The Rt Revd Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani is the Bishop of Chelmsford. She also sits in Parliament as a Lord Spiritual and last year she played a prominent role in the Coronation, administering Holy Communion to the King and Queen. She was born in Isfahan, central Iran, the youngest of four children to Hassan Dehqani-Tafti, the first ethnic Iranian Anglican Bishop of his country, and his wife Margaret. In 1980, in the wake of the Islamic Revolution, her family were targeted and forced to leave the cou...
Feb 11, 2024•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Graham William Nash is a musician, singer, songwriter and photographer. He had his first musical success as a member of the UK band The Hollies before his move to America when he sang as part of Crosby, Stills and Nash. Graham was born in 1942 and grew up in Salford. He found his singing voice at the age of six when he realised that not only could he sing, but he had the ability to harmonise any melody. He is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. Over the years, Graham has written many...
Feb 04, 2024•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Delia Smith CH CBE is one of Britain’s most popular and successful cookery writers and broadcasters. Her first book, How to Cheat at Cooking, was published in 1971 and she presented her first television series, Family Fare, two years later. Since then she has presented many more series and her books have sold more than 21 million copies in the UK alone. Her widespread influence has led to the phrase ‘the Delia effect’, when large numbers of shoppers sought out her recommendations. Delia was born...
Jan 21, 2024•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Greta Gerwig is the director of the feature film Barbie - the first woman in cinematic history to have the sole director’s credit for a billion dollar blockbuster. Her previous films include Lady Bird, inspired in part by her own childhood, and Little Women, a widely acclaimed adaptation of the much-loved novel. Greta was born and brought up in Sacramento in California. Her parents encouraged her love of the arts and she started trying to direct her friends in productions while she was still in ...
Jan 14, 2024•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Shirley Ballas is the head judge on Strictly Come Dancing, the BBC’s Saturday night entertainment show, which regularly attracts an audience of many millions. Known as the Queen of Latin dancing, she joined the show in 2017 after a long career as a competitive dancer and teacher. Shirley was born in Wallasey in 1960. She discovered dance as a seven-year-old when she started taking classes in her local church hall. With a combination of natural flair and hard graft she began winning competitions ...
Jan 07, 2024•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Marina Abramović is an artist renowned for performances and feats of endurance, in which her body is pushed to its limits. She has moved, scandalised and delighted audiences for half a century, and is now celebrated by world-leading galleries and institutions. Marina was born in Belgrade in 1946. Her parents were honoured as war heroes for their work for the Partisan resistance movement, and both took up senior roles in the post-war Yugoslav government. Marina became interested in painting durin...
Dec 31, 2023•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dr Nicky Fox is only the second woman to hold the post of Head of Science at NASA since the agency was founded in 1958. She has responsibility for around a hundred missions which are investigating the mysteries of outer space. These missions are tackling questions such as how do hurricanes form and are we alone in the universe. Nicky was born in Hitchin in Hertfordshire and her father introduced her to the wonders of space when she was just a few months old. In 1969 he lifted her out of her cot ...
Dec 24, 2023•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Pia Sinha is the Director of the Prison Reform Trust and a former prison governor. She was awarded the St Martin’s Award for Prison Governance for her role in turning around HMP Liverpool, which was widely described as Britain’s worst jail in 2018, following a highly critical report by HM Inspectorate of Prisons. Pia was born in north India and she and her family came to the UK when she was 14. After studying economics and psychology at university, she pursued a career as a psychologist, and her...
Dec 17, 2023•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Peter White is an award-winning broadcaster. In 2024 he will celebrate 50 years presenting Radio 4’s In Touch, the programme for blind and visually impaired people. He is also one of the presenters of the network’s consumer series, You and Yours. Peter was born in 1947 and has been blind since birth. Like his older brother Colin, he has a rare genetic anomaly that meant his optic nerve hadn’t developed properly. From the age of five he boarded at The Royal School of Industry for the Blind where ...
Dec 10, 2023•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Lea Salonga was just 18 when she became an international theatre star, taking a leading role in the world premiere production of the musical Miss Saigon in 1989. Her performance - first in London, then on Broadway - won her Olivier and Tony awards. She has provided the singing voice for two Disney princesses, and has become a strong advocate for better Asian representation on stage and screen. She was born in Manila in the Philippines, where she made her professional stage debut in 1978 at the a...
