28/12/2011

This week Libby Purves is joined by guests Winnie and Frank Tovey, Simon Russell Beale, Noo Saro-Wiwa and Anne Wallace. Winnie and Frank Tovey spent sixteen years in the fifties and sixties in India where Frank was a medical missionary. They were active in providing clinics to cure leprosy, surgery and physiotherapy to restore function and treat deformity and have written about their experiences in the book 'Cor Blimey! Where 'ave you come from?, published by Little Knoll Press. Simon Russell-Beale is the acclaimed stage and screen actor who has played every major Shakespearean and classical drama lead over the last twenty years. He is currently playing Stalin in the National Theatre production of 'Collaborators' by John Hodge. He can also be seen in the films Deep Blue Sea and My Week With Marilyn. Noo Saro-Wiwa is a travel writer and daughter of the political activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was murdered in Nigeria in 1995. She was brought up in the UK but used to hate visiting Nigeria every year on holiday as a child. In her book 'Looking for Transwonderland', she describes her own journey back, ten years after his death. Looking for Transwonderland is published by Granta. Anne Wallace has worked in the fish and chip shop business in Stockport for the last forty-five years. She recently won a NatWest Everywoman Gaia Award for Enterprise. When the recession hit and neighbouring shops closed down, she bought the shop next door and opened it as a coffee shop, Startpoint, where they offer everything from providing IT skills to the elderly, to courses in Tai Chi and crochet. Producer: Annette Wells.