Julie Walters has been one of Britain's best-loved actresses since her award-winning big screen debut in Educating Rita. Her film career has since ranged from the song and dance of Mamma Mia! to the tragicomedy of Calendar Girls via a long-running role in the Harry Potter series. In this exclusive and revealing conversation, recorded in front of a live audience at the BFI Southbank, Julie discusses her movie career with Richard E Grant, who directed her in his own feature debut Wah-Wah.
Actor Cillian Murphy, who played the lead role in Ken Loach's Palme d'Or-winning film The Wind That Shakes the Barley, talks to the director at the BFI Southbank about a prolific career dedicated to documenting social and political injustice, the importance of artistic collaboration, the often-overlooked humour in Loach's films, and the impact working with Loach had on his own approach to acting.
Judi Dench was already an acclaimed stage actress when she was first nominated for an Academy Award for Mrs Brown in 1997. Since then she's had a further five Oscar nominations and a win for Shakespeare in Love. Add Golden Globes and BAFTAs and she is, quite rightly, one of Britain's most lauded screen actresses as well as the definitive 'M' in the James Bond movies. In conversation at the BFI Southbank with Richard Eyre, who directed her in Iris and Notes on a Scandal, Judi Dench looks back at highlights of an extraordinary career on film, a journey that is still taking her to new heights.
In this special programme recorded in front of a live audience, two of Britain's best-known and most popular poets, Simon Armitage and Tony Harrison, discuss their craft and careers. Tony Harrison is one of the leading poet-playwrights working in the English language today. Harrison grew up in working-class Leeds and, since exploding into public consciousness in 1987 when his controversial poem 'V' was televised, he has been well-known for his outspoken politics, with his poetry dealing with issues of class, race and power. Throughout his prolific career, he has written for the theatre, opera, film, television and print - but all of it in verse. Harrison has inspired a generation of younger writers to find their own voice - including fellow Yorkshire poet Simon Armitage, who like Harrison has established himself in other fields such as TV and translation, and whose northern roots and ear for the language of the street has given his work a young, urban appeal.
To coincide with Richard Eyre's television version of Ronald Harwood's play The Dresser, the two knights discuss Harwood's long and distinguished career as a writer of plays and screenplays. The conversation covers how Harwood's own experience as dresser to the great Shakespearean actor Sir Donald Wolfit inspired The Dresser, and takes in other highlights of Harwood's theatrical career, including Taking Sides and Collaboration, as well as films such as Quartet, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and The Pianist, for which he won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2003.
Sue MacGregor talks to Antony Sher and Greg Doran about their stage work together and their shared passion for Shakespeare. Over the last two decades the actor and director have collaborated on ten shows including Macbeth, Henry IV pts 1 and 2 and Death of a Salesman. In 2016 Doran will direct Sher in King Lear for the RSC, the company Doran runs. This is a rare chance to be in the audience for an intimate insight into a professional and personal partnership that is probably unique in British theatre.
At the age of 20, Billie Eilish is the first singer born in the 21st century to both hit number one in the billboard charts and win an Oscar. She has more than 200 million followers across her social media. We join her for the last night of her world tour to talk fame, impostor syndrome and identity for In Conversation.
Oscar-nominated actor Elliot Page speaks to the BBC’s gender and identity correspondent Megha Mohan about his childhood, Hollywood, trans rights and his relationship with his body.
Rina Sawayama has been called ‘the future of queer pop music’. The Japanese-British singer speaks to the BBC’s gender and identity correspondent Megha Mohan about her frustrations with the music industry, how her sexuality informs her art and growing up with racism in the UK. She also reveals, for the first time, the deeply personal and devastating inspiration behind her album.