Dec 03, 2023•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Professor Dame Lesley Regan is the Government’s first Women’s Health Ambassador for England. She is one of the main drivers behind the upcoming Women’s Health Strategy which aims to tackle the gender health gap and improve services for women. As a former president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists – only the second woman to hold that post in its 94-year history – she shone a light on historically taboo subjects from period problems and contraception to the menopause. Lesle...
Nov 26, 2023•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Patrick Grant is a designer, clothing entrepreneur and a judge on the BBC TV programme The Great British Sewing Bee. Patrick was born in Edinburgh in 1972. His interest in clothes and in making things was evident from a very early age, along with a love of sport: his father was a rugby coach and trained Patrick and his friends. Some of his friends went on to represent Scotland and Patrick played for Scotland's under-19 team. He studied Material Science and Engineering at Leeds University and wor...
Nov 19, 2023•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dame Donna Langley is chairman and chief content officer for the NBC Universal Studio Group, the first British woman in history to run a major Hollywood film studio. She green lit Christopher Nolan’s latest film Oppenheimer and was one of the earliest and most ardent supporters of the Abba movie Mamma Mia. She was born in London and brought up on the Isle of Wight. She always knew she was adopted as a baby, which she says made her feel special within her family. She left London for Los Angeles w...
Nov 12, 2023•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Greg Jackson is the founder and CEO of Octopus Energy. The company is the UK’s second largest domestic energy provider with over five million customers and is one of Europe’s leading investors in renewables. Greg was born in Germany in 1971 where his father was a surveyor in the army. The family returned to the UK a few years later and, following his parents’ divorce, Greg and his two younger siblings were brought up by his mother in Halifax. He describes his mother’s fortitude in bringing up th...
Nov 05, 2023•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Katherine Ryan is a Canadian comedian and writer. Her edgy and provocative routines have led to sell-out tours, comedy specials on television and her sitcom series The Duchess. Based on her experience at the time, the Duchess tells the story of a successful, happily single mother and Katherine wrote it out of frustration because she believed no one else was telling a story like hers on screen. Katherine was born in Sarnia in Ontario where she attended a local French-speaking primary school. The ...
Oct 29, 2023•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Lucinda Russell is a Scottish racehorse trainer. Her stables in Kinross have sent out almost 900 winners, including two Grand National champions. She is one of only two Scottish trainers and four women to have celebrated a Grand National win since the event began in 1839, and her yard is the most successful in the history of Scottish jump racing. Lucinda was born in Edinburgh in 1966. Although she didn’t come from a racing background – her father ran the family’s whisky business – she was obsess...
Oct 22, 2023•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Adrian Edmondson first shot to national fame in 1982, playing the studded punk Vyvyan in the TV sitcom The Young Ones, set in a seedy student flat. The cast largely came from the developing alternative comedy scene, and included Rik Mayall and Alexei Sayle. Adrian was born in Bradford in 1957. He spent time as a child in Cyprus, Bahrain and Uganda, following his father who worked as a teacher for the armed forces. He attended a boarding school in Yorkshire from the age of 11, where he often rebe...
Oct 14, 2023•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Shirley Collins first enjoyed success as one of the leading figures in the British folk revival of the 1960s. She initially performed with her sister, Dolly Collins, and also collaborated with other folk luminaries to create some of the era’s most beloved albums. In the past decade she has made an acclaimed return to the concert stage and the recording studio. Shirley was born in Sussex in 1935. She can still recall how her grandfather used to sing folk songs to comfort her while they were shelt...
Sep 02, 2023•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Toto Wolff is CEO and Team Principal of the Mercedes Formula 1 motor racing team. He has led the team to an unprecedented seven consecutive drivers’ championships – six with Lewis Hamilton - and eight consecutive constructors' championships. He is the most successful manager in Formula 1 history, and arguably one of the most successful managers in any sport. Toto was born Torger Wolff in Vienna. When he was eight his father was diagnosed with a brain tumour and died when Toto was 15. Toto found ...
Aug 27, 2023•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Simon Woolley, Lord Woolley of Woodford, is principal of Homerton College at Cambridge University. He is the first black man to head an Oxbridge college. He is a co-founder of Operation Black Vote, which campaigns for greater inclusivity in politics, and became a crossbench peer in 2019. Simon spent his early years in an orphanage in Leicester before being fostered and then adopted by a white couple who also adopted his brother Mick. He left school at 16 to work as a car mechanic and then moved ...
