Off Air... with Jane and Fi - How many inches do you think yours is?

Episode Date: February 8, 2023

Jane and Fi get giddy as their holiday looms and they talk TV inches and cauliflower soup for breakfast.Also poet, artist and performer Debris Stevenson joins them to talk about overcoming adversity and her new adaptation of 'Much Ado About Nothing'.Much Ado About Nothing is playing at the Duke of York's Theatre until Friday 10th of February.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Producer: Eve SalusburyTimes Radio Producer: Rosie CutlerPodcast Executive Producer: Ben Mitchell Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. VoiceOver on. Settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books. Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. Welcome. Welcome to Wednesday.

Hope you're reasonably well. I'm afraid I've already broken my no daffodils rule. Had to Wednesday. Hope you're reasonably well. I'm afraid I've already broken my no daffodils rule. Had to get some this morning. Oh, do you learn nothing? No, well, I did. It was from my neighbour. And I just, I know she's really, because her sight's not too good. And she can properly see those yellow trumpeting flowers. But you could still have bought them in a pot plant form. I know.

Jane. I know. Jane. Okay. I don't know what I can do about that really. I did think about it, but she did really want them. I know they really cheer her up. It's a tough one. Yeah. I've actually got no plants left in my house anymore because of the naughtiness of Barbara. Not

Brian, but Barbara. The kitten yes she's only very young she'll learn to love plants won't she well she's learned what to do with plants certainly break them which is to break them eat them tip them over and then use the kind of mounds of uh compost and soil as an ad hoc litter tray. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Whereas Brian is absolutely tickety-boo. What, he's tip-top with the litter tray? Tip-top, never pees in the wrong place. Oh, Brian.

He is marvellous. I mean, there are grown men called Brian who can't achieve that. I know. So well done. And, yeah, I've definitely got a messy barber on my hands, Jane. Now, we unfortunately couldn't get to Wellness Wednesday today due to a communication issue. God, you're right, I'd completely forgotten that. Yeah, well, it's a long time ago now,

but we do pride ourselves on having a gong every Wednesday in a wellness segment in which we attempt to sometimes shed light on the wellness issues of the moment. And today's item was going to be about whether or not alcohol is good for your teeth, and I think we can probably... Well, it's not. It isn't. No, which is amazing to learn because the truth is, despite the occasional article saying a glass of red wine is good for your heart, says Bulgarian research by the Bulgarian Winemakers Association of Bulgaria. I think we do know that alcohol isn't terrifically good for

anything very much. But I wanted to ask this guest, and I'm just going to ask you now, about cleaning your teeth before you eat. Apparently, first thing in the morning, you should clean your teeth before you eat breakfast. I always thought it was better to eat breakfast first and then do your teeth. But apparently, I read the other day, and I can't remember where for the life of me, that eating breakfast before you've cleaned your teeth is the equivalent of putting a good new meal onto a dirty plate. Okay.

Well, in my position as Dr Completely Unqualified Glover, I'm going to say that I always scrub my teeth as soon as I get up. Before you've had a mug of tea? Yes, before I do anything. Just because I, somewhere along the line, got taught the lesson which I hope was true. Have you got gentleman callers coming as soon as you wake up? No, darling, I haven't.

Just joking. Because you've got rather nasty kind of, you know, open mouth sleeping bacteria in your mouth. It's horrible, it's disgusting. But I still thought you were allowed, that the medical profession and dentistry allowed you a mug of tea before you tackled anything. No, I like to go straight into it.

And actually, do you remember the mad spa that I went to where they had leeches flown in from Germany on a Tuesday? No, they had this whole thing. So the whole thing was just about cleansing yourself. I mean, it's just the most ridiculous kind of level. It still haunts you, doesn't it? It does. It really does, actually. There's a very good chapter in our book about this, we should say.

There is that. I did forget something else in our book about this, we should say. There is that. I did forget something else in our book today, but that I do remember. You forgot something. Particularly fine journalism. Should be entered for the new non-fiction prize, if you ask me. It's called Did I Say That Out Loud? Still available. Carry on, Sue. So in the spa, one of the things that they said that you should do as part of the cure was to swill coconut oil around your mouth for five minutes when you woke up and then

because it did something to the bacteria in your mouth and then scrape your tongue and your gums before you did absolutely anything at all and i did neither of those two things and i rather enjoyed my kind of slightly rebellious, no, I think I'll just get my Colgate and my brush out and do my molars. Thank you very much. You go, girl. Yes. At your spa, whatever it was. But somebody who's listening to this, if anybody still is,

will be able to tell us whether or not you should have a meal before scrubbing your teeth. But there is that point that then, you know, sometimes I do have to go back upstairs and have a little bit of a swill around with some mouthwash before coming to work just because I don't obviously want the I don't want to have breath on me

