¶ Episode Introduction and Lesley Manville
You're listening to Front Row with me, Samira Ahmed. Tonight Leslie Manville on her starring role in Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Merry Beard on why Homer's Odyssey is a stormy endeavour, and what books and music do you pack for a voyage to the moon?
I'm a flute player and so I just thought bringing music to space is a way of sort of sharing
🎵 Music
Former astronauts Katie Coleman and Helen Sharman share their stories of culture for a cosmic journey. Just weeks after ending a run as jocaster in Oedipus, Leslie Manville is back on stage in another major role. Le Liaison Dangereuse, Christopher Hampton's adaptation of a scandalous eighteenth century French novel, has captivated audiences since its first performance in nineteen eighty five at the RSC in Stratford.
It sh it starred Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan as the cruel, manipulative aristocrat. seducing and destroying young innocents, one of whom, Teenage Cecile, was played by Leslie Manville. Now she leads the National Theatre's new staging as seductress in chief, Madame de Meurtoy, with Aidan Turner as Valmont, When she came into the studio earlier today, I asked Leslie Manville what her memories are of that original production forty one years ago.
I remember that production vividly. I played Cecile, the young girl in the play. I was twenty nine playing fifteen. But in that production the character of Cecile was finished by the interval. And I used to sneak and watch th the second half from between curtains at the back and watching Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan play those two central roles.
And I remember thinking, Wow, I'm re I really am part of something rather amazing here. But I remember thinking at a certain point in my life that I'd never get to play Marte because I would I'd got too old. But of course Marianne Elliott s always shakes things up a bit and her take on it is that on our production is that Mate
is older than Valmont. Yeah. And that only adds to her her pain because she's losing her currency or feels she's losing her currency. Women are obliged to be far more skillful than men. You think you put as much ingenuity into winning us as we put into losing to you. Of course I had to invent not only myself, but ways of escape no one else has ever thought of. Because I always knew I was born to dominate your sex. and avenge my own.
¶ Contemporary Themes and Stage Persona
I wanted to ask how far you and the director and the cast discussed contemporary resonances because I find it impossible to watch without thinking of all those grooming gangs who are exploiting vulnerable young girls and making them believe that this is what they wanted and in some cases making them collude in their own exploitation.
It's discussed a lot throughout rehearsals.
You're talking about people like Geoffrey Epstein, for example.
Yes, there are absolute resonances. And in fact the rewrites that Christopher Hampton has done. Yeah. 'Cause in the original production Cecile is fifteen, and Valmont does f force her to have sex. Yes, and he she ultimately she enjoys. Well, you know, Marianne u understandably felt very strongly that you you in this climate that we're in, that even if we're not in this climate that that is you can't have that.
So the the rewrites have happened to make, well, A, Cecile a bit older, and Valmont is still a character whose behaviour is to be abhorred. but it's been presented in a slightly more palatable way.
Because it's played by Aidan Turner and there's I mean the whole image of the production, the cover of the programme and the poster is him lying in his sort of silk box of shorts and you're looking beautiful in a basque and you're looking very seductive. And I just wondered as actors, you know, what you experience when you go on stage playing those roles. I mean there's a rapport with the audience, isn't there? What they've come to see.
Yes, I think it's important to to draw the line. I'm presenting it. I mean in in a similar way to when I've I just did Oedipus and told a gruelling story in that speech. that um Robert Icke wrote for Jacasta about when she was raped when she was thirteen, that resulted in the child that ends up to be Oedipus who she's married, unbeknowingly. She's married her son. That story was g grueling. But my I'm the conduit. I'm the person who goes into that world, creates that person, presents it.
And the audience receive it.
And then...
That's the meal I've served them and they can digest it in whichever way they choose.
Absolutely magnificent on stage. You have these beautiful gowns, and there are these moments where you see you in these fantastic leges. At one stage, you're wearing this lacy basket. stockings and suspenders, I mean the full on, you know, the the clothing of seduction. Yes. And you look amazing. But you are, you know, it's no secret you are a woman of seventy. Is there almost a sense of wanting to be objectified and revelling in that moment on stage?
