Woman's Hour - Bernardine Evaristo, South Korean Elections, The Crucible

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

Bernardine Evaristo is the winner of The Women’s Prize Outstanding Contribution Award - a one-off literary honour to mark the 30th anniversary year of the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Bernardine joins Nuala McGovern to discuss her huge body of work and career highlights including winning the Booker Prize in 2019 for her novel Girl, Woman, Other, and her role as a champion for women and women of colour in the creative industries. Yesterday South Korea voted in its new president Lee Jae-myung, but many women are concerned about the leader’s silence on gender equality in a country where the gender pay gap is one of the largest in Asia. Min Hee Go is Professor of Political Science at Ewha Women’s University in Seoul, she tells Nuala McGovern about the growth of anti-feminist rhetoric within South Korea’s political establishment, and the future of women’s rights in the country.Consumed by paranoia, superstition and a ruthless sense of justice, a climate of fear and mass hysteria sweeps through the town of Salem, Massachusetts when rumours grow that a group of girls are practising witchcraft. What lies are the townspeople prepared to tell themselves in order to survive? A new production of The Crucible is currently on stage at the Globe Theatre in London. Nuala is joined by Ola Ince the director and Hannah Saxby who plays Abigail Williams – the primary instigator of the witch trials that follow.

BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. Hello, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. It is indeed. Hello and welcome to the programme. Well, my first guest has been praised for her dazzling skill and imagination, her courage to take risks and offer readers a pathway into diverse and multifarious worlds over a 40 year career. It's made her the ideal recipient for the Women's Prize for Outstanding Contribution Award.

It is Bernadine Evaristo. She's with us in just a moment. Now, I read the following about Bernadine. I do work all the time. My husband and I have been together 18 years and we went on our first holiday three years ago, she went on to say, that's because I enjoy what I do. I work weekends. There's no distinction between weekdays and the weekend. I don't need to drag myself away from what I do. It's positive energy. Now I'm wondering this morning, how does that sound to you? Does it resonate with you?

Are you good at switching off or do you find yourself constantly working? Whether you enjoy it that way or not. I want to hear your reasoning, I want to hear your experiences and maybe you think holidays are overrated. I have heard some say it's just a change of location, particularly if you have small children. Maybe you have very clear delineations of home, work, other. You can text us the number is 84844 we're on social media at BBC Maybe you have very clear delineations of Home, Work, Other. You can text us. The number is 84844.

We're on social media at BBC Woman's Hour or email us through our website. For a WhatsApp message or a voice note, that number is 03700 100444. Also today, what does South Korea's new president mean for women in the country? We'll be in Seoul. Plus, the director, Oh Le Incece is here with the actor Hannah Saxby on the new production of The Crucible at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. What a location. So atmospheric yesterday as I watched it in the rain on the banks of the Thames.

That is all coming up. But as I just mentioned, the Women's Prize Trust has awarded the outstanding contribution award. But as I just mentioned, the Women's Prize Trust has awarded the Outstanding Contribution Award. So this is a one-off literary honour to mark the 30th anniversary year of the Women's Prize for Fiction. The winner receives £100,000 prize money along with a special sculpture. And as I mentioned, the winner is joining me in studio. It is Bernadine Evaristo. Good morning. Good morning. Congratulations.

Well, thank you. Thank you very much. I mean I just need to list a few of the achievements. Obviously a prolific writer who won the Booker Prize in 2019 for her novel Girl, Woman, Other. Some other novels, Blonde Roots, Mr Loverman, you might remember the adaptation screened on BBC One last year, Mr. Loverman, you might remember the adaptation screened on BBC One last year. Non-fiction, including the memoir Manifesto on Never Giving Up. And a few day jobs, Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London and also President of the Royal Society of Literature. Now I read that when you won the Booker Prize at 60, you said it was the perfect age for it to happen.

Is this latest recognition at 66 the perfect age? Yeah well you know it's it's an amazing prize because until they announced it about four weeks ago nobody knew it even existed right and it's it's so interesting that they honor not just the my creativity but also my advocacy and activism and I think I'll take any prize at any age, to be honest. But this is really something because you talk about all those achievements, whether it's on the page or not. Yes. Well, you know, I think advocacy of underrepresented groups, in particular women, people of colour,

working class people, queer people, et cetera, has been something that I've been involved in since the early 80s, when I co-founded Theatre of Black Women, you know, with Paulette Randall and Patricia St. Hilaire, and it's been part of my life ever since. And, you know, to be honest, for much of that period, there wasn't a lot of interest in that kind of advocacy,

and that interest only really started to come about after the Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements, and suddenly people were kind of very proudly demonstrating their activism. So I started to talk more about the projects I'd done, because before then, I felt even though they were very successful, I felt that people weren't particularly interested in that aspect of my career. I remember somebody saying to me once, why are you behaving like a social worker? And I've never forgotten it. It was about 30 years ago. And they said, you should be focusing on your writing. And I said, well,

I'm focusing on my writing. You know, my writing, you know, my creative writing is my number one priority. But at the same time, in tandem with that, if I can create and co-found and initiate projects that bring along other writers and people in the arts, then I would do that. And it's actually a real joy to do that. So many hats that you are wearing. I should also let people know you are the second woman and first writer of color to hold the position of president of the Royal Society of Literature as well. And I was struck with a from manifesto that I had mentioned that that you wrote,

