27/10/2010

This week Libby Purves is joined by Sheridan Smith, Sir Johnny Scott, Andrew Sharp and Alan Titchmarsh. Sheridan Smith is the actor probably best known for her many award-winning television roles which include the comedies Two Pints of Lager & A Packet of Crisps, Gavin and Stacey and Benidorm. She has recently taken the West End by storm in the hit musical Legally Blonde, playing the role of college sweetheart Elle Woods and has extended her run until next year. Legally Blonde: The Musical is at the Savoy Theatre. Sir Johnny Scott is a historian, broadcaster, countryside campaigner and farmer. He wrote and co-presented the BBC2 series Clarissa and the Countryman and writes for magazines and periodicals on field sports, food, farming and rural issues. His new book, 'A Book of Britain' celebrates the landscape and people, and reveals why, through centuries of careful management, conservation and cultivation, Britain looks as it does. 'A Book of Britain' is published by Collins. Master butcher Andrew Sharp comes from a family with a five hundred year butchery heritage. He features in a new BBC series 'Turn Back Time' in which the British high street is brought to life, transporting a parade of empty shops in Shepton Mallett, Somerset and a group of shop-keeping families, back to the beginnings of the high street in the 1870s before shooting them through a century of high street change right up until the modern day. 'Turn Back Time - the history of the High Street' is on BBC One. Alan Titchmarsh is the broadcaster, writer and gardener. For his latest book 'When I was a Nipper' he looks back at 1950s Britain and takes us on a personal and nostalgic journey in search of treasured values and traditions and asks what can we learn from that era of austerity today? 'When I was a Nipper' is published by BBC Books.