I agree, you never have as far as I'm aware and you know if I've had my usual breakfast of what are my usual I have kedgeried and devil kidneys served in those great big silver domes yep

just as if now we did it, we had actually quite a serious conversation at the start of today's programme, I mean rightly about Alice Thompson's brilliant piece in the Times today about porn and what we should do about it and how we should start a proper conversation about it and in the end it always comes back to the same thing which is there's just no good women writing about it and what we should do about it and how we should start a proper conversation about it. And in the end, it always comes back to the same thing,

which is there's just no good women writing about it and women talking about it. We've just got to involve everybody in a really honest and just unexpurgated, proper exploration of what it's done to us as a... I mean, it's probably not too much of an exaggeration to ask what it's done to Western society. Gosh, I mean, it sounds like, you know, sounds like a job for a much cleverer person than me.

But anyway, and then we did have an absolutely... There was no such thing, darling. We did have a delicious response from a listener who wanted to tell us about how some women enjoy... But yes, we know there's just something it's just something about men who want and they're not all men who want to explain us to ourselves thank you very much yeah i couldn't i'm sorry i just uh you know usually i'm i'm i'm the more male welcoming part of this feminist even you just absolutely despaired about that uh yes don't tell us what our pleasures are. We're all right, actually. Thank you.

But yes, we do need to have more grown-up conversation. And I just really, really hope that happens. I would like to hear from women who've been involved in the porn industry, what it's done to them. I think their stories are very, very rarely heard. I would like to hear more from men who've had problems with porn, because that is a massive thing. I remember going to do a mini documentary

after all the Me Too stuff exploded. We went back to my old university. One of the saddest things that somebody told me was that the largest cohort of students who were seen by mental health practitioners on campus were to do with erectile dysfunction and addiction to pornography and depression caused by the inability

to have relationships out in the real world. and they are men in their early 20s yes and that's just so so sad so it's causing so much distress and part of that distress i think can be alleviated by having that more realistic conversation where we aren't dissolving into fits of giggles and we're just talking about it as a proper, you know, mental health problem, a proper physical problem for lots of people, especially, I think, involved in the porn industry. All of that stuff, Jane, it just needs to be out there, doesn't it? A quite interesting email, actually, to Jane and Fee at times.radio from Nicola, who says, I was catching up with your shows while doing a backlog of ironing. And I heard that email from a listener whose husband was in a WhatsApp group with some unsavoury content.

So I thought I'd share my experience. My partner was also in a group with some old school friends, one of whom just kept sending jokes, photos and videos derogatory to women. My partner told him he was deleting the messages as they were inappropriate, but they just kept coming. My partner then told the whole group he was deleting the messages as they were inappropriate, but they just kept coming. My partner then told the whole group he was deleting the messages as they were coming to a work-owned phone and if they were found, he could lose his job. The messages still kept coming and no one else spoke up. So my partner had to leave the group and has now lost contact with that particular member.

The group was an English group as my partner and I are British-born and educated and migrated to Australia 25 years ago. And that leads me to a second point. Whenever anybody mentions Australia on your show, it is swiftly followed by an audible eye roll from the two of you who seem to be under the impression this lovely adopted country of mine is inhabited by Neanderthals. Not my experience.

Admittedly, I live in metropolitan Sydney, but I work for a national company and have daily contact with people all over the area, most of whom are beautiful and decent human beings. Misogyny can happen anywhere, and I haven't found it any worse here in Australia than in the UK. And that is from Nicola, who has a rescue kelpie called Annabelle, who wants to pass on her best regards to Fee's Nancy. Well, my Nancy accepts them gratefully and hands them back to you across the world. That's a good email. Keep them coming. Jane and Fee at Times.Radio. That's the one.