My creativity can be traced back to my heritage, to the skin color that defined how I was perceived. But like my ancestors, I wouldn't accept defeat and went on to say there was nothing in the British society of my suburban childhood that endorsed the concept of blackness as something positive. And as I was reading through some of your achievements this morning I was thinking what is it like for you now to process the positive contribution that you have made to black British people? It's, you know, I feel incredibly validated and also incredibly grateful that I have, you know, been honoured in this way but I also think it's really

important for people to remember what it used to be like in this country. Well let's talk about that because, and let's talk a little bit about your upbringing as well. Your father was Nigerian and your mother was a white woman who was English. They came together much to what would we even call it? I can't say opposition. Opposition like remnant opposition on your mother's side in particular. Yeah so my parents married in the 50s. My father had come from Nigeria in 1949. My mother was a white English woman of Irish and German heritage, and my mother's side of the family really opposed the marriage in the 1950s. And so my mother was, you know, she was a good Catholic

and she loved my father. She married him in spite of the opposition and then went on to have eight children in ten years, of which I'm one of the middle children. But that was the narrative of my childhood in a sense, that my parents coming together was something that had been so disapproved of, some members of my mother's family never spoke to her ever again. And then my parents became political activists. My father was a Labour councillor in the borough of Greenwich. He was known as Danny Evaristo and he was a shop steward in the factory where he worked. My mother was the trade union rep in the school where she taught.

So they had come together in the face of opposition, but then they became people who fought for the rights of others. And Woolwich, where I grew up at the time, was a very white working-class town. So my father was actually advocating and supporting as a counsellor white working-class people in our environment. Which is quite something considering how much people tried to suppress him when he arrived in society. Where do you think he got that from? I don't know. It was 1920s Nigeria who was born in. He was born in Yes, he was and I I never met his his father died before he was born His mother died before we could meet her in the 1960s and I've never really understood where that fighting spirit came from

Except he was an amateur boxer back home in Nigeria. But in terms of sort of that political activism I don't really understand the roots. But I think he was somebody who believed in contributing to society beyond his own family. And I think I grew up with that. And I think my activism probably stems from growing up in a household where my parents fought for the rights of others, as well as obviously nurtured their own children. So that's very much the public persona but I was just struck you mentioned you were a middle child. Yeah I'm a middle child and well they say the middle child gets you know can be overlooked especially if it's eight

children in ten years right me Madonna and me but one of five. OK, and and yeah, I've chosen a career where I get a lot of attention initially as an actor and then as a writer. So, yeah, I think there's some psychological stuff to be worked out there. Let's talk also about, I mean, people will know you for so many different things. We've talked about some of the hats that you wear there, but you are writing when we talk about on the page, fiction, short fiction, poetry, essays, literary criticism, radio and theatre drama. Do you feel a need to immerse yourself in all those different genres?

It's just been part of my process. You know, I started writing for theatre at drama school. I went to the Rose-Brewford College of Theatre and Performance as it's called now. I trained to be an actor but I was also trained to create theatre and my theatre came out as poetry and then I left theatre behind for a long time and just focused on writing poetry and then I started to write verse novels and then then just as a writer, you are presented with opportunities to write essays, for example, or to maybe I'm commissioned to write something for the radio. And it's a very long career of over 40 years,

where I've sort of engaged with lots of different literary forms. But essentially, I see myself as a writer of books. I've now written 10 books since 1994 and that's how I see my future developing. But these very interesting commissions come my way and it's very hard to say no. There's a great listen on Desert Island Discs of Bernardine's life and choices of music. You said there that through writing your novel Lara that you reconciled your identity. Tell me more. Yeah, because I grew up in people who know

Woolwich today, which believe it or not has a creative quarter, but when I grew up it was a white squaddy working-class town and we were a mixed family, a large family, living in a very rundown house in an area where we stood out and there was really very little around me to validate my sense as a person of color or a biracial person. I did not know anything about my father's heritage because he didn't pass anything on to us much at least. So it was only when I went to Rosebrewford College that I met other black women other than my sisters and became much more politicized and sort of racially aware and and then

had some struggles in my late teens early 20s because I didn't really feel that I belonged in the sort of predominantly Caribbean community at that time which was the case then I think now sort of Black Britain is probably more African-based. And then also experiencing racism. And it was only when I wrote Lara, which I wrote in the 90s and my 30s, where I explored the different strands of my family ancestry and also my own childhood, which, you know, growing up mixed race in the 60s and 70s, but then also my mother's Irish and German and British heritage and my father's Nigerian and Brazilian, that I then, through the act of writing, found peace with myself.

Because I'm wondering, because reading in Manifesto as well, you said that you've never had therapy as you like to live with your demons and not that you're living with unresolved trauma, but that you've become adept at self-interrogation and haven't been driven to seek help, that you work things out for yourself, which I think that's what that sounds like. I guess so, you know, work things out for yourself, which I think that's what that sounds like. I guess so, you know. I think therapy is obviously very important for a lot of people, but I feel that whatever issues I've got, I embody them and they make me the creative person that I am. So I'm not seeking to resolve anything beyond what I can manage myself. I love that, that it's to live with it and explore it and feel it.

