Woman's Hour - Actor Emily Watson, Comedian Kate McKinnon, Gisèle Pelicot

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

Two-time Oscar-nominated actor Emily Watson is a face that has graced the screen and stage – her work of course in Breaking the Waves in 1996 earned her one of those nominations. She joins Anita Rani to talk about her new role in the upcoming film, Small Things Like These. Based on the bestselling book by Claire Keegan, the story focuses on a convent – which is in fact running a Magdalene laundry and Emily plays the role of Sister Mary, the Mother Superior of the convent.Gisèle Pelicot has become something of a feminist icon in France. Her husband is on trial along with dozens of other men accused of raping her and she has promised to try to change society for victims of sexual assault. The trial in Avignon began at the beginning of September and Gisèle Pelicot took the stand yesterday for the second time. BBC correspondent Andrew Harding was in court. He and author and journalist Joan Smith discuss the impact of her testimony.In the toilets at Euston station in the late 1970s, while trying to administer insulin to her daughter, Dr Sheila Reith thought there must be an easier way. She had an idea for a pen-like device that could be used simply and with just one hand. A few years later, the first insulin pen came to the market and revolutionised care for people living with diabetes. Dr Reith has since devoted her life to diabetes care, improving and saving the lives of millions of people. She joins Anita to talk about winning a Pride of Britain Award.Best known for her sketches on Saturday Night Live and playing Weird Barbie the comedian Kate McKinnon has now turned her attention to books. ‘The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science’ is her first children’s book. Kate discusses the story and her broader career. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Kirsty Starkey

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to Woman's Hour. Giselle Pellicot, the woman at the centre of the horrific rape trial taking place in France, took to the stand yesterday. Since Giselle decided to go public and reveal her identity and turn up at court to hear all the testimonies, one adjective used to describe her has been brave. But she said in court, it's not bravery, but determination.

She also said, when you're raped, there is shame, and it's not for us to have shame, it's for them. We'll be hearing what else she had to say. But please feel free to share your thoughts on this shocking story this morning. The text number 84844. If you are living with type 1 diabetes or know someone with it, you will know that daily insulin is required. This morning, I have the honour of speaking to Dr. Sheila Reith, who invented the insulin pen and revolutionised the lives of people living with the disease all over the world. We also have a sprinkling of stardust on the programme today.

Emily Watson on her role as Sister Mary, the mother superior of a convent running a Magdalene laundry, in the film, the beautiful film, Small Things Like These, based on the book by Claire Keegan. And Saturday Night Live star Kate McKinnon will be joining me to tell me about her children's book about three girls who do not fit in. Kate, you may remember, also played Weird Barbie in the Barbie movie. So this morning, I'd like you to get in touch with me

if you can relate to being the weirdo, the odd bod or misfit and how you owned your otherness. I've spoken before about how the things that I was told and was made to feel put me at a disadvantage, like being brown, northern and a woman. I was told that they put me on the outside rather than the inside. They are now my superpowers. I see myself as a triple threat. I'm owning it. So let's celebrate being the outsider. Get in touch with me in the usual way. The text number is 84844. You can email me via our website.

You can get in touch with us on social media. It's at BBC Woman's Hour. And the WhatsApp number is 03700100444. That text number, once again, though, is 84844. But first, her ordeal has made her something of a feminist icon in France, and she's promised to try to change society for victims of sexual assault. I'm talking about the Frenchwoman Giselle Pellico, whose former husband is on trial, along with dozens of other men accused of raping her.

The case in Avignon began at the beginning of September, but is still only about halfway through. Giselle Pellico took to the stand yesterday. I should say that the details of this case are distressing to hear. Our correspondent Andrew Harding has been at the court and is speaking to me from Paris. So Andrew, let's start with a recap, if we can. What's happened so far in this very high-profile case? So, as you mentioned, we are about halfway through this trial. We have 51 men accused of raping Giselle Pellico as she slept,

including her husband, Dominique, who's already admitted to that. He's pled guilty to drugging her over the course of many years and then inviting strangers in, finding them online, inviting them into the couple's bedroom so that he could film them as they raped Giselle Pellico. In recent weeks, we've had the defense coming out and arguing for leniency, for understanding in the case of many of these men. There are 50 of them now, as I say, putting out their defenses. And in the course of that, what we've seen in court, and I've been in court to see this, are some of these videos that have been played in open court. And they are quite shocking. They are videos

that you really cannot forget showing Giselle Pellico lying there snoring at times as a succession of men come in to assault her. And yesterday we saw for the second time Giselle Pellico herself take to the stand and I think what was striking to me, and I think to many people here, is quite how much she is growing into this role as an icon. She was very wary, very hesitant, understandably, at the beginning of this trial. But she is really becoming a very impressive, very powerful speaker. And yesterday, she talked, for instance, about why she'd chosen a public trial, why she'd insisted that these videos were shown in open court. And she said, I want other women who've been raped to be able to say, Madame Pellico did it. We can do it too.