No, I didn't know we were gonna have that moment on stage. When that came about, we'd started rehearsing it and she was always going to be covered up. And the scene was about her thinking she could solve her issues about her aging by adding more. So more jewellery, more lipstick. Absolutely juxtaposed with Cecile right next to me, who's taking things off.
But then when we started to get very close to the performances Marianne said to me, I think it would be really good if she's in her corset and that the second half starts with her just looking. at herself in a mirror'cause you've seen it, you know the set is mirrors everywhere. Mirrors. So I said, All right, well hang on a minute. You know, I'd just I'd just been in my underwear in Oedipus. I don't mind it, it's just like being in a swimming suit.
on the beach and I'm not uncomfortable with my body at all. But I did think, oh gosh, right, what again?
Yeah.
When's this going to stop? But uh and Marianne said, Look, you know, we don't you don't have to, obviously. I think artistically the moment works.
It does. It shows a vulnerability.
Yeah, exactly. And y and because it is juxtaposed with this beautiful young Putting them on because she thinks that God, maybe need to cover up a bit more.
¶ Intimacy Coordinators and Audience Etiquette
You had an intimacy coordinator on this production, which you definitely wouldn't have had forty years ago when you were playing Cecile.
Yeah.
What difference has it made to how you worked through this?
Less so for me, because I don't have any sexual scenes to play.
You do have one. New court. In Sagrante.
That's true. I found that one Yes well we worked it through You work it through because you want people to be comfortable I mean On Oedipus we didn't have one because Mark Strong and I felt well, we're both very seasoned, we both felt very comfortable with each other, and we thought let's just get through these rehearsals if we feel we need one.
But r Rob Ike never wanted to rehearse those really that really difficult final sexual scene in Oedipus till the last week of rehearsals anyway. So we thought, Well, let's see how we are. I don't think we'll need one, but if we change our minds we can. On this it's different. There's a lot of young people and I'm an older woman. Aidan is an older man seducing younger women.
I think it's absolutely right that they're there. I mean I've I have worked with intimacy coordinators in the past, particularly when I've done scenes with younger men. You know, they can be uh understandably nervous. So it's very good that you have to
Somebody there, our intelligence.
Intimacy coordinators is is part of the creative team. I mean, she's been extrem it's not just about you making the actors comfortable with another person's body. It's about making moments work, telling the the sexual story in a way through the sexual activities that take place that tells the story best.
During previews you asked an audience member to stop taking photographs during the curtain call.
I didn't ask them, but I just gave them a bit of a stare.
What was what was going on through your head when that happened?
Stop it. It never used to happen. It was rife. I've just come back from Broadway where I did Oedipus. Virtually the whole audience will take out their phone at the end of the evening. Why can't they let it live in their souls for five minutes? But it's like people need to take a photo of the curtain call to prove that they've seen it. Come on, it's theatre. Let's take the digital out of it just for a moment. We're all in this room. We're telling you a story. You're listening.
Clap or don't clap, but don't just stick up your phone in our faces. It's ins I find it insulting.
Rydyn ni'n meddwl amdano amdano amdano amdano amdano amdano amdano amdano amdano amdano amdano amdano amdano amdano amdano amdano amdano amdano amdano amdano amdano amdano
¶ Career Reflections and Intense Schedule
Theatre my heart lies, really. Really, really. I mean Yn yw, mae'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw So much at the Royal Court Theatre. I mean that's really where I cut my teeth. those those days in the late seventies through the eighties. you know, working with Carol Churchill on Top Girls and Serious Money, working with Edward Bond on the Pope's Wedding and Saved and Now when I look back at it, you know, what a time.
thrilling and I regret that ac young actors now don't have the simplicity of that. You know, they're all looking, looking, looking. Where do I go? What magazine can I be on the front cover of? Social media, you know it was nothing about that. It was just the work and you loved it. You got paid nothing. But it was wonderful.
So you are absolutely at the centre of this whole story on stage. I find it remarkable to think that you spent weekend going up to Manchester to film the third series of Sherwood.
