125. The Heroic Hedgehog with Sarah Sands

Break Out Culture With Ed Vaizey by Country and Town House

#Society #Country And Town House #Town House

7:38

Last summer, something monumental happened. One of Uncuffed's founding producers, Greg Eskridge, came home after more than 30 years in prison. In this episode we’ll bring you back to that emotional day last summer when he walked out of the San Quentin gates, free at last. Our work in prisons is supported by the California Arts Council, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, independent foundations, and donations from listeners like you. Learn more, sign up for Uncuffed news, and support the program at www.weareuncuffed.org Follow us @WeAreUncuffed on Instagram and Facebook Transcripts are available within a week of the episode coming out at www.kalw.org/podcast/uncuffed…

рік тому 27:29

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We talk to Sarah Sands, the journalist and former editor of The Evening Standard and BBC Radio Four’s Today programme. She’s just released her new book ‘The Hedgehog Diaries, A Story of Faith Hope and Bristle’.

The humble hedgehog turns out to be a symbol of the doughty survivor in politics and in battle – particularly in Ukraine’s war with Russia. It’s also the symbol of NATO. Not just that, but numerous famous people from Rory Stewart to Samuel Beckett, have understood the significance and spiritual appeal of the hedgehog as an intriguing, Tolkein-like, mystical little figure.

The hedgehog gave Sarah great emotional comfort as she faced the death of her father and then afterwards her beloved brother, the cabaret artist Kit Hesketh-Harvey and her ex-husband Julian Sands, who died on a remote mountainside.

This is a charming book, full of wisdom, anecdotes and stories about this ancient, small but surprising creature which has inspired Sarah to take on a conservation project her brother Kit started before he died.

Today’s episode is brought to you thanks to our sponsor, Lomi, the compact, countertop ‘smart waste’ appliance that can process food waste into plant food. Go to uk.lomi.com to receive a discount of £50 by entering the code breakout at the check-out.

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125. The Heroic Hedgehog with Sarah Sands

Break Out Culture With Ed Vaizey by Country and Town House

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149 епізодів

#Society #Country And Town House #Town House

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138. A Joyful Musical Christmas - with choir masters Ben England & Mark Strachan 35:21

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In this final edition, we’re talking to two of the Britain’s most passionate advocates for singing in a choir. Ben England and Mark Strachan collaborated during the pandemic on the Self-Isolation Choir when thousands joined online from round the world to sing. Both were awarded British Empire Medals as a result. Today they tell us about Choir of the Earth, which grew out of the Self-Isolation Choir, and all the Christmas festive singing you can join in with. Looking ahead to next year, we hear about the 24-hour Handel’s Messiah in St. George’s Hanover Square and the 24-hour Mozart’s Requiem at St. Gabriel’s Church in Pimlico. Anyone is welcome to drop in and sing for a small fee to raise money to help rebuild St. George’s crumbling portico and for the Pimlico Music Foundation which encourages children from all backgrounds to sing. Mark and Ben have gathered a raft of exceptional musicians and conductors, including John Rutter and Laurence Cummings, to join them on these two marathon events. We also hear about Game Choir, set up my Mark to encourage gamers to sing and we’re treated to a snippet of Game Choir singing ‘Sweden’ from Minecraft, arranged by St. George’s brilliant organist Richard Gowers. This will raise money for Specialeffect to help people with physical disabilities continue to play video games. Don’t fail to tune into this fascinating discussion about the cultural significance of gaming and the glories and benefits of singing and what Mark and Ben have planned to delight us all this Christmas.…

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137. Dreamland - A new exhibition exploring fame at the Maddox Gallery with artist Russell Young and curator Maeve Doyle 20:49

