The Essay

Five writers and artists not normally associated with classical music, discuss a specific example of Vaughan Williams’ work to which they have a personal connection, and why it speaks to them. Following on from the successful Five Kinds of Beethoven Radio 3 essay series in 2020, where a wide range of Beethoven fans shared their personal relationship to the composer and his work, this new series gi...

Five writers and artists not normally associated with classical music, discuss a specific example of Vaughan Williams’s work to which they have a personal connection, and why it speaks to them. Following on from the successful Five Kinds of Beethoven Radio 3 essay series in 2020, where a wide range of Beethoven fans shared their personal relationship to the composer and his work, this new series g...

Five writers and artists not normally associated with classical music, discuss a specific example of Vaughan Williams’s work to which they have a personal connection, and why it speaks to them. Following on from the successful Five Kinds of Beethoven Radio 3 essay series in 2020, where a wide range of Beethoven fans shared their personal relationship to the composer and his work, this new series g...

Five writers and artists not normally associated with classical music, discuss a specific example of Vaughan Williams’s work to which they have a personal connection, and why it speaks to them. Following on from the successful Five Kinds of Beethoven Radio 3 essay series in 2020, where a wide range of Beethoven fans shared their personal relationship to the composer and his work, this new series g...

Poet, editor and writer Alvin Pang loves Singapore. It’s just that he doesn’t necessarily want to be in Singapore. He loves it, but the cause for this is a wanderlust and a need for movement which has given him an instinct to push down walls. He explores how the Singapore mindset of the convivial host can set a writer in good stead for a creative life. Presented by Alvin Pang Produced by Kevin Cor...

Anil Pradhan says he is defined by his “inbetween-ness”. As a gay, Indian, Nepali poet he considers the strange duality - that while English may be linked with the colonial mindset that defined India – it is also a language that allows him to express his true self. This episode was recorded at the BBC Contains Strong Language Festival in Birmingham. Presented by Anil Pradhan Produced by Kevin Core

Isabelle Baafi has a unique take on healthcare, forged by the Caribbean origins of a succession of female healers in her family. Reaching back in time from her own childhood visit to A&E, Isabelle explores her mother’s adage – that to heal someone is to change their destiny. Presented by Isabelle Baafi Produced by Kevin Core

Roy McFarlane, former Birmingham Laureate, recalls the mask worn by his Jamaican late father – a mask designed to help him integrate into his new UK home. But did it work? Roy recalls the dignity of a man who worked hard to put money on the table – and encyclopaedias on the shelves. His essay was recorded at the BBC's Contains Strong Language Festival in Birmingham. This essay contains strong raci...

The Indian writer and dancer Tishani Doshi considers the impact of her mother’s upbringing thousands of miles away in the UK and how her imagination returns to the exotic idea - of a row of small terraced houses in the seemingly endless summer nights of Wales. Her essay was recorded at the BBC's Contains Strong Language Festival in Birmingham. Presented by Tishani Doshi Produced by Kevin Core

Poet and writer Casey Bailey is returning to Birmingham after a holiday and reliving memories of his childhood in Nechells. Casey is the Birmingham Poet Laureate 2020-2022. He’s a writer, performer and educator born and raised in Nechells, Birmingham. Casey has performed nationally and internationally, spent time on a residency with the Royal Shakespeare Company. His debut poetry pamphlet ‘Waiting...

Poet Naush Sabah is re-visiting her childhood home in Sparkbrook, Birmingham Naush is a poet, writer, editor, critic and educator based in the West Midlands. In 2019, she co-founded the Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal where she is currently Editor and Publishing Director. Naush also co-founded Pallina Press where she is Editor-at-Large and she currently serves as a trustee at Poetry London. Her...

Writer Professor Thomas Glave has been in London and is returning on a train at night to his home city of Birmingham. Thomas was born in the Bronx and grew up there and in Kingston, Jamaica. His work has earned many honours, including the Lambda Literary Award in 2005 and 2008, an O. Henry Prize, a Fine Arts Center in Provincetown Fellowship, and a Fulbright fellowship to Jamaica. He's the author...