Yes.
You seem to just take it all in your stride.
I'm calm, I'm I I don't get flustered. I mean yes my schedule is a bit crazy at the moment, but James Graham r wrote Sherwood, which I've done the first two series of, and this is the final series, and you know, he knew that I was really not available. But he said I have to have the spirit. your story, David Morris's story, winding up this series, the th because there won't be any more. And you say, Well, I I could only possibly do Sundays. It's not in me to say no, because
Work like Sherwood is important. It's in it's a it's a formidable piece of television drama.
So you did two shows on a Saturday, flew up to Manchester, did a nineteen hour shoot on the Sunday and then too.
Well I did a twelve hour shoot, but then with the travel and then getting the train home it was a nineteen hour day in the end.
Rydyn ni'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw Is there a part of you that kind of likes that level of intensity in your schedule? I think you embrace it.
Yeah, I suppose so. I want to stop for a bit when I finish this play in June because I think I need to remind myself what it's like to potter around home, what it's like to get to six o'clock in the evening and think, all right, what am I gonna do now?
They're trying to imagine you on a Friday at six o'clock with nothing to do and feel slightly bored. I find it hard to believe that something you will want to to feel for more than a an evening. What do you think you might be doing when you do take a break?
Putting my new granddaughter to bed more than I do, that'll be good. Cooking. I don't cook much. I get to the National Theatre, I eat in the canteen. I come home, it's late, I have some toast. Going to the cinema
And not taking photographs.
Never.
Ha ha.
And telling people off who even dare to get their phone out next to me. They will get them the manville stare and trust me, you don't really want to be on the end of that.
Leslie Manville. Les Liaisons Dangereuses is on at London's National Theatre till june the sixth, and as part of National Theatre Live in Cinemas nationwide from june twenty fifth.
¶ Russia's Venice Biennale Controversy
Now, as the war in Ukraine continues, Russia remains subject to extensive sanctions, but there's growing concern in Europe about a Russian presence returning to international sporting and cultural events. Paraathletes, for example, have been given the go-ahead to participate under the Russian flag in the Winter Paralympics next month, and now there's concern about one of the landmarks of the art calendar, the Venice Biennale International Art Exposition, which is due to open in May.
At least thirty-four MEPs at the European Parliament have signed a letter calling for the EU to withdraw all EU funding for the BNLA if Russia is allowed to participate. Sophia Kishkovsky wrote about the story for the Art newspaper, and she joins me now on the line from New York. Thank you, Sophia, for talking to Front Row. Russia didn't take part in the Venice Bienales in twenty twenty two and twenty twenty four. Can it can explain why and what's been going on?
Of course. Well in twenty twenty two, um Libyanale took place shortly after Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine. Um and what happened then was the the curator of the Biennale um was uh Lithuanian and there were two Russian artists and they pulled out in protest. Um and uh the Biennale announced at the time that it will not accept Russian presence, any official Russian presence um for the duration of the invasion. That appears to have changed now.
Right. यहां यहां
Twenty in twenty twenty four, Russia lent its pavilion to Bolivia. Um and that is fits in with Russia's program of soft power around the world right now, cultural soft power.
So what is the situation now?'Cause they've said they they they're taking part and they've even announced what's going to be in their pavilion, haven't they?
Um yes, so what what happened was um in early March, um uh Mikhail Shvitkoi, who is Putin's um international cultural envoy, he gave an interview to another art publication, Art News, in which he said that Um Russia is presenting a program. Um and um uh that immediately created um a fur um because he um it was already then on the um website of the BNL um with a list of of participants, various some um
classical musicians, folk musicians, and international musicians fitting into what I said above. For example, a DJ from Mali.
Um
Um, and then w and a very important thing to know, but there's some very s sort of strange things associated with this. For example, the pavilion's title, because Shvitkoi said that philosophy would be involved as well. So the pull the the title is actually taken from the Phil French um m mystic Simone Vial. Um and um Which is completely bizarre if you realize that the pavilion's um commissioner, um Anastasia Karneva, she is the daughter of an FSB general.
um and her company SmartArt, which she co-founded with um Yekaterina Vinakurova, who is the daughter of Russia's foreign minister, um Sergey Lavrov, they were um uh commissioned to run the pavilion in twenty nineteen for ten years. So this is directly tied to the Russian state.