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This week we’re at the new Maddox Gallery on Mayfair’s Berkeley Street, talking to the British-American artist Russell Young about his new exhibition ‘Dreamland’, in which he dissects the American dream and the dark side of fame. Also with us is the renowned art critic and broadcaster Maeve Doyle, Global Artistic Director of the Maddox Gallery Group. Russell describes how he appropriates iconic images of famous movie and music stars, many from photographer Terry O’Neill’s archive, then transforms them, using Warholian silkscreen printing techniques and his secret ingredient – diamond dust. Reimagined images include Brigitte Bardot, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Audrey Hepburn, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, Mick Jagger and Kate Moss. Russell is known as the pre-eminent interpreter of images of American film and music history and in ‘Dreamland’ he’s looking at themes of seduction, desire, beauty and tragedy under the gloss and glitter of famous icons. It's a fascinating discussion about how America has changed, Russell’s own life and influences (he was born in the north of England) and how the very fame people seek is often their downfall. Russell Young: Dreamland at The Maddox Gallery, Berkeley Street till 7th February…

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136. Gainsborough, Gillray & more - with Rebecca Salter and Tim Clayton 23:46

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This week we’re at Gainsborough's House in Sudbury, Suffolk. We’re always delighted to discover a true gem away from London and this most certainly is one. Housed in the home where the great 18th century portrait and landscape painter artist Thomas Gainsborough grew up, this is now Suffolk’s largest art gallery and a global study centre for Gainsborough’s work. The house has recently opened its new wing with three new superb and spacious exhibition spaces. We’re talking to Rebecca Salter, the President of the Royal Academy (and the first ever woman to hold the role) about her exhibition of beautiful Japanese-inspired works on show there. We’re also talking to Tim Clayton, the award-winning historian and broadcaster, who has curated a second exhibition on Gainsborough’s contemporary, James Gillray, ‘father of the political cartoon’. Tim is also Gillray’s biographer and has lots of fascinating insights into Gillray’s life and work. The historic house itself is beautifully restored to give an insight into how Gainsborough lived. There’s a beautiful garden, complete with ancient mulberry tree (given Sudbury is the home of silk), a print workshop, a café and a very good shop. Plus, there’s a top floor studio to the new wing with panoramic views over the garden and Sudbury. With this meticulously curated collection of Gillray’s prints and Rebecca’s beautiful, meditative, calming paintings on show, it’s truly worth a visit. In View: Rebecca Salter until 10th March James Gillray: Characters in Charicature until 10th March…

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135. Edward VIII Reassessed - with Jane Marguerite Tippett 30:34

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We talk to the young American archivist and writer who stumbled across hitherto unused material from Edward VIII’s personal archives and autobiographical notes, including his scribbled opinions about Wallis Simpson. Jane Marguerite Tippett’s new book about, ‘Once a King: The Lost Memoir of Edward VIII’ has been published to much acclaim, for being beautifully written, immaculately researched and for drawing timely parallels between the situations of Edward and Wallis and Harry and Meghan. She’s also ruffled the feathers of more established biographers of Edward VIII for being the first to recognise that pencil notes in the Charles Murphy Archives at Boston University and in the Royal Archives had not been mined before. Coming across it changed the direction of the book she set out to write and she says the newly discovered material speaks for itself, presenting Edward VIII in a new light. Listen in to find out how.…

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134. WOMEN IN REVOLT! Tate Britain’s new exhibition with curator Linsey Young and artist Marlene Smith 24:18

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‘Women in Revolt!’ is an important and exciting new exhibition featuring work by over 100 feminist artists created between 1970 and 1990. Alongside work by well-known artists is work rarely seen before, by women who have been marginalised or left outside the artistic narrative. With us to tell us all about the exhibition are Linsey Young, Curator of British Contemporary Art at Tate Britain since 2016, and British artist and curator, Marlene Smith, a key figure in the British Black Arts movement . We discover what drove Linsey to mount this exhibition and why it’s been arranged in chronological order, beginning with the first National Women’s Liberation Conference in Oxford and the Miss World Protests and ending during the Thatcher administration. This is a furiously vibrant, joyful, exciting and explosive exhibition that shows how women artists changed the face of British culture, paving the way for a new generation. Not to be missed! ‘ Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990’ at Tate Britain until April 2024…

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133. Beyond Theatre - with Robert Bathurst and Trish Wadley 25:18