Aug 20, 2023•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Jill Scott is the second most capped England footballer ever, playing for her country 161 times. Before her retirement last year, she played in ten major international tournaments and was part of the England team who beat Germany to win the 2022 European Championships. Jill was born and brought up in Sunderland, and excelled in a range of sports from an early age. She won the London mini-marathon when she was 14 but her heart was in football. She played for a boys junior football team until she ...
Aug 12, 2023•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Peter Doig is one of Britain’s most successful living artists. His paintings have been exhibited at major galleries around the world, winning wide critical acclaim and selling for tens of millions of pounds at auction, setting sales records. Peter was born in Edinburgh in 1959, but grew up in Trinidad and Canada, where his father had chosen to work. Peter was partly educated at a Scottish boarding school, but didn't enjoy the experience. He returned to Canada, dropped out of education, and at th...
Aug 05, 2023•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Stanley Tucci is an actor, director and writer who is known for his roles in a broad range of feature films including the Devil Wears Prada, Julie and Julia and the Hunger Games. More recently he has whetted the appetites of television viewers with his food and travel series Searching for Italy. Stanley’s grandparents left Calabria in southern Italy for a new life in America, where his parents were born. Stanley himself was born in Peekskill, New York, and grew up in the nearby hamlet of Katonah...
Jul 30, 2023•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kate Mosse OBE is a British novelist and broadcaster. She is the author of ten novels and short story collections, including The Joubert Family Chronicles and the best-selling Languedoc Trilogy. She has also written four works of non-fiction including her memoir about caring, An Extra Pair of Hands. In 1996 she co-founded the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Born in Chichester, she studied English at Oxford University and had a very successful career in publishing before writing her first book about p...
Jul 22, 2023•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Adam Kay is a writer whose memoir This is Going to Hurt; Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor won the Book of the Year prize at the National Book Awards and has sold over three million copies. It was adapted for television as a BBC series that won four BAFTAs this year, including Adam’s award for best drama writer. Adam was born in Brighton in 1980 and studied medicine at Imperial College London. In 2004 he started working as a junior doctor, specialising in obstetrics and gynaecology. In 2010 he l...
Jul 16, 2023•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Claudia Rankine is a poet, essayist and playwright. She is best known for her book Citizen: An American Lyric which combines short stories about everyday injustices experienced by people of colour with poems telling the stories of black men who died during confrontations with the police. The book won several awards in the US and the UK’s Forward Prize for best collection in 2015. Claudia was born in Kingston, Jamaica and at seven followed her parents to New York City where they had emigrated som...
Jul 09, 2023•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Jeremy Bowen is the BBC’s award-winning international editor. He has been reporting from the world’s conflict zones, including Iraq, Bosnia, the Middle East and Ukraine, for more than 30 years. Jeremy was born in Cardiff in 1960. His father was a journalist for BBC Wales, who covered the Aberfan disaster in 1966, and his mother was a press photographer. In 1984, after university, Jeremy joined the BBC as a news trainee and in 1989 he starting reporting from Afghanistan and El Salvador. From 1995...
Jul 02, 2023•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ronnie O’Sullivan OBE is currently ranked the number one snooker player in the world, and is widely regarded as one of the finest players in the history of the sport. He has won the Masters a record seven times and he jointly holds the record for winning the World Snooker Championship seven times. Since 1997 he has held the world record for the fastest 147 break, leading to his nickname 'the Rocket'. Ronnie grew up in Essex and his father gave him his first snooker cue when he was seven. He took...
Jun 24, 2023•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast Professor Sharon Peacock is professor of public health and microbiology at Cambridge University. In March 2020 she set up the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium to map the genetic sequence of the virus as it spread and mutated. Within a year COG-UK was leading the world in identifying mutant COVID strains, and this data was instrumental in helping the development of vaccines and treatments. Sharon was born in Margate and left school at 16 to work in her local corner shop. She moved on to b...
Jun 18, 2023•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Simon Pegg is an actor and screenwriter who became a household name after appearing in two of Hollywood’s most successful film franchises – Mission: Impossible and Star Trek. He also won many fans for co-creating the so-called Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy of films – Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and the World’s End. Simon was born in Gloucester and studied theatre, film and television at the University of Bristol. As a student he started performing stand-up routines with his pet goldfish called...
Jun 11, 2023•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