Yeah, I probably could have done with some help, I'm sure. But I think all the contradictions and the complexities are what I put into my writing. Let's come back to this morning. Congratulations again on the Outstanding Contribution Award. What does this mean to you? Because some of these projects that I've developed over the years, the Complete Works Mentoring Scheme, which I have to say was directed by Natalie Titler for 10 years. 30 poets were mentored over a period of 10 years for a year or two each and they're all poets of colour and they're now all out there in the world publishing books, winning most of the top prizes in the country. I'm not saying that we take credit for their, you

know, their success, but this was a scheme that was definitely an important part of their development as writers. You know, but these schemes were developed before anybody thought they were important to do or anybody was really acknowledging that there was an issue with the fact that Poets of Colour were not getting published. And then I think back to the Brunel International African Poetry Prize which ran for ten years and is now has a new life in America run by the African Poetry Book Fund, nobody seemed to think there was an issue that generally speaking African poets were not getting published. And so this prize was to celebrate and develop African poets on a global scale. And that's what it's

done, you know, along obviously with lots of other schemes. But when I think back to, you know, the 90s when I started doing this sort of work and the noughties and then the tens and the sort of hours put in where you're just kind of beavering away and most of it completely voluntary unpaid. And then for that to be acknowledged all these years later with somebody saying, look, we've noticed what you've done and we just want to acknowledge that, but also to inspire other people to go beyond what they're doing with their careers, but to think about how they can lift others up. Well, just as we've been speaking, Ole Ince has come in and sat in the chair beside you.

She is the director of The Crucible, which is on the Shakespeare's Globe at the moment that I had the pleasure of seeing yesterday evening. And we're going to speak to her a little later in the program. But I brought you in, Ola, because you know Bernadine and you're so familiar with her work and support for other artists. I do. I'm a massive fan, a massive, massive fan. Just listening in in the studio is so incredibly inspiring to hear that you can make a body of work and maybe kind of be for a way for years methodically and then one day have that recognition that you deserve feels beautiful to know that you know good people good things happen to good people. I've read almost all of your books bar one, not the manifesto, and I'm a huge fan. I just

love the way you write about women and people that are othered and history. And I think you're doing an amazing thing as a mentor, as an artist, paving the way but also kind of paying back. paving the way but also kind of paying back. Because a lot of what you do is about your upper ladder and you're reaching down and helping people get up there too, which not everyone always has the generosity or time or space to do. I have to get to have a legacy that is somewhere like or somewhat like yours. Yeah, it's really moving to hear that all of the books you've written and the teaching you've done and the mentoring and that it all is just so fruitful and encouraging so thank you. I think thank you very much Ola, I'm just adjusting my halo here but I think you know I just think it's really important that there are ecosystems

that exist that have excluded us and continue to exclude us and so we need to be aware that we need to build our own ecosystems to nurture each other and if we don't we will just be left behind. We're always starting again, always always so that's what's incredible is that we don't have to if we look after each other and you're doing that from a really gorgeous, hopefully ever-growing platform. And so, yeah, I just hope, I want to be like you. I think you've got another 30 years to go. I think you're half my age. But I'm not sure you had someone like yourself to look at when you were my age.

There are always other people who had created initiatives, you know. Women in publishing, for example, was a scheme that existed as far as I know in the 80s. Okay. You know, so there are always people, and look at the Women's Prize, look at Kate Moss, for example, who actually, she should have received this prize in a way, because look at what she's done for the Women's Prize and also had this absolutely glorious career as a novelist, you know? So I think, you know, it's not just me. There are other people on lots different levels operating to make life more equitable for all of us.

And some of my things have been perhaps more high profile. Well, it's okay to let the spotlight shine on your halo for this morning. Can I come back to working all the time because Azola has really laid out as well just some of the work that you've done and we've talked through it through in the interview as well. Do you not take a break? Tell me a little bit about that positive energy that you feel. So I do work all the time but I also distract myself all the time. How? My husband's in his study upstairs, I'm downstairs in my study, and he's just last because I'm always in the kitchen. He monitors me constantly going into the kitchen.

I'm also distracted by that evil internet, right? And I do lots of other things while I'm writing and working, but I realise that I need that tension in order to produce the work, and that's something I've come to understand more recently, that the distraction isn't really a distraction, it is what I need to fight to find the time to create the work. Yeah, that you like to have, I can kind of identify with this, a lot of little things on the go at the same time for the work to come out. Yes, yes. And then at nine o'clock in the evening

we watch telly, you know. Anything you're watching at the moment? Alma's not normal. I'm a bit late to the party. It's hysterical. And of course Black Mirror is genius. Yes. So those two things at the moment. Can I ask a personal question? Where's this money going to go to? So I'm setting up a new scheme. It felt as soon as I heard the amount I was like oh my goodness. A hundred thousand those of you that are catching up later this. That's what I mean. I'm developing a new scheme for women writers but because I haven't had time to develop it yet but it will be announced in the autumn and And I can't say any more than that.

