84. Summer Round-Up

This is our last podcast before our summer break, so we’ve selected some of our favourite conversations of the last year.   ART: We celebrate Patrick Hughes’s birthday, talk to Tracey Emin about battling cancer and to gallerist James Burch about drinking with Francis Bacon.   BOOKS: Rose Tremain tells us about her novel ‘Lily’, Barbara Taylor Bradford explains how she found inspiration to write the prequel to ‘A Woman of Substance’, Ben Okri inspires to see trees in a totally new light, we discuss culture wars with Bernardine Evaristo and lyricist Don Black, while talking at Jewish Book Week, makes us laugh.  THEATRE: We talk to playwright David Hare about ‘Straight Line Crazy’ and the death of the avant garde, actor Nathaniel Parker about playing Henry VIII in Hilary Mantel’s ‘The Mirror and the Light’, Nick Allott from Cameron Mackintosh regales us with hilarious theatrical anecdotes and Creative Director of the Young Vic, Kwame Kwei-Armah, praises playwright James Graham.   HISTORY: Andrew Roberts tells us about George III and A.N. Wilson explains how our Trafalgar Square Christmas tree was a gift from the King of Norway during World War II.  MUSIC and DANCE: We talk to ballet-dancer Marcelino Sambé about playing Romeo in Kevin McMillan’s ballet, to choreographer Matthew Bourne about his stellar career, to soprano Anush Hovvanisyan about all the Armenians at the Royal Opera House and playing Violetta in Richard Eyre’s ‘Traviata’ and finally Dylan Jones, polymath and long-standing editor of GQ, tells us what David Bowie was really like. Enjoy the summer. Ed and Charlotte will be back on Sunday September 11th September.