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Gold sequins, silk and vibrant colour threads might not be what you expect to find in a sampler stitched by a Quaker girl in the seventeenth century. New Generation Thinker Isabella Rosner has studied examples of embroidered nutmegs and decorated shell shadow boxes found in London and Philadelphia which present a more complicated picture of Quaker attitudes and the decorated objects they created as part of a girl's education. Dr Isabella Rosner is a textile historian and curator at the Royal School of Needlework on the New Generation Thinker scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to highlight new research. You can hear more from her in Free Thinking episodes called Stitching stories and A lively Tudor world Producer: Ruth Watts
Who's Holding the Baby? was the title of an exhibition organised to highlight a lack of childcare provision in East London in the 1970s. Was this feminist art? Bobby Baker, Sonia Boyce, Rita Keegan and members of the photography collective Hackney Flashers are some of the artists who've been taking part in an oral history project with New Generation Thinker Ana Baeza Ruiz. Her essay presents some of their reflections on what it means to make art and call yourself a feminist. Dr Ana Baeza Ruiz is the Research Associate for the project Feminist Art Making Histories (FAMH) at Loughborough University and a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to showcase new research into the humanities. You can hear her in Free Thinking episodes on Portraits and Women, art and activism available as an Arts & Ideas podcast. Producer: Ruth Watts
Canvey Island: cradle of innovation for gas heating and home to music makers Dr Feelgood, who drew inspiration from the Mississippi Delta. New Generation Thinker Sam Johnson-Schlee is an author and geographer based at London South Bank University. His essay remembers the influence of Parker Morris standards on heating in the home, songs written by Wilko Johnson and the impact of central heating on teenage bedrooms, record listening and playing instruments. Producer: Julian Siddle You can hear more from Sam in Free Thinking episodes exploring Dust and Sound, Conflict and Central Heating New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put research on radio
Gold sequins, silk and vibrant colour threads might not be what you expect to find in a sampler stitched by a Quaker girl in the seventeenth century. New Generation Thinker Isabella Rosner has studied examples of embroidered nutmegs and decorated shell shadow boxes found in London and Philadelphia which present a more complicated picture of Quaker attitudes and the decorated objects they created as part of a girl's education. Dr Isabella Rosner is a textile historian and curator at the Royal School of Needlework on the New Generation Thinker scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to highlight new research. You can hear more from her in Free Thinking episodes called Stitching stories and A lively Tudor world Producer: Ruth Watts
A 1660s board game made by a Jesuit missionary sent to the Mohawk Valley in North America is the subject of New Generation Thinker Gemma Tidman's essay. This race game, a little like Snakes and Ladders, depicts the path of a Christian life and afterlife. Gemma explores what the game tells us about how powerful people have long turned to play, images, and other persuasive means to secure converts and colonial subjects. Dr Gemma Tidman is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Queen Mary University London and a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put research on radio. You can hear more from her in Free Thinking discussions about Game-playing, and Sneezing, smells and noses. Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The A13 runs from the City of London past Tilbury Docks and the site of the Dagenham Ford factory to Benfleet and the Wat Tyler Country Park. As he travels along it, talking to residents about their ideas of community and change, New Generation Thinker Dan Taylor reflects on the history of the area and different versions of hopes for the future. Dr Dan Taylor lectures in social and political thought at the Open University and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to share insights from academic research on radio. You can hear him in Free Thinking discussions about Essex, and discussing medieval bestiaries in Beast and Animals. He is also the author of a book Island Story: Journeys Through Unfamiliar Britain and you can hear him in a Free Thinking episode discussing the county Essex. Producer: Torquil MacLeod
From 1922, between 10-30,000 women and girls are thought to have been incarcerated at the Magdalene laundries which operated in Ireland. New Generation Thinker Louise Brangan has been reading the testimonies of many of the girls who survived these institutions. As the Irish state tries to come to terms with this history, how should it be spoken about? Is a language of legal blame and guilt enough to make sense of this history? Dr Louise Brangan is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Strathclyde and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (part of UKRI) to put research on radio. You can find her contributing to Free Thinking discussion episodes looking at Ireland's hidden histories and secret stories Producer in Salford: Olive Clancy
Two years living at sea taught New Generation Thinker Kerry McInerney values which she wants to apply to the development of AI. Her Essay explores the "sustainable AI" movement and looks at visions of the future in novels including Waste Tide by Chen Qiufan and Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl. Dr McInerney is a Research Associate at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge and a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to put academic research on radio. Producer: Julian Siddle You can hear more from Kerry in Free Thinking and New Thinking episodes available as Arts & Ideas podcasts called AI, feminism, human/machines and Yellowface, AI and Asian stereotypes.
