Alle afleveringen
169 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
-
Brian Cox
24 maart 2022 · 43 min
Beluister deze afleveringOlivier and Emmy-winning actor Brian Cox is best known these days as Logan Roy, the tyrannical media mogul and disappointed father in the hit series Succession. It’s a character familiar to him having played King Lear, along with virtually every other classical role during a sixty year stage career at the National Theatre, the RSC and repertory theatres throughout the UK. On screen he’s made a name for himself as the go-to character actor of his generation, with roles in the Bourne trilogy, Troy, Braveheart and many more. Villains are his speciality and include the original portrayal of Hannibal Lector on screen in the film Manhunter. Lees meer
In a wide-ranging conversation, he tells John Wilson about the most formative influences on his career which started when he worked as a stage hand at the Dundee Rep Theatre in his home city. He reminisces about working with directors including Lindsay Anderson and John Schlesinger, and how seeing Albert Finney on screen in the 1960s made him realise there were new opportunities for working class actors. He also reflects on the international fame he has found playing Logan Roy.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
-
Maggi Hambling
12 maart 2022 · 43 min
Beluister deze afleveringArtist Maggi Hambling is a painter known for evocative portraits, and powerfully energetic seascapes of the Suffolk coastline where she grew up. She’s also a sculptor, whose public artworks, including tributes to Oscar Wilde, Benjamin Britten and more recently Mary Wollstonecraft, have been the focus of both acclaim and controversy. Lees meer
She tells John Wilson about her unconventional family life in Suffolk, discovering her artistic talent as child and studying with the East Anglian school of painting under Sir Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines. She explains how Rembrandt's portraits were a major influence on her own work, and reveals how a trip to New York in 1969 proved to be a formative experience, not least because she found herself at the legendary Woodstock Festival that year. She also speaks candidly about how painting family members and close friends after they have died, including both her parents and her partner in their coffins, helped keep their memory alive for her.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
-
Joyce DiDonato
5 maart 2022 · 43 min
Beluister deze afleveringAcclaimed American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato talks to John Wilson about the works and events that have made her the performer she is. A Grammy and Olivier award-winning opera star, Joyce is renowned for her range, control and dramatic performances on stages around the world. Lees meer
She reveals her most formative influences including her teenage love of Billy Joel; the struggle to perfect her singing technique; her breakthrough role as Rosina in Rossini's The Barber of Seville; and the film and opera of Dead Man Walking, which ultimately led her to take part in life-changing work in Sing Sing maximum security prison.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
-
Akram Khan
26 februari 2022 · 44 min
Beluister deze afleveringDancer and choreographer Akram Khan is one of the world’s most acclaimed and influential figures working in contemporary dance today. Born in London to Bangladeshi parents, Akram is renowned for his radical productions in which classical Asian music and movement is fused with modern styles. He’s won many awards, was made an MBE in 2005, and choreographed and performed in the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony. Lees meer
He tells John Wilson about his teenage role in Peter Brook's epic production of The Mahabharata, which toured the world; the importance of collaborating with with leading creative figures from outside the world of dance including Anish Kapoor and Juliette Binoche; and reveals how an extraordinary chance encounter changed his artistic outlook.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
-
Max Richter
19 februari 2022 · 43 min
Beluister deze afleveringGerman-born British composer Max Richter tells John Wilson about his earliest musical influences, including the revelatory experience of first hearing Bach’s Double Violin concerto. He reveals how, growing up in Bedford in the early 1970s, a contemporary music-loving milkman would deliver albums by the likes of Philip Glass, John Cage and Steve Reich, musicians who helped inspire Max to pursue his interest in composition. He recalls the raw energy and political engagement of punk bands like Stiff Little Fingers and The Clash whose gigs he saw as a teenager; and how hearing German synthesiser-pioneers Kraftwerk on a BBC nature documentary sparked his interest in electronica. Max also pays tribute to the Italian composer Luciano Berio who tutored Max in Italy and honed his compositional skills. Lees meer