I don't want them to feel shame, she said. She's been described as brave. What did she have to say about that word? Well, she rejected the idea that this was courage, this was bravery. She said it's just determination. I think she feels that she is in a marathon. She is there every day for this trial. She sits opposite her husband, who's in a glass cage on the other side of the courtroom. They don't seem to exchange glances. Her husband often has his hand in front of his eyes. There are other of the accused in the courtroom, too. Initially, all 50 of them were there. Now it's much reduced. It depends who's being charged or who's on the stand that day. But she is, I think, an extraordinary figure and it is that determination that she's focusing on.

Why has she taken the stand again? Because this is her second time, isn't it? Well, what was, I think, particularly interesting here is that this was her chance to sort of hit back against some of the lines of the defence that they'd been using. So she, for instance, said, I was told that I was consenting to be raped, that I was pretending to be asleep, that I was an alcoholic.

You have to be strong, she said, to cope with a trial like this. So she's very critical of some of the lines and the tone as well that some of the defense lawyers have taken in trying to cast doubt on her version of events and also to try and provide extra context to these videos, arguing, for instance, that perhaps they didn't show the whole scene, that maybe towards the end or the beginning of these edited videos, there might have been an indication that Giselle Pellico was was actually awake at times and therefore their clients could have argued that they perceived or understood that there was some form of consent

that they were not raping her and indeed it is that issue of consent that many of the accused have highlighted they said look we were invited into this admittedly strange scenario by this couple. We assumed that both of them were role-playing in some form, that the woman was either pretending to be asleep or was asleep. But either way, we assumed that we were engaging with a complicit couple who were both consenting to this. And that's been the line of defence, and it's one that obviously Giselle Pellico has condemned and rejected.

What did she say about her ex-husband, who is sitting in front of her, as you said, with his hands across his eyes? Well, she's often spoken in the past and yesterday about her conflicting feelings towards him, in the sense that she really believed he was a perfect husband, of the love they shared, of how she wanted to end her life with him, what a good father he'd been and so on. And yet she now talked of how he had ruined her life,

destroyed her sense of herself as a woman, destroyed the family. And I think she is still trying to articulate that absolute bafflement and shock at that moment when she was taken into a police room in the village where she was living with her husband and suddenly, abruptly shown these videos. And as she put it, you know, her life collapsed at that moment. Did she address him directly in court? She did, but she didn't look at him and he didn't look at her. So, yes, some very sort of uncomfortable scenes for her as I think she still is trying to get her head around

exactly what happened to her and to her family. And what about the other 51 men who are on trial for raping her? Did she speak about them? Yes, I mean, she's very critical of the kind of explanations that they have raised, their own attempts to portray themselves as victims or unthinking. And I think the clearest message she has tried to send is that it's not OK to simply go, I didn't intend to rape. I'm not a rapist. I did not perceive the situation as being a situation of rape. She and those who support her speak repeatedly about the need to check that consent is not simply something that's taken for granted, that at all times these men should have checked. And for instance, it was pointed out that at times she

could be audibly heard snoring on these videotapes and that surely that would make any man in such a situation think twice or stop what he was doing. Did she talk about whether she can recover from that? She has. Her daughter, who was also filmed by her father, has also spoken a lot of that, about how and whether they can recover from this. I get the sense from her that the public support and this sense of her taking on a role, a very public role as a kind of icon

in the fight against sexual violence in France, that that has given her a degree of confidence and a sense of a role and a meaning to her life that clearly in the early days of the trial and before that that she was sorely lacking and was really struggling. And what's happening in court today, Andrew? How much longer is this trial expected to last? Well, there's going to be a break now for a few days, and then we will hear from the rest of the accused.

As you mentioned, we're about halfway through the defence of each of these individual 50 men who are all captured on video in the couple's bedroom. So we will hear from them. There will then be another pause. And at the end, probably around the 20th of December, we're expecting the verdicts. Andrew Harding, thank you very much. I can now talk to the journalist and author Joan Smith, who's campaigned about violence against women and girls and has come to talk about this horrific case, Joan.

You and I, both of us, whilst we were listening to the details, just shaking our heads in disbelief. You've been following the case closely, no doubt, share the horror that lots of us have when we're hearing the evidence. Absolutely. But I think what it tells you is the mistake that's always been made about rape is to focus on the victim. You know, what was she wearing? What was she doing? What was she saying? Had she been drinking? There's always this suspicion that rape happens

because of something a woman says or does or wears. And this case kind of blows that out of the water because here you have a woman who's actually unconscious, doesn't even know it's happening. And I think what's really alarming for a lot of people following it is it shows you how many men would actually commit rape if they thought they could get away with it. What do we do with that information though? Yes, well I think, so what it tells us is that you know that there has to be a radical rethink of how rape is investigated in this country as well as in France and the rest of Europe. In this country we have nearly 70,000 women in England and Wales

every year report a rape to the police. Fewer than 2,000 of those men will be prosecuted and a smaller number will be convicted. And I've always had this argument with people where they say, oh, you know, rape is very hard to investigate. It's his word against hers. And I always say, you have to look at the quality of the investigation. You actually have to say, you know, who is doing the investigation? So if you look at the Metropolitan Police, the biggest force in the country based in London, there's nearly 600 officers who are actually facing accusations of sexual or domestic violence themselves. And in January last year, Sir Mark Rowley, the Met Commissioner, said he couldn't guarantee that a woman who reports a rape in London

