yes, do you need to.? take your jacket off. hello, i m john wilson, welcome to this cultural life, the radio four podcast, in which i ask leading creative figures to reveal the key moments in their life, and the most important cultural works that fired their own artistic imagination. my guest is director, screenwriter and playwright mike leigh. he s known for gritty social dramas, including vera drake and secrets and lies. domestic comedies, like life is sweet and happy go lucky, and historical stories, including mr turner and peterloo. i spoke to him in one of the many radio studios in bbc broadcasting house. mike, welcome to this cultural life. let s take you to the beginning. what is your earliest cultural memory? as a kid, we had, and i was exposed to. ..pantomime, live theatre of various sorts. circus. the circus was a big deal. variety. live variety, the old, you know, descendants of the music hall, including, at the age of nine, a trip to the ardwick hippodrome in manc
these newspapers is because i was so keen to have my privacy. i feel a sense of duty to expose them, as they ve exposed us. prince harry and sir eltonjohn have launched legal action against the publishers of the daily mail action is being taken- against the sun newspaper. legal action against the mirror group over allegations of phone hacking. who did you hack? it would be quicker to say- who i didn t hack, wouldn t it? it d be easier. celebrities, politicians. i was living in this sort of super highway of illicit information. it was exciting. you felt like a spy. as the years have gone by, - the story has grown and grown. it s 100 times worse - than the press admitted to. these are frankly eyewatering claims. bugging cars, listening to and recording live phone calls, paying police officials for sensitive information. i don t know to this day how many people have heard my deepest secrets, my desires. .that phone hacking was not. practised by the mail on sunday or the daily
Museums, i believe, are really having a moment, and thats what i want to explore. This is amazing. So this is his studio. I can walk around, can i . He was painting the orient within the orient. When you see my work, you can easily link the concepts, lets say, or the technique, anything from them, as inspiring. I think thats rather wonderful. Im in istanbul, that great, entrancing, ancient megalopolis, once the capital of the byzantine and ottoman empires. Lying on either side of the bosporus strait, its a city that straddles two continents, europe and asia, so it feels like the Perfect Place to discover for myself the long, still evolving story of Cultural Exchange between east and west. Im starting at the pera museum, once an exclusive hotel in the heart of istanbuls diplomatic district. I cant think of anywhere else quite like it, a unique, privately run museum, with a collection exploring the relationship between east and west a centuries long exchange that culminated in a controve
museums, i believe, are really having a moment, and that s what i want to explore. this is amazing. so this is his studio. i can walk around, can i? he was painting the orient within the orient. when you see my work, you can easily link the concepts, let s say, or the technique, anything from them, as inspiring. i think that s rather wonderful. i m in istanbul, that great, entrancing, ancient megalopolis, once the capital of the byzantine and ottoman empires. lying on either side of the bosporus strait, it s a city that straddles two continents, europe and asia, so it feels like the perfect place to discover for myself the long, still evolving story of cultural exchange between east and west. i m starting at the pera museum, once an exclusive hotel in the heart of istanbul s diplomatic district. i can t think of anywhere else quite like it, a unique, privately run museum, with a collection exploring the relationship between east and west a centuries long exchange that culmi
albin kurti, to cool it and quickly. will he listen? and if he doesn t, could kosovo see a new round of balkan bloodshed? prime minister albin kurti, welcome to hardtalk. welcome to pristina and thank you for having me. well, it s a great pleasure to be in your office. prime minister, how close has kosovo come to seeing a renewal of conflict in the last few months? it has been very heavy because the two extremist terrorist organisations, which are being financed by serbia, and from where they also receive their orders, civil protection and the northern brigade have been very active and first intimidating serbs and serbian candidate, who would like to vote and run in elections, and second, in attacking our police, journalists but, first and foremost, nato soldiers on 29 may. you ve chosen, in that answer, to pile all of the blame on your serbian minority population. that is not the way the international community sees things right now? i never blame serbian minority populati