Radio + Podcasts
Sakamoto - Art is long, Life is short , Sunday Feature (2024) BBC Radio 3
In-depth documentaries which explore music, history, science, philosophy, film, visual arts and literature.
Ryuichi Sakamoto was probably the most famous and successful Japanese musician ever. His reputation as a genius composer and musical innovator seems assured, although we are only just beginning to comprehend his oeuvre. Sakamoto coexisted in the worlds of cinema, glitzy celebrity, cutting-edge technology and avant-garde art. A year after his passing, broadcaster Nick Luscombe reflects on Sakamoto’s legacy, and asks what was so distinct and important about his prescient vision.
With contributions from:
Haydn Bendall, record producer and engineer
Michael Bourdaghs, author and professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago
Alejandro Iñárritu, Academy Award-winning filmmaker
Noriko Manabe, professor of Music Theory at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music
Hideki Matsutake, programmer for Yellow Magic Orchestra and composer (translated by Ken Nishikawa)
Aileen Mioko Smith, environmental activist
David Toop, musician and author
Presented by Nick Luscombe
Produced by Mae-Li Evans
Exec Produced by Jack Howson
A Peanut & Crumb production for BBC Radio 3
Lovers on the Run - Screenshot, (2023) BBC Radio 4
Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode hit the road to explore the lovers on the run genre, and celebrate 50 years of Terrence Malick's film debut, Badlands. Since the film’s arrival in 1973, this dreamy and twisted fairy tale has inspired countless tales of lovers escaping dead end towns for the endless road - but it wasn't the first time this story had graced the silver screen.
Mark enlists the help of a friend of the show, film critic Christina Newland. They discuss the hallmarks of the genre, its film noir beginnings, and why cinema is obsessed with tales of lawless lovers.
Ellen then speaks to New Queer Cinema icon, Gregg Araki, who shares his subversive and anarchic take on the genre - and his theory as to why it is a staple of American cinema. Ellen also chats to director,Jonathan Entwistle to discuss relocating his TV show End of The F***ing World to this side of the Atlantic, and whether the genre is intrinsically American.
Producer: Mae-Li Evans
A Prospect Street production for BBC Radio 4
Home Movies - Screenshot (2023) BBC Radio 4
Screenshot is a radio series where Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode guide us through the expanding universe of the moving image revealing fascinating links and hidden gems from cinema and TV to streaming and beyond.
In May 1983, Sony released the first camcorder for domestic consumers, the Betamovie. This milestone in amateur filmmaking, 40 years on, prompts Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode to explore how home movies are depicted and used in feature film. Ellen meets academic Liz Czach to find out about the history of home movies, amateur filmmaking and and how its role has shifted in today's world of the internet and Tik Tok.
John Wilson, creator of the hit docufiction show How To... With John Wilson, also joins Ellen to discuss how his early experiences with found footage, and the documentaries of Bruce Brown, impacted his approach to film. Mark talks to Canadian auteur, Atom Egoyan, about how the advent of the digital camcorder and our changing relationship to video technology influenced his early films. This week's viewing note is from the director of Skate Kitchen and The Wolfpack, Crystal Moselle, who recommends a film that utilises home movie footage
Producer: Mae-Li Evans
A Prospect Street production
Oh Yoko!
Archive on 4, (2023), BBC Radio 4
“Dragon-lady”. “Witch”. “The woman who broke up the Beatles”. These are some of the labels that have been commonly used to describe Yoko Ono, a pioneering musician, artist, and activist who can plausibly claim to be the most maligned and misunderstood figure in the history of popular culture.
On this edition of Archive On 4 - timed to mark her 90th birthday - you’ll hear Yoko Ono on her own terms, in her own words, via old BBC tape.
Host Jennifer Lucy Allan, a music writer and broadcaster specialising in experimental sound, also assembles a collection of Ono's peers, friends, and admirers:
Art historian Reiko Tomii reveals how the deprivation and danger of wartime Japan formed Ono’s artistic worldview.
Sound artist Tomoko Hojo explores how an audience becomes Ono’s co-collaborator.
Fluxus poet Nye Ffarrabas remembers baring her bottom for one of Ono’s seminal works.
Rockstar Peaches reflects on Ono’s infamy.
And music writer David Kennan asserts that Yoko is the best Beatle.
Producer: Mae-Li Evans
Executive Producer: Jack Howson
Sound Mix: Mike Woolley
A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 4
Dream Space - Podcast series for Factory International (2023)
Producer for 2 episodes featuring Es Devlin and Lemn Sissay
What does art have the power or potential to do, when we allow ourselves to dream? In Dream Space we take listeners on a journey through an imaginary, limitless space. There’s Infinite resources. A blank canvas. The challenge: to stage your dream art extravaganza. Hosted by Gemma Cairney.