won't have the case investigated by an officer who is himself facing accusations. Now, how can somebody like that carry out an impartial and fair investigation? I'm going to bring up this word brave, because she said she's not brave, she's determined. What do you think of the word brave? I think it's obviously true, but it hides a lot of other things. And, you know, she's very, very courageous. But I think the way she talks about her determination, I can see that if something so terrible has happened to you and you're trying to work out how to live with it,

to feel that you might be able to change things, that you have some agency in this. Because, you know, there's seldom been a case where a woman has had less agency in what's happened to her. by saying I'm doing this publicly I'm rejecting the shame she is taking back a little bit of control of the situation. I thought what Andrew Harding said was quite interesting that as this case goes on she seems to be becoming more powerful. Yes and I think lots and lots of women are feeling that and you, every day you get a report from the court for the last few weeks. And I think lots and lots of women are urging her on and, you know, feeling that she's doing something on behalf of other women, which is not a role that she ever chose.

You know, she's been put in this situation by a man's extraordinary behaviour and the complicity of a lot of other men, too. What's shocking is the defence offered by the men who allegedly assaulted her. Well, it shows a kind of incredibly ridiculous view of consent. I mean, in this country until the 1990s, a man could not be guilty of raping his wife and then the House of Lords, as it then was, the Supreme Court, changed that. But before that, there was this idea of irrevocable consent that when a woman got married, she'd agreed to sex with her husband. This is actually taking it one step further

and saying that the husband can actually consent on behalf of his wife and men will actually, complete strangers, will think that he has the right and the legal right to do that. I'm just having a look here. There's some extracts of various things that happened in court yesterday and the wife of one of the men accused of raping Giselle told the court that because her mother had been ill she'd not wanted sex with him over a long period of time and she says I think because I refused him all the time as a man he had to look elsewhere. Well that's the old excuse,

isn't it? I mean, men have said, you know, oh, my wife's recently had a baby and doesn't want sex, or my wife's going through the menopause and isn't interested. All of this is putting the focus back on women. The problem with sexual violence is that the questions that are asked are always about the woman, the woman's behaviour, you know, did she do something to upset the man, not about the man and whether he's a sexual predator. I mean, the woman's behaviour, you know, did she do something to upset the man? Not about the man and whether he's a sexual predator. I mean, the beginning of any rape investigation should look at the man's behaviour. You know, is he someone who looks at violent pornography? Have other women complained about him? Have there been, you know, accusations that haven't been properly

investigated in the past? That's what we need to look at investigate predators not victims and then this is what she said about um on how he uh drugged her and society's poor understanding of rape often when there's a football match on tv i'd let him watch it alone he brought my ice cream to bed where i was my favorite flavor raspberry and i thought how lucky i am he's a love he's a he's a manipulator yeah you know he's a woman he's a man who was actually understanding that she didn't know what was going on. He knew her preferences and he was exploiting them for his own ends. The range of men as well, Joan, involved is so vast, aged between 26 to 74, with professions ranging from fire officer to journalist. Absolutely. But then, you know, this shows you, you know, how poor the understanding of rape is.

I mean, one of the things Giselle Pellicot said yesterday was the rapist is not a man who attacks you in a car park at night. He's a man who's, you know, he's your husband, he's your brother. And that's absolutely right. But there's this idea that rapists and sexual predators are different from the rest of society. And if you think that about 70,000 women just in England and Wales are reporting a rape every year,

and most of those men are never actually going to be arrested, the criminal justice system is failing to recognise predators, and that's actually allowing them to become serial offenders. By going public, Giselle Pellico is determined to try and change things for sexual assault victims. Will this case do that? I hope so, because in this country we have a government which says it's determined to cut violence against women by half. And one of the ways they could start is actually by completely overhauling the way rape is investigated.

Until very recently, rape victims were being asked to sign a form allowing access to their school records, their medical records, their work records. The men accused weren't being asked to do that. So we have to refocus away from the victim and onto the man who's accused. And I think if that happened and if we got rid of some of these rape myths, then we might start getting somewhere. Joan Smith thank you for speaking to me and if you've been affected by what we've been discussing you can go to the BBC Actionline website for advice and support. I'm going to read out a text message that's come in here. My daughter was sexually assaulted by her father when she was young over a few years. I had

to navigate police and judicial systems in particular the family court. His barrister's defence was to state that my daughter was lying and to shame and humiliate me. Women who speak up against abuse are shamed in legal systems and often disbelieved as primary defence, even in the face of hard evidence.

Madam Pellico is amazing and trailblazing and I hope that going forward, judicial systems change and stop assuming men are innocent. And another message from Linda saying, Giselle is a wonderful woman. She is so right. Those who've been raped should not feel shame.

Their rapist should feel profound shame for the whole of their lives. I honour her determination. 84844 is the number to text. Now, on to my next guest. Two-time Oscar-nominated actor Emily Watson is a face that has graced the screen and the stage. Her work, of course, in Breaking the Waves in 1996 earned her one of those nominations.

