Woman's Hour - Elizabeth McGovern, Trump's visit to D-Day: Decoding state ceremony

Episode Date: June 7, 2019

Elizabeth McGovern, best known in the UK for being Lady Cora in Downton Abbey is in a play in London at the moment called Starry Messenger. Elizabeth plays the wife of a man going through a mid-life crisis. Plus the latest Sadie and the Hotheads news. From President Trump’s state visit to D-Day celebrations, we reflect on a week of ceremony with Jess Brammar Executive Editor, HuffPost UK, Sarah Elliot Chair of Republicans Overseas UK, and Bonnie Greer, columnist with the New European newspaper, playwright and critic. We continue our look at women sports coaches as part of coaching week with tennis coach, Francesca Lewis. She fell in love with the game when she was just 8 years old, and she went on to compete in tournaments right across the world. But it was as a tennis coach, rather than a player, that Francesca really found her calling. She now trains some of the best junior players in the world at Swansea’s Regional Player Development Centre.Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Helen Fitzhenry

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, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the podcast for Women's Hour for Friday the 7th of June. Elizabeth McGovern, best known as Lady Cora in Downton Abbey, soon to be in the cinema, has a new film, The Chaperone, and the role of the wife in Middle Age in the West End play The Starry Messenger. She's now 57. How much are things improving for women in the acting profession as they get older? In Coaching Week, the tennis coach Francesca Lewis trains some of the best junior players in the world. And the serial, the final episode of I Am a Slave. Now, it's been quite a week as we've followed the arrival of Donald Trump, his wife

Melania and his entire family for a state visit in the presence of the Queen and almost her entire family. The Duchess of Sussex of course was absent from the official programme. Then there was the commemoration of D-Day on both sides of the Channel, the Peterborough

by-election in which Labour won a narrow victory. And today is the day on which Theresa May officially steps down as leader of the Conservative Party, although she remains Prime Minister until a new one is chosen. Well, with me to unpick the week's news are Bonnie Greer, a columnist with the New European newspaper, playwright and critic, Sarah Elliott, who chairs Republicans Overseas UK, and Jess Brammer, the executive editor of HuffPost UK. Jess, the results of Peterborough are in. Labour won by a majority of 683. Brexit Party came second. How surprised were you at that result?

I was genuinely quite surprised, actually. I think, fascinating result. A lot of relief amongst Remainers in the UK today. I would say misplaced relief. That 683 votes was very, very close. And I think the Brexit Party have shown that they are a genuinely disruptive force in UK politics at the moment. Having said that, they did fail in their first electoral test to get an MP into Westminster.

That's clearly significant. Internally in Labour, lots of soul searching because she was a problematic candidate. She had liked a Facebook post that mentioned Theresa May being subject to Zionist slave masters agenda. So there's a lot of people in Labour who are welcoming the result, but obviously saying that there's a lot of soul searching within the party to do this morning. Sarah, what have you read into such a narrow majority and Brexit coming second? That basically the Conservatives have to follow through with Brexit or you're going to have a Labour government. I think the Brexit party is taking votes away from the Conservatives, and this is a very dangerous path for the party. And as it has been for the last several is a pressure group that calls itself the Brexit Party.

And what the people of Peterborough did was get serious and decide that they wanted a political party to run their area. One of the things I said this morning on Twitter is that I think, and I mentioned the BBC, but I don't want to make it entirely the BBC's issue. But Nigel Farage has been promoted pretty much in this country as some sort of force. And what it does is it helps people to gather with him, basically, as Jess rightly said said a disruptive force. But we're now in a moment when social media and traditional news are in collision. And the corporation, which I am second to none in my admiration for it and in its prowess, has got to step back a bit now and look at its role in promoting this man. We're in a very dangerous place right now. But you see, you call it a pressure group. They are actually officially now a political party, albeit a new one. They're a political party because they registered as one. I'm talking about a pressure group in the fact that, and I'm saying this with respect, but a political party, as you know, is an ecosystem. It's a very complex mechanism.

