Quarantine Island Discs

Laurence Peters
Quarantine Island Discs Podcast

Celebrities select their six favorite media selections (a movie, song, a book, poem, TV show, podcast) to get them through the pandemic and whatever else is to come.

Episodes

  1. 31/07/2020

    First part of a two part Interview with Stella Duffy OBE-Co-Founder of Fun Palaces

    Welcome back to the first part of a two part conversation with Novelist, Short story writer, Director,  Actor, all round creative Stella Duffy.  In the first part we talk generally about  her experiences of lock down and her speculations  about the future of the arts.  We also discuss her Fun Palaces project.  In the second part we explore her tastes in media at this current time.  I look forward to you all enjoying this marvelous conversation with a fully engaged artist.  Stella Duffy is a writer and  performer born in London who spent her childhood in New Zealand before  returning to the UK. She has written plays, and novels and directs. Stella Duffy has written fourteen novels including her latest, London Lies Beneath which Virago will publish in November 2015. The Room of Lost Things and State of Happinesswere  both long-listed for the Orange Prize. She has written ten plays and  over fifty short stories, including several for BBC Radio 4. Her  collected stories are published by Salt inEverything is Moving, Everything is Joined. She won the CWA Short Story Dagger in 2002 (Martha Grace) and 2013 (Come Away With Me), and Stonewall Writer of the Year in 2008 (The Room of Lost Things) and 2010 (Theodora). HBO have optioned her two Theodora novels for a TV series. She wrote and presented the BBC4 documentary How to Write a Mills and Boon and has reviewed for The Review Show (BBC2), Front Row(BBCRadio4)  and written articles for most major newspapers in the UK. In addition  to her writing work she is a theatre director and performer. Stella is also the co-founder of Fun Palaces -- an annual, free, nationwide celebration of  culture at the heart of community, using arts, science, craft, tech,  digital, heritage and sports activities as a catalyst for community  engagement.  This takes place over the first weekend in October every  year.  Fun Palaces are community events, created by and for local  people.  They are held in a variety of locations, ranging from  libraries, shopping centres, schools, parks, village squares, community  halls, swimming pools, etc.  The original (never built) Fun Palace was  the brainchild of celebrated theatre director Joan Littlewood and architect Cedric Price.  Their never-realized vision was re-interpreted for the 21st century  with the Fun Palaces campaign for cultural democracy, with community-led  events in many locations. The first weekend of action took place in  2014, with 138 Fun Palaces taking place across the UK and  internationally and in 2015 the number rose to 142, 292 Fun Palaces in  2016, and 362 in 2017.

    21 min
  2. 04/05/2020

    First of a Two Part Interview with London Based Journalist Michael Goldfarb

    In November 1985, Goldfarb moved to London to pursue a career in  journalism. He has reported from 25 countries on five continents. He reported on the arts for British and American newspapers, particularly The Guardian and Newsday. He became a critic for BBC Radio 4 and this work led him into broadcast journalism with National Public Radio (NPR). From 1990 to 1998, Goldfarb worked for NPR, from 1996 to 1998 as its London Bureau Chief. He covered British politics, the Royal Family and the five-year-long peace process in Northern Ireland for, but also reported from Bosnia and Iraq. Throughout this period he also worked with the BBC and in 1994 won British radio's highest honor, the Sony Award, for his essays on the American Midwest, titled Homeward Bound. In 1999 he was a fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. In 2016, he launched the FRDH podcast. He frames his storytelling  through the idea that journalism is the First Rough Draft of History  and draws on the history he has reported and lived and written about. He continues to make documentaries for BBC Radio 3, Radio 4, the World Service and Radio 5 and is a regular panelist on the BBC News program Dateline London.  He writes op-eds for The New York Times and contributes occasionally to The Guardian.[3Michael's choices include Hillary Mantel, The Mirror and the Lamp Four Dead in Ohio, covered by  Isely Brothers, Ben Harper, Hannah Wicklund --more choices in Part 2 of the Interview

    27 min
  3. 24/04/2020

    Conversation with Preti Tanjela

    Preti Taneja I had a delightful conversation with Preti whose recent novel We That are Young has received many rave reviews and prizes. She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Newcastle and teaches Creative Writing in prisons for LEARNING TOGETHER, Cambridge Universty. Preti is also a New Generation Thinker and broadcasts for Radio 3 and 4 on world literature and culture. PRETI’S QUARANTINE ISLAND CHOICES: Music Alice Coltrane : Journey in Satchidananda British Grime Dave Stormzy Nick Cave: The Boatman’s Call Live Concerts Gil Scott Heron Poetry Adrienne Rich, Collected Poems Claudia Rankine: Citizen: An American Lyric Novels Mark Haddon: The Porpoise: A Novel Films Mood for Love 2046 Both directed by Wong Kar-wai Podcast This American LifeI had a delightful conversation with Preti whose recent novel We That are Young has received many rave reviews and prizes. She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Newcastle and teaches Creative Writing in prisons for LEARNING TOGETHER, Cambridge Universty. Preti is also a New Generation Thinker and broadcasts for Radio 3 and 4 on world literature and culture. PRETI’S QUARANTINE ISLAND CHOICES: Music Alice Coltrane : Journey in Satchidananda British Grime Dave Stormzy Nick Cave: The Boatman’s Call Live Concerts Gil Scott Heron Poetry Adrienne Rich, Collected Poems Claudia Rankine: Citizen: An American Lyric Novels Mark Haddon: The Porpoise: A Novel Films Mood for Love 2046 Both directed by Wong Kar-wai Podcast This American Life

    33 min

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Celebrities select their six favorite media selections (a movie, song, a book, poem, TV show, podcast) to get them through the pandemic and whatever else is to come.

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