to the Australian born opera singer Danielle de Niese. A soprano renowned for her vibrant stage presence, she made her professional operatic debut with the Los Angeles Opera at the age of 15 and, and four years later she became one of the youngest singers to perform at Metropolitan Opera in New York. Her international breakthrough came in 2005 at the Glyndebourne Festival, where her performance as Cleopatra in Handel’s Giulio Cesare established her as a major operatic star. Since then she has sung leading roles at opera houses around the world, specialising particularly in Baroque repertoire, and has recorded six studio albums of music by composers including Handel and Mozart. She is the recipient of the 2026 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Don McCullin
Award-winning photographer Sir Don McCullin talks to John Wilson about his cultural influences and formative experiences. He started out in the late 1950s documenting the working-class lives in the north London …
Shownotes
Award-winning photographer Sir Don McCullin talks to John Wilson about his cultural influences and formative experiences. He started out in the late 1950s documenting the working-class lives in the north London neighbourhood in which he had grown up. Employed by the Observer newspaper, and later the Sunday Times, McCullin photographs captured scenes of struggle, despair and violence. Travelling to the front lines of conflict zones in Cyprus, Beirut, Vietnam, Cambodia, Biafra, Northern Ireland and elsewhere, McCullin earned a hard-won reputation as one of the greatest war photographers of all time. In recent years he has focused his lens on the beauty of the natural world, particularly the landscape around his home in Somerset. His work is held in permanent collections around the world including the Tate, the National Portrait Gallery and the V&A. He was knighted in 2017 for services to photography.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Julian Barnes
The novelist, essayist and critic Julian Barnes talks to John Wilson about his career and formative cultural influences. One of the most acclaimed and distinctive British writers of his generation, his early …
Shownotes
The novelist, essayist and critic Julian Barnes talks to John Wilson about his career and formative cultural influences. One of the most acclaimed and distinctive British writers of his generation, his early novels, including Metroland, A History Of The World In 10 and a Half Chapters, and Flaubert’s Parrot, established his reputation for blending fiction, factual biography and philosophical reflection. Julian Barnes won the Booker Prize in 2011 for The Sense Of An Ending, and the same year won the prestigious David Cohen Prize for Literature, awarded for a body of work. A famous Francophile, he was given the title of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, one of France’s highest cultural honours in 2004. He has said that his latest book, Departure(s) will be his final novel.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Imogen Cooper
Dame Imogen Cooper is one of Britain’s most esteemed concert pianists. Having played since the age of five, she was mentored by the great Austrian born pianist Alfred Brendel before making her name …
Shownotes
Dame Imogen Cooper is one of Britain’s most esteemed concert pianists. Having played since the age of five, she was mentored by the great Austrian born pianist Alfred Brendel before making her name internationally with interpretations of works by Schumann, Schubert and Mozart. She is renowned as a reflective, poetic sensitive performer in the concert hall and recording studio. She was made a CBE in 2007, became the first pianist to be awarded the Queen’s Medal for Music in 2020 and, the following year, became Dame Imogen. She recently announced that, at the end of the year long international tour, she would be retiring from live performance in early 2027.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Archive used: Face The Music, BBC2, 12 November 1975 Schubert, Allegretto in C minor D915 played by Imogen Cooper at the Wigmore Hall on 18 January 2026
Jonathan Pryce
Award-winning actor Sir Jonathan Pryce talks to John Wilson about his cultural influences and career. He made his name with the 1975 Trevor Griffiths play Comedians, his role as a stand-up comic winning him a …
Shownotes
Award-winning actor Sir Jonathan Pryce talks to John Wilson about his cultural influences and career. He made his name with the 1975 Trevor Griffiths play Comedians, his role as a stand-up comic winning him a Tony Award after it moved to Broadway. He won an Olivier Award for a landmark production of Hamlet in 1980, and another Tony for his role as The Engineer in Miss Saigon. His huge and diverse list of film credits include Terry Gilliam’s 1985 dystopian drama Brazil, the musical Evita alongside Madonna and, an Oscar nominated performance as Pope Francis in The Two Popes. And he’s been increasingly prolific in the age of television streaming with acclaim for his roles in Game Of Thrones, The Crown, Taboo, Slow Horses and Wolf Hall. He was knighted for services to drama in 2021.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Archive used: Listen With Mother, BBC Home Service, 7 February, 1950 Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary?, Whitehall Theatre, BBC1, 1940s Protests on Broadway, 6 April 1991 Comedians by Trevor Griffiths, 2nd House, BBC2, 15 March 1975 Jonathan Pryce in Hamlet, The Southbank Show, ITV, 1988 Brazil, Terry Gilliam, 1985
Katie Mitchell
Theatre and opera director Katie Mitchell talks to John Wilson about her career and formative influences. She is renowned for her experimental storytelling on stage, her feminist perspective, and for …
Shownotes
Theatre and opera director Katie Mitchell talks to John Wilson about her career and formative influences. She is renowned for her experimental storytelling on stage, her feminist perspective, and for contemporary reframing of classic plays, she has directed more than 100 productions over more than 30 years. She has worked at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal Opera House and the National Theatre, where - as associate director - she staged bold new versions of work by a wide range of writers including Aeschylus, Virginia Woolf, Chekhov and Sarah Kane. For many theatre goers, she is one of Britain’s most important and innovative living directors.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Annie Leibovitz