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We’re at The Coach and Horses in Soho with actor Robert Bathurst, much loved for his roles as David Marsden in Cold Feet, and Mark Taylor in Joking Apart, and with theatre producer Trish Wadley. Robert is reprising his title role in Keith Waterhouse’s Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell and tells us what fun it is to perform in the very venue where the late Jeffrey Bernard spent much of his later years propping up the bar. Trish Wadley has long championed immersive theatre, staging the Tennessee Williams hotel plays in three different rooms in a Holborn hotel before transferring them to the Langham Hilton. She’s the first producer ever to stage a play inside London’s Natural History Museum and persuaded them to build a 350-seat venue for a play about Charles Darwin. She also staged Insignificance, about an imaginary meeting between Marilyn Monroe and Albert Einstein in a Fifth Avenue hotel - in a Fifth Avenue hotel room. Ever inventive, her company Trish Wadley Productions has just produced a lean, mean, fast and furious version of Othello with Iago’s complex and conniving character played by three actors on the stage at the same time. Trish and Robert enthuse about how liberating and interesting it is for audiences and performers alike to be outside the restrictions of conventional theatre. And if Robert’s stories are anything to go by, playing Jeffrey Bernard in The Coach and Horses has its fair shares of excitements and hazards too. Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell plays at the Coach and Horses until 21st November http://www.defibrillatortheatre.com https://trishwadleyproductions.com…

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132. William Boyd 36:52

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We’re talking to William Boyd, unquestionably one of our greatest living novelists. He’s also a screenwriter, television writer, playwright and director, who has won multiple accolades and awards along the way, including a BAFTA Television Award for Best Drama Serial of Any Human Heart . Following The Romantic, his latest ‘whole life’ novel, a new book The Mirror and the Road comprises a series of in-depth conversations between William and the acclaimed interviewer Alistair Owen, which covers William’s entire career as a writer. We talk to William about that life, in which he’s moved effortlessly between the solitary novelist’s study and Hollywood. We ask him about his favourite writers and films, whether he prefers writing novels to screenplays and try to discover just how he’s produced such a prodigious output, including 22 works of fiction, 20 produced screenplays, three stage plays and five radio plays. For all fans of William Boyd, this is unmissable listening. The Mirror and the Road: Conversations with William Boyd , edited by Alistair Owen, is published by Penguin…

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131. A Disappointing Issue - Why do black Britons feel misrepresented, side-lined and let down by our culture? With Maggie Semple and Nels Abbey 30:30

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A major survey of 10,000 black Britons has been undertaken by the Black British Voices Project in collaboration with Cambridge University, The Voice, and management company i-Cubed. Maggie Semple, co-founder of i-Cubed, led the research team and Nels Abbbey is a writer, broadcaster and former banker who founded the Black Writer’s Guild and wrote the book ‘Think Like a White Man’. The report on the survey, which covered multiple aspects of life in Britain including culture, was published at the beginning of October and makes dismal reading for anyone interested in the arts as it exposes an overall failure to engage with black audiences. Tune into this important and enlightening discussion as Maggie and Nels analyse the report’s findings and identify what needs to change and how. The report can be found at www.bbvp.org…

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130. ‘Hamnet’ with Maggie O’Farrell 29:31

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29:31

The prodigious, award-winning novelist talks to us candidly about her life as a novelist since she first published ‘After You’d Gone’ 23 years ago. She tells us how she started writing, her inspiration for ‘Hamnet’ and her most recent published novel ‘The Marriage Portrait’. She describes what it was like to watch ‘Hamnet’ at the RSC and The Garrick, where Lolita Chakrabarti’s adaptation of the novel is now playing and breaking the theatre’s box office records. She also talks about how she’s been shaped by suffering from viral encephalitis as a child and her 17 near brushes with death recounted in her autobiography ‘I am, I am, I am’. It’s a fascinating insight into the mind and working practices of one of our most popular novelists. Hamnet is running at The Garrick Theatre until 17th February 2004.…

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129. THE HYPOCHONDRIAC and THE INTERVIEW - Roger McGough and Jonathan Maitland tell us about their new plays 24:30