I mean people listening will be amazed, given that Russia's been banned from the Eurovision Song Contest, that they could even be present at the Venice Biennale. Rydyn ni'n gwneud hynny? Yn ymwneud hynny? Yn ymwneud hynny? Yn ymwneud hynny? Yn ymwneud hynny? Yn ymwneud hynny? Yn ymwneud hynny?
¶ Biennale Protests and Financial Implications
Um well there will be protests. Um Pussy Riot, the um the protest collective um has promised that they will be holding protests there and they have in fact um protested um all of Putin's major events. The Al Sochi Olympics in twenty fourteen, the World Cup in twenty eighteen, they had protests, but they became most famous um in twenty twelve when they protested at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
Or they sang a punk prayer against uh against um Putin and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill. So um They um Natalia Telekonikova, um no excuse me, Nadia Telekonikova, um one of the founders of Pussy Riots, she said in an interview with Medusa, which is a Russian um Publication in Exile based in Latvia that it would be something similar to what happened in Sochin in twenty in twenty fourteen because the Olympics and the arts events are similar.
People will wonder, so if they withdrew EU funds, if the EU Parliament did that, would it make a difference to the Venice Biennale at all?
Um, it would make a I think a huge symbolic difference. Um, as far as I've seen, those funds um are related to film program grants for the Biennale. Um I believe that the Financial Times um put a number on them of about two million. Euros. So um it's not an overwhelming part of the funding, but it's significant enough and the symbolism is very important.
This is of course not the only protest affecting the Biennale. Dozens of artists are threatening to withdraw if Israel is allowed to take part. What can you tell us about that sort of the whole atmosphere around the Biennale with that?
Um well I've seen it just even in relation to Ukraine. For example, I've seen in social media a story of mine, one of the several I've done in recent weeks about Uh Russia and the Venespionale. there was um a response um uh to it being posted saying, well, what about Israel? In other words, if I'm writing about Ukraine, I should be writing about about that as well. And I had a very interesting conversation yesterday with a Ukrainian artist who
um, was talking about the whataboutism. He wasn't saying, no, no, you should pay more attention to Ukraine rather than um uh to Russia and being there than to Israel, but he said that the value of human life is what we should be talking about.
Sofia Kiszkowski, thank you so much. We'll keep following the story and thank you again.
¶ Homer's Odyssey: New Adaptations
Now, whatever critics and cinema goers thought of Emerald Fennel's fantasy version of Wuthering Heights, the fact is it sent Emily Bronte's original novel into the bestseller lists, and if readers were expecting the plot of the film, they would have got rather shocked.
Might the same happen with Sir Christopher Nolan's forthcoming blockbuster adaptation of Homer's Odyssey, starring Matt Damon, and what would new readers find if they opened the pages of one of the oldest epic poems in the Western canon?
Sing to me of the man Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy. Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds, many pains he suffered, heart sick on the open sea, fighting to save his life, and bring his comrades home.
But he could not save them from disaster hard as he strove, the recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all, the blind fools, they devoured the cattle of the sun, and the sun god blotted out the day of their return. Launch out on his story, Muse, daughter of Zeus Start from where you will, sing for our time too.
The opening lines of the Odyssey. Well Professor Mary Beard has been thinking about the gap between our Hollywood version and the real thing and joins me now on the line. She co-hosts the podcast Instant Classics.
And also joining us on the line is Professor Emily Wilson from the University of Pennsylvania, who published an acclaimed translation of the Odyssey in twenty seventeen. Welcome to you both. Mary first, tell me briefly, when did you first read the Odyssey and what was the experience like?
