20/10/2010

This week Libby Purves is joined by Simon Fisher Turner, Maggi Hambling, Sheila Steafel and Rumer. Composer Simon Fisher Turner is a former child actor and teenage pop idol. He has written a new score for the documentary The Great White Silence (1924) which is a record of Captain Scott's last Polar expedition (1910 -1912). The world premiere screening, newly restored by the BFI National Archive, is one of the highlights of the 54th BFI London Film Festival. Maggi Hambling is one of Britain's most celebrated artists. Since the unveiling in 2003, her Scallop sculpture on Aldeburgh Beach in Suffolk has never been far from controversy. In her book, 'The Aldeburgh Scallop' she traces her love of the sea back to her earliest childhood and records how this lifelong passion has fired her work, culminating in the Scallop sculpture. 'The Aldeburgh Scallop' is published by Full Circle Editions. Actress Sheila Steafel grew up in apartheid-torn South Africa during the thirties and forties before coming to London aged seventeen to study drama. She built up a reputation as an accomplished comedy actress, appearing in numerous popular television series including the Frost Report but she's possibly best known as 'Miss Popsy Wopsy' in the BBC's old time music hall, The Good Old Days. Her autobiography 'When Harry Met Sheila' is published by Apex Publishing. Rumer is a Pakistan-born singer-songwriter, brought up in the New Forest. After a decade of trying to make it in the music business she has finally being recognised by such luminaries as Elton John and Burt Bacharach and A-listed by Radio 2. Her new single, 'Aretha' is out now and she is performing at the Radio 2 Electric Proms at the Roundhouse.