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
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 manchester to see laurel and hardy live on stage.
this cultural life. let s take you to the beginning. what s your earliest cultural memory? as a kid, we had, iwas exposed to pantomime, live theatre of various thoughts, circus, the circus was a big deal, variety, live variety, descendants of the music hall, including at the age of nine a trip to the ardwick hippodrome to see laurel and hardy live on stage on the famous tour, which i later realised was the famous tour, and the two important things about that were one, two extraordinary things, one was it was in colour they were in colour and two, that oliver hardy com pletely couldn t get his act together at all, he was absolutely out of control, and of course later we realised that that was because he was cracking up and it was the end of their of their career. were they funny? no. but i was fascinated, it didn t make any difference. of course, in school, from the earliest age, i was drawing, putting on sketches, generally wanted to be creative in all kinds of differen
seen her excel on stage and screen from comedies to musicals. increasingly, she s written and created her own shows. is that the pathway to empowerment in an industry where actors can be just another commodity? jane horrocks, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much. it is great to have you in the studio. you have been in this acting business for almost four decades. i wonder when you think about your own career, do you feel that you very consciously shaped it or is it more a question of serendipity and stuff thatjust happened? i think there is a lot of both actually, yes. i think i did engineer quite a lot of it in that my choices were very specific but certain things happened at a certain time that kind of formed it as well. and when you think about the big choices, the key choices, that you made that were instrumental in shaping your career, what would you point to? i think probably the biggest choice that i made was leaving the rsc. the royal shakespeare company? yes, whi
jane horrocks, that her acting career has spanned four decades and has seen her excel on stage and screen from comedies to musicals. increasingly, she s written and created her own shows, is that the pathway to empowerment in an industry where actors can be just another commodity? jane horrocks, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much. it is great to have you in the studio. you have been in this acting business for almost four decades, i wonder when you think about your own career, do you feel that you very consciously shaped it or is it more a question of serendipity and stuff thatjust happened? i think there is a lot of both actually, yes. i think i did engineer quite a lot of it in that my choices were very specific but certain things happened at a certain time that kind of formed it as well. and when you think about the big choices, the key choices that you made that were instrumental in shaping your career, what would you point to? i think probably the biggest choice th