I first came across the stories of the Odyssey. Well, my m mum read them to me when I was six or seven. Uh and they were things like Odysseus' encounter with this Cyclops polyphemus, the alluring sirens, et cetera, et cetera. It I think it really wasn't until I was um in well into my teens that I realised that that was a very odd view of the Odyssey, actually. That the Odyssey was much more than a collection of kind of daring do tales.
um foregrounding Odysseus when he was trying to get home from Troy, um, that it was a really complicated story with many strands, which was partly about Odysseus' return from Troy, but it was also about what was happening at home while Odysseus was trying to get back. And it was about how his kind of rather wet behind the ears teenage son, Telemachus, grew up to be a man like his dad.
Okay. Um Emily, a lot of people's first encounter with the text, I think it's fair to say, may well be the Christopher Nolan film when it comes out this summer.
I'm very excited, yes. I mean, of course, there've been dozens and dozens of uh theatrical and cinematic um works open, starting with Athenian tragedy, which is very often slices from the great banquet of Homer. There have been many, many cinematic adaptations and theatrical ad adaptations, but I'm excited by just how many new readers may come to the Odyssey, either in the original or in
Either the Fagel's translation, which w in bombastic American free verse, which is what you just read, or my translation, which uses blank verse because I'm trying to lean into the ways that this is a poem, which I don't think is actually what Nolan is interested in. I don't think he's that interested in poetics.
But I also think that the element of spectacle is also part of what the Odyssey can contain within it. It contains so many worlds. It contains both the fantastical elements and the much more complicated social elements. And these big political and social questions about time and change and who belongs in a community and what is it to have found or different kinds of families.
¶ Interpreting the Odyssey: Heroism and Teaching
Yeah, well what you've both made clear is it's so much more than those little stories that you can take out, like the Cyclops or the Lotus Eaters. I'm interested in how readable then it is, Mary.
Classicists tend to say, and I often say that you know, if you've not read a work of classical literature before, ancient literature, the Odyssey's a really good place to start. It's you know, it is in a sense, one of the most approachable works. And I I think that's true, but it's also um it's a bit of a lie.
Um and uh well I think look this was composed more than two and a half thousand years ago. There is a big gap between you know us and the I think that there are hundreds and thousands of people in the world who have, you know, from John Keats on, you know, picked up a translation of the Odyssey and really got into it. Um it's certainly possible. What what Charlotte and I, when we were doing our podcast thought, we'd been reading through the Odyssey kind of as a readathon with our listeners.
is we thought, yeah you can do that, but There's a there's a gap to be bridged. And
We can...
Yeah.
quicker if you can bridge that gap. Now there are many ways of bridging the gap. You can read Emily's introduction and her notes in her translation would be would be a good way. But I think that a a little helping hand, you know, answering very simple questions.
like, so what are these gods doing in the Odyssey? Hey guys, you know, what what are they all about? And what is all this backward look to the Trojan War? And I I think the good news is for people, and we are aiming here at the Wuthering Heights effect, you know. I think the good news is that there are quite a lot of people, not just our podcast, but university departments, the open university.
Who are actually saying, look, either free or for very little money, you you can have you can have a helping hand here. And that's what I hope people will.
Rydyn ni'n meddwl. Rydyn ni'n meddwl, Emelie, rydyn ni'n meddwl amdwl amdwl amdwl amdwl amdwl amdwl amdwl amdwl amdwl amdwl amdwl amdwl amdwl amdwl amdwl amdwl amdwl amdwl amdwl amdwl There's been all those modern retellings, you know, the novels of writers such as Pat Barker or Margaret Atwood and Madeline Miller giving a female point of view. I wonder if that's changed the effect of reading the Odyssey for modern readers.
Yes, I mean I think we I would say partly that a heros in Homeric or ancient Greek doesn't mean superhero saves the world, saves Gotham City. So that was that idea that Odysseus has to be a quote unquote hero in a modern sense was always totally anachronistic. And I think it's good if more people have woken up to the historical fact that That isn't how ancient people read or heard or understood the Odyssey whatsoever. I mean
I think the ways that Margaret Outware might be somewhat critical of Odysseus. He's f she's far less critical of Odysseus than Virgil is. Virgil presents Odysseus as this cruel massacring scheming liar and Dante makes it it's even worse on Odysseus. So it's not that twenty first century is the first time that people have thought, okay, this is kind of a complicated character and not necessarily a good guy.