Why do babies say "daddy" earlier and what might it mean when a baby does call for "mum" or "anne"? Dr Rebecca Woods, from Newcastle University, calls upon her training in linguistics and observations from her own home to trace the way children’s experiences shape their first words and the names they use for their parents. Rebecca Woods is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put academic research on radio. Producer: Ruth Watts You can hear more from Rebecca Woods in a Free Thinking discussion about childhood and play when Young V&A opened - it's available from the programme website and as an Arts & Ideas podcast
Canvey Island: cradle of innovation for gas heating and home to music makers Dr Feelgood, who drew inspiration from the Mississippi Delta. New Generation Thinker Sam Johnson-Schlee is an author and geographer based at London South Bank University. His essay remembers the influence of Parker Morris standards on heating in the home, songs written by Wilko Johnson and the impact of central heating on teenage record listening and playing instruments. Producer: Julian Siddle You can hear more from Sam in Free Thinking episodes exploring Dust and Sound, Conflict and Central Heating New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put research on radio
Two years living at sea taught New Generation Thinker Kerry McInerney values which she wants to apply to the development of AI. Her Essay explores the "sustainable AI" movement and looks at visions of the future in novels including Waste Tide by Chen Qiufan and Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl. Dr McInerney is a Research Associate at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge and a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to put academic research on radio. Producer: Julian Siddle You can hear more from Kerry in Free Thinking and New Thinking episodes available as Arts & Ideas podcasts called AI, feminism, human/machines and Yellowface, AI and Asian stereotypes
Looking at the way human and animal bodies were treated in death and used in rituals prompts New Generation Thinker and archaeologist Marianne Hem Eriksen, from the University of Leicester, to ask questions about the way humans, animals and spirit worlds were understood. Her Essay shares stories from a research project called Body-Politics’: presenting worlds where elite men could shape-shift into animals — and some people’s bones ended up in rubbish pits. This Essay is part of the BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinkers scheme which puts academic research on radio. Producer: Luke Mulhall You can hear Marianne discussing insights from her research in episodes of Free Thinking called The Kitchen and in one broadcasting next week looking at Attitudes towards death.
Amalia Holst's defence of female education, published in 1802, was the first work by a woman in Germany to challenge the major philosophers of the age, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant. Unlike Mary Wollstonecraft writing in England, Holst failed to make headway with her arguments. New Generation Thinker Andrew Cooper teaches in the philosophy department at the University of Warwick. His essay explores the publishing of Holst's book On The Vocation of Woman to Higher Intellectual Education. Andrew Cooper is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI. Producer: Luke Mulhall You can hear more from Andrew in a Free Thinking discussion about The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe available as an Arts & Ideas podcast and on BBC Sounds.
Why do babies say "daddy" earlier and what might it mean when a baby does call for "mum" or "anne"? Dr Rebecca Woods, from Newcastle University, calls upon her training in linguistics and observations from her own home to trace the way children’s experiences shape their first words and the names they use for their parents. Rebecca Woods is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put academic research on radio. Producer: Ruth Watts You can hear more from Rebecca Woods in a Free Thinking discussion about childhood and play when Young V&A opened - it's available from the programme website and as an Arts & Ideas podcast