Since then, she's been in films like God's Creatures alongside Paul Muskell and TV series such as Chernobyl and Too Close. But it's her new role in the upcoming film, Small Things Like These, that she's here to talk about best on based on the best-selling book by claire keegan the story focuses on a convent which is in fact running a magdalene laundry something you may be familiar with or heard mentioned in one of our recent special programs from tom in ireland where nula visited the site of a former mother and baby home where a mass grave was discovered 10 years ago. If you would like to hear that programme back, do go to BBC Sounds.

Well, Emily plays the role of Sister Mary, the mother superior of the convent, and has joined us live in the studio to talk about it. Good morning. Welcome. Good morning. Thank you. It's an extraordinary film. Very, very moving and very sinister as well. What drew you to the character?

Why did you want to play this role uh well this i i was sent the script and it is the most beautiful story it starts off as just an exploration of what you think is a town um there's a coal man delivering coal all around the town and then he delivers coal too early one morning to the convent and finds a young woman locked in the coal shed and it's like it cracks open it cracks open this society and it's obviously this is a convent where they take in unmarried pregnant girls and take the babies away. And it's a system sanctioned by church and state, devastating, appalling, possibly the most unchristian act, you know.

Well, it's just a very unchristian thing to do. Yeah, Magdalen laundries were workhouses. And they only finished in 1996. Really, I mean, astonishingly recently. But anyway, I got the script and there is, Cillian Murphy plays the coal man and he gives this exquisite performance of a man just sort of being broken by what he finds. And I play the head of the convent

and we have this run-in, which is, when I read this scene, I was like, I want to have a crack at that. That is that's going to be a great day. Yeah, because it could you come up. It's much later on in the film. Yeah, because it's one of these beautiful films where it builds and builds and builds. And that is an extraordinary scene between the two of you. By the way, Cillian Murphy in this is.

He's astonishing, isn't he how someone says nothing but just his eyes can make you feel so much uh sympathy and empathy and all of it it also is a testament to the man that he is that this is what he has chosen to do next um absolutely you know the the world is his oyster. Oppenheimer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, tell us about the scene. How was that day? Well, when I read the script, I thought this is going to be one of the great days of my acting life. This is going to be amazing.

It's a very long scene. Not really much is said, but it's a little bit like, you know, we have tea sitting by the fire, but it's a bit like like, you know, we have tea sitting by the fire. But it's a bit like an encounter with the godfather. She's brought him in to make sure that he doesn't reveal what he's seen. Yeah. And she basically says, I have power over your family, over your children, over everything that happens to you.

I could ruin your life. She doesn't say any of that, but it's just implied. It's funny you used to say the Godfather because that's what I thought. I thought this town is being run by the mafia. Yeah, absolutely. And supported by the complicity of bystanders because everybody knows what goes on in that convent.

Fear. It's a culture of fear. It's a culture of fear, absolutely, top to bottom. There's so much, it's such a, like you say, nothing is revealed and nothing is said. It's a conversation, but there is so much malice, there's so much tension, it's so sinister. What was it like getting into that frame of mind? You're essentially playing the villain. Well, you never play the villain because you think that you're, you know, you think you are, she thinks she's a servant of the Lord, probably. And she's made some accommodation in her own moral compass that makes this right.

You know, she gets up and gives a sermon saying, the Lord is compassion and love. But there is no compassion and there's no love. It's a sort of very, it all comes from the idea of young women not being chased. Fallen women. Fallen women. That's the premise of the whole thing. And that, you know, up until recently,

women had to be churched after they'd given birth. The priest had to come to the house to bless them before they were allowed to return to the church so that they were clean. I mean, the sort of inbaked misogyny in in this particular version of catholicism is well all catholicism really is astonishing we've just been talking quite a lot about shame this morning yeah and these it's these women are these young girls yeah are put away because they are seen as the shame yeah of this little town yeah yeah i mean

how did you you said you don't you don't play the villain you know she's who you think she's acting on the word of god how did you understand that character uh well i myself i grew up in quite a strong religious situation but i think we've all you know many people have had experience of what that is of just people who are incredibly forthright in their beliefs and very very strong and you know absolute power corrupts absolutely and that sense of having control over small people's lives um you know it's it's it's a devastating thing and i think it's in when when the killian's character finally breaks it's euphoric and that moment of utter release and freedom is euphoric um but i think you know my amazing listening to your previous guest

i that idea of a woman's shame is so powerful um and you know it kind of locks our culture into so many positions in so many ways um and but you know it's it's it's we're talking about it in a way that we never have before i think killian's character he's such a good man bill yeah he's such yeah he's he's in so much anguish and you're right it's euphoric i don't want to give any spoilers away i think everyone should watch this because it's really it will really move you it's a beautiful piece of art i think he's he's it's not that he's decides to be a good person he's just got this vibration in him that is going to explode and he can't help himself it's the ordinary people because he goes to the pub and the landlady of the pub is like you know just be careful because you're careful what you say oh you've got all these daughters that need educating don't don't ruin it for yourself you've got a lot to

lose yeah yeah did you know much about the magdalene laundries before you got this script i knew um i knew because i'd seen their um a previous film about them um i knew you know it sort of became an international news story but not not as much as I know now. And you referred to the story at Hume, which is so distressing. Yes. So distressing. And the collusion of the church and the state in the disposal, really, of people's lives. So shocking. Yes.