Max Richter is one of the world’s most successful contemporary composers, selling more than a million albums and clocking up over a billion streams. His melodic, evocative compositions have been heard in television soundtracks and films scores, including Arrival, Shutter Island, Mary Queen of Scots, Bridgerton and many more. His albums include Memoryhouse, The Blue Notebooks, the eight-hour-long composition Sleep, and Recomposed which reworked Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. He has also composed for theatre and ballet.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
-
Nicole Kidman
1 januari 2022 · 43 min
Beluister deze afleveringSince her breakthrough in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm, Nicole Kidman has played a hugely diverse array of roles - in arthouse films like Lars Von Trier’s Dogville and blockbusters including Paddington. She talks to John Wilson about the influence of some of the filmmakers with whom she worked, included Jane Campion who directed her in Portrait Of A Lady, and Stanley Kubrick who became a close friend after she starred, with her ex-husband Tom Cruise, in Eyes Wide Shut. Nicole Kidman recalls the making of Baz Luhrmann's musical Moulin Rouge and The Hours, the film for which she won the best actress Academy Award for her role as Virginia Woolf. She also discusses the excitement and fear she experienced on the London stage in the plays The Blue Room and Photograph 51. Lees meer
Producer: Edwina Pitman
-
Sting
25 december 2021 · 42 min
Beluister deze afleveringAs leader of rock band The Police, and as a multiple-Grammy winning solo artist, Sting has sold more than 100 million albums worldwide over his four-decade career. Lees meer
In conversation with John Wilson, Sting explores some of the people and places that helped shape his creativity.
He recalls his working class upbringing in the Tyneside shipbuilding communities, and how hearing The Beatles inspired his musical ambitions as a child.
Sting explains why, at the height of their international success, he split The Police in the mid-1980s.
He also reveals how Miles Davis and other jazz musicians, and classical composers including Bach and Prokofiev, inspired his new musical direction as a solo artist.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Reversioned for the BBC World Service in 2023 from the original broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2021.
-
Víkingur Ólafsson
18 december 2021 · 43 min
Beluister deze afleveringVíkingur Ólafsson tells John Wilson about the experiences and influences that have had a major impact on his life as one of the world’s foremost classical pianists. Víkingur traces his characteristically gentle style of playing right back to his earliest childhood lessons on his parents’ grand piano, and remembers angry struggles to learn a Mozart sonata. He explains why the Icelandic banking crash of 2008 had a huge impact on his work, and how the opening of the Harpa Concert Hall in 2011 helped launch his international career. Víkingur also reveals how a recent meeting with 95 year old Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtág made him reassess his cultural life. Lees meer
Producer: Edwina Pitman
-
Douglas Stuart
11 december 2021 · 43 min
Beluister deze afleveringAuthor Douglas Stuart talks to John Wilson about some of the aspects of his life that inspired him to write his multi award-winning debut novel Shuggie Bain. The book tells the story of a young boy growing up in poverty in Glasgow in the 1980s, and is based on Stuart's own childhood and relationship with his mother who struggled with alcohol addiction. He also discusses his career as a fashion designer and his latest work Young Mungo. Lees meer
Producer: Edwina Pitman
-
Kwame Kwei-Armah
4 december 2021 · 43 min
Beluister deze afleveringKwame Kwei-Armah shares some of the influences that have had a significant impact on his career in the theatre. He became a household name playing paramedic Finlay Newton in BBC One's Casualty, while at the same time pursuing a career in writing. His award-winning plays including Elmina's Kitchen and Statement of Regret have been staged at the National Theatre.