But watch this space. Will you come back and chat about? Oh, yeah, sure. OK, very happy to. Well, I want to thank both my guests. We're going to hear more from Ola Ince later in the program before this morning. Congratulations. One more time to Bernadine Everisto, who has won the Women's Prize Outstanding Contribution Award

for the 100,000 prize money that's going to burn a hole in her pocket by the sounds of it. But maybe you'll keep the sculpture. I'll keep the sculpture for sure. Thank you both for coming in. Thank you. 84844, if you'd like to get in touch with the programme, I can see some of you are talking about those lines between work and home or switching off or not do get in touch.

Now, yesterday, South Korea went to the polls and voted in their new president, leader of the Democratic Party, Lee Jae-myeong. The snap election was called following the impeachment of the former president, that was Yoon Suk-yul, as he attempted a military takeover last December. The new president has promised to unite the people, but many women in South Korea are deeply concerned about his silence on women's rights and the issues around gender equality in the country. They say their voices are being ignored and that women are invisible in the political sphere. Let us bring in the BBC Seoul correspondent Jean Mackenzie. We also have Min Hee Goh, Professor of Political Science at Women's University, which is also in the city of Seoul.

Good to have both of you with us. Jean, some people may not have been following this closely. Tell us a little bit about the winners and losers yesterday. Well, the winner, of course, was the man who's just been elected president, EJ Myoung. He was the former leader of the opposition party here. And he managed to get nearly 50% of the votes last night. So that was just an astounding landslide victory, really. But we have to look at why he won, right? And as you set up there, this was a snap election that was triggered by this martial law crisis

that has really been unfolding in South Korea for the past six months, albeit started on that night back in December when the former president tried to orchestrate this military takeover, put the country under martial law. And this candidate, this new president, Lee Jae-myeong, he really played a big role in trying to overcome that. So on the night, he live streamed himself on YouTube calling the citizens of South Korea to come to the parliament to resist this. He filmed himself going there himself and climbing over the walls of the parliament to get inside and to vote this down. So he's really been able to portray himself throughout this campaign as this anti-martial law candidate, that he is going

to be the man and he's the only man who can stop this from ever happening again. And you know South Koreans bought it. They were out on the streets in December, they listened to what he said, they were horrified by what was happening and so by voting for him in such big numbers I think really what we're seeing is them just once again rejecting what happened in December and this attempt to bring their country back under military rule. And he was quite a polarizing figure before this election. He was almost seen as too polarizing and yet he's managed to get this time around nearly 50% of the votes bringing together people actually from all political parties who have bought into

this promise he's made. With Lee Jae-mung though, has he spoken up on women's issues? Because I know the previous leader had got criticism from women's groups in the sense that he was not addressing them. Yeah, I mean it's so interesting if you look at how gender equality and this gender divide has played out in South Korea over the past two elections. So when President Yoon, this president who was impeached, who declared martial law, when he campaigned to win his election three years ago, he got this reputation as being anti-feminist.

And I mean rightly so really because around about the time he was elected, he was, there was this sort of backlash to feminism playing out here because young men here were feeling that they were being discriminated against by policies that were meant to support women because South Korea has actually a very poor record on gender equality. Women are discriminated against, but young men were angry and this president, Yoon, decided to court these votes. So he made a series of statements saying things like gender equality in South Korea, sorry, sexism in South Korea, structural sexism at least, no longer existed. He said that he was going to close the gender equality ministry. And so when he declared martial law back in December, loads of young women came out onto the streets and look, they were horrified by what he was doing in trying to bring the

country under military rule, but they also were seeing this opportunity to try and get rid of this president that they didn't think had their interests at heart. And I was at a lot of the protests and it really was staggering to see how many young women were there. It often just felt like a sea of young women and you could see them because they all had these K-pop glow sticks that they were using and they would be there at night lighting them up and it was so cold, everyone was wrapped up in their big hoodie jackets and the women sat there week after week after week and on the day that the president was finally impeached and I remember being in the crowds and everybody leapt to the

ground when they announced his impeachment and I just remember the these three young girls in front of me and they can't have been older than 20 and they were jumping up and down sort of screaming in each other's faces, tears pouring down their face. And I thought, wow, this just means so much to young women here. Like it gave me such a sense as to how much they had been affected by this former president.

And so they really feel they played this huge role in bringing him down. So when this candidate, E.J. Myung, came out to campaign for this election, young women were sort of like, well hang on, where are our policies? Because he barely mentioned gender equality, even though it played so big in the last election, and they felt let down. They thought, well we helped you bring this president down and now what are you doing for us? Let me turn to Min H-go. Good to have you with us as well.

So Jeanne lays out there how some of these young women may feel let down. Do you feel that the new president, Lee Jae-myeong, will be under any pressure to try and appease them? There certainly would be pressure from women's groups and young women in general that there must be something to be done, not only for young women, but women in general. And I think the president has promised like right after he was in, he was sworn in that he will expand the functions of the existing ministry of genderquality and Family. And we have yet to see what kind of action he will take down the road. But his first and foremost priority is to revive the economy and complete the political reform

he promised to complete during his campaign. So even though there is a line of hope, but I am rather skeptical about how that will unfold over time because not only does he lack some will to work on gender equality issues but also there is lack of personnel like manpower to pursue his agenda like only 20% of the National Assembly is female in South Korea. So even if he wants to pursue those policies, like he will have he will really try have to try hard to find people. So, I mean, he gives us a yeah, give us a little bit more context on that.