Traditional Variety has been a lifelong fascination for poet and playwright Amanda Dalton. She grew up in a family that included several amateur and professional entertainers and from an early age the world of Variety Theatre was ‘in her blood’... During WW2, her dad organised and performed in a night of entertainment at King Farouk’s palace in Cairo, She recalls her mum tap dancing in the kitchen as the dinner burnt. One of her most precious and prized possessions is a poster, retrieved from her uncle’s home, for a variety show at the New Hippodrome, Darlington in 1938 - acts including Waldini’s Famous Gypsy Band, Billy Brown Upside Down and his wonderful dog Lady and her uncle himself, Barry Phelps. With Idina Scott Gatty, Entertainer. As a child, Amanda never missed Sunday Night at the London Palladium or the Good Old Days on TV. Variety shows were her parents’ favourites - her obsession with them is perhaps not surprising. The acts that have always most fascinated her are those ‘speciality’ acts that disturb even as they entertain, designed to bamboozle the audience and mess with the mind. These essays will explore Amanda’s relationship with the different kinds of acts that thrived as UK Variety emerged from the embers of Music Hall (1930s – 1950s). Listeners are introduced to some of the key performers, a fascinating collection of unusual and striking characters with extraordinary skills and showmanship. Essay 5: How Did They Do That? Magic and Mesmerism In this final essay, Amanda explores the world of magicians and hypnotists - the blurred line between acts of illusion and the apparently paranormal, the moment when the solidity of our logical, rational narrative of the world starts to fall away and we enter a state of bewilderment. The essay springs from Amanda’s memories of her own childhood fascination with magic and her desire for it to be ‘real’, despite her terror of psychic phenomena - a fascination that is still with her today and continues to inform her writing. “That’s entertainment??” asks the essay, as it ponders the connections between amusement, thrill, escapism and fear. Writer and reader, Amanda Dalton Producer, Polly Thomas Exec Producer, Eloise Whitmore A Naked Production for BBC Radio 3. Biog Amanda Dalton is poet, playwright and essayist based in West Yorkshire. She has written extensively for BBC Radio 4 and 3 and for theatres including Manchester’s Royal Exchange, Sheffield Theatres, and Theatre By The Lake, Keswick who are premiering her radical adaptation of Francis Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess during Winter 2023-4. Her poetry collections are published by Bloodaxe Books and she has pamphlets with Smith|Doorstop and ARC. A new collection – Fantastic Voyage – is forthcoming from Bloodaxe in May 2024 and includes some poems about magic!
Traditional Variety has been a lifelong fascination for poet and playwright Amanda Dalton. She grew up in a family that included several amateur and professional entertainers and from an early age the world of Variety Theatre was ‘in her blood’... During WW2, her dad organised and performed in a night of entertainment at King Farouk’s palace in Cairo, She recalls her mum tap dancing in the kitchen as the dinner burnt. One of her most precious and prized possessions is a poster, retrieved from her uncle’s home, for a variety show at the New Hippodrome, Darlington in 1938 - acts including Waldini’s Famous Gypsy Band, Billy Brown Upside Down and his wonderful dog Lady and her uncle himself, Barry Phelps. With Idina Scott Gatty, Entertainer. As a child, Amanda never missed Sunday Night at the London Palladium or the Good Old Days on TV. Variety shows were her parents’ favourites - her obsession with them is perhaps not surprising. The acts that have always most fascinated her are those ‘speciality’ acts that disturb even as they entertain, designed to bamboozle the audience and mess with the mind. These essays will explore Amanda’s relationship with the different kinds of acts that thrived as UK Variety emerged from the embers of Music Hall (1930s – 1950s). Listeners are introduced to some of the key performers, a fascinating collection of unusual and striking characters with extraordinary skills and showmanship. Essay 4: Girls! Girls! Girls! Women in Variety For today’s essay, Amanda turns her attention to female variety acts including those frequently unnamed, scantily clad ‘glamorous assistants.’ Built around the rediscovery of her mum’s 1920s and 30s scrapbook which charts her ventures into the world of entertainment, Amanda considers the role and frequently disturbing representation of women in old Variety Theatre, and her own mum’s journey through this landscape. Writer and reader, Amanda Dalton Producer, Polly Thomas Exec Producer, Eloise Whitmore A Naked Production for BBC Radio 3. Biog Amanda Dalton is poet, playwright and essayist based in West Yorkshire. She has written extensively for BBC Radio 4 and 3 and for theatres including Manchester’s Royal Exchange, Sheffield Theatres, and Theatre By The Lake, Keswick who are premiering her radical adaptation of Francis Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess during Winter 2023-4. Her poetry collections are published by Bloodaxe Books and she has pamphlets with Smith|Doorstop and ARC. A new collection – Fantastic Voyage – is forthcoming from Bloodaxe in May 2024 and includes some poems about magic!