Thank you. Sorry. Jane and I are about to go on our holidays tomorrow. Not together, but we've got a week off. And sometimes that kind of... Why you keep up this not together business? I don't know. You won't tell me where you're going in Bulgaria, but I'll find out. I will find out. Yeah, I feel that we're definitely entering the holiday mindset. Either Fee or Jane mentioned the messy outnumbered house in today's podcast. That was you, wasn't it? An anonymous contributor. Enjoying the series in part because of it. I'm an American and I was a big fan of the show. I love this. On my last

trip to London way back in 2012 one of my day activities was a pilgrimage to the outnumbered house, the location of which I found online. Of all of the touristy things to do in London, a trip to the outnumbered house, the location of which I found online, of all of the touristy things to do in London, a trip to the outnumbered house should surely rank highly amongst them. And that's funny because I know where that outnumbered house is actually. Yeah, weirdly, it's just in a part of town where some friends live. And it's such a nondescript road. I mean,

it's a nice road, but there is, you know, there's nothing, there's no sign there or anything like that to show that they filmed it there. Yeah, it's just a really bog standard uh end of terrace north west London house it's funny right I think every house in the world at the moment unless it's inhabited by you know an elderly lady of the cloth or something the whole hall is just full of trainers yes I mean there are three quite small women who don't always even live in the house that I live in. And we just have, I don't know, seven, eight, nine pairs of trainers. We've all got the same size feet. These bits of shoe wear are completely interchangeable and they just clutter the hall up.

They do. And it does drive me insane. Have you not thought about installing some clever storage solutions, Jane? A shoe rack? Well... A storage solution? I don't know about that. Yep.

I think some people do incredibly clever things, don't they, with bits of cupboard and wall that suddenly open to reveal. Trainer storage. It's like people... Didn't your mum used to keep a telly in a cupboard? Oh! My mum's televisions were never on display. If you think about the reason for having a television,

so you can watch it, that didn't happen in our house. Our television was hidden, but we still watched it. Did you watch it? But you moved it out of its secret hiding place. Or did you get into the secret place to watch it? Yeah, no, we got into the secret place so we could watch it. Really? Yeah, because it wasn't right to have a television on display.

No, OK. It's just a bit common. Yeah. OK. These days you can have the same equivalent conversation about the size of telly, and that's why I have such a small one, because I'm trying to go up in the world.

Well, you're doing very well. How many inches do you think yours is? Oh, mine's absolutely minute. It's the smallest amount of inches you can have on a telly screen. It really is. And people do mock it. When you've seen it, people do mock it. Everyone, even my mum and dad said, you've got a very small telly. Oh, that's terrible.

It's because I'm trying to, you know, I'm trying to shin up the old class ladder. Yeah, but you're a television critic. Yes, you don't need a big telly for that. You honestly don't. OK, shall we go into our fantastic interview today? Fantastic not because of us, but because of the guest, who just really... I found her...

A breath of fresh air is too much of a cliché. I found half an hour in her company invigorating, Jane. Well, she did. She had a sort of special energy. She certainly did. Which neither of us have got, that's for damn sure she did she had a sort of special energy which neither of us have got that's for damn sure and she's a really interesting woman she's called Debra Stevenson she's a poet she's a playwright she's a former Mormon and she identifies as queer and she's done something that to be perfectly honest with you I didn't really get until she began to

explain it she has remixed Shakespeare in particular. It's Much Ado, to be specific rather, it's Much Ado About Nothing. And she's behind the National Youth Theatre's new adaptation of that Shakespeare play, which is opening tonight, actually, it's press night at the Duke of York Theatre in the West End of London. So we asked her how you sell Much Ado About Nothing

to a contemporary audience. Well, it's a show, so it was originally Much Ado About Noting, which meant Much Ado About Nothing to a contemporary audience. Well, it's a show, so it was originally Much Ado About Noting, which meant Much Ado About Gossip. And it is this romantic comedy about meddling and gossip and people falling in love and other people stopping people falling in love and the drama and comedy of that. And I really struggled with Shakespeare.

I'm dyslexic. I really struggled with reading. And Much Ado was the play that got struggled with Shakespeare. I'm dyslexic. I really struggled with reading. And Much Ado was the play that got me into Shakespeare. Okay, why? Because I just found it absolutely hilarious. And I think it resonates with that very human part of us that understands what it is to fall in love and to feel foolish and to feel silly and to feel funny

and to feel all those obstacles. And I also have a bit of a guilty pleasure, which is these reality dating shows. And for me, in terms of contextualising it now, you know, Love Island is on right now. It just obviously felt like the meddling, the gossip, the different perspectives on what the love is and if it's right or if it's wrong you know it felt like actually that's what it's about so you were charged with putting much ado about noting through the kind of 21st century ringer yeah how did you start what was your starting point you know what I was a bit intimidating at first I'll be honest being super neurodivergent like

I couldn't really read or write till I was like 11. And I learned to read and write through grime music, which is this form of rap, this emceeing that came from East London where I grew up. And the reason that grime worked for me is because it's this language that comes from the body, right? You're making up words on the fly. I just speak to myself on my way home, right? This physicalized language.