He's a good guy if you want a fascinating poem to listen to that's gonna be compelling and interesting in terms of it.
thinking about what does it mean to survive and what does it mean to prioritise your own survival and your own winning of glory through this extraordinary impossible kind of survival, even though Usually in the Homeric poems, a leader who lets all of his companions die is not necessarily generating a lot of honor by having everyone under his command get either eaten or drowned or massacred in various other interesting ways.
It's not it's not that it's a modern or quote unquote woke thing to think this poem is complicated in its depiction of
Uh and it's also qu it's also questioning. I think that you know, uh the the first word in the Odyssey is Andra. It means man.
Um also husband.
But it's what it's doing is it's saying, So what do we make of that word? What do we make of that role? how how are you a man? And one of the things that you see in the Odyssey is you see um the nature of Odysseus's manhood exposed. Uh while you also see his son himself wondering what it is to mature. It's a kind of coming of age. There's a coming of age strand in this. And I think it
I mean it is partly and there are a a load of good stories. There are wonderful good stories that you can enjoy and I'm sure Nolan will have a great time with them. But it's i it's c asking you to
Question?
um what heroism is, what manhood is, well what homecoming is. I mean when Bob Dylan got his um Nobel Prize, you know, one of the things he said in his in his speech was Rydyn ni'n gweld yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw
Okay. Um Emily, I'm interested in how your undergraduates respond when you teach them the Odyssey and what your advice is to them and to people who are approaching that text. For the first time.
It's always really I mean I teach the Odyssey or Homer H of Greek literature to graduate students in the original as well, but it's really fun to teach these texts in translation to people who really don't know anything and just to see how gripping and interesting it is. to people like that. I mean just to go back to the question of how accessible it is, in the US
People very often read the Odyssey for the first time in middle school or high school. And it's not very difficult in fact. I mean a fourteen year old can get a lot out of it, but then people can get a lot more more out of it when they return to it when they're eighteen. And really wrestle with these questions about the most recent way that I teach it is in the context of a myth class.
And we talk a lot about the relationship between the more obviously mythic bits of the Odyssey, where Odysseus is encountering all of these scary non Greek beings with their scary different ways of life and their different food ways, which very often include eating people. But then also the relationship between those weird worlds where which are which are beyond the Greek-speaking world, and then the weirdness of Ithaca itself actually
Greece can also be weird and there can be echoes between the more realistic elements of here are Penelope's suitors and they're be they're harassing h his wife and they're eating all his food. Maybe they're a bit like man-eating giants.
Maybe there are ways that there's a sort of echoing of the hanging of the enslaved women and and this whole question of what is it uh To fear the mouths or the vaginas of female characters, which has been playing out in a very different way in the mythic mythical wandering book.
And then get it.
played out again in a more naturalistic or realistic way in the second half of the poem.
I I wish we had more time. I wanna see if Christopher Nolan has got all these important themes in his film version with Matt Damon. We shall find out. Mary Bidd, Emily Wilson, thank you both so much. And Christopher Nolan's film of the Odyssey is scheduled for release in July.
¶ Astronauts' Cultural Journeys in Space
Now the idea of travelling into space has inspired so much great literature, film and music. Think of Samantha Harvey's Booker Prize winning novel, Orbital. And as the crew of the Artemis II mission prepare to launch on Wednesday for the first manned mission to the moon since nineteen seventy-two, we wondered what cultural picks astronauts take on such a voyage.
I've been speaking to two astronauts, the chemist, doctor Helen Sharman, who was the first Brit in space, and Katie Coleman, a former US Air Force colonel and NASA veteran of two space shuttle missions, who spent more than one hundred and fifty days in space. Her last mission was in twenty eleven. Helen started by telling me about her visit to the Mir space station in nineteen ninety one.
I went into space for quite a short mission and it was eight days actually. There wasn't an awful lot of time for downtime and sharing stuff and and the actual cultural stuff um was a little bit of a sort of a let's say a last minute decision.