Traditional Variety has been a lifelong fascination for poet and playwright Amanda Dalton. She grew up in a family that included several amateur and professional entertainers and from an early age the world of Variety Theatre was ‘in her blood’... During WW2, her dad organised and performed in a night of entertainment at King Farouk’s palace in Cairo, She recalls her mum tap dancing in the kitchen as the dinner burnt. One of her most precious and prized possessions is a poster, retrieved from her uncle’s home, for a variety show at the New Hippodrome, Darlington in 1938 - acts including Waldini’s Famous Gypsy Band, Billy Brown Upside Down and his wonderful dog Lady and her uncle himself, Barry Phelps. With Idina Scott Gatty, Entertainer. As a child, Amanda never missed Sunday Night at the London Palladium or the Good Old Days on TV. Variety shows were her parents’ favourites - her obsession with them is perhaps not surprising. The acts that have always most fascinated her are those ‘speciality’ acts that disturb even as they entertain, designed to bamboozle the audience and mess with the mind. These essays will explore Amanda’s relationship with the different kinds of acts that thrived as UK Variety emerged from the embers of Music Hall (1930s – 1950s). Listeners are introduced to some of the key performers, a fascinating collection of unusual and striking characters with extraordinary skills and showmanship. Essay 3: It's The Animal In Me: Animal Acts in Variety Theatre In this third essay of the series Amanda looks not only to the dancing dogs, disappearing doves and rabbits pulled from hats, but to the wild animal acts that at one time were a regular feature of Variety. A lifelong animal lover who grew up in a houseful of pets, she recalls her uneasy childhood experiences of watching animals on stage – something she loved and hated in equal measure - and asks what is the appeal of watching animals ‘perform’ and what can the lens of Variety reveal of our attitudes to other species and ourselves? Writer and reader, Amanda Dalton Producer, Polly Thomas Exec Producer, Eloise Whitmore A Naked Production for BBC Radio 3. Biog Amanda Dalton is poet, playwright and essayist based in West Yorkshire. She has written extensively for BBC Radio 4 and 3 and for theatres including Manchester’s Royal Exchange, Sheffield Theatres, and Theatre By The Lake, Keswick who are premiering her radical adaptation of Francis Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess during Winter 2023-4. Her poetry collections are published by Bloodaxe Books and she has pamphlets with Smith|Doorstop and ARC. A new collection – Fantastic Voyage – is forthcoming from Bloodaxe in May 2024 and includes some poems about magic!
Traditional Variety has been a lifelong fascination for poet and playwright Amanda Dalton. She grew up in a family that included several amateur and professional entertainers and from an early age the world of Variety Theatre was ‘in her blood’... During WW2, her dad organised and performed in a night of entertainment at King Farouk’s palace in Cairo, She recalls her mum tap dancing in the kitchen as the dinner burnt. One of her most precious and prized possessions is a poster, retrieved from her uncle’s home, for a variety show at the New Hippodrome, Darlington in 1938 - acts including Waldini’s Famous Gypsy Band, Billy Brown Upside Down and his wonderful dog Lady and her uncle himself, Barry Phelps. With Idina Scott Gatty, Entertainer. As a child, Amanda never missed Sunday Night at the London Palladium or the Good Old Days on TV. Variety shows were her parents’ favourites - her obsession with them is perhaps not surprising. The acts that have always most fascinated her are those ‘speciality’ acts that disturb even as they entertain, designed to bamboozle the audience and mess with the mind. These essays will explore Amanda’s relationship with the different kinds of acts that thrived as UK Variety emerged from the embers of Music Hall (1930s – 1950s). Listeners are introduced to some of the key performers, a fascinating collection of unusual and striking characters with extraordinary skills and showmanship. Essay 2: Gokkle o’ Geer: Ventriloquists and their Dummies Fascinated by the ‘speciality’ acts that disturb even as they entertain, in this second essay of the series Amanda turns her attention to ventriloquism. Rooted in Amanda’s personal experience, she considers ventriloquism’s extraordinary relationship with the human gut and traces its origins to the ancient belly prophets – or gastromancers. What might the anarchic truth-speaking of the ventriloquist’s doll have to tell us about both our physiology and our minds? Writer and reader, Amanda Dalton Producer, Polly Thomas Exec Producer, Eloise Whitmore A Naked Production for BBC Radio 3. Biog Amanda Dalton is poet, playwright and essayist based in West Yorkshire. She has written extensively for BBC Radio 4 and 3 and for theatres including Manchester’s Royal Exchange, Sheffield Theatres, and Theatre By The Lake, Keswick who are premiering her radical adaptation of Francis Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess during Winter 2023-4. Her poetry collections are published by Bloodaxe Books and she has pamphlets with Smith|Doorstop and ARC. A new collection – Fantastic Voyage – is forthcoming from Bloodaxe in May 2024 and includes some poems about magic!