And Shakespeare, it comes from mnemonic techniques, memorizing techniques. It's language that is made to be said with your whole body out loud. So when I started actually pulling it apart, I was like, this makes sense. This makes more sense to me in a way than a lot of other prose does, because it has this rhyme, it has this movement. The engine is the body so I just started cutting it up I started copy and pasting I started singing it I started putting it to music we've got dancing we've got rap battles we've it's in the body we got in an R&D like a research and development with the young people got them to start just messing around with it and giving them permission

you know Shakespeare feels like this golden thing And it feels quite sacrilegious. When I watched it yesterday, I kind of sat there smiling to myself. And I was like, really? Are we? Is this what I've done? I think it's what Shakespeare would have wanted. I was going to say, I think it is. Have you cut out chunks of the original?

It's like pretty much half the length. You know, I think a big... An incentive to go in itself. Yeah, yeah. As like a working class person that didn't necessarily grow up thinking i was allowed to be in a theater like what's a matinee what are the stools you know all this language that you don't understand a matinee by the way is a lunchtime show the stools are the seats on the bottom floor you're right though actually why why would anybody necessarily know what that means yeah you know um and i didn't grow up with that

language or with that understanding i grew up with the theater that happens on the streets of east london and believe me there's a lot of drama there um you know um and i think a big barrier to access to someone that has adhd as well like is why do you want to watch a three-hour play does it ever have you ever left a three-hour play and thought that was the right amount of time well no actually we've never been to a three hour play congratulations tell us just a little bit more about your dyslexia because you had a quite a late diagnosis didn't you so you'd actually been through all of your school right to the end of secondary school and beyond before you were diagnosed i was in my third year of university at nottingham University. So I was 21 and I was told I had the clearest case of dyslexia my assessor had ever seen at that point.

But you must have suffered, sorry for you, you must have suffered while you were waiting for that diagnosis. Yeah, I mean, suffered. It's interesting language around this, isn't it? Like, yeah, there were a lot of barriers. But I think the education system, the way it's structured currently, you know, it didn't work for me, personally. But actually, what I did learn, and things like Grime taught me, is I just had to learn how I learn. So it took me a bit longer

to understand that. But once I did, I think there are lots of strengths that come, you know, dyslexia, dyslexics are massively overrepresented in nasa for example we're actually overrepresented in a lot of areas you know so it gives me strengths in a lot of places um but i think you know obviously just things like the amount of emails i'm expected to read or how tired my brain can get from reading and writing every day but i think i've even like with this play i've come to realize it's part of my process as a writer, my dyslexia, getting us up on our feet, you know, it's something quite anti-colonial, quite anti-establishment.

No, get rid of the desks. And I did this when I taught at Nottingham University. They'd come in, no desks, everything's in a chair. Get up, start saying things, you know. We've only been reading and writing for a very short period of time. Language developed in the body, you know,'ve only been reading and writing for a very short period of time language developed in the body you know let's put it back once you had got your diagnosis was there anything a little bit kind of uh threatening about it and i suppose what i mean by that is if you've worked all your life to get through stuff and then someone says no this is this is actually who you are

does it make you feel a bit kind of unsure of everything all over again the opposite in a way because so part of what makes my dyslexia diagnosis so clear is so um things like so my ability to speak out loud and communicate out loud is like in the top top like less than zero percent of the population you're very good so thank you so if you imagine that's like me sprinting i'm like a cheater when it comes to something like that right but then actually when i look at a page it's like i hit a body of water and i can't swim and suddenly i'm drowning and i have no idea like why a minute ago I was going at 100 miles per hour and now suddenly I feel like you know I'm suffocating um it's that

disparity that is quite frustrating for me like as a child for example but also a teacher can often read that as laziness like why are you so good at that but you can't do this um and there's also something I struggle with called abstract symbols and sequencing which means abstract symbols being letters sequences being words and sentences abstract meaning if i don't know the context i actually don't understand which for me can you just give me an example of so for example i'll give you the opposite example which is that in a poem i think of a poem as like a bath bomb, right? I've got a great quote from you about bath bombs. Can I just quote this?

