Great Entertainers' Lives

Nov 17, 2024 6:49 PM

Author:Joan Bakewell,Humphrey Carpenter,Francine Stock,Matthew Parris,Matthew Parris,Julian Clary,Alan Davies,Mark Gatiss,Fiona Shaw,Joan Bakewell,Francine Stock,Humphrey Carpenter

Well-known personalities pick their favourite entertainers for BBC Radio 4's Great Lives

One of the BBC's most acclaimed programmes, Great Lives has been a regular Radio 4 fixture for 20 years, presented by Joan Bakewell, Humphrey Carpenter, Francine Stock and Matthew Parris. Every week, a famous name is invited into the studio to nominate a figure from the past who has inspired them, and discuss their subject with the presenter and a guest expert.

Included in this special collection, marking the programme's 20th anniversary, are the very best episodes featuring the lives of entertainers - artists, comedians, clowns, magicians, sporting heroes and stars of stage and screen. Among them, Julian Clary champions Noël Coward, Anthony Horowitz advocates Alfred Hitchcock, Penelope Keith puts forward Morecambe and Wise and David Bailey plumps for Pablo Picasso. Here, the lives of the celebrity guests are as intriguing as those of the people they pick: as is also the case with Alan Davies on Richard Beckinsale, Mica Paris on Josephine Baker, Ken Dodd on Stan Laurel, Mark Gatiss on Peter Cushing and many, many others.

From Simon Callow on Orson Welles, to Fiona Shaw on Eleonora Duse, these engaging episodes put some of the world's best-known entertainers under the spotlight, examining their achievements and probing their personalities to find out what made them so inspiring, influential and extraordinary.

List of episode and date of first broadcast on BBC Radio 4:

Umm Kulthum 22.11.02

Tommy Cooper 14.11.03

Charles M Schulz 15.4.05

Mae West 7.10.05

Morecambe & Wise 4.4.06

Noël Coward 18.4.06

Johnny Weissmuller 9.5.06

Tamara Karsavina 23.5.06

Max Miller 15.8.06

Joan Littlewood 5.1.07

Richard Beckinsale 9.1.07

Lilian Baylis 7.8.07

Thora Hird 11.12.07

Groucho Marx 15.1.08

Peter Cushing 1.4.08

Joyce Grenfell 20.5.08

Richard Pryor 12.8.08

Harry Houdini 22.9.09

Gerald Durrell 27.9.11

Stan Laurel 4.9.12

Pablo Picasso 19.01.10

John Ford 08.05.12

Karel Reisz 11.09.12

Dave Allen 14.01.14

Lucille Ball 30.09.14

Alfred Hitchcock 05.04.16

Joseph Grimwaldi 31.05.16

Gracie Fields 02.08.16

Orson Welles 08.05.18

Josephine Baker 15.05.18

Eleonora Duse 10.09.19

Presented by Humphrey Carpenter and Matthew Parris

Produced by John Byrne, Christine Hall, Beatrice Fenton, Perminder Khatkar, Miles Warde, Toby Field, Mary Ward-Lowery, Lucy Lunt, Jolyon Jenkins, Sarah Langan, Tim Dee, Maggie Ayre, Peter Everett, Mark Smalley, Camellia Sinclair, Beth O'Dea

Reviews

Raw, comedic, inspirational.

—— GQ

If you read one book this year, make it this one

—— Jay Shetty

A wild ride

—— New York Times

Bracingly honest, vivid and compelling [...] how an average talent became the biggest movie star in the world

—— The Times

Brilliant

—— Telegraph

Eye-popping revelations [...] Will Smith bares all about his childhood and life

—— Sun

The book is awesome. So candid and considered...fascinating.

—— Chris Evans , Virgin Radio

Devastating, wise, hilarious and original

—— Róisín Ingle

A terrific book . . . absolutely brilliant

—— Brendan O'Connor

O'Connor gets you onside so completely with her direct narrative, you feel you could be in the same room as her

—— Sunday Times

Rememberings offers O'Connor's very personal version of events, a tale of maternal and institutional abuse that might be a misery memoir, if it weren't related with such eccentric charm and cheery fortitude

—— Daily Telegraph

From wild youth to troubled adulthood, this memoir is a blast of chaos

—— Times

Utterly brilliant

—— Paul Howard

Astonishing. Staggering

—— Rob Delaney

Superb . . . fantastic

—— Irish Daily Star

Beautifully written

—— VIP

Honest and illuminating

—— Irish Independent

Rememberings is an electrifying reminder of the importance of [O'Connor's] voice

—— Business Post

O'Connor brings everything to this memoir

—— Financial Times

Incendiary

—— i

Astonishingly good, wise and hilarious

—— Louise Nealon

Candid, open-hearted . . . a lot of self-deprecation, a lot of laughs, and a measure of honesty that would put most of us to shame

—— Anglo-Celt

Genuinely incredible . . . [Rememberings is] suffused with humour and forgiveness

—— Guardian

There's nothing conventional about Sinéad O'Connor and there's little conventional about her memoir either. . . She writes with searing honesty and plenty of wit

—— Independent

Her complicated life makes for riveting reading. From ripping up photographs of the Pope on prime time US television and her mental health struggles to a rollercoaster spiritual quest, she has never been afraid to be fearless

—— iNews

A deliciously decadent tale of sex, tragedy, celebrity, surfboards and tanned skin in 1980s Malibu.

—— The Times

I absolutely loved her book.... It's an absolute blast to read

—— Alice- Azania Jarvis

JACKIE COLLINS, BUT BETTER Sacrilege to say "better", I know, but there we are. Set in the 1980s, Taylor Jenkins Reid's Malibu Rising is wonderfully written, intensely evocative and concerns the model/ surfer children of a rock star. Tons of glamour, tons of sharply observed insights about sibling relationships, plus a massive party. Beach read par excellence. See also her brilliant Daisy Jones & the Six, which is heaven (more rock stars).

—— Anonymous

When we picked up Malibu Rising, the new novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid, we could barely put it down

—— That's Life

You'll never want this book to end, it will suck you in and spit you out!

—— Muddy Stilettos

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