What about for you, Katie? How long were you in space for on your missions and what did you how did you approach what you were going to take?
I I had two missions on the shuttle. One was sixteen days, the longest at the time on the shuttle. and the second one was five days on the shuttle. And then a ther my third mission was an expedition to the International Space Station where I got to stay for almost six months and I will just put out there not long enough. I took an Irish flute and a tin whistle for the band The Chieftains.
And I also took um I'm a flute player and so I just thought bringing music to space is a way of sort of sharing in between. And earth. And I took a flute for Ian Anderson of Jethro Tow and we played actually a really I think charming and I think kindly edited. uh space duet, the very first space duet from the International Space Station.
🎵 Music
Helen, the technology in your era wasn't quite up to simulcasting performances from Earth and Space, but was there music on Mir when you went?
Yeah, you know, the Miz Space Station had a small keyboard, about an octave and a half, but enough to make a tune, right? And a full size guitar. And that's been replicated on ISS as well as a kind of a Yn ymwneud â phobl sy'n ymwneud â phobl sy'n ymwneud â phobl sy'n ymwneud â phobl sy'n ymwneud â phobl sy'n ymwneud â phobl sy'n ymwneud â phobl sy'n ymwneud â phobl.
🎵 Music
Oh Helmut.
Rydyn ni'n gwybod, fel Cady'n gwybod, mae Cady'n gwybod, mae Cady'n gwybod, mae Cady'n gwybod, mae Cady'n gwybod, mae Cady'n gwybod, mae Cady'n gwybod, mae Cady'n gwybod, mae Cady'n gwybod.
🎵 Music
I was thinking of that very famous photograph of Earthrise that was taken by the Apollo aid astronaut William Anders in nineteen sixty-eight, and it changed the way that people on Earth saw ourselves. I wonder if there was anything about being in space that changed the way that you saw the the culture and the art that you loved.
¶ Space's Impact: Interconnectedness and Sharing
obvious how one part of the earth j you know geographically is connected to others through the sky, through the sea, through the currents. Um everything we do must affect other things. And then when we're in space very, very close to us, it's apparent how one person is affecting another, how our when what we breathe out.
you know, is connected to all the life support systems. And so you get that it's it's that interconnectedness of so many different things, of our emotions with the um with the science around us, with the technology. And I think that's I've seen life slightly differently because of that. So I I no longer try and segment, you know, compartmentalise.
Well, which makes me wonder, are you ever bored in space or are you too busy looking out the window? I wish you could have taken a big thick novel to read.
Yeah.
Well, I d I did have books actually that I I um mostly read to um my my son, who was ten years old. And it was our way of, you know, staying connected.
you know, along I mean,'cause you know, after a few days, you know, how are you? How are you? How was your day? It you know, we we did have an internet protocol phone where I could call down to the earth. But it was a way of just kind of having something to do together, a little place to be together without having to you know, just h make mundane conversation.
But what I think is really interesting, you know, the individual contribution. You know, down here on the earth, if I'm someplace at a musical gathering, I'm pretty sure that somebody there is more talented at flute playing than I am, and they should maybe be the one. the stage. I might introduce them, right? But
Um whereas up there there's just you and your crew and you are so few. It just becomes clear in this visceral way that if you don't share, if you don't give the tour or uh you know, around to where you know, what it's like to be in space there. or share the things that you brought or your point of view. No one else is gonna do And I and I think it leads to, you know, us I think we're unexpected sharing people up there.
Cady, mae wedi bod yn ymwneud yn ymwneud yn ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud.
I was it was a really fun kind of project for our whole crew really. And it's not that we did so much, but we did actually I had Sandra Bullock's cell phone number. And we did get to speak uh, you know, once to figure out what she wanted to know. And what she mostly wanted to know was what it was like to move up there.
Where it is, you know, in microgravity environment that it's it's amazing but you can take one hair from your head, you can put it between your fingers, you can push off of something gently, and you will push yourself across the whole space. So helping to express that to her, we made some audio clips and and she also Just wanted to know what it was like to live so far away from everybody that you loved.