Yeah. Highly wrapped orbs of colour and scent, and when they hit the water, they explode into a galaxy of colour and smell. Exactly. That's what you said. That is a poem to me. And I think something about reading a poem

that's like you understand what that glowy centre is, that's like the writer knows what the intention of those words are right and I think that's why when I heard lyrics when I heard poems it was like that was my access point to language because they had the utmost context I've got to be honest and I'm going to say quite boldly perhaps that most listeners to times radio will not know a huge amount about grime fair so i want you to tell us about the first time you encountered it i mean your background is interesting you're from ilford your family from the mormon community yeah and i'm afraid i don't know much about that either so tell me about what it's like to grow up in a in a mormon household yes i mean i can't speak for all mormons but um but yeah i mean it's quite a strict

version of christianity so no drinking tea coffee um no smoking no sex before marriage all that fun stuff um yeah and it's quite insular i guess like and it's quite i often think of it as like if i don't know disney or something co-opted Christianity they'd make Mormonism it's kind of like the shiny the Book of Mormon presents that very well it is you know it's very much that um and and when I realized it wasn't for me for a number of reasons you know partly that I am queer and it's pretty homophobic um the religion though it would deny that that was definitely not my experience I felt quite culturally homeless in a way you know because it is such an insular faith and it felt like okay I'm not understood here I'm not safe here in a lot of ways I was getting really badly bullied at school at that

time and then I my brother started bringing home these tapes from pirate radio it's pirate radio stations with these stations that people set up and actually the police really couldn't understand why young people were setting these stations up. It thought it must be because they're part of gangs or drugs. And actually, interestingly, if you set up a pirate radio station, crime statistics went down in those areas because there were young people, we didn't have money, we were often being persecuted by the police,

often not in great schools. We had art. We had this music that we were inventing from nothing so is grime effectively is it british rap um we we call it um yeah you could call it that you could call it rap yeah yeah i i really hope neither of my children heard me that is totally fine um no because they won't have been impressed but uh yeah but we we shy away from like saying rap or saying like rappers we say mcs because i think what's really important in uk culture though the two are related we have this

migratory path from the western east the caribbean and it has that sound system culture that came over to the uk that has really been a central part in the development of grime specifically has real roots in that trajectory yeah but you you are white yes yes yeah i am i'm italian and english right and have you been accused i mean and forgive me i mean this is an uncomfortable question but have you been accused of cultural appropriation of course and i think that's a really like fair question do you know what i mean like i'm not from that background and i can't claim you you know, grime music the way black artists and artists from that generation credit like I said the Caribbean roots sonically and also um West Africa has had a real strong part in what that sound sounds like but also you know

white artists and white working class artists in particular have been really part of that journey and the Cockney sound I think is a strong sound the East London sound is a strong part of that um and so I'd is a strong part of that. And so I'd say I'm part of that journey in that way. But obviously, I can't claim the sound in a way that I feel black artists have right to. And I think that's cool, you know. Can you say things in your grime lyrics? And again, I'd use the same caveat as Jane, you know, forgive me if that just sounds so fuddy-duddy. caveaters chain you know forgive me if that just sounds so fuddy-duddy but can you say things when you're kind of speaking in grime that you would feel uncomfortable just saying in normal language

and do you hear things in grime that you think if someone just said that yeah it would be difficult you know I think one of the really important parts about grime and I think what probably initially attracted me to it is that it's like a really healthy avenue for rage and I think actually we don't have that many art forms that can do that like there's a line in one of my poems that says every love I know looks like a fight from a distance and I think you know when I was 14 15 queer feeling culturally homeless don't really have any friends, can't really read, like just sitting in the library, listening to these tapes of people I've never met before

say things that for some reason deeply resonate with me. Like I was angry, you know? And I think so many of us growing up in that area at that time and, you know, the black community that created that having even more reason to be angry at that time in terms of injustices being done against them to have a healthy and productive outlet to express that and it's not always easy for women to express anger isn't it yeah yeah and did you find that helpful this gave you a verbal opportunity to to get things off your chest yeah yeah totally i would say that did you I mean you

say you struggled with dyslexia and you were clearly unhappy at home and you weren't entirely comfortable in the community so were you someone who would shut yourself away in your bedroom and try to write when was the first time you properly wrote something you now know to be one of your bath bomb poems yeah it was kind of I have to really give credit to my mom on this like she really perceived my brain being different she's really great with kids and she bought me a lot of well she'd get me audio books from the library so I'd listen to like I loved Roald Dahl and C.S. Lewis and so I really come from an oral tradition of storytelling and I think that's something I also really connect with in terms of when we talk about grime music I think it comes from that tradition though maybe

