This Cultural Life Folgen

One of the world’s most successful living choreographers, Sir Matthew Bourne shook up classical ballet in the mid 1990s with his ground-breaking company Adventures In Motion Pictures, later renamed New Adventures. His breakthrough production, a radical new version The Nutcracker, was followed by a production of Swan Lake where he replaced the traditional female swans with a male ensemble. After initial controversy in the press, it became a massive critical and commercial hit. Since then he’s continued to popularise classical dance with a succession of innovative productions, often drawing inspiration from movies or literature. He’s had hits with the Red Shoes, Edward Scissorhands, Dorian Gray and Lord Of the Flies, and has won Olivier and Tony Awards. Matthew Bourne was knighted in 2016 for services to dance. In This Cultural Life he talks about how his love of classic films musicals started with seeing The Sound of Music as a young boy, and falling in love with Julie Andrews. He recalls his teenage years as one of London’s top autograph hunters meeting the likes of Gene Kelly, Charlie Chaplin and his hero Fred Astaire. He also explains how he was a relative latecomer to ballet and only saw his first ballet - a Sadler's Wells production of Swan Lake - at the age of 18. Matthew Bourne also chooses Powell and Pressburger’s 1948 film The Red Shoes as one of his formative influences.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Renowned for tackling big themes on stage, Lucy Prebble made her name as a playwright in her mid-twenties when she wrote the hugely successful Enron. The play, which premiered in 2009 and explored the collapse of the American energy corporation eight years earlier, transferred to the West End and also played on Broadway. In 2019 she premiered A Very Expensive Poison which dramatized the assassination in London of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. Lucy Prebble has also written for television, she devised and wrote the black comedy series I Hate Suzie with its star Billie Piper. She was also one of the writers of the Emmy, Golden Globes and BAFTA winning Succession, about the ageing media mogul deciding if and how to hand control of his corporate empire to his children. In conversation with John Wilson, Lucy recalls how an early job as an assistant to Nicholas Hytner in his first year as Director of the National Theatre helped her to begin her career as a writer. She reveals how Billy Bragg's song Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards is a continued inspiration in her work as a playwright and the influence that Bob Fosse’s 1979 film All That Jazz had on her TV series I Hate Suzie. She also discusses being part of the team that wrote the hit TV series Succession and what effect the experience has had on her and her work.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Author, poet and performer Michael Rosen is one of Britain’s best loved and most prolific children’s writers, having published hundreds of books over nearly fifty years, including his much-loved We’re Going On Bear Hunt, the story of an exciting family outing, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury. As a broadcaster he is well known to Radio 4 listeners as the host of Word of Mouth. He was appointed as Children’s Laureate in 2007 and was awarded the PEN Pinter Prize in 2023, the citation noting his “ability to address the most serious matters of life in a spirit of joy, humour and hope”.In conversation with John Wilson, Michael recalls the early influence of his parents, who were both active members of the British Communist Party, and the many books that lined the walls of the Rosen family home. He chooses, as a key cultural inspiration, a reproduction of a 16th century painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder called Netherlandish Proverbs. Depicting ordinary people in various comic situations which represented well-known proverbs of the day, it captured the imagination of young Michael and his friends. He reveals how he started writing his own poetry in response to works by Gerard Manley Hopkins and D H Lawrence whilst at school, and remembers how We’re Going On A Bear Hunt was inspired by various folk tales from around the world. Michael also discusses the impact on his work of the death of his son Eddie at the age of 18 in 1999, and in discovering more about the fate of Jewish family members during the Holocaust. Producer: Edwina Pitman