It not only has an issue that it promotes, it has other things it does. I'm talking about this not as a partisan for labor, although I vote labor, but for the conservatives, the Lib Dems, the Greens. These are political parties. This is a pressure group, and we're at a moment in time where this pressure group is sucking the oxygen out of our political process and making it very dangerous. Well, it was a pressure group before David Cameron decided to have the referendum. And it forced UKIP in this case, forced David Cameron to have one to settle the issue in the

Conservative Party over Europe. Now it is definitely a full fledged political party, because let's face it, the Conservatives haven't done a good job under Theresa May in getting a withdrawal agreement through. They're legitimate. They have elected politicians now. It's all about how the mainstream parties are going to respond to this. I think the interesting thing about Bonnie's point is that, yes, they are a pressure group and we will be waiting to see when a general election comes what their policies are in other areas. But they have had a huge impact on the policies of the mainstream political parties. And that if you if you don't support them is alarming because they may well be a pressure group, but their policies have impacted on the people.

But just that doesn't make them not a pressure group. You know, and the reason I'm saying that is we are at a point where we have to decide as political entity, and I'm talking about the United States as well, whether we are actually going to be involved in politics or we're going to be involved in pressure groups getting the kind of sort of huge publicity that this one is getting. Nigel Farage was more quoted on the news today than almost everyone else.

The Labor Party held the seat. Now, that should have been the news because, actually, the betting was the Labor Party was not going to win. The Labor Party held the seat. Okay, they lost a lot of votes, but they held. The Lib Dems did very well. The Conservatives got hurt. That's the news, not this. But is there not value in putting to Nigel Farage that they failed to win a seat if you're not a supporter of that? It's not about value. It's about us understanding that we are in a very febrile time and we have to decide.

I'm not saying we, I'm not a journalist, but I think journalism has to decide what landscape it's helping to create. This man and his party are disruptive forces are fun. And Nigel Farage is clickbait. But we're at a moment now in this country that is the most febrile since the Civil War. If you don't take Nigel Farage seriously, he's just clickbait. I didn't say that. That really riles up his base.

That actually really gets people to God even stronger for him. I didn't say that I didn't take him seriously. I wouldn't be talking about it if I didn't take him seriously. He's very serious. Let's move on to the other big event of the week, the Trump visit. Sarah, how much of a success was it? I think it was a great success. I think it was a great success for both of our countries. I want to thank the British government and the royal family for their lovely hospitality to the President of the United States of America. I thought that Donald Trump was humbled in the presence of the Queen. I think

the grandeur of the occasion, but also the way he was treated with respect, made him feel welcomed. Not entirely treated with respect. Well, but by everyone he met, by everyone he met. I mean, I think Sadiq Khan purposefully put that piece on the Sunday Observer just to instigate that little rivalry they have. And he responded in kind, as Trump will do. He doesn't back down. But I think overall, it went exceptionally well. You saw a statesman in Trump. You saw a more humbled man. And what I like to see is he was very gracious to Theresa May, which I thought he would be as she's the outgoing prime

minister, and she was the first world leader to meet him when he was in office. But you know, it's never guaranteed, but he did. And I thought it was lovely. Yes. I mean, I think there's no question that the Trump team will have thought that this visit went very well for them. It was a very strange time for British politics. It's hard to see what we were from the political side going to gain from this given that he was meeting a Prime Minister who as you say leaves office today effectively. He didn't make any enormous gaffes. There was quite lot of um consternation over his statement that the nhs would be on the table in any brexit trade deal which he then flipped on

when he was asked about it later in the week and clearly didn't really understand the question to be honest um i think it's difficult isn't it i'm by no means a royalist um but clearly he was impressed and i think some of that sort of you was impressed. And I think some of that sort of you called him humble. I think some of that sort of reverence we saw a more polite Trump in that press conference clearly came from the fact that he was slightly overwhelmed by the amount of pomp that we sort of poured all over him during the week. People have very mixed feelings about that in terms of how they feel as British people when we do that kind of thing. But clearly it impressed him.

It spoke to him in a way that, you know, lots of guilt everywhere does speak to the president. Bonnie, the Queen has been hugely praised for her handling of things. What did you make of the way she dealt with it? Well, thankfully, Trump's visit gave me one of those rare occasions actually to tune out of Trump world. So I didn't see a lot of it on purpose. My father was here. I'm talking about Muslims as well as African Americans. I think it was a disgrace and actually was emblematic of the world that Trump has ushered in. It's interesting, again, and I'll go back. My father was a veteran.