Create The Future (2023)
Engineering is for everyone and impacts all our lives. At this crucial moment for humanity, it couldn’t be more relevant to listen to engineers, thinkers, and designers as they debate how our future could - and should - look.
Hosted by Roma Agrawal MBE and 2022 Young Engineer of the Year George Imafidon MBE, this podcast facilitates deep conversation about how we might restructure and rebuild the world we live in, from microscopic cells to sustainable cities to intergalactic travel.
Producer: Future of Motorsports episode featuring science journalist, Kit Chapman and motorsport engineering consultant Jahee Campbell-Brennan
Producer: Future of Green Hydrogen featuring Caroline Hargrove and Michaela Kendall
The Root of the Matter | 5 part podcast Series (2022)
Wellcome Collection
Our lives are intrinsically entangled with the plant world: through the food we eat, the medicines we use, and the spaces we inhabit. In this five-part series, writer and maker JC Niala explores what the plant world has to teach us about being human. Join JC in conversation with growers, scientists, writers and activists on a journey through five different landscapes, from the familiarity of the garden to the seemingly hostile wasteland. We’ll take a closer look at the entanglements and stories underpinning the plant world to understand how plants can provide a lens on human health, history and belonging.
Presented by JC Niala
Lead Producer: Alannah Chance , Producer: Mae-Li Evans
Music and sound design by Alice Boyd
Shade Podcast
Editor - Larry Achiampong episode - Listen here
Producer of Fiona Compton episode, Series 3 Finale - Listen here
Shade Podcast engages a wide community of creatives and activists across disciplines, who have challenged existing narratives of race and identity within their work
GO SOUTH - ‘Videogames’ episode on Shortcuts, BBC Radio 4 (2022)
Sound art
This piece of sound art was inspired by going down a wikipedia wormhole and arriving at an online version of the 1970s text based computer game, Adventure.
I tried playing it for around half an hour and eventually gave up - but in those 30 minutes, felt a gamut of emotions in quick succession. Intrigue, confusion, frustration, joy at finally unlocking something simple - the realisation that urgh, there’s far more to explore.
Most of us at some point have experienced this 'rookie' state - entering into a new space or world and not quite understanding the rules governing it. It’s always a humbling experience.
Dreams in the Air (2021) BBC Radio 4
The Dreams We Live Inside series
Engineer and author Roma Agrawal explores how the built environment shapes us and what we might ask from the architects and designers who make our cities.
In this episode, Roma explores a vision for post-war social housing that aims to bring lively street life to the air through generous elevated walkways called Streets in the Sky. At Sheffield’s Park Hill estate, we learn how Alison and Peter Smithson’s vision of building bustling communities at height is experienced by residents Dana and Tamara to understand how these spaces can facilitate connection and community among the towering raw concrete.
Producer: Mae-Li Evans
Presenter: Roma Agrawal
Researcher: Nadia Mehdi
Executive Producer: Katherine Godfrey
Music and Sound Design by Phil Smith
Mix by Nigel Appleton
A Novel production for BBC Radio 4
Gee Vaucher The Last Bohemians (2020) independent
A podcast + portrait series profiling fearless women and maverick outsiders in arts and culture
SILVER AWARD for Best New Podcast - British Podcast Awards 2020
Image: Laura Kelly
Exec produced by Kate Hutchinson
Get Up Stand Up Now (2019)
Producer of two podcast episodes for Somerset House, for their summer exhibition Get Up Stand Up Now. (Reduced Listening)
Nominated for Best Arts & Culture Podcast - British Podcast Awards 2020
Calling planet earth! Artist Yinka Shonibare CBE, acclaimed saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, fashion designer Mowalola Ogunlesi, and Get Up, Stand Up Now curator Zak Ové explore themes around Black futures and afro-futurism. Presented by spoken word artist Joshua Idehen.
Dream to Change the World Listen here
Get Up, Stand Up Now curator Zak Ové and Gaylene Gould, British Film Institute(Head of Cinema & Events) are in conversation exploring Pressure, the 1976 film from Horace Ové CBE, its production and legacy. Artist Sonia Boyce OBE RA discusses her work as an artist and activist starting in the 1980’s with the Black Arts Movement. Spoken word artist Joshua Idehen creatively responds to the themes of activism, change and hope.
(Series Exec produced by Reduced Listening
Totality
Short doc - Broadcast on BBC Radio 4
Part of ‘Deep Time,’ episode of Short Cuts on BBC Radio 4. Listen HERE
A solar eclipse repeats over and over, a musical key unlocks lost memories and a life marked out in books. Josie Long presents short documentaries and adventures in sound on our experience of time.
Sound design: Calum Perrin
Shape Newham Radio
Listen here
The Shape Newham Design Exhibition is an online gallery providing the opportunity to explore the design proposals for Shape Newham projects.
Conducted interviews with local residents for borough wide public art projects
(Newham Council, Social Broadcasting)