Yes, yes, yes, yes I copy, I'm detached. I'm d I I don't know, I don't know, I'm spinning, I can't I can't GPS is down, I can't it's down, I can't
Give me a video!
TOL do nothing! I seen
Nothing.
I just really loved that it was it had a woman heroine. Most of us don't see those and when you y when you ask about fiction and science fiction and what that means up there, I think it means the world down here.
And I was thinking what you said earlier about how the experience made you s see how we wrong to s put boundaries up between things. And I was thinking of that line that Jodie Foster's character says in contact when she her character goes on a mission um into deep space and she says they should have sent a poet, which I thought was such a lovely idea. But also I remember meeting you a couple of years ago, Helen, and you told me that you still dream about being in space.
Do you? I still do, very occasionally. I don't remember my dreams very often, but yes, occasionally I'm floating down in my dream I'm floating down one of the modules. Rydyn ni'n ymwneud yn ymwneud yn ymwneud yn ymwneud yn ymwneud yn ymwneud yn ymwneud yn ymwneud. Yn ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud.
And it's the same every time I dream this dream. Um and I stop by the window and uh one of my other crew members floats in from the other side and we just both turn our heads to the window and look out and we don't say anything to each other in my dream and we're just there. So it's it's that feeling of floating and feeling weightless and then being with people who you love, who you trust.
Right.
It's it's pretty wonderful really, because you know for me the the sort of thing I remember or um some experienced people told me you should make sure you capture a memory or two or um that you can just that you can always c hold with you and that is waking up in that in the morning and just that feeling of Being weightless, it's it's uh it's just so distinct and I you just know I I I would just think I am still here.
¶ Music, Dreams, and Space Exploration
seeing space represented in fiction. So I couldn't imagine if I s if I were lucky enough to be asked to go on a mission to space, I would want to take the soundtrack to the film 2001 and have the blue Danube playing as I was looking out the window.
🎵 Music
How far did any of those kind of cultural imaginations of space affect your actual experience of being in space?
I did think in advance of some music, some tracks that I would like to take, not just for me really, but actually for my crew to listen to after I came back from space. So I took a whole load of different fairly easy listening stuff, bits that meant something to us, you know, if we'd been to...
Like what?
It was um my my commander who I actually launched with, uh he really likes the s the sort of the voice of Tanita Tickerum. If you remember back in the 1980s, so this was just as I was doing my training, she had some really great hits, almost twist in my sobriety.
🎵 Music
She's got this lovely sort of dark, sultry, cozy voice. And then there's another track which I rather liked, um The World Outside Your Window. The irony is that I took these because I knew that my commander really liked her voice. He couldn't understand the words. Rydyn ni'n siarad yn ymwneud hyn yn ymwneud hyn, rydyn ni'n ymwneud hyn yn ymwneud hyn yn ymwneud hyn yn ymwneud â'r newydd, ac rydyn ni'n ymwneud â'r newydd yn ymwneud â'r newydd.
and um and we were talking to each other and we got further and further in our spacecraft away from the space station and then our voices started breaking up on the radio and we couldn't really converse anymore. And Tolia said, you know, I can't hear what you're saying now, so let me let me just play you some music.
🎵 Music
And so although I'd recorded this as a case of gyda Patolya, gyda Patolya, gyda Patolya, gyda Patolya, gyda Patolya, gyda Patolya, gyda Patolya, gyda Patolya, gyda Patolya, gyda Patolya, gyda Patolya.
🎵 Music
My thanks to astronaut Helen Sharman and KD Coleman. Tomorrow, Robert MacFarlane on his new documentary film, Dancers in their seventies and eighties recreate a peanut bausch work they first performed half a century ago, and his protest music in the doldrums or alive and wealth joined Tom at seven fifteen.
Thanks for listening to Front Row. I'm Samira Ahmed and the producer was Oliver Jones. The production coordinator was Lizzie Harris and our studio manager was Tim Heffer. If you enjoyed this programme, you can discover lots more podcasts and radio, including my interview with Noah Wiley, all on BBC.