This Cultural Life

Apr 10 2025 116 ep. 43 mins 971
This Cultural Life Podcast artwork

In-depth conversations with some of the world's leading artists and creatives across theatre, visual arts, music, dance, film and more. Hosted by John Wilson.

  Arts  Society & Culture
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Abi Morgan

Apr 10 2025 43 mins  
Screenwriter and playwright Abi Morgan has worked across a diverse array of themes and genres for more than 25 years. She wrote the television series The Split, a domestic drama involving divorce lawyers, and created the psychological Netflix series Eric. Her other television credits include Sex Traffic, for which she won a BAFTA for Best Drama serial in 2005, and The Hour, the tel

Theaster Gates

Feb 20 2025 43 mins  
The internationally acclaimed and hugely influential artist Theaster Gates was born, raised and works in Chicago. He trained as a ceramicist, and still makes pottery, but it’s just one part of a diverse artistic output that also includes painting, sculpture and vast installations, in works which often explore the black experience in contemporary America. He is best known for rede

David Hare

Feb 13 2025 43 mins  
The premiere of David Hare’s play Plenty at the National Theatre in 1978 marked him out as one of the UK’s most skilled and socially conscious playwrights. Plenty transferred to Broadway, Hare adapted it into a film starring Meryl Streep, and in the following years he became known as a writer for whom the political and the personal are deeply entwined. Often referred to as Brit

Cynthia Erivo

Feb 06 2025 43 mins  
Born and raised in south London, Cynthia Erivo made her name with musical theatre in London, starring in shows including The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg and Sister Act. In 2015 she became a Broadway star and won Tony, Emmy and Grammy awards for her role in The Color Purple, the musical adaptation of the Alice Walker novel which had transferred from London. Her screen acting credits incl

Marin Alsop

Jan 30 2025 43 mins  
American conductor Marin Alsop was the first woman to lead major orchestras in the UK, South America and in the United States, becoming principal conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2007. Nominated for Grammy Awards five times, in 2013 she became the first ever woman to lead the Last Night Of The Proms, and is now regarded as one of the greatest conductors in the world

Robert Harris

Jan 23 2025 43 mins  
Having worked as a BBC television journalist, and as political editor for the Observer newspaper, Robert Harris published his debut novel Fatherland in 1992. A counterfactual story set in the 1960s that imagines Nazi Germany had won the Second World War, the book was a global bestseller. Since then Robert Harris has written 15 novels, mainly historical fiction which ranges from the

James Ivory

Jan 16 2025 43 mins  
James Ivory formed the filmmaking company Merchant Ivory with producer Ismail Merchant and the writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala in 1961. The company went on to produce over 40 films and became synonymous with a particular sumptuous movie genre in the 80s and 90s, often adapted from literary classics. Merchant Ivory won awards and acclaim for A Room With A View, Howard’s End, The Remai

Isabel Allende

Jan 09 2025 43 mins  
Chilean author Isabel Allende became an international literary star after the publication of her 1982 debut novel The House Of the Spirits, an epic family saga set amidst violent political upheavals. Since then she has written 21 novels and five works of non-fiction, and has sold over 80 million copies worldwide. Isabel Allende tells John Wilson about her upbringing in Santiago and

Thelma Schoonmaker

Nov 07 2024 43 mins  
Thelma Schoonmaker has, for over five decades, been Martin Scorsese’s cutting room collaborator. Having edited his first feature film in 1967, she has worked on every Scorsese movie since Raging Bull, including Goodfellas, Casino, The Departed, Wolf Of Wall Street, right up to his most recent features The Irishman and Killers Of The Flower Moon. As the widow of the legendary Brit

Bill Nighy

Oct 31 2024 42 mins  
A star of stage and screen, Bill Nighy has enjoyed a fifty year career and is now among Britain’s most prolific and much loved actors. Acclaimed for National Theatre roles in plays by David Hare and Tom Stoppard, his popular appeal lies with scene-stealing appearances in films including Pirates Of The Caribbean, Harry Potter and, most famously, Love Actually. Bill Nighy has won B