I wonder how you reflect on that story in particular both in its historical context but also its relevance today because this film is quite ambiguous I didn't really quite understand when it was set but it's actually only set in the 80s but it could have been the 50s I mean we filmed in New Ross in Ireland where the book

is set and the book is a beautiful piece of work and you know it hasn't really changed that much, I don't think, over the time. But yeah, it's very, you know, it sort of has a sense of timelessness but also a sense of a place that's very,

I don't want to say backward, but just set in the past, you know, stuck in the past. It's a beautiful film. It really is. I'd also like to ask you, Emily, about your bit coming up in the Dune TV series as well. I'm very excited about this. What can you tell us?

I had a blast. Playing a really, really badass, you know, I want to control the universe kind of a character. Well, so not too dissimilar. No. Yeah, I do a good line in kind of witchery now these days. Nothing wrong with that. Yeah.

No, we really, really had a blast. It's set 10,000 years before the Timothee Chalamet movies. We call it 10,000 bc before chalamet and um it's the exploration of the founding of the benny jessarite order the you know the sisterhood of weird women who are in the shadows and um and how they have set set up set humanity on a particular path how is it get being part of the juniverse universe just a lot of fun, actually, you know. Yeah, I had to kind of wrap my head around a lot of the Dune lore, but actually it's a story that embraces really messed up families and politics and, you know, power play,

and, you know, it's very recognisably human. I'm invested. I'm massively invested. You're also in it with Olivia Williams, and you were both at the RSC together. And when you were young, did you think that you would both have these extraordinary careers? Well, no, we were just saying that to each other just the other day. We, when we were in our, I guess, when we were in our 20s, when we were at the RSC, the expectation would have been that, you know, we would probably, it would have been a diminishing returns. By this age, we would be doing grannies and, you know, there wouldn't be that much work around.

And that has changed dramatically. And yet you are playing these incredibly Machiavellian female characters. Yes. What is it about that type of character that attracts you? It's tremendous fun to do. It's very liberating. But also I always think acting is like you just you wait on the taxi rank and then when you get to the front of the rank, there's only so many taxis you can say no to and then you have to just, okay, no, I'm doing that one. So you do sinister really well.

I do sinister well, yes. Yeah, you do. And can I ask a bit about your poetry writing? Oh, no. No. You just do it as a hobby, creative hobby. It's a very internal, private thing. No, I'm, yes, it's not a...

One day will you release the book? Oh, I don't think so, no. Well, it's out there now. It's been an absolute joy speaking to you. Thank you so much for coming in, Emily Watson. Pleasure. Thank you. My pleasure.

Small Things Like These, it's going to be in cinemas from the 1st of November. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Thanks for having me. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know.

It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now. 84844 is the number to text. Living with diabetes is a reality for more than 4 million people in the UK, according to the charity Diabetes UK.

For those with type 1 diabetes, it involves daily insulin injections and near constant monitoring of levels of sugar in the blood. That process was made a huge amount easier by my next guest, Dr. Sheila Reith, with an idea that struck her in the loos at Euston Station in 1975, the insulin pen. Sheila's invention, developed together with a team of doctors and engineers, has vastly improved, if not saved, the lives of millions of people. She was made a CBE in 2023 to recognise her work and is now the recipient of the Lifetime. She was made a CBE in 2023 to recognise her work and is now the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award

at the Pride of Britain Awards, which is being broadcast on TV tonight. Dr Sheila Reith, my absolute pleasure to welcome you to Woman's Hour. Oh, hello. Congratulations. I was in the room on Monday when your son received the award on your behalf.

How are you, by the way? Well, I'm not too bad. I have coronary heart disease and stress isn't very good if you've got that. I'm pending having another procedure done to try and help it. But my doctor said it wouldn't be sensible to go all the excitement to London. So luckily, my son stepped up for me it was was disappointing not to be there but um but health health comes first absolutely let's let's get this a remarkable story before we get to the insulin pen can you just explain for listeners who don't know what what is diabetes well diabetes is a condition where you have too much sugar in the blood and the body

can't process that sugar you need to be able to use the sugar in your blood to make energy and new tissues, and you need insulin for that. And this is the basis of all diabetes. In type 1 diabetes, the person doesn't make the insulin. It's an immune response. It's nothing to do with their lifestyle or anything they've done themselves. So's a attack type 2 diabetes the person becomes resistant the insulin their body makes and then gradually they don't make enough as well but it tends to attack people who have a weight problem yeah it's more likely to attack people who have a weight problem. And type 2 is vastly more common than type 1, but all diabetes is serious.

People used to say to me, I've got type 2 diabetes, it's not serious, but it is serious. All diabetes can cause complications. Now, you were already a doctor specialising in diabetes, but it was actually your personal experience of the disease that led to the idea for the insulin pen. So tell us what happened in the loos at Euston Station.

