17/11/2010

This week Libby Purves is joined by Samantha Bond, Seckou Keita, Ryan Bingham and Brendan Cole. Samantha Bond is the actor, probably best known for her role as 'Miss Moneypenny' in the James Bond films starring Pierce Brosnan. She has appeared in many television series, including the BBC Comedy 'Outnumbered' as Aunt Angela and on stage in 'Amy's View' opposite Dame Judi Dench. She is currently playing the scheming Mrs Cheveley in Oscar Wilde's classic 'An Ideal Husband' at the Vaudeville Theatre, The Strand. Seckou Keita is a Senegalese born Kora player and drummer, who has been called the 'Hendrix of the Kora'. This year he launched a partnership with the International Committee of the Red Cross in which he will donate 50% of all the proceeds made from his latest album, 'The Silimbo Passage'. Ryan Bingham is an Oscar-winning songwriter and country singer. An ex-Rodeo rider from New Mexico, he co-wrote, with T. Bone Burnett, 'The Weary Kind' which featured on the soundtrack of the 2009 film 'Crazy Heart', which won Jeff Bridges an Oscar for his portrayal of a washed-up country star. He is currently on a short UK tour and has a new album 'Ryan Bingham and the Dead Horses: Junky Star' out on Wrasse Records. Brendan Cole is probably best known as one of the fourteen professional ballroom dancers on 'Strictly Come Dancing'. He is a trained ballroom dancer whose speciality is Latin American. He has been in 'Strictly' since its inception and won the first season with his dance partner Natasha Kaplinsky. His new DVD 'Live and Unjudged' which features his theatre tour, fellow Strictly professionals, a fourteen piece band and his brother Scott, also a professional dancer is out now.