He tells John Wilson about his early years at stage school, how seeing a production of Joe Turner's Come and Gone by August Wilson changed the way he saw what theatre could do, and how Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave put him on a different path. Lees meerProducer: Edwina Pitman
-
Evelyn Glennie
27 november 2021 · 43 min
Beluister deze afleveringMusician Evelyn Glennie talks to John Wilson about her career and some of the key cultural turning points of her life. From growing up in rural Aberdeenshire and becoming profoundly deaf at a young age, she traces her route to fulfilling her ambition of being the first full-time solo percussionist. She recalls her early musical influences; her teacher, the renowned percussionist James Blades at the Royal Academy of Music, and her electrifying 1992 BBC Proms performance of James MacMillan's percussion concerto Veni, Veni, Emmanuel. Lees meer
Producer: Edwina Pitman
-
Caitlin Moran
20 november 2021 · 43 min
Beluister deze afleveringAuthor and columnist Caitlin Moran talks to John Wilson about some of the works and events that have had the biggest influence on her writing career. Lees meer
The eldest of eight children, she was home-schooled and raised on a council estate in Wolverhampton. At just 16 years old she published her first novel, became a music journalist, and started writing regular columns in the national press.
She explains why Sue Townsend's brilliantly funny The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ fuelled her desire to become a novelist, how the British music press allowed her to hone her craft as a journalist, and how a letter from Lenny Henry changed her life.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
-
Carlos Acosta
13 november 2021 · 43 min
Beluister deze afleveringCuban ballet star Carlos Acosta talks to John Wilson about some of the key moments of his cultural life. He discusses the influence of his father, his early love of breakdancing in the streets of Havana and the devastating effects of on life in Cuba after the collapse of Communism around the world. He also recalls his breakthrough moment winning the prestigious Prix de Lausanne ballet competition at the age of 16 and becoming the first black principal dancer of the Royal Ballet. Lees meer
Producer: Edwina Pitman
-
Mike Leigh
7 november 2021 · 43 min
Beluister deze afleveringFilm-maker Mike Leigh talks to John Wilson about his cultural influences and some of the moments that have had an impact on his creative life. He reveals how a life-drawing class at art college proved to be a formative influence on his later film-making career. He also discusses the influence of 1960s world cinema, particularly the French new wave, and explores in detail his unique process of film-making in which actors develop their roles through improvisation. Lees meer
Producer: Edwina Pitman
-
Tracey Emin
30 oktober 2021 · 43 min
Beluister deze afleveringArtist Tracey Emin talks openly and honestly to John Wilson about her controversial career and her life, including her experiences of cancer and abortion. She reveals some of the deeply personal aspects of her life that have shaped her work and chooses the moments that have had a profound effect on her art including the extraordinary effect that a painting by Mark Rothko had on her as a young woman, and her friendship with David Bowie. Lees meer
Producer: Edwina Pitman
-
Paul McCartney
23 oktober 2021 · 43 min
Beluister deze afleveringPaul McCartney talks to John Wilson about his key influences and inspirations. In a candid conversation, in which he discusses his relationship with John Lennon, the break-up of The Beatles and his six decade career, he reveals some of his most formative artistic experiences and his creative process. Lees meer
Producer: Edwina Pitman
-
Bernardine Evaristo
16 oktober 2021 · 43 min
Beluister deze afleveringAuthor Bernardine Evaristo talks to John Wilson about the formative experiences and cultural influences that have had a profound effect on her work.
She looks back on her early childhood in South London, the racism she encountered and how she found her artistic voice attending a youth theatre group. She reveals the influence of her Catholic upbringing on her writing, and the personal relationships that had the biggest impact on her creativity. Lees meerProducer: Edwina Pitman
-
Kenneth Branagh
9 oktober 2021 · 43 min
Beluister deze afleveringActor and filmmaker Sir Kenneth Branagh talks to John Wilson for the first of a new series of interviews in which the world’s leading cultural figures discuss their key influences and inspirations. In a wide-ranging conversation, Branagh reveals some of his most formative artistic experiences and his creative process. Lees meer
He remembers his working class upbringing in late 60s Northern Ireland at the start of The Troubles, as explored in his most personal film to date, Belfast. Branagh also traces the beginnings of his love for Shakespeare back to the discovery of LP recordings of Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud, and reveals his admiration for Thomas Hardy and the Alan Bleasdale's 1980s television series The Boys from the Blackstuff.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
-
Welcome to This Cultural Life
5 oktober 2021 · 3 min
Beluister deze afleveringCandid conversations with the world’s leading cultural figures about what has fired their imagination and sparked their creativity.