Take us back. Well, at that time, we'd been working in London. My husband got a new job in Glasgow and he'd gone ahead to Glasgow to try and find a house. And each weekend, I would bring the children, that saved the two of them, up to Glasgow. We caught the night sleeper on Friday evening to Glasgow and then on Sunday evening we would come back on the night sleeper because I think at that time Fiona was my older one was going to school and the train would get in to Euston station early in the morning and at that point she was needing her insulin injection. She had developed type 1 diabetes when she was only four. It was

an awful shock because I was already a consultant in that field and we didn't have it in the family so it just seemed a bit ironic that should happen. Anyway, she needed her insulin and the only place I could think to give it, because we'd been made to get off the train, was in the ladies' loo at Houston where we'd come in. And it was a great palaver giving insulin in those days, it's unbelievable, this was 50 years ago, remember, because at that time one had to use a glass syringe and a steel needle which got sent away to be sharpened and then reused and that you boiled these up and then be in between the boilings to sterilize them one kept them in a flask of industrial meths

during the loo one will have this flask of industrial meths with the steel needle and the syringe well I have bottle of insulin and so I had to get all this out and then give the injection and the needlesringe, and I had a bottle of insulin. So I had to get all this out and then give the injection. And the needles were quite big. I mean, they were really quite brutal. And as we were doing it, I thought, this is just crazy. This is

medieval. In a tiny toilet. I mean, is it hard enough just going to the loo in those toilets? But I couldn't think of anywhere else to do it privately. Yeah, of course. It was a bit harder, but anyway, I didn't. So that came to me, and I knew the dentist used pre-filled vials

of a local anaesthetic and then a delivery device. And so I thought there must be some way of doing better with insulin. We need to cartridge the insulin, such we can then use a device to give the injection. So when was the eureka moment? When did you come up with the idea? My husband and I then tried to kitchen-sink the devices. I actually thought, I went to all the big insulin manufacturers,

at that time it was Nova and Nordisk, and Eli Lilly America, and at that time insulin was still made in Britain, I was welcome, it's and Eli Lilly America and at that time Insta was still made in Britain, I was welcome, to try and explain my idea but they none of them took it up so we set to to try and devise this ourselves and at that time I knew in America they'd just come out with disposable syringes which had a very uniform bore, plastic ones, and it occurred that if we took the plunger out that made the disposable syringe into a cartridge. So you then needed to monitor how much you were giving or meter it because insulin is

expensive and one couldn't afford to just give some and throw some away. And every patient needs a different amount you might need two units or you might need 22 units and so it had to be a variable meter well at that time we moved to Glasgow and I was very fortunate to join Dr John Ireland that was then the Southern General Hospitals now the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Yes. I discussed my ideas with him and he was a remarkable man and he was very enthusiastic and thought we should pursue this. We both realised that we weren't engineers to make this metering device. So who did you take it to, to develop it?

Well, the Department of Clinical Physics and Bioengineering and then very kindly, Dr John Payton joined us. You're obviously someone who knows how to convince people. Although it's my idea, we were already a team of three. I mean, this was not just me. Do you remember the first prototype? Do you remember holding it in your hands? Oh, yes, yes.

And so he was brilliant and came up with this device where you press the button on the end rather like a virus and that gave two units if you wanted six units say you press the button three times and of course we only had you know the one device we had a very excellent nurse at that time and she volunteered to ask some of the patients if they would volunteer to try this device out. And eight people stepped forward of varying ages. And so, you know, again, I've always said this was a team effort. It wasn't just me. It was my idea.

How much have insulin pens changed since then? Oh, just enormously. I mean, what happened next? Well, Diabetes UK stepped up and provided the money to make a hundred pens so we could do a bigger trial in the country. All these things have to be, you know, monitored properly and it was greeted enthusiastically and the first commercial pen was made in plastic. But again, that was still quite cumbersome and modern pens made by particularly Novo and Eli Lilly, you know, much improved on with our original version. But they all have this principle of

having this insulin inside them, they now just make the whole pen disposable, and the metering device on the end where you dial up those you need. And all because of you realising that there needs to be a better solution. You've been made a CBE and you've now received a Lifetime Achievement Award. What do these achievements mean to you? Well I mean I just always was fairly passionate about making diabetes care better. At the time this all happened, this is now 50 years ago, one couldn't even measure blood sugar and the diabetes is absolutely essential to know what the sugar is doing in the blood but there was no means

for the patients to directly measure this so I mean the whole care of diabetes has been transformed and because of you thanks to you Sheila well not only me I mean other people have done things but you know it's so important to go on with research because now research is very good in Britain we've got marvellous people and they're now looking in ways first of all to delay the onset of type 1 by stopping the immune attack and secondly to improve the lives of people who already got it and nowadays you can get a so-called hybrid closed loop where there's continuous monitoring the blood sugar and a little computer bit program then tells an insulin pump how much insulin to put in and this makes it control the blood sugar infinitely better and greatly improves people's lives yes postcode lottery not this isn't available to everyone once well you don't

and i'm sure you're aware of this and i'm sure lots of people have thanked you but dr sheila ruth you have not only revolutionized the type 1 diabetes but also people's lives um a personal friend of mine when i said i was interviewing you wanted me to pass on his thanks. And we just had a message from somebody saying, please thank Dr. Reith on behalf of myself, my daughter and all type one diabetics. Congratulations once again on receiving your Lifetime Achievement Award, Dr. Sheila Reith. It's been a pleasure speaking to you. Thank you. Thank you. And the Pride of Britain Awards are on ITV1 tonight at eight.