My uncles were veterans. My brother-in-law is a Vietnam vet. My brother is a vet. My nephew is a vet. We had a draft dodger take the salute as commander-in-chief's a Vietnam vet. My brother is a vet. My nephew is a vet. We had a draft dodger take the salute as commander in chief. To me, that was disgusting. And I think we mustn't normalize what Donald Trump has done to the presidency of the United States. And, you know, we can all try and do that because we need to live in the world. We need to do that. But he

has disrupted the office of the president of the United States to a degree that if we get it back together again, it's going to be a miracle. Well, for one, I mean, I, first of all, I, you know, I respect all soldiers of different races and ethnicities. But at the time in the 1940s, England, there just weren't that many veterans of color. Well, not like they are not to the level that they are. No, I'm not. It's a bad thing to say. Listen, there are not many still alive today. I don't think, but I, listen, I recognize everyone who serves. I'm just talking about the demographics that were the United Kingdom at the time. What about the United States, our country? Well, yeah, well, we have, yes, we have great representation there, but there were more. I'm not going to go into that right now. But what I'd say is also that the Trump presidency is he's one man, the country is still running, we have wonderful people actually running the country. He's the presidency doesn't have as much power as you think. It is delegated to a cabinet, It is delegated to civil servants.

I think that what was wonderful about this visit is it built a lot of goodwill for whoever comes in next as prime minister in between our both countries. And I believe Donald Trump will be elected again. This is not his last visit to the UK. And I think as the UK leaves the EU, this was a wonderful time to really see closer relations between both countries. When he talked about putting the NHS, he pulled back on it.

I don't think he understood the question. Well, that's the problem. That doesn't speak kindly to him, Sarah. This is the problem, Sarah. And this is what I'm saying about. I don't think he heard the question. This is the problem. Theresa May had to repeat it.

Sarah, he has an obligation. This is the problem. Theresa May had to repeat it. Sarah, he has an obligation. This is why I'm talking about normalization. And to say that he doesn't have as much power as I think he has, Donald Trump has taken every ounce of power that the presidency has. We don't even know all the power the presidency has because of Donald Trump. Donald Trump, and I'm not going to go into a long Donald Trump thing, okay, because that's important not to do that. But Donald Trump mentioned our NHS, as well as the American ambassador, as being on the table. He rolled it back. So when you do a trade agreement,

all different things are on the table. Bonnie, let Sarah answer that point, and then let's move on. Let's move on. Yeah. So with the trade deal, you put everything on the table and you decide what is worth trading and where your comparative advantage is. There are a lot of American companies that produce pharmaceuticals and medical devices, as do the UK. I think that's what they meant. But in the end, they didn't realize what a polarizing issue that was for people. I can tell you, the United States can't even deal with their own health care system. They do not want to manage the British health care system. Jessica, it seemed to me that Melania was greatly admired as rather a cool customer.

What did you think of the coverage of her? I find her fascinating, I have to say. She's the ultimate kind of blank slate upon which we all want to project our own sort of hopes and desires for what she's actually thinking because none of us have any idea. She's so not vocal as a First Lady that actually we don't know what she cares about. Lots of people say they feel sorry for her, say she seems to be trapped in an unhappy marriage.

There's probably a little bit of them projecting what they wish for her to be thinking on her on that. And I thought there was a really fascinating debate in our office amongst the women about whether it was sexist to be admiring of the clothes that she was wearing. Because obviously Trump doesn't receive that kind of coverage. I thought she looked great. I'm not a supporter of her husband's politics in any way. But I do think it's interesting, particularly for a first lady that isn't vocal about the things that she cares about. Her clothes are absolutely a kind of statement about where she is. We get very little from her.

And if you remember, there was that sort of iconic image of her when she was visiting that child migrant detention centre in the US at a time when lots of people were saying you know how can she as a mother support the separation of families that her husband is carrying out and she wore that jacket as she got on her private jet that said I don't care on the back. Now you can't tell me that she's not a woman who thinks about the image that she projects of herself to the world so I would argue it's a perfectly valid thing to discuss. Bonnie, how would you compare the coverage of what she wore with similar coverage when it was Michelle Obama who was here and people were asking themselves, is it sexist to care about what she's wearing? I think with respect to Melania Trump and all first ladies, they've got a hard row to hoe, as we say in America. It's very difficult being a first lady because we project a lot on them. They have various duties that they try to pick up that sort of is in the kind of vein of their husband.