Traditional Variety has been a lifelong fascination for poet and playwright Amanda Dalton. She grew up in a family that included several amateur and professional entertainers and from an early age the world of Variety Theatre was ‘in her blood’... During WW2, her dad organised and performed in a night of entertainment at King Farouk’s palace in Cairo, She recalls her mum tap dancing in the kitchen as the dinner burnt. One of her most precious and prized possessions is a poster, retrieved from her uncle’s home, for a variety show at the New Hippodrome, Darlington in 1938 - acts including Waldini’s Famous Gypsy Band, Billy Brown Upside Down and his wonderful dog Lady and her uncle himself, Barry Phelps. With Idina Scott Gatty, Entertainer. As a child, Amanda never missed Sunday Night at the London Palladium or the Good Old Days on TV. Variety shows were her parents’ favourites - her obsession with them is perhaps not surprising. The acts that have always most fascinated her are those ‘speciality’ acts that disturb even as they entertain, designed to bamboozle the audience and mess with the mind. These essays will explore Amanda’s relationship with the different kinds of acts that thrived as UK Variety emerged from the embers of Music Hall (1930s – 1950s). Listeners are introduced to some of the key performers, a fascinating collection of unusual and striking characters with extraordinary skills and showmanship. In That’s Entertainment...? Variety and Me, Amanda revisits some of the acts that made up this form of light entertainment, exploring how they connected with her own family’s life and considering their personal and cultural meaning for her both as a child and as the writer she is today. Essay 1: Singing, Dancing and Having a Laugh: The Backbone of Variety. The first essay of this series introduces listeners to the world of Variety as it morphed from Music Hall and journeyed into televised entertainment. It considers the backbone of the Variety Show – song, dance and comedy – through the lens of Amanda’s personal memories of growing up in a rather unusual family. Writer and reader, Amanda Dalton Producer, Polly Thomas Exec Producer, Eloise Whitmore A Naked Production for BBC Radio 3. Biog Amanda Dalton is poet, playwright and essayist based in West Yorkshire. She has written extensively for BBC Radio 4 and 3 and for theatres including Manchester’s Royal Exchange, Sheffield Theatres, and Theatre By The Lake, Keswick who are premiering her radical adaptation of Francis Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess during Winter 2023-4. Her poetry collections are published by Bloodaxe Books and she has pamphlets with Smith|Doorstop and ARC. A new collection – Fantastic Voyage – is forthcoming from Bloodaxe in May 2024 and includes some poems about magic!
Essay 5: Christmas Pudding A new series of essays written and read by the very popular Fiona Stafford, Professor of Literature at Somerville College, Oxford, following her much praised series of essays The Meaning of Trees and Composers and their Dogs. Here Fiona explores some of the world’s favourite puddings, all of which have surprising stories and have become symbols far beyond the pudding bowl. Christmas pudding. A British icon, supposedly a classless, medieval religious symbol but which owes its modern prominence to Dickens. Exported as Empire Pudding, it is loved around the Commonwealth. There are surprising local adaptations in Asia (especially India) and the Caribbean, adding spices and exotic elements and renaming it as their own Christmas tradition. Thus it symbolises the reverse appropriation of imperialism. Key ingredient: dried fruit. Dates back to 4000 BC, much older than any religion, hence its role in nearly all of them. Christmas pudding is an example of the Victorians inventing many of our “traditions” we think of as older. Charles Dickens was a major creator of modern ideas of Christmas, with Mrs Beeton’s recipe for 'Exceedingly Good Plum Pudding' (later Christmas pudding) whether flambéed or teetotal, establishing the British idea of Christmas centring on particular foods. Literary examples include Edward Lear's wacky villain, 'The Plum Pudding Flea'. Seeing and eating a Christmas pudding is like breaking into hot earth, a sweet, steaming mound of loam that looks rich enough to plant and grow the healthiest of Christmas trees; a universal substrate for a global festival. And then … there’s the tooth-breaking sixpence-in-the-pudding tradition. Producer – Turan Ali A Bona Broadcasting production for BBC Radio 3
