Working Class Reality News Today

Funeral, i think it was 1965, seeing it on the television and just being told about the great man. The World Cup Final of 1966, where the nation stopped, and in our own household, my brother had a sort of flirtation with meningitis which was very dramatic, as you know, those can be fora minute, and then he was fine, thank goodness. But i watched the World Cup Final in a neighbours house and ijust remember in both those cases, in belfast, as i was, i was very aware of a national event, or at leas...

So, this is radio drama studio. Hello, im john wilson. Welcome to this cultural life, a radio four podcast in which i ask leading creative figures about the influences and inspirations that have fired their artistic imagination. My guest in this episode is sir kenneth branagh. A huge talent, a star of stage and screen for more than four decades now. Hes an actor, director, writer and film maker whose credits range from hamlet to tenet, from henry v to thor. We spoke in the very atmospheric radio...

Right, lets move on to your next big cultural influence. its from 1982 - a landmark television drama series. the boys from the blackstuff by alan bleasdale. i started watching it in belfast — i was doing my very second job, a brilliant play by graham reid, part of a trilogy of plays called the billy plays — and i was watching it there, and few things struck me. it was very gritty and authentic — i felt i absolutely believed its working class reality. but at the same time, it had a surreal ...

Was in the development of a voracious appetite for reading and researching around the subject — and with the certainty that i didnt mind what level of achievement was possible. any kind ofjob in any kind of theatre at any point was going to be enough for me. right, lets move on to your next big cultural influence. its from 1982 — a landmark television drama series. yeah. the boys from the blackstuff by alan bleasdale. i started watching it in belfast — i was doing my very second job, a bri...

About this for me was in the development of a voracious appetite for reading and researching around the subject — and with the certainty that i didnt mind what level of achievement was possible. any kind ofjob in any kind of theatre at any point was going to be enough for me. right, lets move on to your next big cultural influence. its from 1982 — a landmark television drama series. yeah. the boys from the blackstuff by alan bleasdale. i started watching it in belfast — i was doing my very...

Right, lets move on to your next big cultural influence. its from 1982 — a landmark television drama series. yeah. the boys from the blackstuff by alan bleasdale. i started watching it in belfast — i was doing my very second job, a brilliant play by graham reid, part of a trilogy of plays called the billy plays — and i was watching it there, and few things struck me. it was very gritty and authentic — i felt i absolutely believed its working class reality. but at the same time, it had a ...

Features of a sort of working class life or anybody�*s life, basically, where, you know, the — youre not living with a hollywood soundtrack, youre not in a big screen adventure, youre in a much more prosaic existence but, from the inside, the soul is being crushed. it was the kind of thing that made television—watching an event. your last big cultural moment that youve brought in is the olympics opening ceremony, 2012. you had a really key role that night. central, you know, middle of the ...