Showing results by publisher "BBC Audio" in Entertainment & Celebrities

"My first experience of Shakespeare was reading it out in class and none of us understanding it, and we only got it when we saw the Zeffirelli film of Romeo and Juliet and realised - oh it’s a story! Why didn't he say that!" Starting at the recreated globe theatre, Lenny takes a journey of discovery through the plays he's now passionate about to find out why we so often put the bard on a pedestal.

Sir Derek Jacobi is an award-winning actor who is famous for his many roles on television, film and on stage. He received a Tony Award for his performance as Benedick in the RSC's production of Much Ado About Nothing and is probably most famous for his TV roles in Cadfael and I, Claudius. In this collection, we hear, in his own words, about his influences, his school years and early acting performances, as well as the many roles he has played.

Having been put off Shakespeare by unimaginative schoolteachers, Lenny Henry recently confessed to a late-flowering passion for the plays. Pursuing his new-found enthusiasm, he now gets to grips with how the magic comes to life, watching Sir Peter Hall in rehearsal for a triumphant Measure for Measure and by even trying his own hand at Othello.

Cecil Beaton was a portrait and fashion photographer, as well as a diarist and Oscar-winning designer. Here he discusses his life and achievements in a series of interviews from the BBC radio and TV archive: At Home: Cecil Beaton, broadcast on BBC Radio, 7th May 1957 (featuring Hywel Davies); Face to Face, broadcast on BBC Television, 18th February 1962 (featuring John Freeman); Late Night Line-Up, broadcast on BBC Television, 9th May 1968 (featuring Sheridan Morley); Desert Island Discs, broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 26th January 1980 (featuring Roy Plomley).