geographically in the world it's from a different place um so there's that real storytelling always was a thing for me um I don't really remember the first time I put pen to paper you know although I have loads of my notebooks from when I was like 14 15 so I started repeating the lyrics out to myself I remember memorizing a particular clash which is like basically a battle of words you might say between two lyricists two wordsmiths between Ashody who's now the famous actor Ashley Waters yeah um in So Solid Crew and Dizzy Rascal and just memorizing every single word every word to that clash I know and I just say it out loud. And then I just started saying my own words out loud. When that transpired to the page, I think that was probably some diligent work of some English teachers in my secondary school, helping me work

out how to do that, without feeling the pressure of a teaching assistant next to me telling me everything I'd got wrong. I didn't tell anyone that I struggled with reading when I got to secondary school, because I just wanted to with reading when I got to secondary school because I just wanted to work out how I needed to do it. Voice over describes what's happening on your iPhone screen.

Voice over on settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books, contacts, calendar, double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone.

Just out of interest, we've got a good question for you here, Debra. If a poem is a bath bomb, what is a play? Asks a listener. Bubble bath? Bubble bath. bomb what is a play asks a listener bubble bath i was gonna say like a full turkish bath oh maybe with a full-on massage and a plunge pool yes absolutely yeah um so you knew you said earlier this is what shakespeare would have wanted i really i think you're absolutely right because the idea that his stuff can be reinvented uh for i mean when i went to see othello a couple of weeks ago it was full of sixth form students it was wild there was fantastic choreography it's very violent it's extremely bloody but we were so engaged and i imagine

there's a real buzz in the duke of york's theater when much ado comes on oh my gosh yes and that's really what i wanted like we sat down with the it's been so collaborative working so it's the 10-year anniversary of the rep company at national youth theatre and they really champion like different routes into the industry you know i often feel like man why did no one see that i could have been an actor when i was 18 you know because those routes are still really privilege ridden for most people they don't have access to that tell me who goes to the national youth theatre i mean i hope it isn't overwhelmingly white and middle classes it's such an amazing mix and you know it's people from all over the country we've got accent like accents from all over and that's so so rich and i it's really been a collaborative process of like how do you feel about shakespeare

like let's i really opened it up like what is inaccessible to you what do you not understand and i think me being dyslexic helps as well because I'll be like, what does that bit mean? Just like permission to not get it and to not understand. Because also there's this tradition of interpreting everything the way it has always been interpreted.

But I think to bring their perspective and say, actually, with this new lens of reality TV of 2023, like, what does that line mean to you? What does it mean to your character? What does it mean from someone from your background going to see this play, which maybe usually doesn't get access to see this play, you know?

So that's been really, really fun. Can you just explain? Because people might be thinking, I don't understand how this woman has got to where she is now from being this rather disenchanted, slightly isolated figure at school with the undiagnosed dyslexia yeah you did get to university so you triumphed there yeah um but now you're involved with you know souping up Shakespeare so so fill in the gaps for us yeah so I guess I

started off as a as an emcee started off um doing that then that took me into poetry. I actually was really lucky. A poet called Kaio Chingonye, you may know, kind of saw what I was doing. He loved garage and grime as well. And he ushered me into the poetry world. So I did that for a while. And that really got me poets like Jacob Sam,

La Rose, Lem Sisay, Charlie Dark, some amazing artists kind of took me under their wing. And the Roundhouse really championed me. At that age in Camden, yes, I performed there a lot, did their poetry slam. That then took me under their wing and the roundhouse really championed me in that age in canada yes i performed there a lot did their poetry slam that then took me into academia so i worked i did my ba and my ma was really lucky the ba doesn't exist anymore at nottingham university was in creative and professional writing and was in the department of education so it had lots of mature students lots of people from different backgrounds. And for Debris at 18 from Ilford

to try and explain her experience to like Ishmael in her 70s from South Africa was like really great for me to meet people from other parts of the world and learn how we could connect. And I think that's become central to my practice as an artist is to bring people from worlds that might otherwise never meet

and share an experience and a language and maybe they understand different parts but actually in that there is learning and enjoyment to be had then i went into theater from that you know um that's i did poet in the corner which was my first play on the royal court which was a semi-autobiographical grime play which sounds terrible but i promise it was good. It got very good reviews. Accidentally became a professional dancer somewhere in that trajectory. That can happen to any of us. You know, at any moment. It's quite a career.