Essay 4: Pavlova A new series of essays written and read by the very popular Fiona Stafford, Professor of Literature at Somerville College, Oxford, following her much praised series of essays The Meaning of Trees and Composers and their Dogs. Here Fiona explores some of the world’s favourite puddings, all of which have surprising stories and have become symbols far beyond the pudding bowl. Pavlova is a much-disputed national symbol claimed by rival neighbours. A crisp meringue with whipped cream and fruit, it has become a source of pride and national identity for New Zealand and Australia; both claim its creation with disputed historical citations. For both it is their Christmas dessert. But the pavlova symbolises the re-writing of history. Actually, it’s a 1700s Austrian Habsburger dessert, long before ballerina Pavlova's 1926 Australian tour (a story of celebrity hysteria) supposedly inspired it. The USA documented an almost identical dessert in 1896 with another name. Thus Australia or New Zealand can only claim to have renamed it. Key ingredient: egg white. We explore its amazing properties and health benefits. Addressing a pavlova is like looking into a huge cloud at sunset, the surface bright with warm colours (strawberries, passion fruit); breaking it open reveals the white fluffy interior one expects (whipped cream). No wonder the world recognises and loves this pudding. Producer – Turan Ali A Bona Broadcasting production for BBC Radio 3
Essay 3: Crème Brûlée A new series of essays written and read by the very popular Fiona Stafford, Professor of Literature at Somerville College, Oxford, following her much praised series of essays The Meaning of Trees and Composers and their Dogs. Here Fiona explores some of the world’s favourite puddings, all of which have surprising stories and have become symbols far beyond the pudding bowl. Crème brûlée (meaning burnt cream) - a pudding thought of as a French creation (1697). But its surprising backstory saw British food historians claim it as a creation by the chefs at Trinity College, Cambridge (founded in 1546), prompting French academics to then cite their version from the early 1500s, with literary references. French aristocracy’s fervent embracing of it as a wealth and status symbol put this pudding on the international map, but post-revolution the French abandoned it as a decadent symbol of the rejected gentry, with expensive cream, eggs and scarce refined sugar. For two centuries it was in obscurity until a New York chef championed it in 1980, creating a new worldwide favourite. A phoenix rising from the blow torch that caramelises its sugary lid. Key ingredient: refined sugar, connecting it to slavery, and we explore the complex science of brittle caramel. Breaking into a crème brûlée is like cracking the carapace of a well-protected creature, breaching its security to scoop out its warm brain, a dramatic audible pudding that turns us into diggers for liquid gold. Producer – Turan Ali A Bona Broadcasting production for BBC Radio 3
Essay 2: Summer Pudding A new series of essays written and read by the very popular Fiona Stafford, Professor of Literature at Somerville College, Oxford, following her much praised series of essays The Meaning of Trees and Composers and their Dogs. Here Fiona explores some of the world’s favourite puddings, all of which have surprising stories and have become symbols far beyond the pudding bowl. Summer pudding, supposedly quintessentially English, (mixed berries encased in juice-soaked stale bread) began life as a symbol of health food for weight conscious American women over a century ago. It’s an invention from Victorian times, originally called ‘hydropathic pudding’, (low-calorie dessert for US health spas). Key ingredients: berries, sugar and stale bread. The changing variety of berries charts the growth of global trading and capitalism. Through this relatively low-calorie dessert we explore how, before refined sugar, desserts were not seen as an especially unhealthy course. Poorer families would have soup and a hearty dessert, as their main meal, with desserts much more likely to be fruit and wholegrain based. Summer pudding symbolises millennia of puddings that were not calorie bombs of refined, hyper-processed ingredients with little nutritional value, quite the reverse. The colours in summer pudding are a large part of its enduring success. Cutting into a summer pudding is like conducting a surgical operation; oozing with deep purple and blood-red syrupy fruit juices; a dramatic pudding that impresses and surprises us all; gory theatre on the dinner table. Producer – Turan Ali A Bona Broadcasting production for BBC Radio 3
Essay 1: Tapioca A new series of essays written and read by the very popular Fiona Stafford, Professor of Literature at Somerville College, Oxford, following her much praised series of essays The Meaning of Trees and Composers and their Dogs. Here Fiona explores some of the world’s favourite puddings, all of which have surprising stories and have become symbols far beyond the pudding bowl. Tapioca is equally loved and loathed; this hot and cold 'frogspawn' pudding’s story is reverse imperialism; an east Asian dessert with many guises, seen as old-fashioned in Britain, now hyper-trendy, conquering new global markets as 'pearls' in bubble tea. Key ingredient: starch from cassava. It is native to South America, taken to Asia and Africa by Portuguese merchants, it is also made into alcoholic drinks. Tapioca, a global staple food, bringing British school dinners many comic tales of revulsion. symbolises one of many puddings that came to Europe from 'the colonies' and was embraced and customised in the UK. Haters will easily believe it is used as a biodegradable plastic substitute (a renewable, reusable, recyclable eco-product) to make bags, gloves and aprons and as the starch used for starching shirts before ironing. Seeing tapioca is a primeval experience; it is viewing the elements that combine to form new life, the ova, the massive spawn of fish or frogs, the quantity ensuring some survive; speaking to us all with wonder or disgust. Producer – Turan Ali A Bona Broadcasting production for BBC Radio 3