Barack Obama was an activist president. He came in with a political agenda. Michelle Obama is a lawyer, Harvard trained. She practiced as a lawyer. Melania Trump was a model. So, you know, we, and they're both human beings and they're both valid, but probably part of that pressure is because that is what she was. That was her career. Now we are in a different media age as well. All of us can talk more now. So we can do all sorts of bitty little things about a woman and say this and say that. I don't pay attention to Melania Trump. She's absolutely no interest to me. But what is fascinating is how people are projecting sort of Jackie Kennedy

image on her. I'm old enough to remember Jackie Kennedy, and she ain't no Jackie Kennedy. So I think where we are now is trying to fill the space that Melania, and probably rightfully so, rightfully so, has left us. And that is a space we fill. Sarah, you raised your eyebrows when Bonnie said she ain't no Jackie Kennedy. Why? Well, I don't think Bonnie answered the question about the coverage between Michelle Obama and Melania. I mean, you know, Michelle Obama has been on six covers of Vogue magazine, at least three while she was First Lady. And here we actually have a model as First Lady

who is statuesque and beautiful, and she carries herself with class, which is very similar to Jackie O. Yet the fashion world has banished her because of her husband's politics. And you can, to me, that's... What do you mean the fashion world has banished her? Well, there are designers that refuse to work with her. Philip Tracy designed that beautiful hat she wore yesterday, or was it two days ago, in Portsmouth, and he has gotten absolutely hellfire by the fashion world

on his Instagram account for having designed for the First Lady who happens to be married to President Trump. And you can ask if she should be held account for her husband's beliefs. She's her own person. But everyone was glowing about Michelle Obama when she was over here. There's clearly a media bias towards her, and maybe it's because it's towards her husband's politics. But I think Melania Trump is someone who has never wanted to be first lady,

and she has taken on the role in a very stoic way. She does care about her fashion. She wore a London print Gucci dress as she boarded Air Force One. She wore a Burberry blouse when she landed here. And she also wore a clear white color, if I have the name right, of Givenchy, who designed Meghan Markle's dress, designed her red dress. Jess? I just don't agree that the coverage of Melania

versus Michelle Obama is to do with her husband's politics. Michelle Obama is somebody who is a campaigner, who has been vocal on women's rights across the globe, who had an agenda around child obesity and health in the US, and has continued to campaign on women's rights since her husband left office. I just don't think they're comparable in terms of the amount of coverage that they deserve.

The designers have actually said, because of her husband's policies, I will not dress her. I mean, they have come out and said that. That's their right. Let's go on to Theresa May, who had a difficult, I suspect, last week as leader. How well did she handle that difficult week just i mean for a woman whose tenure has been beset um largely of her own making but by very difficult moments she had a terrible

last week to contend with um trump here and then peterborough the by-election overnight um so she's coming into her final day in office with this loss for the Tories. I mean, she dealt with it as well as she could, let's be honest. That press conference was fascinating for me just to see how quickly power drains. Nobody was particularly interested in what she had to say. And there was that moment when Trump couldn't hear the NHS question, which was obviously a very contentious question for everybody in the UK watching. And she sort of had to lean over and pass it on to him and i don't know there was there was no sense that that would that was two world leaders of equal stature in that press conference

what about sarah the way she handled the the d-day when you know she was there with macron she was making speeches was she a states stateswoman? I think she was definitely. And I think, if anything, that there was probably the highlight and honor of her week was to honor these men who this is the last time we'll get to actually in person honor them most likely they're in their 90s. Now. It was no, I think it was very good. And it was good for other world leaders, I think, to say I was angry at the coverage of her speech because almost every paper had her picture, the picture of her at the end when she cried. And I thought that's what they think of us in the end. Women's World Cup begins in Paris today, France versus South Korea.

Will you be watching? Sarah? I'm really sorry. I'm not a football fan. But you know, America is so good at women's football. I know. I've got to tell you, growing up in America, I was very intimidated by my fellow girls' soccer players. That's what we call them.