So that's one issue that you point to low figures of female participation within the political establishment. What are some of the others? I know there is a major gender pay gap of 31 percent, for example, in South Korea. But what are women looking for? Yeah, so actually the gender wage gap is 31 percent, which is one of the highest among OECD nations, maybe the highest. Not only is there an economic gap between like just ordinary

women and men, there is a serious lack of political representation. Like I said, only 60 out of 300 elected officials are women and the majority of them were elected through proportional representation, meaning that very few women run in district elections and win, which really kind of weakens their electoral basis. And probably what people don't really talk about is the fact that there has been no female governors. Governatorial positions are a must, almost like a must to be a presidential candidate, but there have been no women in those positions. And why are women not running? It's not that

women are not running. I think we have to know the party dynamics about how political parties in Korea depend on personal charisma, very male-dominant culture, so that women, men in politics tend to believe that women are weaker candidates and they're reluctant to nominate women unless they're forced to. There is a law forcing to nominate 50% of the party list for women. But other than that, like no enforcement is being practiced at this point to nominate women. I understand. Jane, let me come back to you. There was another party, the New Reform Party, that was hitting some of the headlines.

That was E. Junsuk. He was making controversial statements about women, I understand, perhaps replicated in other countries around the world as well as attracting a young male base but not young women. Yeah, I mean, E. Jim Sook. Oh, sorry, I'll start with Jean if that's okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fine. E. Jim Sook, he's a very well-known figure here, he's very polarizing and

actually, if you look back at that campaign that election campaign I was saying that where president you courted the votes of young men Eugen suck was actually the leader of his party back at the time and it was actually a strategy that he set so he really Spearheaded this anti-feminist movement and kind of convinced you to adopt these policies as a way to win the election movement and kind of convinced Yoon to adopt these policies as a way to win the election. Now he stood in his own right on his own sort of splinter small party this time around, but this reputation he has of being an anti-feminist and speaking for these young disillusioned men really worked. I don't have the exact percentages in front of me, but I think he got about 7% of the general vote, but if you look at the breakdown of who was voting for him,

I think it was sort of 50% of the, I'm going to mess these statistics up, but anyway, the majority of men in their 20s and the majority of men in their 30s voted for this candidate, which is staggering given you think that he got such a small percentage of the overall vote. So this gender divide is still very real

in South Korean politics. You also look, actually the majority of young women did vote for Lee Jae-myeong, the man who was elected president, so the gender divide still exists. It's just that the mainstream politicians aren't addressing it. I think in Lee's case, he was just so determined to win this election, there were such bigger issues at stake because of this martial law crisis that he felt that that was just a better platform to fight on. He didn't feel there was anything to gain by campaigning for young women like he had done last time around because I think he kind of knew he was going to get their votes anyway because the ruling party, President Nunes' party,

and this splinter candidate had kind of set themselves up as being anti-women. He knew that their votes were in the back. And I do with those some of those figures that you were just mentioning there, Jean, it was 37%, you're right, of males in their 20s votes with him. But what about that person or perhaps even more importantly, when it comes to Minhee, this particular person, the sentiment that's there. Do you feel that it's growing, that it's there, that it's diminishing? I think that has definitely been growing since Moon Jae-in, the last liberal president, declared himself as a feminist president. So there have been policies to institutionalize some gender equality measures,

and Yoon kind of suffered at that. And over time, men grew to think that, you know, government is not only big and inefficient, but also they are being unfair to young men. And the big part of that feeling is based on military conscription. As you know, South Korea is facing North Korea. Healthy men in their 20s, mostly 20s, have to serve in the military for 18 months. They're mandated to go, but there is no satisfactory compensation for those serving for their country.

And then they believe that women are demanding something more than they deserve. So there's definitely two kinds of sentiments, one of which is anti-feminist and misogynistic, but also about government fairness to those young men. Let's see what happens in the coming weeks and months. Will young women take back to the streets? I'm not sure. Jean Mackenzie, BBC Soul correspondent and also Min Hee Goh, professor of political science at U Har Women's University also in Seoul.

Now on Monday we had a very special bank holiday program, should I say Monday, not last Monday, the Monday before. Anita escaped the studio and headed to a dairy farm in Devon to speak to female farmers about the reality of their lives. She also heard about a groundbreaking three-year study looking at the health and well-being of women in agriculture. Here she is speaking to Lorna Burge who runs a tenant dairy farm alongside her husband about the difficulties of managing everyday life with work as a female farmer. I definitely agree with with the thought that you can be very overwhelmed. We've just come into the end of a very busy carving season, we've been flat out for the last 10 weeks working around the

clock. You know we're physically tired, we're mentally tired and then you've still got to make time for doing the food shopping and taking the kids to after school clubs and catching up with paperwork in the office. And it is that feeling of being completely overwhelmed and not knowing what to do first, what to prioritize and how to spend your time. How does it even feel being able to talk about this like this in a platform like this, discussing what your lives are like with other women who can completely relate? So I've got a lot of friends on Instagram that are also farming and we will offload on each other you know difficult challenges on farm or things that have happened or just a

general advice day-to-day advice you know I've got one of my closest friends who only actually lives half an hour away we'll talk most days and she's got children similar ages so she is also doing the whole parent business daily juggle as well. It's hearing that you're not alone as well. Hearing that it's not just you that's having, you know, those struggles is really important, I think. And I do try to get off farm as much as I can.