You mentioned Dizzy Rascal there because he was a hero of yours. And it's difficult, isn't it, watching a hero fall from grace. He lost his appeal uh this week on a conviction of assault yeah uh i don't i mean it's not you know it's never on you as a fan or someone who you know looks up someone to to you know take it on personally but i think that there's sometimes a desire to say of convictions like that that he you know his art would have reflected who he was as a person yeah do you agree with that at all did you hear something in his lyrics that was misogynistic

i think that's so hard and i have to say like a lot of the music forms i grew up listening to have like deeply problematic things about them obviously there's a lot of violence in grime like i'm not denying that i think it gets a disproportionate amount of focus when it comes to the media attention on an art form that has revolutionized and a whole community of disenfranchised people to have amazing entrepreneurial careers and create fantastic art you know so I think there's a bit of a hyper focus on that part of the art form maybe similar to how we look at Notting Hill Carnival you know that's often we often focus on the crime statistics around that when actually statistically it's safer than Glastonbury so I think I feel a bit uncomfortable about that hyper focus um and I think it can be difficult when you

know I really like dancehall music which has a lot of homophobia within the lyrics and you know as a queer person that can be really difficult um you know there can obviously i don't condone his behavior and i don't recommend that should that change does that mean i now question the revolutionary impact the work had on my life like no you know it's still i think someone can do a very special thing and there be a human and also do bad things that i disagree with you know i mean i think social media in particular pushes us to try and like make people a monolith and say, you did a bad thing. Now everything you made is bad. And I don't necessarily subscribe to that, but I definitely don't condone. Life is full of grey areas, isn't it?

Of course, yeah. It does. It kind of gets even greyer as you get older in every, actually in literally every sense. And let's not forget that the other big music news story of the week was Delilah, often sung by Tom Jones, being banned at rugby matches. Oh, wow, I didn't know about that. Because it's a song about the domestic abuse and killing of a woman. That was our guest this afternoon, the playwright and poet and grime artist. She still does a bit of grime.

That's Debra Stevenson. And we didn't get on to the fact she has an amazing family, two really successful brothers. One's big in computing, and the other is someone who made a huge amount of money in the city and now sort of, well, not guards against it, but talks about doing it. Yes, and he campaigns on the poverty gap, doesn't he?

Yeah, he's interesting. What a family. Yeah, quite a family. Interesting, the old Delilah, Tom Jones thing. Who was it who said this week? I think it was a popular crooner anyway who came out, not Tom Jones himself, who came out and said, oh, this is just a song in the old folk tradition

and there's nothing wrong with singing it. And I just thought, well, perhaps there isn't. Or is there? Would I really heartily join in with a Rourke sing song that featured the murder of a woman? I don't know Yeah, I can't quite work it out

It's a great tune Most people just nearly everybody who has sung that song in the name of the spirit of sport at a rugby game, you know, with the fervour of wanting your team to win. You know, it's an amazing atmosphere. You know what it feels like to be in the stands

when everybody is just gearing up and waiting for an amazing match. So they're not celebrating the murder of a woman when they're singing that. What they're doing is just all celebrating the fact that it's a great tune, it's got a soaring chorus, they share a camaraderie in belting it out. I think most people won't even have ever thought about what the lyrics are, but that doesn't make it right

because as soon as you do realise what the lyrics are it doesn't have all of those things so that's the point isn't it yeah once you know you can't go back yeah and you can't go back yeah the thing that i don't quite understand is uh is swing low sweet chariot because i think once you understand anything about slavery quite what is it doing at then yeah you shouldn't be doing that either. No. I mean, hopefully, fingers crossed, unless you know different... Sweet Caroline? That's all right, isn't it?

That's just about a Sweet Caroline. But I hope so. Gosh, I really hope so. I like that. Yeah. I didn't realise that Cracklin' Rose was about drink. Oh, I didn't know that either. I shall never sing that again.

Okay. You're on quite a restrictive playlist now, aren't you? It's not. Well, it's been the story of my life, to be honest. OK, this is from Louise. I'm writing after your interview with Jojo Moyes. Jojo was great, actually, wasn't she? I belatedly discovered her during one of the lockdowns when I got The Giver of Stars as one of the books my library chose for me.

