Built For Ballet

Leanne Benjamin with Sarah Crompton reveals her extraordinary life and career as one of the world’s most important ballet dancers in the past 50 years. Born and raised in the central Queensland town of Rockhampton, Benjamin attended her first ballet class at the age of three and at 16 she was accepted into the Royal Ballet School in London. At 18 Benjamin danced her first leading role on the Royal Opera House stage in the school’s performance of Giselle that catapulted her to a stellar career.

Her story is full of big names and personalities – Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, Kenneth MacMillan, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Darcey Bussell, Carlos Acosta to name a few. President Clinton, Michelle Obama, Diana Princess of Wales and David Beckham also make an appearance.

Benjamin takes you behind the scenes to find a real understanding of the pleasure and the pain, the demands and the intense commitment it requires to become a ballet dancer. She shares small moments of insight: what make a performance special, how you recover from injury, illness and child birth, how a different partner can alter everything, what it’s like to fall over in front of thousands of people and what it’s like to triumph. Above all it seeks to explain, in warm and human terms, why women get the reputation for being difficult in a world where being a good girl is too much prized. And what they can do about it.

Sponsored by Physio-Care

The Last Supper

Cosy crime and cookery collide in the debut novel of celebrity TV chef Rosemary Shrager. Introducing Prudence Bulstrode, television chef, grandmother and now crime solver. When an old television rival, Deirdre Shaw, is found dead at the Cotswolds manor house where she was catering for a prestigious shooting weekend, Prudence is asked to step into the breach. Prudence is only too happy to take up the position and soon she is working in the kitchens of Farleigh Manor.

But Farleigh Manor is home to secrets both old and new. The site of a famous unsolved murder from the nineteenth century, Farleigh Manor has never quite shaken off its sensationalist past and it’s about to get a sensational present too. Because the more she scratches beneath the surface of this manor and its guests, the more Prudence becomes certain that Deirdre Shaw’s death was no accident. She’s staring in the face of a very modern murder.

Interviewer Amber Beard

Island Tales

The three Island storytellers, Tony “Monty” Hirst, Sue Bailey and Holly Medland that comprise TisTales, are coming to Medina Bookshop for a performance of their successful show, ‘Island Tales’, first seen at Ventnor Fringe.

Drawing on a wide range of traditional stories, fabulous folk tales, magical myths, lost legends, and possibly even a few lies, the performance is sure to feature some stories you may recall as having heard somewhere, once upon a time, and others that may well be new to you. So leave the box sets behind, unsubscribe from the podcasts, turn off the radio, forego the theatre, and instead come and enjoy a programme of tales told the traditional way. Numbers are limited so book your tickets soon.

England’s Villages: An Extraordinary Journey Through Time

A common strand in all Ben’s work is his enthusiasm for exploring historic places and the physical remains of the past, seeking evocative insights that are not legible in written history.

Ben will illustrate some of his adventures in the investigation of British settlement, on and off screen, describing the quirks of archaeological, TV and village life.

He will show how dramatic and everyday village history is woven into the fabric of our present-day landscapes, communities, and lives, discussing why this is so crucial to our national story and to our future.

Berlin: The Story of a City

There is a particular frisson about Berlin, a combination of excitement, anticipation, nervousness and the unexpected. Through all its life it has been a city of tensions. Its position, on the frontier of Europe, on the ‘Mark’ where Christianity met paganism, where the Huns met the Slavs, where Europe met Russia and where fertile land met the sands, swamp and forests of Pomerania and Prussia, gave Berlin a geographical tension. It was also a long city of religious tension, between a largely Lutheran people and a Calvinist government. In the nineteenth-century political tension became acute between a city that was increasingly democratic, home to Marx and Hegel, and one of the most autocratic regimes in Europe. Artistic tension between the free thinking and liberal movements started to find themselves in direct contention with the formal, some would say stultifying, official culture. Then came the terrible confrontation between the Nazis and the free world, followed by division in the Cold War and the terror of the Wall.

Berlin is unique. Law abiding and yet witness to five revolutions; ground-breaking cultural experiment and industrial metropolis; capital city but with a population who took social and artistic liberation to extremes, it gave rise to the great movements that changed Europe – the Reformation, Marxism, Fascism and it now offers an example of how the west can accommodate the many people from other continents who want to make Europe their home.

A Narrow Door

Sunday Times and internationally bestselling, multi prize-winning author Joanne Harris talks about A Narrow Door, the third book in the Marlby trilogy. It’s an incendiary moment for St Oswald’s school. For the first time in its history, a headmistress is in power, the gates opening to female students.

Rebecca Buckfast has spilled blood to reach this position. Barely 40, she is just starting to reap the harvest of her ambition. As the new regime takes on the old guard, the ground shifts and with it, the remains of a body are discovered. But Rebecca is here to make her mark. She’ll bury the past so deep it will evade even her own memory, just like she has done before.

Harris, who is known for the international bestselling novel Chocolat, will be interviewed by Alan Titchmarsh

Concorde

The Concorde was once the world’s fastest commercial airliner, flying at almost two times the speed of sound. But nearly 20 years ago, the plane disappeared from our skies. The last Chief Concorde Pilot, Mike Bannister, gives his account of the rise and fall of this incredible plane.

October 24^th 2023 will mark 20 years since Concorde disappeared from our skies. Yet still Bannister faces the same questions. Why is she no longer flying; where is her replacement; and what really happened on that tragic afternoon in July 2000 when the crash of Flight 4590 grounded the Concorde forever? Bannister shares his personal account of what it takes to fly planes faster than the speed of sound, and of the events that lay behind 114 needless deaths – the 113 victims of the crash, and, ultimately, Concorde herself.

Interviewer Steve Ancsell

Soldier in the Sand: A Personal History of the Modern Middle East

With the Middle East in a state of persistent change and upheaval Lieutenant General Sir Simon Mayall, who has known the region since childhood and over the course of his 40-year career, is well placed to provide a greater understanding of this diverse, complex region. As well as providing an analysis of its history and religions, which strongly influence people’s actions, attitudes and relationships, Mayall draws on his own experiences and impressions based on his many years spent in key military and diplomatic appointments in numerous countries. In addition to knowing many of the key players personally, Mayall has studied at leading universities British policy and engagement in the area and he understands the effects of this long-term engagement.

Mayall’s mixture of history, politics, academic study and first-hand experience offers an invaluable insight into a fascinating, fractured and frustrating area of the world. Mayall explains complex situations in a thoroughly accessible and human manner.

Love & Deception: Philby in Beirut

Love & Deception is the extraordinary story of how Eleanor, an able, cultured American living in the espionage hot spot of 1950s Beirut, fell in love with the kindest of men. Unknown to her, that man, Kim Philby, was under suspicion by the British and US intelligence services of having secretly signed up to help the Russians fight fascism in the 1930s, and of remaining in their pay at the height of the Cold War. Despite his mysterious past, Eleanor adored and married Philby, but the strength of their love was challenged as the net steadily closed in on him.

The outline of Philby’s story is familiar to many but Love & Deception breaks remarkable new ground. Through extensive research, Hanning produces an eye-opening tale of friendship, politics, love, and loyalty.

Interviewer Bill Bristow