And I hated running up and down a field. So I stayed to the court sports like tennis and basketball. Bonnie? I agree, Sarah. I mean, soccer is a girl's game in America. I mean, I played it when I was a girl a long time ago as a guard. We were just sort of shocked to see guys running around in shorts and long socks. So it's finally gotten, it's over there now and it's doing very well.

But I'm a rugby person, so. But good luck to the women's. But you watch women's rugby as well as men's, don't you? Absolutely, absolutely. Rugby. Jess? I mean, I have to say, to my shame, I've never watched a game of women's football. That is shameful.

It is, I know. Never to have done it ever. I know, and I think I will. I think I will watch this one. It's on the BBC, apparently. It's going to be on BBC One, a couple of games on BBC Two. Yeah, I think I'm going to get into it. We'll be covering it on HuffPost, actually.

Not sort of match reports, but we're definitely going to be covering what it means for particularly young girls watching it in this country. And don't forget that England will play Scotland on Sunday. They're a great team. They're ranked third. They're a great team. And we need to stress that. They're world beaters. They're a great team. Scotland are good as well. Well, they are good, too. Women are a great team. And we need to stress that. They're world beaters.

They're a great team. Scotland are good as well. Well, they are good. They are good. I don't know where they're ranked. We can't show favourites at this stage of the game. So, Bonnie Greer, Sarah Elliott and Jess Brammer, thank you all very much indeed for being with us this morning.

Now, still to come in today's programme, Elizabeth McGovern playing a wife in the play The Starry Messenger, a chaperone in a film of the same name, and becoming Lady Cora again in the cinema version of Downton Abbey. And the final episode of the serial, I Am a Slave. Now, on Monday, Jane's going to be discussing women returning to work after a break. If you've tried to return after a long time, raising children or caring for elderly parents or indeed both, how easy was it to find a job? We'd like to hear your experiences, whether they were good or bad.

You can get in touch with us through the website or, of course, on Twitter. That's at BBC Women's Hour. Now, across the week, dubbed Coaching Week, we've been talking to women who coach others in perfecting their sport. We've discussed rugby, netball, wheelchair basketball, football of course, and today it's tennis. Francesca Lewis fell in love with the game when she was only eight and she went on to compete in tournaments across the world.

But it was as a tennis coach rather than a player that she found her calling. She now trains some of the best junior players in the world at Swansea's Regional Player Development Centre. There we go, that's better. I've pretty much been here since I was eight years old because I started as a player here and then transitioned through university, played until I was 21 and then moved into coaching because that was what I'd always wanted to do so I haven't really left yet to have a job where I'm able to be on a tennis court all day is such a

luxury but also working with kids I just love working with with little ones because they're so they love the game as well so you're constantly with people that are passionate about what they're doing the most important thing is to build that relationship with these kids where they feel like felly rydych chi'n cymaint gyda phobl sy'n parhau am yr hyn maen nhw'n ei wneud. Y peth mwyaf pwysig yw adeiladu'r cysylltiad gyda'r plant hynny, lle maen nhw'n teimlo eu bod yn gallu eich diwydiant o'r oedol, ac maen nhw'n gwybod y byddwch chi yno i'w cefnogi. Mae hynny'n fwy pwysig na chael y gwybodaeth mwyaf. Ac mae gallu cymryd ymddygiad â'r plant yn fawr yn un o'r gwahaniaethau mwyaf pwysig commit to them again I think that's one of the most important qualities that you can have as a coach you have to live it and breathe it and it really can be 24 hours sometimes so this is our little S&C part of the tennis centre now so this is their strength and conditioning so they're all pretty high level players so if they're not doing this type of ac adleidfaeth, felly maen nhw i gyd yn chwaraewyr o lefel uchel, felly os nad ydyn nhw'n gwneud y math hwnnw o beth,

yna risg uchel, ond nid ydych chi'n mynd i gynnyrchu perfformiad hefyd, oherwydd os ydyn nhw'n dod yn fwy gyflym, gallant ddod â'r bwrdd yn gyflymach, gallant ddod i mewn i'r cornau yn gyflymach, felly rwy'n credu bod hyn yn ddweud pam bod ein gylch yn cael rhywfaint o un-up ar rai eraill, oherwydd rydyn ni'n gwneud hynny'n iawn. Nid yw llawer o bobl yn gwneud hynny hyd, ond mae'r ddau gylch hyn, others because we do really do it properly a lot of people aren't buying into this yet but these girls so Erin is 12 now she's probably been doing this since she was maybe seven the gym work so really important for them. Hi I'm Erin and my coach is Fran Lewis. I started when I was three and I've loved it all my life and Francesca's brought me through everything. She's very fun, and she works you really hard. I like all the work she's doing with me.

