22/12/2010

This week Libby Purves is joined by Gordon Buchanan, Les Persaud, Reece Shearsmith and Vicki Amedume. Gordon has worked as a wildlife cameraman for nearly twenty years, specialising in filming dangerous predators, including tigers and leopards in Bhutan, jaguars in the Amazon, and lions in Africa. In 'The Bear Family and Me' on BBC Two, Gordon spends a year with a family of wild Black Bears in the forests of Minnesota. Les Persaud's sixteen year old son Stefan was killed in South London after a minor row between him and another teenager. Out of this tragic event, he came up with the idea of mentoring children caught up in gang culture, got his son's friends together and set up 'The Options Project', which goes into primary schools to help children understand the consequences of knives and knife crime. Reece Shearsmith is the actor and writer who first came to prominence as the co-writer and one of the stars of the cult BBC comedy series 'The League of Gentlemen'. He is also co-writer and star of the BBC's 'Psychoville'. He has appeared as 'Leo Bloom' in 'The Producers' and 'Art' in the West End and can currently be seen in 'Ghost Stories' at the Duke of York's Theatre, London. Vicki Amedume is a contemporary circus performer and aerialist who founded 'Upswing' circus in 2004. Upswing will be performing their latest work, 'Fallen' as part of the London International Mime Festival (LIMF). It is a powerful story of what it means to be a woman and mother, alone in a foreign land, weaving dance, aerial and circus with African spirituality, and is based on Vicki's own mother's story of coming to the UK from Ghana. 'Fallen' is at South Bank Centre's Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London.