And you'll be able to see Sheila's son receive the award on her behalf. Now, we are talking superpowers. Lots of you are getting in touch with what you say is your superpower. Someone has messaged in to say, hijab, super tall, brown. I did not think I was an other till I moved to school at the age of seven to one with predominantly white children. The schooling system and in particular history lessons did not help. I think if they were more factual in describing the vicious colonies, even children would understand why my grandfather emigrated to the UK following India's partition and the creation of Pakistan. Now you're superpower.

The reason I'm talking about this is because of my next guest. Whether you know her from Saturday Night Live or as Weird Barbie, my next guest may have made you laugh probably a lot at some point in your life. I'm talking about Kate McKinnon, best known for her impressions of Hillary Clinton, Ella DeGeneres and even Justin Bieber on America's most famous sketch show, SNL, where she was a staple for 10 years. Now having left the show, Kate has written a children's book, The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science. It was released earlier this month, and I'm delighted to say that she's joined us in the Woman's Hour studio.

Welcome, Kate. Oh, my goodness. Thank you for having me. It's an absolute pleasure. I'm very excited to have you. What a great title. Thank you, thank you. You actually wrote the book before SNL though? I started it 12 years ago before I got hired at that job and I just finished it a week ago. No, I'm kidding. But no, it did take me 12 years. Why did you want to write a kid's book? Well, the genre is middle grade.

I've learned this. It's ages 8 to 12, 8 to 14. I'd say 8 to mid-40s myself. Yes. Yes. Which is different from YA, which is making out with monsters. And I love the genre. I love the genre because it bears resemblance to sketch comedy in a way.

Lots of funny names and big hair and funny characters. But it's also a hopeful genre, I find. It's the best of us. It's speaking to young people at a time when they're starting to think about these big existential questions like, who am I? And what do I want to do to help the world? Do I want to help the world? So what's it about? Oh, yes, the book. What's it about?

Well, it's about three sisters in the snooty turn-of-the-century East Coast United States town of Antiquarium who get kicked out of etiquette school. And they get an invitation to a mysterious new school that happens to be presided over by the infamous mad scientist Millicent Quibb. And she takes them on an adventure and they save the town. Wonderful. Can we have a reading, please? Oh, yes. Allow me to read read so Millicent Quibb is a pariah, an iconoclast, a bogeyman in the town

and the children have a nursery rhyme about her and it goes like this. Heed my tale, I tell no fib. Beware the home of Millicent Quib She'll twist your skull until it's loose Then pickle your brain in lemon juice Her hair is wild, her clothes are smelly All coated with fish and rotted jelly You needn't fear the witch's curse

Mad scientists like her are much, much worse If you hope to grow up past eleven Or have a birthday when you're seven or even make it past the crib, beware the home of Millicent Quibb. But of course, she's not bad, you guys. It's just that the people who present as upstanding in the town are actually rotten of spirit. And the woman who's a total mess is the one who's actually working too. Theme for the program. I mean, we were talking to Emily Watson about her character that she's just played in the film where she's the mother superior who is actually sort of running this town through fear.

Yes. Who is Millicent Quibble? Was she modeled on someone in real life? I mean, I like to, I hope to think that I'm a bit of a Millicent Quibb for the young people that I encounter. But my father and my mother were both iconoclasts in their own right. My father. What are their names? iconoclasts in their own right. My father, my father, Michael passed a long time ago, but he was a solar architect who was in the 90s trying to begging all of his clients to put solar panels on their houses because he knew then and none of them wanted to do it. But he he spent his life tortured by the coming climate crisis. And my mother is here in town with me. She's a social worker and sometime youth sex educator who devised a curriculum for, you know, girls who are beginning puberty, and she would give them all

tiaras. And you brought your mom with her with you? Yes, yes. She's on tour with you? Yes, she is. That's wonderful. I know. Does she always go on tour with you? She doesn't. She just, she's, she's the funniest person I know. And she's an avid, avid and she's so smart and she when I began my menage she she said oh god we're making you a tampon crown and we're gonna dance around the moon and that's and that's the difference that so and so I never had any shame about anything how freeing how exactly that I never had any shame about anything isn't that i mean but not let's be no i mean some stuff but not not that um and so to have uh these kind of mentors i mean i think the most important thing for a young person is to give them the message that whatever about yourself that

the people around you are saying, that's too big, that's too weird, don't do that. That is the thing that will save you in the end and will in fact save the world and help the species to evolve. So what was it about you? Because, as I mentioned at the beginning, people may know you best as playing Weird Barbie, and you and Greta Gerwig were at college together. Yes.

And that role was written for you, or she saw you as... That's what she said, yes. So what were you like at college? Oh, I've just been profoundly weird my whole life. I mean, as a young person, I had an iguana in my room. I had a tank of Madagascar hissing cockroaches in my room as pets that I would take out and put on my arm while I was doing my homework and speak to them. And, you know, I was, I think any 12-year-old is having a dual experience of being, falling in love with the world, with the natural world, with the people around them, and also feeling so dogged by these messages that they're getting from the culture. And I certainly was confused. I thought, well, I think I'm interesting.

