This week Libby Purves is joined by Justin Vivian Bond, Ruth Leon, Kenneth Cranham and Noel Tovey. Justin Vivian Bond is the American actor, singer and performance artist, formerly of the cabaret duo, Kiki & Herb. A Tony Award nominee, he returns to London to perform his solo show as part of the Soho Theatre's Comedy and Cabaret season. His new album is titled 'Dendrophile'. Ruth Leon is a writer and broadcaster specialising in all performing arts. She is also the widow of the theatre critic...
Jun 29, 2011•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by guests including Princess Campbell, Simon Day, Clare Peake and Henry Winkler. Princess Campbell was one of the first black ward sisters working in the NHS; she was one of a pioneering group of African-Caribbean workers who began to challenge barriers of prejudice. Her uniform goes on display at M-Shed, Bristol's new city museum in the old 1950s transit sheds at Prince's Wharf on the historic waterfront. Simon Day is the actor and stand-up comedian, probably be...
Jun 22, 2011•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Phil Davison, Sylvia Holder, Iris Krass and Bill Collison. Phil Davison is a craft-maker who worked as a couture pattern cutter to top London designers before learning the ancient art of cross-stitch on an exchange trip to Arkansas. Since then he has combined his obsession with street-art and cross-stitch, creating 'Urban Cross Stitch' kits with new designs that appeal to a new generation of stitchers. He also runs 'Cupcake, Cocktail and Cross Stitch' evenings...
Jun 15, 2011•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Meeta Raval, Kate Allatt, Gene David Kirk and Nell Gifford. Meeta Raval is recognised as a rising star of the new generation of opera singers and is one of the contestants in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition. She attended Wells Cathedral School and was the first Head Girl Chorister in the country. The competition will be broadcast on BBC Two, BBC Four, BBC Two Wales, Radio 3, Radio Wales and Radio Cymru. Fell-runner and mother of three, Kate All...
Jun 08, 2011•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Carol Furtado, Col Sgt Simon Panter, Vince Hill and Barry McGuigan. Carol Furtado is lead dancer in 'The Merchants of Bollywood', a theatrical dance extravaganza, charting the history of the world's largest and most prolific film industry. 'The Merchants of Bollywood' is at the Peacock Theatre, London. Colour Sgt Simon Panter features in 'Our War' on BBC Three which marks the 10th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan by using footage shot by the soldiers them...
Jun 01, 2011•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Professor Nicky Clayton, Bill Roedy, Edward Petherbridge and Steve Greenhaugh. Nicky Clayton is Professor of Comparative Cognition at Cambridge University and is an expert in bird behaviour. She is also passionate about dance and now combines these two strands as the Rambert Dance Company's first 'Scientist in Residence'. She is working with the Rambert on a new production, "Seven for a Secret, Never to be Told" and will be at this year's Hay Festival. Bill Ro...
May 25, 2011•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Dr Kevin Jones, Vic Armstrong, Vidal Sassoon and Peter Jefferson. Dr Kevin Jones is an NHS Consultant in Acute Medicine at the Royal Bolton Hospital and is also a comedian. He features in a short film, 'Dying for a Laugh', along with stand-up comedians including Shappi Khorsandi, Ricky Tomlinson, and Dave Spikey, all reflecting (and joking) about the taboo subject of death. The film supports National Dying Matters Awareness Week which aims to get people talkin...
May 18, 2011•41 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Jon Cousins, Paul Broda, Suggs and Patsy Rodenburg. Jon Cousins set up the website 'Moodscope' to help people manage their moods. Through his own personal experience of suffering from depression he used research by an American psychologist to create a site that lets fellow sufferers monitor their own wellbeing through a brief, daily online test. The results produce a "happiness number" that comforts those worried about their own state of mind, and the results ...
May 11, 2011•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Baroness Jenkin, Walter Schwarz, Doreen Mantle and Gary Cockerill. Anne Jenkin, Baroness Jenkin of Kennington is a PR consultant. She was made a member of the House of Lords in recognition of her charitable and political work for the Conservative Party. She is taking part in a fundraising and awareness campaign, 'Live Below the Line', for the charity 'Restless Development'. The campaign is challenging people to live below the poverty line, by spending just one...
May 04, 2011•42 min
Libby Purves is joined by Wayne Bartholomew, Mary King, Roger Garfitt and Randle Siddeley Wayne Bartholomew is the general manager of the Lake District hotel The Damson Dene in Windermere which features in a 'fly on the wall' series on Channel 4 called The Hotel. Mary King is a singing coach, singer and conductor and Director of the Southbank Centre's VoiceLab. Mary will be training 750 singers who will be taking part in the Messiah Concert at the Chorus! Festival at the Southbank with the accla...