Khadijah Ibrahiim’s essay, A Journey of Things Past and Present, looks at how Leeds’s built environment has changed and what that tells us about it as a society. Leeds is a rich north England city in a beautiful rural setting, but only the former is reflected in its physical development. The starting point is a much-loved mural that Khadijah contributed to as part of a school art project about the city’s historical and modern architecture. Khadijah still lives in the city and has watched as the skyline has become blotted out by high rise buildings, changing the view and creating a sort of forest of grey trees. She is struck by how beautiful the countryside is around the city, as are many of its historical buildings. The essay will consider what the built city tells us about its identity and why/how the landscape is developed, then move us into the future, talking about the imminent David Oluwale memorial sculpture by Yinka Shonibare, Hibiscus Rising, in currently empty open space down near the river. Khadijah Ibrahiim is a literary activist, theatre maker and published poet/writer. She is the Artistic director of Leeds Young Authors, and executive producer of the award-winning documentary ‘We Are Poets’. Recently work includes writing and directing ‘Sorrel & Black cake’ A Windrush Story, a Heritage Lottery funded program as part of GCF. ‘Dead and Wake’ Opera North 2020 Resonance and Leeds Playhouse Connecting Voices. Writer/reader, Khadijah Ibrahiim Sound designer, Alisdair McGregor Producer, Polly Thomas Looking at Leeds is a co-commission between BBC Radio 3 and The Space with funding from Arts Council England. A Thomas Carter Project for BBC Radio 3.
In his essay, Paradoxopolis, Ian Duhig is inspired by a painting by 'Leeds’s Lost Modernist', the reclusive Joash Woodrow, and the former local synagogue, now the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, both sited on the road north out of Leeds, built by Blind Jack Metcalf, iconic Leeds roadmaker of the Victorian era. Ian says: "When I first moved here about 50 years ago, Leeds was still advertising itself as The Motorway City of the Seventies and as much as its natural resources of clay and coal, its central location between London and Scotland. and England’s east and west coasts, was a major influence on its development. Immigrants, itinerant labour and roadmakers have built this city and its economy, something I propose to show by inviting you all to join me now on a virtual poetic journey through it on one road, Blind Jack Metcalf’s due north where we will come to understand something of that extraordinary civil engineer and what Virginia Woolf meant when she once wrote in a TLS review: “Personally, we should be willing to read one volume about every street in the city, and should still ask for more”. The essay touches on the many different populations that have lived and still live in Leeds - Jewish, Irish, Caribbean, Indian, Russian, Polish, Portuguese and their rich cultural manifestations. Ian Duhig became a full-time writer after working with homeless people for fifteen years. He has published eight collections of poetry, held several fellowships including at Trinity College Dublin, won the Forward Best Poem Prize once, the National Poetry Competition twice and been shortlisted four times for the T.S. Eliot Prize. His New and Selected Poems was awarded the 2022 Hawthornden Prize for Literature. He is currently finishing his next book of poetry, ‘An Arbitrary Light Bulb’, due from Picador in 2024. Writer/reader, Ian Duhig Sound designer, Alisdair McGregor Producer, Polly Thomas Looking at Leeds is a co-commission between BBC Radio 3 and The Space with funding from Arts Council England. A Thomas Carter Project for BBC Radio 3.
In her essay, Both Arms, Michelle Scally Clarke writes about the statue of that name by William Kenneth Armitage CBE, a Leeds sculptor known for his semi-abstract bronzes. It is a powerful public image of compassion, support and welcome, created as a monument to friendship. It resonates for Michelle about her own life journey as a mixed race care leaver who was welcomed and held by Leeds as a child and now an adult. ‘Both Arms” also holds great pride and nostalgia for Michelle, a visual symbol of Leeds as a city of hope for now and the future. Her essay explores Leeds as a city of welcome in multiple contexts - adoption and adaptation; migrants and refugees; traders and artists; students; and Nelson Mandela’s iconic visit to the city in the 1990s. Michelle Scally Clarke is a writer and performer of drama, creative writing, and poetry. Work includes BBC Contains Strong Language 2023, Space2 2016 performance and workshop focusing on mental health ‘Suitcase’, 2018 cross-cultural play ‘Jeans, Whose Genes?’ and now peer-led Clear Out Your Closer poetry group, focusing on writing for wellbeing. Writer/reader, Michelle Scally Clarke Sound designer, Alisdair McGregor Producer, Polly Thomas Looking at Leeds is a co-commission between BBC Radio 3 and The Space with funding from Arts Council England. A Thomas Carter Project for BBC Radio 3.