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We talk with two renowned playwrights about their new plays – both on for a short run and neither of them to be missed. Roger McGough, the much-loved author, Mersey poet and presenter of BBC Radio Four’s ‘Poetry Please’, has adapted Molière’s ‘The Hypochondriac’ for The Crucible in Sheffield. It’s already opened to rave reviews, with Edward Hogg starring as Argan. Jonathan Maitland, journalist and broadcaster turned playwright, has written ‘The Interview’, a play about Princess Diana’s interview with Martin Bashir, which opens on 27th October at The Park in London for a short run. Roger McGough tells us how he came to adapt Molière’s 17th century classic and transform it into a comic delight for contemporary audiences. He also looks back at his time with The Scaffold, his fellow Mersey Poets, Brian Patten and the late Adrian Henri (‘The Mersey Sound’ has sold over a million copies) and regales us with tales of working on the script of ‘Yellow Submarine’. Jonathan Maitland, who shared an office with Martin Bashir at ITV for six years, tells us why now why is such a good time to examine Princess Diana’s legacy afresh and look again at our very polarised, if not frenzied, reactions to Martin Bashir and the way the now notorious interview, watched by over 23 million in the UK alone, came about. ‘ The Hypochondriac’ at The Crucible, Sheffield: until 21st October ‘The Interview’ at The Park: 27th October till 5th November With thanks to Lomi for supporting us over the last six episodes. You can advantage of their offer to get £50 off a Lomi by going to uk.lomi.com and using promo code breakout at the checkout.…

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128. Stone, paint and the landscape - with Emily Young and Francis Hamel 22:50

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This week we’re talking to two artists inspired by the nature. Emily Young, hailed as Britain’s greatest living female stone sculptor, specialises in using materials from abandoned quarries and Francis Hamel is known for his portraiture and landscape paintings. Emily lives and works mostly in an isolated part of Tuscany, where she free carves in reclaimed uncut natural stone, often found in abandoned quarries. She evokes beautiful ancient figures from an unknown mythology. Her main objective is to explore the relationship of humankind and the planet through her interaction with stone. Her 25 new works in stone are being exhibited at Richard Green on Bond Street, in association with Willoughby Gerrish Ltd. Francis has lived and worked for over 25 years at Rousham, one of England’s most prized historic house and gardens. He explains how the garden at Rousham became the starting point for his exhibition when he was seeing it afresh during lockdown. From there he went on to paint some of Britain’s best-known gardens including Sissinghurst, Great Dixter, Sezincote, and Stourhead, as well as some private ones designed by renowned gardeners like Sarah Raven, Arthur Parkinson and Tom Stuart-Smith. His exhibition of garden paintings launches at his Oxfordshire home of Rousham before moving to John Martin on London’s Albemarle Street. Together they talk about how they work, what inspires them and what they set out to achieve. It’s a fascinating conversation about the artistic process and highlights their similar and different approaches to stone and to paint. Emily Young: Pareidolia in Stone from 25th October to 10th November Richard Green https://www.richardgreen.com Francis Hamel : Thirty Gardens from 12th to 27th October John Martin https://www.jmlondon.com This episode is brought to you with the kind support of support of Lomi, makers of ‘smart waste appliances’ that transform food waste into plant food. Go to Lomi’s website at uk.lomi.com and use promo code breakout at the checkout for a £50 discount.…

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127. The Joys of the Piano: The Eighth London Piano Festival with Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen 29:36