And I think my little hobbies are interesting, and I kind of like myself. But the culture is telling me that this is bizarre. And so I didn't know what to think. But thank God I had mentors in my life who told me to keep going with those things. And your mum. Yes. Yeah. This is our talking point.

So many people are getting in touch with their otherness that is now their superpower. So I'm going to read some. By the way, when I was in the sixth form, we were the self-confessed freaks corner and I still have a WhatsApp group with my best mates.

Just the freaks. It's the greats. I've just announced that to the world. There you go. Someone has said, ADHD and OCD are my superpowers. Someone else, Kate, has said, hello team, not fitting in and

owning it I'm an autistic I am autistic and can never put an outfit together so I look like a misfit my main priority with clothing is comfort and soft fabrics single item outfits are easier to coordinate so I wear a lot of dresses but I refuse to shave my legs I have now found my group mostly other autistic people who accept me for who I am and vice versa. When did you find your crew? I would say, I mean, I have found different crews in every era of my life. But I guess first it was there was a group of girls who liked lizards. We had a group called the Honeysuckle Eaters Club.

While other girls were watching the boys play basketball, we sat in the corner at recess and tested the different honeysuckle flowers and tried to determine if there was a correlation between color of the flower and sweetness of the nectar so yeah stuff like that um wonderful absolutely wonderful um i'm gonna lean into this so much okay i need to talk about your saturday night live crew as well getting a part of that the 10 years that you spent there i understand your love of impressions is what got you onto the show. English accent in particular, doing an English accent at school. Is that where it started? Well, the first time I, I speak in dulcet tones. I mean, this is my natural. This is my speaking. People always at a restaurant, people say, what, what?

But I, I had to, we had to audition for a skit for Reading Week and to be the queen of Reading Week. And I was, I started and I was nervous and I couldn't get the words out. And then I thought, wait, a queen has a British accent. Why don't I do it in a British accent? And suddenly I had breath support and I was, I had volume and I could do it and I it's been that way ever since I just, I feel so much more comfortable speaking in someone else's voice. Can you do Yorkshire?

That's where I'm from, I'm from Bradford You are? Yeah. Oh my goodness On the spot. Your favourite Martha from the Secret Garden, my favourite Oh my goodness I won't put you on the spot, don't worry Look at your porridge, you're getting on well enough with that this morning that was wonderful excellent love it um hillary clinton perhaps your

best known character how do you embody hillary oh gosh i mean i to do anyone i just would watch hours and hours of footage i don't know how anyone did an impression before YouTube because just the gathering of video footage was a task in itself. But I always just find one little physical, there was one moment when she walked out on stage and her wrists looked kind of funny. And I just went with that. But also, I mean, an impression is not just mimicry of how someone sounds and moves. It's a thesis about a person. And I find any comedic character that are juxtaposed. And that, for me, is the genesis of any comedic character. So what were Hilary's two words? Oh, I mean, it was it was complicated. Because she's such a, I that was like the, I had to, I did that impression a lot. Yes.

And so it had to have a little more depth than some of the others. But I found that she is so earnestly wanting to help. scholar and a policy person and was also that earnest desire did not read as well in in in with her opponent at that point does SNL take on greater relevance in an election period definitely yes yes your incredible colleague, Maya Rudolph, is currently doing a lot of Kamala Harris. I should say that Maya is mixed race. And she said that if you told her that she would be impersonating a presidential candidate,

she wouldn't have believed you because she for years felt that nobody in that sphere resembled her. Did you ever expect to be playing a presidential candidate? No, I never expected to be uh alive well you are yes and it's brilliant and uh we want to thank you for coming in can i read out a few more of the our messages coming oh yes please i love i love that so much uh someone's saying here morning anita i was called a freak a lot growing up. People would say to me, Molly, the men in white coats are coming to take you away. When I let my silliness shine through, you're going to love this.

I never thought I'd find love and I always thought I'd have to hide my quirky, silly side. But now I am so grateful for my quirks and what separates me from the crowd. My curiosity fuels my passion as a journalist and storyteller. I'd like to tell my younger self that she doesn't need to change and one day someone will love her because of her quirks yes yes that's exactly what it's all about and you're gonna love kate mckinnon's book thank you so much thank you for coming in to speak to us the millicent quibb school of etiquette and young ladies of mad science is out and we we want to see it on a TV programme very soon. Can it come to us?

I'm going to make the call. Okay. Someone will make the call. Join me tomorrow for more Woman's Hour. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, Russell Cain here. I used to love British history, be proud of it.

Henry VIII, Queen Victoria, massive fan of stand-up comedians, obviously Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor. That has become much more challenging, for I am the host of BBC Radio 4's Evil Genius, the show where we take heroes and villains from history and try to work out, were they evil or genius? Do not catch up on BBC Sounds by searching Evil Genius if you don't want to see your heroes destroyed.

But if, like me, you quite enjoy it, have a little search. Listen to Evil Genius with me, Russell Cain. Go to BBC Sounds and have your world destroyed. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies.

I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby.

It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.