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
i m sure you would love to believe that that film is like a museum piece. like it s no longer relevant. but does it feel that way to you? no. i would love to. ..to think the opposite. i would love to think that each of my movies are relevant forever and will be remembered forever. but i guess what i meant was, wouldn t it be great if some of the issues. were not. yes. ..you had exposed were no longer issues? the problem is that i make political movies. and i did a movie like ten years ago, 15 years ago that s back on the news today because we have a revolt in new caledonia. that s a film called rebellion. rebellion, yeah. so, you know, that s, when you do political movies, either you re totally wrong and you re not relevant or you re right and nobody s listening. so, so that s, erm, that s. that was the case with rebellion, that was the case with la haine. but here we sit talking in paris. you live in paris. does it feel like paris still has a profound problem with, for examp
welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me. it is three decades since you made la haine hate. i m sure you would love to believe that that film is like a museum piece. like its no longer relevant. but does it feel that way to you? no. i would love to. ..to think the opposite. i would love to think that each of my movies are relevant forever and will be remembered forever. but i guess what i meant was, wouldn t it be great if some of the issues. were not. yes. ..you had exposed were no longer issues? the problem is that i make political movies. and i did a movie like ten years ago, 15 years ago that s back on the news today because we have a revolt in new caledonia. that s a film called rebellion. rebellion, yeah. so, you know, that s, when you do political movies, either you re totally wrong and you re not relevant or you re right and nobody s listening. so, so that s, erm, that s. that was the case with rebellion, that was the case with la haine. but here we sit talking