Yeah, she's really good. I normally like to start when I'm about five, six years old. Then the first thing is just making them love the game, So I don't even start with anything technical, tactical, it's about fun and hopefully getting them hooked on that. And then if you can see that they're physically good, then you're trying to put a lot more shape into their games. But I don't, like I said, don't push for that until I feel like they've got that real love for the game but it's just as they mature teaching them the technical side a lot more and then the tactical side obviously mental comes into it and I spend a lot of time at tournaments with these little ones as well so most of what I do is tournament work so we will travel together and

we're just trying to get them in good habits for the future, so getting used to having a good pre-match routine, analysing after the match and trying to take the positives because it's a tough sport out there. It can get pretty lonely and it's very easy to be negative after a bad performance, so I try and help them through that side as much as I can these children are playing at a very high level and they're mentally not ready a lot of the time to deal to deal with that so I think again that's one of the coaches biggest jobs to help

them understand those ups and downs because I remember myself from playing I was a very private person I actually didn't wouldn't speak to my coaches a lot and you can you're really putting yourself through some mental torture actually I remember sometimes I would lose and I wouldn't want to eat for the week even that extreme or I definitely wouldn't be talking to someone for two or three days so I think you need someone that you feel really close to where you can almost get rid of that within 10, 20 minutes after a match. We have huge roles as coaches to do that and to be fair on them. I will only ever pull a player up if their attitude or effort isn't right

and so accepting of if the performance is not great because that's that sport as long as they're giving everything that they can then I try and help them to realize that that's enough and we can always go back on next day we we work on the game again that's fine but I'm hoping that I do have a set of players who are a bit more relaxed than normal and can cope with higher pressure situations because they know after the match, OK, it's not the end of the world. They can get a bit upset, but then we reset within half an hour

and we don't hold on to it. So I hope that I'm already starting to get them into that sort of routine. So we're on the outdoor courts. On here you've got Leila Savage. She's a very good player, so she did very well nationally at nine and under, ten and under. She was one of the best players in Britain. She's been a bit unlucky at the moment.

She's had a spell of a year and a half with some tough injuries. So she's just starting to come back now and she's making some really good progress. So that's Leila. And then we're moving on here to Mimi so Mimi is 11 years old she's been at the centre with me since she was six she was not great when she came in but the progress that she made within just a few weeks was pretty exceptional and now Mimi is number two in Britain. Hi, my name is Mimi Shee.

I'm from Swansea and Francesca coaches me. Francesca's important because it helps me develop and she'll help me to play my game and make changes if I need to. She's a great coach. Hello, I'm Nella Savage and I'm a tennis player. I've been in France since I was very young, since I started playing here, and we've really bonded. She gives amazing pointers when you need it.

She's lovely to talk to off-court too, and she really helps when you need to. I've got a couple of players here at Swansea now who I started with at five years old who have gone on to win big international titles, like multiple national titles, which people don't do around here very often. It's not very common in Wales that we have these type of players. So to have two or three players at Swansea who are not just the best in Britain,

but the best in Europe, some of them the best in the world, I'm really proud of because I've had them the whole way through. But I would say I'm more proud of them than I am myself. But then probably the other thing is just making tennis a lot more accessible around here. So I spend most of my time fundraising and finding ways to get sponsorship in for these kids because when I started off, what I realised is some of the most talented players coming into the programme actually couldn't really afford to train. So for me, I just thought, that's such a waste.

We're losing our best players here. So from a young age, I started trying to tackle that and think, right, I'm not going to make any excuses here. We're going to find a way. If they want to train this much, they're going to train this much. If they want to play these tournaments, they're going to be able to do it, regardless of if they have money or not. And I think we're in a really good place with that in Swansea at the moment.

We run a really good sponsorship fund and we're really supporting the players as heavily as we can we're actually I think one of only three centres in the UK to been awarded a regional and a local centre so local is to look after the best really little ones like nine and under and regional is 14 and under so I always wanted to get this place in Swansea to a point where we are one of the strongest centres as well, the strongest centre in Wales. And I've just always wanted to be producing players that are putting Wales on the map. Yes, there we go, ace!