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Acclaimed pianists, Charles Owen and Moscow-born Katya Apekisheva, started the London Piano Festival at Kings Place in 2016 as a way of bringing together pianists from around the world. Pianists tend to practice and play in isolation so it can be a lonely profession and this is a much-loved opportunity for them to come together and share their passion for their instrument and its music. Between 5th and 8th October this year’s festival is celebrating the 150th birth of Rachmaninov and the centenary of the less well-known but hugely significant and ground-breaking Hungarian musician, Gryorgy Ligeti. We hear about Rachmaninov’s lasting legacy - Katya and Charles will perform his major two piano works - and Charles and Katya will be joined by dazzling British musicians Danny Hammond and Clare Driver for ‘Ligeti 100: The Devil’s Staircase’. Charles and Katya tell us about other performances in store, including jazz with Polish phenomenon Leszek Motżdżer and a portrait of Rachmaninov in exile by Lucy Parham, narrated by Tim McInnerny. The master pianist and extraordinary, original showman from Ukraine, Vadym Kholodenko, will perform work by Liszt, Beetoven, Adès and the Ukrainian composer Silvestrov. What comes through our conversation is the palpable joy and exuberance that Katya and Charles feel when playing the piano and we have a fascinating conversation about how strong their hands have to be and much more. For all music lovers this is a festival not be missed. We also round up what’s happening in the art world – Marina Abramović’s astonishing show at the Royal Academy, cementing her reputation as the greatest and most courageous performance artist alive today, Sarah Lucas’s new show ‘Happy Gas’ at Tate Britain and ‘Celebrating Picasso Today: Infinite Modernism’, a show of new and modern works at London’s Almine Rech Gallery to honour Picasso 50 years after his death. The London Piano Festival: Kings Place from 5th to 8th October https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/london-piano-festival/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwpc-oBhCGARIsAH6ote_SpwZbkOqCM2s7QO4fhXoL2ggg1UzdDQcd_-U5Ro-A-VP2VFC6bA4aAolkEALw_wcB This episode is brought to you thanks to our sponsor, Lomi, the compact, countertop ‘smart waste’ appliance that can process food waste into plant food. Go to uk.lomi.com to receive a discount of £50 by entering the code breakout at the check-out.…

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126. Scottish Renaissance - The New Scottish Galleries at the National with Sir John Leighton 26:50

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We talk to Sir John Leighton, Director-General of the National Galleries of Scotland, about Edinburgh’s superb new Scottish Galleries at the National, which will open on September 30th after £38.62 million worth of investment. The ten, light-filled rooms, offering majestic views over Edinburgh, will showcase 130 works of historic Scottish art by artists ranging from the Glasgow Boys, William McTaggart and Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Anne Redpath to lesser-known artists like Phoebe Anna Traquair. Sir John describes how many of these major beautiful works of art have been given new life by being moved out of a dingy, uninspiring basement into these contemporary galleries. We have a fascinating conversation about what it means to be a Scottish artist and how the new hang will redefine Scottish art and underline the importance of Scottish painters’ contribution to British art overall. Today’s episode is brought to you thanks to our sponsor, Lomi, the compact, countertop ‘smart waste’ appliance that can process food waste into plant food. Go to uk.lomi.com to receive a discount of £50 by entering the code breakout at the check-out.…

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125. The Heroic Hedgehog with Sarah Sands 27:29

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We talk to Sarah Sands, the journalist and former editor of The Evening Standard and BBC Radio Four’s Today programme. She’s just released her new book ‘ The Hedgehog Diaries, A Story of Faith Hope and Bristle’. The humble hedgehog turns out to be a symbol of the doughty survivor in politics and in battle – particularly in Ukraine’s war with Russia. It’s also the symbol of NATO. Not just that, but numerous famous people from Rory Stewart to Samuel Beckett, have understood the significance and spiritual appeal of the hedgehog as an intriguing, Tolkein-like, mystical little figure. The hedgehog gave Sarah great emotional comfort as she faced the death of her father and then afterwards her beloved brother, the cabaret artist Kit Hesketh-Harvey and her ex-husband Julian Sands, who died on a remote mountainside. This is a charming book, full of wisdom, anecdotes and stories about this ancient, small but surprising creature which has inspired Sarah to take on a conservation project her brother Kit started before he died. Today’s episode is brought to you thanks to our sponsor, Lomi, the compact, countertop ‘smart waste’ appliance that can process food waste into plant food. Go to uk.lomi.com to receive a discount of £50 by entering the code breakout at the check-out.…

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124. The glories of the V&A - Coco Chanel, David Bowie & more with Nicholas Coleridge 36:32

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