Life and Art from FT Weekend

This week, we speak with visual artist Nick Cave. Cave is best known for his ‘Soundsuits’: vibrant, whimsical costumes that entirely cover the face and body. But the Soundsuits are not just playful. He made the first after police beat Rodney King in 1991, and they are meant to help process collective sorrow through celebration, and to give armour to the marginalized. In the wake of police killing...

The announcement that the world’s top restaurant, Noma, will close in 2024, has spawned dozens of think pieces asking whether this is the end of fine dining. So this weekend, we went to the FT’s renowned food critic Tim Hayward to learn about the state of the industry. Running a restaurant has never been more expensive in cities such as New York and London. And now, in the middle of a cost of livi...

This week, we’re joined by Gabrielle Zevin, author of the novel ‘ Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow ’. One of last year's bestsellers, it traces the lives of two friends, Sam and Sadie, who meet as kids and become world famous video game creators. Gabrielle tells Lilah why she focused on games, and how video games from Pac-Man to Mario influenced a generation of people. Then, we learn about a R...

The Oscar nominations have been announced. This weekend, we revisit two of our interviews from last year, with filmmakers behind two of the most nominated films: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who directed ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once ’, and Ruben Östlund, director of ‘Triangle of Sadness ’. Both are nominated for best director and best picture, and both are unexpected: 'Everything Everyw...

This weekend, the FT's Claire Bushey asks a question that sounds poetic but is actually entirely unsentimental: how much is my life worth? In 2021, Claire learned she had breast cancer. The cost of her treatment points us to how, exactly, the US healthcare system is broken. Then, Lilah takes on Prince Harry's autobiography Spare with chief features writer Henry Mance. After so much Harry and Megha...

This weekend, we learn about AI-generated art. Type any sentence, such as “Sea otter with a pearl earring by Johannes Vermeer” into a website, and you’ll get an uncanny visual approximation created entirely by AI — with no input from humans. Our gaming critic Tom Faber joins Lilah to explore what impact it could have on human creativity. Then, we talk about deep winter cooking with the chefs behin...

This week, we learn about the secret lives of women spies. Our colleague Helen Warrell got exclusive access to the women at the top ranks of Britain’s MI6 agency. For the first time, they reveal what it’s like to be a woman in espionage, and how pop culture – from James Bond to John le Carré novels – has made it harder for MI6 to recruit a diverse team of spies. Then, we’re joined by behavioural e...

It’s our last episode of the year, and our annual predictions episode for 2023! Lilah is joined by FT Magazine editor Matt Vella to talk through listener call-ins, from dog trends to speed dating to what White Lotus says about the end of the world. Matt and Lilah also add some hopes, dreams and guesses of their own. Then, FT editors and journalists share their predictions for what will happen in a...

This week, we talk through the most compelling technology being developed to combat climate change, with FT business columnist and climate expert Pilita Clark. And there’s a big debate among scientists: should we focus on older technology, such as solar and wind, or the latest innovations like direct carbon capture and even nuclear fusion? Then, wine columnist Jancis Robinson gives Lilah her holid...

This week, we talk about the Benin Bronzes, a group of sacred artefacts stolen by British colonisers from the west African Kingdom of Benin. Guest host Lulu Smyth speaks to Aanu Adeoye and Josh Spero, who have been reporting on the efforts to trace thousands of them. For years western museums, which hold the bulk of the Benin Bronzes, refused to collect and share inventory, meaning they could not...

This week, we return to one of our favourite episodes. We go searching for the Hum, a mysterious noise that has plagued the residents of Halifax, West Yorkshire. It’s an uncomfortable, low-frequency sound that has also been heard in towns across the world, from New Mexico to Ontario to Scotland. The FT's Imogen West-Knights tells us that it's mostly heard by middle-aged women. So is it a real nois...

In the fourth and final episode of our special mini-series on travel, Lilah talks with Matt Kepnes, the creator of the popular travel blog Nomadic Matt. Matt has been traveling the globe for nearly 20 years, and he’s written about it in his books How to Travel the World on $50 a Day and Ten Years a Nomad . Over the years, Matt has amassed a knowledge of all the best ways to see the world without s...

This week, we learn why we love the music we love. Lilah speaks with Susan Rogers, who was a recording engineer for Prince on albums such as ‘Purple Rain’. Now she's a neuroscientist who has studied what music does to the brain. Her book, 'This Is What It Sounds Like', helps us make sense of our own musical preferences. Susan joins us to listen to some music and explain how it affects us. Why is D...