Francesca Lewis A new play opened in the West End last month surrounded by some excitement The Starry Messenger was written by Kenneth Lonergan best known for Manchester by the Sea which won the Oscar for Original Screenplay in 2017 The play was to star Matthew Broderick as a middle-aged astronomer disappointed at his lack of success in his career. His wife, struggling with a teenage son, elderly relatives and an

inattentive husband, is played by Elizabeth McGovern, who has a new film, The Chaperone, and Downton Abbey, the movie, in which she is again Lady Cora which will be released in September. Elizabeth what drew you to the starry messenger as the frustrated wife of a man in the throes of a midlife crisis? That's a very easy question to answer it was Kenny's writing he is one of those writers that is a gift to any actor. He has an evocative, unusual way of suggesting character that is complex and has dimension. And I think there are very few actors that wouldn't just leap at the opportunity to be in his world and speak his lines. Now, one of the themes of the play is the closure of the Hayden Planetarium in New York,

which was actually demolished in 1997, which obviously meant a lot to Lonergan and to Matthew Broderick, who plays your husband. How aware of its importance were you before you came to the play? Zero, even though I lived not far from the Hayden Planetarium. But the charming part of that story is that Kenny and Matthew, I believe, met age 15 in the class of this man who was teaching extracurricular astronomy. And they were two, I have to assume, fairly nerdy kids that wanted to take this extracurricular class. And so it was a place that had a lot of resonance for them. There is a planetarium that has replaced the Hayden Planetarium. And I don't know what that's like.

But I think people were very fond of the Hayden Planetarium because of its kind of old-fashioned, warm, clunky charm. And for Kenny, it's a wonderful way of putting this story, which is about human beings negotiating their lives and relationships, but it's in the context of the larger picture, which is that we're on this planet hurtling through the cosmos, because this man's imagination always refers back to the stars, the bigger picture. And it's a wonderful sort of overview to the minutia, the detail of all the characters as they interact that you're seeing on stage.

Because at the same time, he comes home to you and you are saying, well, are we going to go to your mother-in-law's for Christmas? Exactly. He's married, you know, and that's what marriage becomes. And that's what marriage becomes. And that's what love becomes. And so, like most of us, he has to reconcile how to keep that love alive. What is love when you're talking about laundry and mothers-in-law? And so this is the kind of thing that we all sort of process at a certain point in the middle part of our life. And I think that it's this process that Kenny is interested in and what this process leads to in terms of him bouncing off all sorts of different characters at different points in their life in the story.

Now, you grew up in Los Angeles, although I know you trained in New York. What drew you to acting? I can hardly remember it almost feels as though it was something thank you for saying that but in my case it almost feels like something I was doing before I even thought about it if that makes any sense. I probably had a higher trajectory in terms of a kind of what I would deem to be a more important profession in my mind, but it was something that I was always doing, and then suddenly was earning money. I mean, it sounds a little bit facile to say that, but it is true. It kind of found me and it's a place of comfort and joy for me. So I've never looked back. It found you rather well. I mean, your first major film role was in Ordinary People,

directed by Robert Redford. Yes, indeed. How did that happen? I know, I do sometimes wonder. I mean, the prosaic version of the story is that I was just seen by an agent in a school play. I remember it was Skin of Our Teeth, a Thornton Wilder play. And she left a note at the office of the administrator at school and said, come in and see me. And I was applying for colleges. And I thought, well, I'll get some summer jobs and I'll earn some money.

And I went in to see her and they were seeing a lot of kids for ordinary people at the time. And I just went on a big cattle call. They call them a casting call. And four meetings later, I was there in Redford's office. So it was it was I didn't even realize that it was amazing. I thought like this happened all the time to everybody because I had nothing, no experience to compare it to. What brought you to London and marriage to Simon Curtis,

who began, I think, as an assistant director at the Royal Court? He did. Yeah, very good. Well, that was another until I met him in a much more deep way 10 years later and we got to know each other very well and he's been my partner my it's been one of the most wonderful, fortuitous things that's ever happened to me. And it did bring me to England, which was never part of my plan either. But I've absolutely loved it and feel very grateful. Now, I know you're responsible for a film, The Chaperone, which we haven't seen here yet, but no doubt will.