I'm the Devon Facilitator for Women in Dairy. So we have regular meetings and you know, that's just a space where women get together and we can all kind of share our experiences. It is always topic led but again it's the tea break, very important. So actually for women to be able to just connect with each other and just you know talk about things and offload a little bit, it's so important. Derry Farmer, Lorna Burge there speaking to Anita. If you want to listen to the

full episode go to BBC Sounds for Monday the 26th of May. And don't forget you can text the program 84844. I'm asking you this morning about whether you have a delineation between work and home. We were hearing from Bernadine Evaristo that she doesn't, that she gets positive energy from it all. Here's Carmen. She says, I became a full-time freelance writer and facilitator out of desperation when my maternity pay ran out but I couldn't return to work due to my son's Carmen. She says, I became a full time freelance writer and facilitator out of desperation when my maternity pay ran out, but I couldn't return to work due to my son's needs. I kept writing, teaching and setting up community and online activities and campaigning when my son was born.

It kept me sane. I earn enough to live. I don't stop. I panic when I'm not working. It fulfills me in so many ways. So one thought there, 84844, if you'd like to get in touch. Now hundreds of historic child sex abuse cases could be reopened after police forces carried out reviews ordered by the Home Secretary to tackle grooming gangs. Some 287 closed cases have been identified so far by police in England and Wales. They are to be looked at again by a national task force on child sexual exploitation. The Home Secretary of Cooper told the Home Affairs Committee

yesterday. I've also always said the most important thing is to get perpetrators behind bars and to make sure that they face justice for these horrendous crimes and I can also I can update the committee on that because I did ask all police forces to review historic cases. Half of all forces have reported back to the Home Office and the idea is we've asked them to review cases that were closed when no further action was taken and where there are cases to then work with the task force, the Police Child Sexual Exploitation Task Force, which is the national task force which has considerable expertise to then review those cases and to look to reopen and pursue

any new lines of inquiry that have not been properly pursued. Yvette Cooper there speaking yesterday. Well joining me now is Maggie Oliver, the former detective who blew the whistle on the failure to tackle grooming gangs in Rochdale. Good to have you back with us, Maggie. What do you make of what's been said? I think it's just more words, if I'm honest. You know, nobody would disagree that we need action to tackle horrendous child rape, but when the Home Secretary said, first of all, that's only the figures from half of the police forces in the UK. So if you double that, we've got about 500 cases. Anybody who watched Newsnight, for instance, on Monday night, would see one of the girls

there that the Maggie Oliver Foundation is supporting, who has re-engaged with Greater Manchester Police about a historic case from 2005. We are six years on and no charges have yet been brought. That case has still got a long way to run. Where on earth are they going to get the police officers with the necessary skills to reopen and re-investigate all of those cases. And the reality is, Nuala, that those victims who are revisited will be left hanging for many years in a limbo because the resources are not there. The way I've heard that announcement, and we all know that this topic is not going away. I've met Baroness

Casey twice now, once a couple of months ago and once last week. When I took 10 survivors of horrendous abuse to meet her in person, I don't know what her report is going to say, but I believe that the Home Secretary has a good flavour that it is going to be damning. And so what they are doing, they're getting their ducks in a line to try and say that they are going to do something about it. But we need systemic change, we need investment, we need more police officers and the national task force might have great skills, but there are a woeful inadequate number of people within that. So let me just respond to a couple of aspects there. You mentioned the Greater

Manchester Police, I don't have a response from them as I do not from the Home Office, we have requested one, we haven't got one yet. But this is interesting that you think there's a skills deficit. I mean, is there a way to bolster that or make it fit for purpose as you would see it? Not quickly. No, we need a long term strategy to bring in the right caliber of people into police forces, to give them the training, but that does not happen in five minutes. You know many ex-colleagues of mine have now left you know 30 years worth of experience gone. The pattern of police recruitment in this day and age is that they recruit new officers who maybe if we're lucky stay five years and go. The skills gap is massively evident within police forces.

And these cases are some of the most complex that police officers will ever have to deal with, especially if they are historic cases. So the Home Secretary making an announcement like this shows me clearly that she has no understanding of what the reality of investigating these cases is. So what would you like? I know you're looking for systemic change and I know you think that's something that will take a really long time, but for these women that have suffered for such a long time already, is there a potential solution or resolution for them? I think what you're telling me is that the prospect of a conviction is not realistic.

My belief is that these cases are being mishandled on an industrial scale and the losers always are the victims and survivors who put their hope into a new investigation. And then six years later, they are still waiting for outcomes. Their lives are on hold. So we need proper investigations that come to a speedy conclusion. And I believe that that may be one of the areas that Baroness Casey looks at. Why do these cases last so long? Why do we not have speedy investigations and charging if it's going to be there? This announcement will not go anywhere near addressing

that problem, Nuala. And my fear is that the victims and survivors will again be the losers given false hope when the solution is not an easy solution. We do not have the adequate resources to handle that number of complex cases. How is the Home Secretary going to ensure that that problem is overcome before you give false hope to those victims? Do you have an answer for her or advice? That's her job not mine. I've got many answers

and I've got many suggestions but up to now, despite 10 years of me trying to engage with people to listen, as have many other experts, there is an absolute denial of the problem that exists. I think now they can no longer deny that there is a problem, but they are still not committed to providing the solutions, which will cost money. It will cost investment and it will need systemic change. It's not a five minute solution, Nuala, I'm afraid.

