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Last broadcast on Wed, 13 Oct 2010, 10:00 on BBC Radio 4.
Synopsis
Presented by Jenni Murray. June Spencer is 'Peggy' in The Archers, a role she has played for almost 60 years. Now 91, she joins Jenni to talk of her life both real and in Ambridge. The Archers abounds with matriarchs, so what is their history and role in society? Elish Angiolini was Scotland's first female Lord Advocate. As she leaves her post, she looks back on four years in office. And, Marina Abramovic has been called the "grande dame" of radical performance art. With her latest show about to open in London, she talks about a career that has taken her from Belgrade to New York and beyond.
June Spencer – The Archers’ Peggy Woolley
When The Archers was first broadcast on BBC radio on New Year’s Day 1951, few could have guessed it would still be going strong nearly 60 years later. Just one member of the original cast now remains - the actress June Spencer who plays Peggy Woolley. Now 91 years old, she has written a memoir, ‘The Road to Ambridge’. She joins Jenni to talk about her own life, her long acting career, and about how playing Peggy has changed over the years.
‘The Road to Ambridge' by June Spencer is published by JR Books
The role of the matriarch
Peggy Woolley is just one of several strong women in The Archers. But as more women are working and having fewer children, is a matriarch's role changing? Jenni discusses the history of matriarchs with the author Charlotte Mendelson, whose last book When We Were Bad featured a generation of children trying to escape the influence of their overbearing mother; and Professor of Modern History from Manchester University, Penny Summerfield.
Elish Angiolini, Lord Advocate of Scotland
Elish Angiolini, the first woman and the first solicitor to hold the 500-year-old post of Lord Advocate of Scotland, has announced she is stepping down from the post. She has become well known as a moderniser, the driving force behind reforms to the way rape and sexual assault are investigated and prosecuted. Her changes were hailed as a ’revolution’ in the Scottish judicial system. She is also passionate about victim support and pioneered Scotland’s National Victim Information and Advice (VIA) Service. She talks to Jenni about what she has achieved during her tenure.
Marina Abramovic – the grande dame of performance art
The artist Marina Abramovic has been called the “grande dame” and the “controversial grandmother” of radical performance art. Born in 1946 in Belgrade, she is known for creating challenging and shocking works which explore her body’s physical and mental limits, often subjecting herself to pain and exhaustion. In the 1970s she famously slashed a five-pointed star on her stomach with a razor-blade and, during the 1997 Venice Biennale, she sat in a chamber scrubbing clean 1,500 cow bones for four days. Earlier this year, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, she staged one of her most minimalist and longest live works so far. Called “The Artist Is Present”, it consisted of her sitting motionless in the museum every day for three months. Members of the public queued up, sometimes for hours, to sit opposite her and gaze at her. Today an exhibition of her photographs and videos of her work opens at the Lisson Gallery in London, her first solo exhibition in London for a decade.
Photo courtesy of the artist Marco Anelli and Lisson Gallery
Chapters
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Chapter 1
The actor who plays The Archer's Peggy Woolley discusses 60 years in Ambridge
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Chapter 2
With the author Charlotte Mendelson and Prof Penny Summerfield from Manchester University
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Chapter 3
The first woman and the first solicitor to hold the 500-year-old post of Lord Advocate of Scotland
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Chapter 4
The 'grande dame' of performance art
Broadcast
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Wed 13 Oct 201010:00
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