And it's about The Chaperone of the film star Louise Brooks. Why were you so keen on that story, that you bought the story and you produced the film as well as appearing in it? I did. It's based on a book. And I felt as though the story was an opportunity to say so many things. It takes place in the 1920s,

which was a time of great change for women. And one of the forefronts, the poster girl for that change was this Louise Brooks, who was one of the first flappers, and she personified the liberated woman. And it is her journey with this middle-aged woman who I play and the effect that she has on this middle-aged woman that I felt was such an interesting way of seeing a woman who is late in age, making discoveries and coming to terms with her ownership of her own happiness and her own sexuality through her interaction with this girl who affects her very deeply. And I thought it was a very interesting way of telling a story that is quite a universal one about how women have a right to control their own fate and own their own sexuality and a right to have a sexuality and um and it was it's also kind of fun and fun and entertaining story about an odd

couple and so to lady cora and yes and the film which is coming out later this year how surprised were you at the amazing success of the television series? Yes, completely. I continue to be totally gobsmacked by it. I really am. But of course, I enjoy it. How much of a family do you become? I mean, there have been six series so far. When you're in a cast that works together for such a long time will you miss them when it stops yes i i don't think that there's anything quite like it um because we do grow up together i mean we go through something together that is quite a traumatic experience in

some ways which is to be catapulted into this strange position where people are responding to you as a character. And so, I mean, that can be a very bonding experience, or a lot of the times people who do long-term series end up falling out because it is a traumatic thing to process. And in our case, it has really bonded this really nice, incredibly talented group of people. So I feel really lucky. You're 57 now. You've filmed War of the Worlds for television, the play, the other film, Downton Abbey. Is it getting easier for women to get good work in film and theatre as they get older now?

Well, I do feel very lucky myself. I mean, there's a lot of paddling that goes on underneath the surface of the water. I feel like it does take a toll. I work very, very hard. I think it's easier to find parts in the theatre than it is in television and film. I think that is still a challenge for us. I was talking to Elizabeth McGovern. Lots of you contributed to the discussion of our Review of the Week's news. Mandy said,

listening to the discussion on representation on the D-Day celebrations, my dad is 83 and regularly saw men of colour from all around the world in the UK preparing for the push. To say that not many people of colour were over here then is misleading and disingenuous, to say the least. In addition to the US soldiers, many, many men of colour were involved from across the Commonwealth. One of my dad's stories from the time when evacuated involved a wonderful tank driver who comforted my dad when his dog got run over. He still talks about it. Judith Grant said, the idea that people of colour were not part of D-Day or the war is a great disservice to the men and women of the Commonwealth who served and sacrificed their lives. My father from St

Vincent served and lost many of his friends. Jackie Schneider said isn't the concept of the First Lady utterly redundant in a democracy? I think it's demeaning. And Christine said, I really think that what president's wives wear is their own business. In fact, what anyone wears is really their own choice and should not be up for discussion. Surely Woman's Hour ought to be more interesting. Well, join me for a very interesting weekend Woman's Hour. We'll be looking ahead to the Women's Football World Cup in France. The author, Elif Shafak, talks about her latest novel, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds,

in this strange world. And the writer and journalist Francesca Siegel tells us about her identical twin daughters born prematurely at 30 weeks and how her expectations of becoming a mother were shattered by their early arrival.

That's Weekend Woman's Hour tomorrow afternoon at four o'clock. Do join me if you can. Bye-bye. I'm Simon Mundy, host of Don't Tell Me The Score, the podcast that uses sport to explore life's bigger questions, covering topics like resilience, tribalism, and fear with people like this. We keep talking about fear. And to me, I always want to bring it back to, are you actually in danger? That's Alex Honnold, star of the Oscar-winning film Free Solo,

in which he climbed a 3,000-foot sheer cliff without ropes. So, I mean, a lot of those, you know, social anxieties, things, and certainly I've had a lot of issues with talking to attractive people in my life. I'm like, oh no, like I could never do that. And it certainly feels like you're going to die. But realistically, you're not going to die. And that's all practice too. Have a listen to Don't Tell Me The Score,

full of useful everyday tips from incredible people on BBC Sounds. 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.