The world of magic and enchantment that Jeremy Dyson remembers from the Leeds of his childhood are epitomised by the three intricately carved clocks with life size human figures that still keep time in the Edwardian and Victorian shopping arcades in the city centre, now hemmed in by shopping malls and fast food outlets. From discussing the three clocks, he takes us back to the Victorian architectural splendour and status of the city, with its bronze and stone carved animals in Leeds Central Library and a plea to remember the value of spending money on public art. Jeremy Dyson is the co-creator and co-writer of the multi-award winning comedy show The League of Gentlemen, the BAFTA-nominated comedy drama Funland and the Rose-d’or winning all female sketch show Psychobitches. His play Ghost Stories, co-written with Andy Nyman was nominated for an Olivier award); Writer/reader, Jeremy Dyson Sound designer, Alisdair McGregor Producer, Polly Thomas Looking at Leeds is a co-commission between BBC Radio 3 and The Space with funding from Arts Council England. A Thomas Carter Project for BBC Radio 3.
The city of Leeds seen through public art past, present and future. In this edition, Malika Booker considers an architectural sculptural frieze located on Abtech House, 18 Park Row, Leeds (formerly West Riding Union Buildings) created in 1900 by the stonemason and sculptor Joseph Thewlis. The sculpture depicts emblematic figures related to Leeds commerce at the time, linked to the abundance of textile industry and mills in Yorkshire and Leeds. As a member of the Caribbean community living in Chapeltown, she is particularly interested in the Minerva Goddess presiding over these figures, as well as the figures depicting the bank's relationship with empire. She is caught by the multicultural portrayal of figures representing different aspects of Industry and the world, but of particular interest is the depiction of an enslaved African figure lifting and bending over bales of cotton. This lyrically poetic essay considers the changing visual, political, social and environmental changes that the sculptural frieze has witnessed and the ways in which the world has moved away from this depiction of black bodies. Malika is and international writer, double winner of Forward Prize for Poetry and Douglas Caster Cultural Fellow at University of Leeds. Writer/reader, Malika Booker Sound designer, Alisdair McGregor Producer, Polly Thomas Contains some historical racial terminology. Looking at Leeds is a co-commission between BBC Radio 3 and The Space with funding from Arts Council England. A Thomas Carter Project for BBC Radio 3.
"Each remembered moment is a keyhole. Time doesn't 'flow like a river', doesn't exist in Odesa at all; the numbers of years, 1986 or 1989 or 2006 are like signs hanging about the corner grocery shop, with names of owners, swaying. In these streets, everything is ever-present. There are places like this on the planet: you can stop in the middle of the street and stick a finger into the skin of time, tear a hole, and see through." Across a week of personal essays, the Ukrainian-American poet Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic, writes about the city of his birth and reflects on fatherland, mother tongue, memory, Deafness, exile and oppression. He writes about the Odesa of his childhood and his family's flight from Ukraine to the USA in the early 1990s. He writes of invasion, war, regimes and revolution. Of Odesa's poets, past and present (editing their poems in the bomb shelters). Of the statues in the city squares - Leo Tolstoy, Taras Shevchenko, Catherine the Great. In his final essay, Ilya visits the Jewish cemetery in Odesa to check on the family graves. He reflects on nation, language, home and exile. "The “New” Jewish cemetery still exists. But the “Old” one is razed. In its place stands park surrounded by apartment buildings, some of which have walls made of brick intermingled with old Jewish tombstones. Yes, the walls of apartments are built out of my people’s tombstones, and inside these buildings people watch soccer battles on TV and drink beer. And that is why juxtaposition, repetition, and fragmentation are my literary devices: like these walls made out of bricks and Jewish gravestones. Inside paragraphs: people shall live again, adopt foundlings, tango during the war, tell stories. I turn and toil giving many answers, but the truth is simple: I bring fragments of our past here because it is a way to read Kaddish for my people." Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odesa, Ukraine in 1977, and arrived in the United States in 1993, when his family was granted asylum by the American government. He is the author of Deaf Republic (Graywolf Press) and Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press) and co-editor and co-translated many other books, including Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (Harper Collins), In the Hour of War: Poems from Ukraine (Arrowsmith), and Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva (Alice James Books). He currently teaches in Princeton and lives in New Jersey. Read by Ilan Goodman, with introductions by the author Producer: Mair Bosworth for BBC Audio Assistant Producer: Melanie Pearson Mixing Engineer: Ilse Lademann