Writer Dr Shahed Yousaf is driving home to Birmingham from a very demanding day at work in prison. Shahed is a GP who works in prisons, substance misuse centres and with the homeless community. He has just published a memoir: Stitched Up. He spends his time running between emergencies - from overdoses to assaults, from cell fires to suicides - with one hand always hovering over the panic button. H...

Writer Helen Cross is remembering how clubbing in 90s Birmingham and an encounter with an oil painting in Birmingham's Museum and Art Gallery led her to feel at home in this city. Helen is the author of novels, stories, radio plays and screenplays. Her first novel, My Summer of Love, won a Betty Trask Award and became a BAFTA award-winning feature film. Her recent work includes a BBC Afternoon Pla...

For the final essay in the series, architectural designer Christopher Laing gives a personal account of how he started Signstrokes, which introduces standardised sign language for architecture. Deaf people are not new to architecture, however they face significant barriers because the sign language vocabulary of the profession is not standardised and lacks terms to express architectural concepts u...

Dr Robert Adam is an assistant professor at Heriot-Watt University and a lecturer in Linguistics, British Sign Language and Deaf Studies. In the course of his essay, Robert asks, who are the arbiters of British Sign Language? How can its evolution be managed? Robert shares how fewer deaf children are learning British Sign Language at school, and more are now learning it later in life, as young adu...

Deepa Shastri, an actress, sign song performer and British Sign Language consultant. Deepa explores how Deaf culture and sign language being represented in the arts is so important to the deaf community but also how the arts and sign language naturally go hand in hand - due to the visual and expressive nature of sign language. Back in the 80s, when Marlee Matlin became the first deaf Oscar winner...

Tina Kelberman shares her experience of growing up in a large deaf Jewish family. Her family has inherited deafness for six generations now and are probably also the biggest Deaf Jewish family in the UK. Whilst their culture is steeped in history, spanning back almost two centuries, it's been a rocky road for them - as Tina shares. She hated the feeling of people watching her family communicate in...

Dr Robert Adam is an assistant professor at Heriot-Watt University and a lecturer in Linguistics, British Sign Language and Deaf Studies. In his essay, 'Sign Language through the Ages', Robert explores the rich and layered history of British Sign Language. He recalls the first time he read a piece of deaf history - his father’s school published ‘Utmost for the Highest’ for its centenary in 1962, a...

In 1945, when World WarII finally ended and while Europe's artistic centres smouldered, in New York City an artistic renaissance, in music, painting, theatre, and literature, burst forth out of the city’s bohemia. Most of this work was generated in a single neighbourhood of Manhattan: Greenwich Village. World War II in America was a time of national unity, a singleness of purpose where non-conform...

In 1945, when World War II finally ended and while Europe's artistic centres smouldered, in New York City an artistic renaissance, in music, painting, theatre, and literature, burst forth out of the city’s bohemia. Most of this work was generated in a single neighbourhood of Manhattan: Greenwich Village. World War II in America was a time of national unity, a singleness of purpose where non-confor...

In 1945, when World War II finally ended and while Europe's artistic centres smouldered, in New York City an artistic renaissance, in music, painting, theatre, and literature, burst forth out of the city’s bohemia. Most of this work was generated in a single neighbourhood of Manhattan: Greenwich Village. World War II in America was a time of national unity, a singleness of purpose where non-confor...

In 1945, when World War II finally ended and while Europe's artistic centres smouldered, in New York City an artistic renaissance, in music, painting, theatre, and literature, burst forth out of the city’s bohemia. Most of this work was generated in a single neighbourhood of Manhattan: Greenwich Village. World War II in America was a time of national unity, a singleness of purpose where non-confor...

In 1945, when World War II finally ended and while Europe's artistic centres smouldered, in New York City an artistic renaissance, in music, painting, theatre, and literature, burst forth out of the city’s bohemian. Most of this work was generated in a single neighbourhood of Manhattan: Greenwich Village. World War II in America was a time of national unity, a singleness of purpose where non-confo...

Joanna Robertson argues that it's the regular, everyday moments and rituals that make up and frame the fabric of our lives. The details of dress or speech that shape and project an identity. Painters capturing an essence in time, like that of Madame Cezanne in Provence, dressed in blue, hair pulled tautly back into a bun, sitting next to a table with a white cup and saucer, spoon standing upwards...