Apr 27, 2011•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Dion Dublin, Robert Irwin, Gary Wiltshire and Molly Naylor. Dion Dublin is a retired English footballer turned amateur percussionist and musician. He has invented a percussion instrument called "The Dube". During his football career he played for teams including Norwich City, Manchester Utd, Aston Villa and Celtic and was capped four times for England. Since retiring he has become a football pundit for Sky and has co-presented 5 Live's 606 and currently the BB...
Apr 20, 2011•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Raghu Dixit, Beata Zatorska, Linda Nolan and Brian Deighton. Raghu Dixit is an Indian crossover musician from Mysore. He founded the Raghu Dixit Project, an open house for musicians and artistes from different genres to come together, collaborate and create a dynamic sound and expression. He is a former Microbiologist and a proficient Indian Classical Dancer and his latest CD is entitled 'Raghu Dixit'. Beata Zatorska was born and raised in Communist Poland in ...
Apr 13, 2011•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Joshua Foer, Marianne Talbot, Tom Renouf and Lydia Carmichael. Joshua Foer's book 'Moonwalking with Einstein' tells of his year spent investigating memory, in which he talks to experts around the world including neuroscientists, chess masters and 'memory historians'. He also undertakes training under a Memory Grand Master, and finds himself in the finals of the US Memory Championship, among competitors who can recite pi to ten thousand decimal places. 'Moonwal...
Apr 06, 2011•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Travis Meinolf, Vernon Rapley, Prof Lewis Wolpert and Rachel Clare. Travis Meinolf is an 'action weaver' who travels around the world engaging communities in interactive weaving, drawing on human connections, conversations and stories and embeds them into cloth woven on the move. He is interested in the symbolism and meaning of cloth and has been observing the way people in Libya are representing themselves through sewing their own flags. As part of an event o...
Mar 30, 2011•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Ben Goddard, Dame Catherine, Jeff Pearce and David Wood. Ben Goddard is playing the role of Jerry Lee Lewis in the musical 'Million Dollar Quartet' inspired by the actual event that took place on 4th December 1956 at Sun Records in Memphis, when Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis came together to make music for the first and only time. 'Million Dollar Quartet' is at the Noel Coward Theatre, London WC2. Dame Catherine was a banker befo...
Mar 23, 2011•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Jean-Marie Akkerman, Sir Cameron Mackintosh, Katie Piper and Laura Lee. Jean-Marie Akkerman, a fourth generation circus performer, is founder of Cirque Nova, the only circus in the world working specifically with people who have physical, learning and mental health disabilities . Among is his liberating ideas has been to adapt trapeze swings to enable wheelchair-users to fly through the air upside down. Cirque Nova is one of the Comic Relief supported projects...
Mar 16, 2011•40 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Clarence B Jones, Carodoc King and Yangzom Brauen. Clarence B Jones was the co-author of the 'I Have a Dream' speech and a close confidant to Martin Luther King himself. He was there, on the road, collaborating with the great minds of the time, and hammering out the ideas that would shape the civil rights movement. He is the sole survivor of those who had direct participation in these events. His book 'Behind the Dream', co-written by Stuart Connelly, is publi...
Mar 09, 2011•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Mary Wilson, Larry Lamb, Siza Mtimbiri and Arthur Jeffes. Mary Wilson is the singer and a founding member of sixties group The Supremes. On the legendary Motown record label, they were able to cross racial boundaries to become one of the most successful musical acts of all time - the only group to have five consecutive number one hits. She's now an author, motivational speaker, and an international spokeswoman for the 'Humpty Dumpty Institute', a humanitarian ...
Mar 02, 2011•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Eva Petulengro, Izzeldin Abuelaish, Rebecca Peyton and Mark Todd. Eva Petulengro is a member of the last generation of true Romany gypsies who spent her childhood on the road with her family. She read palms on Brighton Pier and became one of the country's leading clairvoyants and astrologers, with famous clients including The Beatles and Michael Crawford. Her book 'The Girl in the Painted Caravan - Memories of a Romany Childhood' is published by Pan MacMillan....
Feb 23, 2011•42 min
This week Sian Williams is joined by Sean Foggett, Andrew Barrow, Magsie Hamilton-Little and David Morrissey. Shaun Foggett is the UK's answer to 'Crocodile Dundee'. His passion is crocodiles; and he's been keeping twenty-seven of them in the back garden of his semi-detached house in Oxfordshire. Shaun's efforts to open the UK's first Crocodile Education and Conservation Centre are the subject of the TV documentary Croc Man, which is on the Discovery Channel. Andrew Barrow is a writer and journa...