In the third episode of our special mini-series on travel, Lilah talks with our travel editor, Tom Robbins. Tom is an expert on the tourism industry. We discuss the biggest trends in travel, and he gives us an honest account of where we are today: how social media has changed the places we visit, how governments are dealing with over-tourism, and how James Bond helped make Iceland cool. ----------...

This week, we speak to legendary chef Eric Ripert on the 50th anniversary of his restaurant Le Bernardin, possibly the most consistently critically beloved restaurant in the world. Keeping a restaurant relevant over time takes work and constant change. More than 30 years in, he tells us what it takes to lead a lasting institution. Then, FT Weekend editor Alec Russell and senior editor Horatia Harr...

In the second episode of our special mini-series on travel, Lilah talks with Jessica Nabongo. Jessica is one of the few people, and the first black woman on record, to have visited every country in the world. Her book, The Catch Me If You Can, was published by National Geographic earlier this year. Jessica tells us about acts of kindness in Iraq, Zanzibar’s beaches, the food in Senegal, and more s...

This week we meet Swedish film director Ruben Östlund. His new movie Triangle of Sadness won the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize, the Palm D’Or, and is one of the most talked-about releases of the year. It seems like an ‘eat the rich’ story, but Ruben disagrees. He says it’s a critique not just of the wealthy, but of all of us. Then, we take a tour of first-class airplane food. After losing nearl...

Welcome to the first episode of our special mini-series on travel. Every Wednesday, a different expert will teach us something new. Today, Lilah talks with the editors of FT Globetrotter, Rebecca Rose and Niki Blasina. Globetrotter is home to our journalists’ guides on what to do in cities around the world. Rebecca and Niki give us tips for planning, but not overplanning, your next trip. ---------...

This week, we talk about the Hollywood blockbuster The Woman King , starring Viola Davis. It's an epic that features a group of women warriors fighting for the kingdom of Dahomey—and it's got a lot of Oscar buzz. Lilah goes behind the scenes with Academy-Award winning producer Cathy Schulman to discuss what it took to get it made. Then, we look into what happened to plant-based meat. A few years a...

Two hundred years after Jane Austen’s novels were published, adaptations are still going strong. This summer saw the release of Fire Island, a gay adaptation of Pride and Prejudice , and the Netflix original, Persuasion . Brooke Masters, our US investment and industries editor and a lifelong Jane Austen fan, and University of Maine literature professor Caroline Bicks, join Lilah to talk about the...

This week we speak with Shirin Neshat, one of the most famous contemporary artists from Iran, about the protests in her home country. Shirin’s work focuses on the lives and struggles of Iranian women. The protests have been raging for a month, which, as Shirin says, makes them the longest-running demonstrations since the 1979 Islamic revolution. We talk about what they mean, why this time they’re...

This weekend, we discuss Industry on HBO with chief features writer Henry Mance. The show is part of a trend: like Succession and Euphoria , it depicts a pretty harsh version of the world we live in. So why do we keep getting sucked in? Then you'll hear a conversation between star psychologist Esther Perel and FT contributing editor Lucy Kellaway from the FT Weekend Festival. They discuss how remo...

Writer Jamaica Kincaid is one of the best known writers on race and colonialism in the US. Her writing is biting and fearless, and she’s been a keen observer of her native Antigua and the US since publishing her first essay in 1973. This week she joins Lilah together with the FT’s Enuma Okoro in a recording made at the recent FT Weekend Festival in London. Then we share some conversations we...

NFTs were a big sensation, but the market for them has crashed. This week, we invited a crypto-sceptic, FT columnist Jemima Kelly, to answer all the questions you were afraid to ask . What are NFTs exactly? What happened with them? And have they changed the way we think about art? Jemima hosts the latest season of our FT podcast Tech Tonic, which is all about the cult of crypto. ------- Want to st...

This week we discuss how young people view the late Queen Elizabeth with journalist Imogen West-Knights and our own producer Lulu Smyth. For many Millennials and Gen Zers, the first royal succession in 70 years is also the first time they’ve considered their stance on the monarchy more broadly. And it’s eliciting some mixed feelings. Then, we explore how we’re spending money on culture now. The FT...