03/03/2010

This week Libby Purves is joined by Suzi Brent, Assaf Gavron, Adam Coleman and Alison Chitty.

Suzi Brent works as an Emergency Medical Dispatcher for the London Ambulance Service. Originally in the form of a blog and now a book, 'Nee Naw - Real Life Dispatches from Ambulance Control' tells of how she took the first calls after the terrorist attacks in London on 7th July 2005, to delivering a baby over the phone and also dealing with regular and often hoax callers. Nee Naw is published by Penguin.

Assaf Gavron is a Jerusalem born writer and translator. He lived in Tel Aviv in the midst of the bloodiest days of the second Intifada in 2002. He also spent as a soldier in Gaza where he came face-to-face with Palestinians and with the way they lived under occupation. This experience has very much informed his writing. His latest book, Croc Attack, is published by Fourth Estate.

Adam Coleman is senior practitioner at Globe education at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre. He’s just returned from Beirut where he’s been running workshops on conflict resolution using Romeo and Juliet. The programme works with students aged 13 to 18 across Beirut, with over 2,000 students having attended the workshops since they began in 2004.

Alison Chitty has worked as a theatre and opera designer for the last forty years, working with directors including Mike Leigh and Sir Peter Hall. She was resident designer at the Royal National Theatre, where she spent eight years designing many productions including Much Ado About Nothing, Don Juan, Fool For Love and Bacchae. In 2009 she was made a Royal Designer for Industry in 2009 by the Royal Society of Arts and is director of the Motley Theatre Design School. An exhibition of her work is currently showing at the National Theatre.