Aren't libraries amazing, said Louise. Yes, they are. And it was so interesting to hear about her research trips for the book. I requested Invisible Child from my local library after hearing your interview with Andrea Elliott. I'm not sure I've ever read anything like it, and I found it impossible to stop thinking about that family when I finished. That everything that happened to them happened,

despite the fact that a New York Times reporter was telling their story is astonishing. You know what, Louise? I agree. I have not been able to get Invisible Child out of my head either. And it is one of those books that absolutely grabs you and never quite lets you go. So if you haven't already investigated Invisible Child, see if you can get a copy of that from your local library. It's about really it's about the experience of one young girl growing up in poverty in New York, but there's so much more to it than that. It's brilliant.

Oh, are you going to do the rest of it? Well, Louise just goes on to say, more author interviews. Could you talk to Ayobami Adebayo and Curtis Sittenfield when their newest books come out? Ayobami Adebayo's debut novel, Stay With Me, is the book I most frequently buy for others. I highly recommend it.

Well, thank you for that tip. And I would love to hear an interview with Curtis Sittenfield as well, who is fantastic. OK, Curtis, I think, is definitely coming on because she's written this new book called Romantic Comedy. Is she? Well, yes. Have you put in for her?

Well, I've made it clear to her publicist that I'd like her to come on. Oh, brilliant. And they sent me a copy. Did I not pass on? No. I only got one copy. I kept it to myself. It's called Romantic Comedy and it's coming out in April.

There's no I in team. It's a book about a woman who writes for what is, they don't call it Saturday Night Live, but I think that's what it is. Oh. Yeah. Yes. So I think that's what it is. Oh, yeah. Yes. So I think that would be really interesting. So, yes, we'll definitely do more on that front. But as you say, we are both readers.

We love reading and we love talking to writers. And I think actually Ayobami Adebayo's novel was mentioned by Mariella on her programme today in conversation with Kate Moss. I've definitely heard Mariella recommend that too. So we should try and book her. And the more writers, the better. We love a writer, don't we? I think we love a writer more than an actor.

Well, we don't really. We're not very good with the actors. And sometimes we're not very good with the screenwriters. Well, I'm sure I don't know what you're referring to. I was, before nine o'clock, I'd made Nigella's cauliflower soup again this morning. Oh, I know. How do I do it? People say to me, Jane, take me inside your life.

You hand wash bras, you make soup, and it's not even light. Although, of course, it is now. And that, and I think we're both kind of on the turn, just because. I'm not on the turn. I've always been on the turn for years. It's so much lighter and brighter, and the weather in London, and I hope for the rest of the country too, it's just been cold, but there's brilliant, bright

sunshine for the last four or five days, and it makes such a difference. So you wake up in the morning when it's glorious, bright sunshine. And the first thing you think of is, I'll go and make some cauliflower soup. I don't like waste. And I had a cauliflower that needed using. Okay. And did you scrub your teeth before or after eating the cauliflower soup for breakfast?

No, I didn't eat it. It's for tonight. Oh, I see. Oh, that's all right. I thought you were making soup for the morning. I thought this is just, I need to stage an intervention. Do you think I live on some sort of prairie? It's like Little House on the Prairie.

Yes, I live in Little House on the Prairie. I make a big tureen of soup, eat the whole thing before nine o'clock, and then just spend the rest of the morning hand washing bras and then come into the Times. Yeah, that's great. That's my life. But you've forgotten, I think if you were living in Little House on the Prairie you'd have to do a lot more chores than that and at some stage you'd have to plait your hair

and put on an A-line dress. Well, I think plaiting my hair would have been a challenge then as now. So I wouldn't have rated my chances. Right, enough of this nonsense. We'll take your soup recipes. We'll take your stories about how to cure the world of misogyny, violence against women

and a disgusting epidemic of porn. And we've got one more day to go before our holiday. And then Callum and Chloe are sitting in for us on the show. Yeah. And they'll also be here in the podcast feed with a big interview every day. Which is brilliant and we look forward, I might listen to that on my holiday

and we should say thank you to Eve as well who's manning the podcast today, she's got a pavement to fall off tonight so we better say goodbye she's just on a rather one wave are you hungover? yes she is right, these young people, I don't know what you do with them

have a good evening You have been listening to Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Ben Mitchell Now you can listen to Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Ben Mitchell. Now you can listen to us on the free Times Radio app or you can download every episode from wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget that

if you like what you heard and thought, hey I want to listen to this but live then you can. Monday to Thursday, 3 till 5 on Times Radio. Embrace the live radio jeopardy. Thank you for listening and hope you can join us off air very soon. Goodbye. VoiceOver describes what's happening

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