Episode description
Actress and writer Joanna Scanlan - best known for her comedic roles in tv series such as The Thick of It, Getting On and No Offence - talks to Tom about her role as Mary Hussain an Islam convert in Aleem Khan’s moving debut feature After Love.
Journalist Lee Trewhela discusses the close of Cornish theatre company, Kneehigh after more than 40 years.
Novelist Chibundu Onuzo discusses her new novel Sankofa, about a woman who grew up in England with her white mother and knowing very little about her West African father. In middle age, after separating from her husband and with her own daughter all grown up, she finds herself alone and wondering who she really is. Her mother’s death leads her to find her father’s student diaries, chronicling his involvement in radical politics in 1970s London. She discovers that he eventually became the president – some would say the dictator – of Bamana in West Africa. And he is still alive.
We review Jimmy McGovern’s new 3 part drama for BBC 1 is set in a prison. “Time” is a taut emotional thriller where moral lines get blurred, starring Sean Bean and Stephen Graham as an inmate and a warder respectively. We're joined by crime writer Mark Billingham and novelist Louise Welsh, who also have some cultural recommendations for listeners to enjoy.
Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Oliver Jones
Main image: Joanna Scanlan in After Love. Image credit: The Bureau/BFI