And you have underlined how complex some of these cases are, the complexities that can be in attaining a conviction, for example. Is it hiring? I mean, is that where you're looking at for somewhere that there could be a way to try and move these cases forward? I don't know, hiring people with vast experience or understanding the complexities of these cases? This is why I say it's a long-term solution. I think that policing now, I think, I don't blame individual police officers, I don't think that policing is valued in the way it was, for instance, when I joined nearly 30 years ago. And if you're not paying the adequate salaries and you're not giving good working conditions and good pensions, you're not going to attract

the right caliber of people. And I think that that is part of what we are seeing, that we have a lack of experience and a lack of long-term experience, which these cases demand. So we need to look at the whole picture and not just a quick knee jerk reaction and a PR exercise to say we've got it all under control.

It's definitely not under control. The problems exist and we are not going to resolve them by one public announcement that we're gonna reopen 250, possibly 500 cases without extra investment resources and qualified experienced people and police officers to do it. They don't exist in those numbers I'm afraid, Nula. Maggie Oliver, thank you very much. Just to reiterate, I don't have a response from any of the police forces including Greater Manchester that you mentioned or indeed

from the Home Office on this issue. If you have been affected by any of the police forces including Greater Manchester that you mentioned or indeed from the Home Office on this issue. If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in our conversation please do visit the BBC Action Line website for information and support. Thank you for your messages coming in. Here's one from Balona. Huge congratulations to Bernadine on working all the time and holidays. It's kind of a privilege of choice. Some of us, we really don't have the option of taking a holiday. Working all the time is a wonderful thing if you can be creative and feel it's of value and I'm glad you have that constant creative energy, you're an inspiration. However, if you work all the time to pay the rent or don't have a plan B or feel always a step behind, it can be deeply depressing.

However, to end on a high, who's giving up? Keep them coming. 84844. Now, it may be just over 70 years old, but the modern classic, The Crucible, written by the American playwright Arthur Miller, seems to be gaining in power and relevance through the decades for many audiences. It's based on the historic Salem trials in Massachusetts in 1692, where young girls accused their elders of Satanism. A new production has just opened at the Globe Theatre in London, the first modern classic to be staged there.

Abigail Williams, the girl who spurned affection's spark, a witch hunt is played by Hannah Saxby, who is here in studio with me, and the new production is directed by Ola Ince, who was with us a little earlier with Bernadine, both with me in the studio. Welcome back, Ola. And hello, Hannah. Good to have you with us a little earlier with Bernadine, both with me in the studio. Welcome back, Ola and hello Hannah, good to have you with us. So, okay, some people might not have, might know the story of the Crucible. Do you want to give another couple of lines in addition to what I did? Okay, the Crucible is a play written by Arthur Wynne, as you said,

about the Salem witch trials in which young women who potentially historically were bound women, so they were like almost enslaved, indentured servants, turned on some of their employees, employers, oh my gosh, what's happened to me today, employers and community members and accused them of being witches or practicing witchcraft and that resulted in a lot of deaths and people being imprisoned almost indefinitely and some of those characters are in the play that Arthur Miller has written because it was historically happened like Tituba who was one of the first people to be accused and one of the last people to be released from prison. Abigail Williams was a real person. Arthur Miller's version, she is 17, but

originally she was 11. And John Proctor was an older man. But in Arthur Miller's play, he's younger and they have a love affair. So that love affair is intertwined with these accusations. And accusations is such an important word in all of this. Arthur Miller was writing it in a time of McCarthyism, for example. Yes, he was. He's writing in a time where people are being accused again of communism or being communists and they were brought to trial and in these trial in these courtrooms you were asked to if you were accused to name other people that you also thought were communists and Arthur was asked to do so and he refused to name names a lot like John

Proctor but he's writing from a time of extreme fear and I guess you could say that there was hysteria or going on around him which he writes about in the Crucible. So he's making parallels between his experience in the 50s and what happened in Salem in 1692. And I mean as you're watching it I I had the pleasure, I was telling our listeners, of watching it yesterday and I was under a little kind of covering, but the rain was coming down, it was on the banks of the Thames, it was just incredible. It's so immersive being at the Globe, which I've only ever seen Shakespeare in before, so this was a whole new experience and a wonderful one because everyone is around you

that is maybe getting handcuffed and taken off in a court as a witch, for example. And what appeal to you about directing the crucible and particularly at the Globe? For me, the crucible is an amazing play because it's a play about freedom. And the big question that I've been trying to make sure prevails is whose freedom are you willing to sacrifice for your own? I think that question existed in the 17th century, in the 20th century and now, is that lots of really horrendous things are happening in the world. People are lying and sacrificing each other and it's whether or not you can be as brave

as John Proctor and go, actually, I know what's right. I'm going to stand up for what's right. Or you're as human, I guess, and vulnerable, someone like Abigail Williams, who is just trying to survive. And so that's what really appealed to me. And in the space, I really wanted to make sure that what I think is the Crucible is a thriller.