Feb 16, 2011•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Fiona Stanford, Mark Henderson, Father Ray and Raymond Gubbay. Fiona Stanford is married to a high ranking army officer, a former commander of the Welsh Guards. Her book 'Don't Say Goodbye', is the story of the men and women who are left behind when their partners go to war, with first hand accounts from mothers, wives, girlfriends and children. She was prompted to write the book after the death of one of her closest friends husbands', Lieutenant Colonel Ruper...
Feb 09, 2011•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Sophie Thompson, Patrick Cockburn, Kevin Skelton and Fred Sirieix. Sophie Thompson is the award-winning stage, film and television actor who is currently reprising her role in the critically acclaimed Clybourne Park, an hilarious satire which explores the fault line between race and property. Written in two parts, over two generations in 1959 and 2009, the company play a different role in each act. Clybourne Park has just transferred to the West End and is pla...
Feb 02, 2011•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Bran Symondson, Joan Woodcock, Greg Hicks and Phillip King. Bran Symondson is a serving soldier in the British Army Reserve. Whilst on a six month tour of Afghanistan he became fascinated by the Afghan National Police (ANP), their ethos and their daily existence in the war with the Taliban. When he was given the opportunity to return and document these characters as a civilian photographer in 2010, with the Sunday Times, he was able to capture a unique perspec...
Jan 26, 2011•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by David M Lutken, Lee Mack, David Threlfall and Janet Street-Porter. David M Lutken is an American actor and writer. He is the co-writer (with Nick Corley) and the star of a new musical, 'Woody Sez', about Woody Guthrie, who according to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was "the original folk hero; a man who, in the Thirties and Forties, transformed the folk ballad into a vehicle for social protest and observation, and paved the way for the likes of Bob Dylan". 'W...
Jan 19, 2011•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Lorraine Pascale, Wilbert Rideau, Dame Kelly Holmes and Stephen Hough. Lorraine Pascale was spotted aged 16 by a model scout whilst shopping in Covent Garden. She was whisked off to New York to model for Chanel, Lagerfeld and John Galliano and was the first British black model on the cover of American Elle magazine. She's now left the catwalk to qualify as a professional chef, baker and patissiere and is about to appear in a new series for BBC Two, Baking Made...
Jan 12, 2011•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by John Sergeant, Rufus Sewell, Wasfi Kani and Tom Pey. John Sergeant is the former political editor of ITN. Since appearing on Midweek in 2002 ahead of the publication of his autobiography 'Give Me Ten Seconds' he has left political journalism behind in favour of writing, acting, presenting and making documentaries about everything from Grimefighters to Indian railways to tourism. He also won a place in the nation's heart when he took part in the BBC's 'Strictly...
Dec 29, 2010•41 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Gordon Buchanan, Les Persaud, Reece Shearsmith and Vicki Amedume. Gordon has worked as a wildlife cameraman for nearly twenty years, specialising in filming dangerous predators, including tigers and leopards in Bhutan, jaguars in the Amazon, and lions in Africa. In 'The Bear Family and Me' on BBC Two, Gordon spends a year with a family of wild Black Bears in the forests of Minnesota. Les Persaud's sixteen year old son Stefan was killed in South London after a ...
Dec 22, 2010•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Professor Chris Rapley, Boyd Clack, Elisabeth Parry and Jamelia. Professor Chris Rapley MBE is the Director of the Science Museum in London. Before that he was Director of the British Antarctic Survey. The new high tech, interactive 'Atmosphere' gallery opened last week and aims to outline the basics of climate science and explain about human activity and our impact on weather patterns. The Science Museum will be the first and only museum in the UK to display ...
Dec 15, 2010•42 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Klaus Kruse, Bryn Terfel, Sir Patrick Stewart and Becky Unthank. Klaus Kruse is a German director, scenographer, performer and poet. His research into audience/performance spatial relationships and the effecting potential of space within a theatrical experience led him to co-found 'Living Structures'. 'Cart Macabre' is their newest work and two years in the making, part theatre, part installation, it is on at The Old Vic Tunnels, described as "a nightmare fair...
Dec 08, 2010•41 min
This week Libby Purves is joined by Xander Rawlins, Jane Milligan, Mary Ward, Mark Logue and Matthew Kelly. Xander Rawlins is a Captain in the Grenadier Guards. He releases his debut single '1000 miles Apart' this month, a song that was written whilst he was serving on the front line in Afghanistan's Helmand Province. He performed off-the-cuff concerts which he found was a way of bringing everyone together, and his two acoustic guitars travelled with him throughout his 6 month, 8000 mile tour of...
Dec 01, 2010•42 min
