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This Cultural Life: Daily Summaries Delivered
by BBC Radio 4
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.
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- 2 weeks ago43 min
Viet Thanh Nguyen
Pulitzer Prize-winning author and academic Viet Thanh Nguyen talks to John Wilson about his formative influences and experiences. A child refugee, he moved to the United States with his family at the end of the Vietnam War. He is best known for his 2015 debut novel The Sympathizer which has been translated into 30 languages, has sold more than a million copies worldwide, and was adapted as an HBO television series in 2024. Viet Thanh Nguyen has written widely about conflict, migration and identity in his fiction and, more recently, in his memoir A Man Of Two Faces. A professor of English and American Studies, he teaches at the University of Southern California. Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used:News archive from Newsdesk, BBC Radio 4, 29 & 30 April 1975 Clips from Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola, 1979 Extract from The Quiet American, Graham Greene, 1955 Trailer for The Sympathizer, HBO, 2024
- 3 weeks ago43 min
Liliane Lijn
Pioneering artist Liliane Lijn talks to John Wilson about her formative cultural influences. A leading figure in the development of kinetic sculptures in the 1960s, she is renowned for her use of light and movement, creating sculptures and installations that draw inspiration from quantum physics and astronomy. She has worked with scientists at the CERN nuclear research laboratory and the Space Science Laboratory at Berkely University, and her art has involved spinning texts, plastic prisms and conical sculptures that emit light. Liliane Lijn’s work is held in museums and galleries around the world, including MOMA in New York, and the V & a. In 2025 she was the subject of a major retrospective show at Tate St Ives. She has recently published a memoir Liquid Reflections, which shares its name with one of her best known artworks. Producer: Edwina Pitman
- 4 weeks ago43 min
Elif Shafak
Bestselling Turkish-British novelist Elif Shafak talks to John Wilson about her formative cultural influences. Renowned for epic stories that connect the past and the present, told from multiple perspectives, her novels explore marginalised communities and exiled people. An activist who has campaigned for the rights of women and freedom of expression, she faced prosecution in Turkey in 2006, accused for ‘insulting Turkishness’. Elif Shafak’s 2019 novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and her 2021 novel The Island of Missing Trees was a finalist for the Women's Prize for Fiction. Her books have been translated into more than 50 languages. In 2025, she was elected as President of the Royal Society of Literature. Her latest novel One Brief Moment All Eternity is a portrait of the French writer Gustav Flaubert told through the eyes of the women who shaped him.Producer: Edwina Pitman
- Sep 24, 202643 min
Joel Meyerowitz
American photographer Joel Meyerowitz talks to John Wilson about his cultural influences and formative experiences. A pioneer of the artform, he first began capturing life on the streets of his native New York in the early 1960s, and helped to establish colour photography as a fine-art medium. After travelling throughout Europe he made his name with a groundbreaking show at the Museum of Modern Art in 1968. Following the attacks on the World Trade Centre in 2001, Joel Meyerowitz became the only photographer to secure access to Ground Zero and, over several months, captured the scenes of devastation. His work has been the subject of more than 350 exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world, and he is the recipient of many awards, most recently the prestigious Outstanding Contribution prize at the Sony World Photography Awards 2026.Producer: Edwina Pitman
- Sep 17, 202643 min
Ray Winstone
Actor Ray Winstone talks to John Wilson about his formative cultural influences and inspirations. A schoolboy boxing champion, he built a reputation playing tough, working class characters after being cast in the borstal drama Scum at the age of 17. Winstone won huge acclaim for his performance as an alcoholic abusive husband in the film Nil By Mouth, directed by Gary Oldman, and Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast in which he played a bank robber forced out of retirement. Other big screen roles include the Martin Scorsese gangland drama The Departed, and Anthony Mingehella’s American civil war film Cold Mountain. On television, he’s played Henry the Eighth, Magwitch in Great Expectations and most recently, an imprisoned crime boss in the Netflix series The Gentlemen. Producer: Edwina Pitman
- Sep 11, 202643 min
Nicholas Hytner
Theatre and film director Sir Nicholas Hytner talks to John Wilson about his formative cultural influences. Over a career spanning four decades, he has directed Shakespeare, contemporary drama and musicals, including Miss Saigon which ran for over a decade in London and on Broadway. He served as artistic director of the National Theatre for 12 years, overseeing more massive box office hits including The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time and War Horse. Productions that he directed himself include One Man, Two Guvnors and The History Boys, one of several collaborations with Alan Bennett. In 2017, he co-founded London’s Bridge Theatre where his productions have included Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Guys and Dolls. One of the most influential and successful figures in British theatre, Sir Nicholas Hytner was knighted for services to drama in 2010.Producer: Edwina Pitman
- Sep 3, 202643 min
Mitsuko Uchida
One of the world’s greatest living pianists, Mitsuko Uchida, talks to John Wilson about her cultural influences and her career in music. Born in Japan, and a British citizen for over 25 years, she is renowned for her interpretations of work by Schubert, Mozart and Beethoven, and for the intellectual rigour of her approach to musical manuscripts. She has won two Grammy Awards, three Gramophone Awards, the Praemium Imperiale, presented by the imperial family of Japan, and the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society. She was made a Dame in 2009 for her services to music. Producer: Edwina Pitman
- Aug 27, 202643 min
Sebastian Faulks
Author Sebastian Faulks talks to John Wilson about his influences and formative cultural experiences. Faulks won huge acclaim for his First World War novel Birdsong, which – along with The Girl At the Lion D’or and Charlotte Gray – forms part of a trilogy of historical novels set in France. Since it was first published in 1993 Birdsong has gone on to sell more than three million copies worldwide and is taught in schools and universities on both English and History syllabuses. His other novels include Human Traces, On Green Dolphin Street, Engleby and, most recently, Farewell To Eden. A team captain on the Radio 4 literary quiz show The Write Stuff for over a decade, Sebastian Faulks was made a CBE for services to literature in 2002. Producer: Edwina Pitman
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About This Cultural Life
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.
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