I wanted to thrill an audience. So having them be part of that 17th century world was really important. There's lots of gasps throughout the production. Let me come to you, Hannah. So you're playing Abigail Williams, who was this central character, one of this group of young women who is perhaps the primary instigator, would that be fair, of the witch trials? Tell me a little bit about how you see her and also John Proctor that has been mentioned. Yeah, so Abigail is notoriously quite a villainous character. I study the Crucible at A level and she's kind of, yeah, when in the audition we spoke about the fact that she's just depicted as this villainous, manipulative, conniving girl who strives to take everyone down and essentially kill everyone.

But we really wanted to look into why she's doing what she's doing and find her vulnerability ability and explore the relationship between her and John. And that being such a. Her need and her. Yeah, that being a driving force. Yes, because I think it's difficult because we often like to put people in boxes like they're either good or evil, and I think it's difficult to do that with either Abigail or indeed John Proctor. Yeah. How did you try to get into her head or portray, I suppose, those different sides?

Yeah, well, I guess like a lot of her language and a lot of like the way she speaks, it's so it's muscular and it's quite violent and it's harsh but I want to look at like the facts which are she is an orphan who witnessed her parents death, she's living in this extremely repressed puritanical society, she's been told from the day she's born she's a sinner, that she's wicked, that she's evil and this upstanding man in the community comes along and, as she says, teaches her goodness. And yeah, like, this spells, like, enlightens her in a way. And she sees, she suddenly sees all these, these adults who have reprimanded her whole

life for what they are, which is sinners too. And yeah, John, through her actions, he shows her he wants her, he shows her he loves her, he chooses her over his wife. And that love for someone like her is like, it's everything. And she cannot understand why he doesn't just, you know, he's strong. He stands up, just follow through. He stands up to all the people, but he won't follow. Yeah, follow his heart in that particular way. Shall we listen to a little bit of you in action? This is the morning after the dancing in the woods,

gossip abounds in the village around the activity of witches. Your cousin Becky is unwell, hallucinating and delusional. You're in your uncle's house at Reverend Paris. And John Proctor, your ex-employer and lover, arrives to see what's going on. You come five miles to see a silly girl fly. I know you better. I come to see what mischief your uncle's through and now.

Wipe it out of mind, Abby. John, I'm waiting for you every night. Abby, wipe it out of mind, and I'll be calling for you more. You're surely sporting with me. You know me better. I know how you clutch my back behind your house and sweat like a stallion whenever I come near. I saw your face when she put me out, and you loved me then, and you do now. That's a wild thing to say.

A wild thing makes a wild thing. I've seen you since you put me out. I've seen you now. I have hardly stepped off my farm the seven months. I have a sense for heat, John, and yours has drawn me to my window. You tell me you've never looked up at my window. Perhaps I.

Have. Indeed he did. Let me come back to you. This obviously as we talk about the witch trials in Salem in the 1600s, but, you know, so much when I was watching it, it felt contemporary to me. You know, we're talking about, you know, the gossip and wildfire and we always blame social media. But no, this has happened, whether it's Salem witch trials, McCarthyism or today. Yeah, I agree. I think what's great about the play is that the characters and the relationships feel really modern.

The politics, unfortunately, is super modern. Whenever Arthur Miller did his, when he was alive and watching productions of his play around the world, people would say to him, didn't you write this about the Chinese Revolution? Or didn't you write this about what's going on now? And so, unfortunately, as human beings, sometimes we decide to stick with mainstream ideas that might not be correct in order to coast or survive. But women are to the forefront in your production. Yeah, that's really important for me. I was actually quite surprised.

I was someone that also read the play at school. And in my memory, it was really a play about women. And when I read it again out loud, I was like, oh, they're just spoken about. And so I thought it was really important that in my production, our production, we gave more space to women so that we understood what it was that they were losing or fighting for, trying to survive. And so there's a pre-show that we've

created in which we are trying to give the audience as much information as possible about the world and how hard it is to be a woman. And so we see people at whipping posts. Talking down to them, telling them to shush, which none of us like. So we see a lot of people that, women that are downtrodden, and I've tried to create lots of moments throughout the play where we, if we don't, the women haven't got lines, we see them and see what they're going through and we follow their journeys of that as a prisoner or that as a bound woman or that's as a young woman of the court. Or a wife that might be just taken away in a court at any point and tried as a witch.

I think it's really important that we follow the women's stories and they're not just ideas. I want to thank both of you for coming in, Hannah Saxby and also Ola Ince. You can catch the play, The Crucible, on at the Globe Shakespeare Theatre in London until the 2nd of August. I want to thank you for joining me today on Woman's Hour. Tomorrow, England football player Anita Asante with Anita. Do not miss a minute of Woman's Hour coming to you tomorrow on Radio 4. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. I'm Annabel Dees and from BBC Radio 4, this is Shadow World, the smuggler.

People coming to this country was making me successful. A year ago, I met a people smuggler, a British man who joined an international smuggling gang. I uncover his motivations and his methods. I'm telling you now how easy it is. And investigate whether his tactics are still possible. That does leave a really exploitable loophole for individuals who want to do harm. Shadow World, The Smuggler. Listen now on BBC Sounds.