American photographer Annie Leibovitz talks to John Wilson about her career and cultural influences. For over 50 years she has captured rock stars, actors and politicians in the pages of Rolling Stone magazine …
Shownotes
American photographer Annie Leibovitz talks to John Wilson about her career and cultural influences. For over 50 years she has captured rock stars, actors and politicians in the pages of Rolling Stone magazine, Vanity Fair and in museums & galleries around the world. She is renowned for elaborately designed shoots, sometimes involving multiple celebrity sitters, and creating images that have a cinematic or painterly quality. Her best known photographs include John Lennon just hours before he was murdered, a naked and heavily pregnant Demi Moore – and Queen Elizabeth the second in the state rooms of Buckingham Palace.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Archive used: The Rolling Stones at the LA Forum, 1975, BBC Radio 1 Report on the shooting of John Lennon: NBC News, 8 December 1980 Report on the Vigil for John Lennon in Central Park New York: WABC-TV, Channel 7 Eyewitness News, 14 December 1980 Annie Leibovitz photographs Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace: 2 clips from Monarchy: The Royal Family at Work: The State Visit; co-produced by BBC & RDF Media, 26 November 2007, BBC1
Guillermo del Toro
Oscar-winning Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro talks to John Wilson about his cultural influences. From his 1992 debut Cronos to his recent big budget spectacular retelling of Frankenstein, del Toro’s 12 …
Shownotes
Oscar-winning Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro talks to John Wilson about his cultural influences. From his 1992 debut Cronos to his recent big budget spectacular retelling of Frankenstein, del Toro’s 12 feature films mix fantasy, horror and Gothic romance to create modern fairy tales about innocence, brutality and redemption. His movies have won eight Academy Awards including three for Pan’s Labyrinth in 2006, and four Oscars for The Shape Of Water in 2017, plus seven BAFTAs and three Golden Globes.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Archive used: Clip from Pan's Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro, 2006 Clip from Frankenstein, Guillermo del Toro, 2025 Clip from Frankenstein, James Whale, 1931 Clip from I Confess, Alfred Hitchcock, 1953
Ricky Gervais
Comedian and writer Ricky Gervais talks to John Wilson about his formative creative influences and inspirations. Ricky Gervais made his name as the co-creator and star of The Office, the mock documentary series …
Shownotes
Comedian and writer Ricky Gervais talks to John Wilson about his formative creative influences and inspirations. Ricky Gervais made his name as the co-creator and star of The Office, the mock documentary series which became a landmark in British television comedy, and was shown all round the world. Further success followed with the comedy drama series Extras, Life’s Too Short and Afterlife, and awards including two Emmys, four Golden Globes and seven BAFTAs. Ricky Gervais has written and performed numerous solo stand-up shows around the world, the latest of which, Mortality, was filmed for Netflix and has just earned him a tenth Golden Globe nomination.
Gervais tells John Wilson about his early comic influences including Laurel and Hardy, Fawlty Towers and Derek and Clive, the foul-mouthed drunken alter egos created by comedy duo Peter Cook and Dudley Moore on three, largely improvised, spoken-word albums recorded in the 1970s. He also talks about his own approach to writing comedy and the huge inspiration that the 1984 mock rock documentary This Is Spinal Tap was on the creation of The Office.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Archive used: Laurel and Hardy theme, Dance of the Cuckoos The Office, Series 1, Downsize, BBC2, 2001 Fawlty Towers, Series 1, A Touch of Class, BBC2, 1975 Golden Globes, opening monologue, 2020 This Is Spinal Tap, Rob Reiner, 1984
Jennifer Lawrence
Jennifer Lawrence's breakthrough role in the 2010 drama Winter’s Bone secured her first Academy Award nomination when she was just 20, and she won the Best Actress category two years later for Silver Linings …
Shownotes
Jennifer Lawrence's breakthrough role in the 2010 drama Winter’s Bone secured her first Academy Award nomination when she was just 20, and she won the Best Actress category two years later for Silver Linings Playbook. Since then, she has become one of the most prolific, critically acclaimed and highest paid actors in Hollywood as the star of The Hunger Games series and three X-Men movies. Other leading roles include American Hustle, Joy and, most recently, the psychological drama Die My Love.
Jennifer talks to John Wilson about her childhood on her parents' farm in Kentucky. After being scouted by a modelling agency, she left school as a teenager and moved to New York to start working as a model and actor. She recalls how the film Taxi Driver, starring a young Jodie Foster, made a big impression on her as an aspiring actress and how Jodie Foster later became a role model when she directed Jennifer on the set of The Beaver. She also counts Gena Rowlands' performance in A Woman Under The Influence, written and directed by John Cassavetes, as an important inspiration, as well as working with directors David O Russell and Lynne Ramsay.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Archive and film clips used:
Uncle Buck, John Hughes, 1989 No Hard Feelings, Gene Stupnitsky, 2023 Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese, 1976 Winter's Bone, Debra Granik, 2010 The Hunger Games, Gary Ross, 2012 American Hustle, David O Russell, 2013 Veep, Armando Iannucci, 2012 A Woman Under The Influence, John Cassavetes, 1974 Die My Love, Lynne Ramsay, 2025
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