Woman's Hour - Food writer Grace Dent, Artist Shirin Neshat, History of enslaved women, Actor Mei Mac
Episode Date: October 6, 2023We hear from food writer Grace Dent about her new book, Comfort Eating, inspired by her podcast of the same name. She'll explain why she's so fascinated by the foods to make us feel better behind clo...sed doors.The Iranian visual artist Shirin Neshat’s latest work is called The Fury. It is a short film and series of photographs which explore the sexual exploitation of female political prisoners in Iran. Shirin left Iran as a teenager to study in the US and has lived in exile there since the 1990s. Her art is known for posing questions about how the female body is perceived within Islam and Iranian culture. She talks to Anita Rani about bringing The Fury to London and why she has chosen to deviate from her usual style and include the nude form.Gloria Daniel is the descendant of John Isaac Daniel, who was a slave. After finding out more about her family history and the lives of her ancestor, as well as other slaves, she has started the organisation TTEACH (Transatlantic Trafficked Enslaved African Corrective Historical) Plaques. She joins Anita to tell us about the exhibition they are currently holding, ’50 PLAQUES & PLACES’, which includes the testimonies and artwork of women.Mei Mac is an Olivier award nominee who has taken on the lead role of Kim in the ‘untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon play' at the Young Vic. The play tackles over a century's worth of stereotypes about Asian women in drama, parodying Madame Butterfly, Miss Saigon and South Pacific. Mei tells Anita about confronting prejudice in theatre, 'the bamboo ceiling' and why she has set up a mentorship scheme for British East Asian and South East Asian actors.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Kirsty Starkey
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Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4.
Good morning and welcome to Friday's Woman's Hour.
We have quite a programme lined up for you today
and I cannot wait to speak to all the incredible women
I have in the studio with me right this moment.
The wonderful Grace Dent is on the programme today to talk about her new book
based off her podcast, Comfort Eating,
where people discuss their lives around the food that gives them the most comfort.
So this morning, guess what I'd like to know about you?
Well, not just your comfort food.
It's the food that you may have discovered later in life that makes you feel the most comfort.
That plate of, or the bowl of, or the packet of, that instantly swaddles you and makes you feel safe, gives you
a warm glow, takes you away from the chaos of your life. For the time you're eating it, it makes you
pause and be totally present and content and experience intense pleasure. Yes, food really
can be that powerful. Why does that food make you feel that way? And who do you share the experience with?
Get in touch with the programme.
Is it eating a Victoria sponge
in front of a daytime quiz show with Nan?
Yes, please.
A bowl of pasta, a fish finger sandwich,
a cheese sandwich with salt and vinegar crisps
in the bread, buttered of course.
Grace is nodding, very good.
Is it cheese on toast, white bread,
butter, mature cheddar?
Can you tell I'm enjoying myself?
Maybe a dash of brown sauce in bed?
Is it cornflakes, hot milk and sugar?
Your fave new comfort food and a little explanation as to why it is, please.
You will feel hungry and nostalgic today.
And there may be quite a few of us eating a bit of junk tonight,
but we are going to be very, very happy.
So get in touch with the programme in the usual way.
It's 84844 on the text. You can email me by going to be very, very happy. So get in touch with the programme in the usual way. It's 84844 on the text.
You can email me by going to our website
or you can WhatsApp me or even drop me a voice note if you fancy.
It's 03700 100 444.
Also, imagine looking at a grand building,
maybe one you've admired and then understanding
that it was built by profits from the nefarious slave trade,
understanding for the first time the historical context of that building.
Well, my guest, Gloria Daniels, is on a mission for this to happen in the form of blue plaques around the country.
And May Mack is an Olivier nominated actor whose latest role playing the lead in a new play now on at the Young Vic in London sees her character Kim explore and confront over a century's worth of repeated stereotypes of East and Southeast Asian women in drama.
It's thought provoking and very, very funny.
We will hear from them shortly.
But first, that text number once again, 84844.
For the past 13 months, there has been a global focus on Iran and its treatment of women.
Just this week, we've heard about a 16-year-old girl who Iranian activists claim was beaten by the country's morality police for not wearing a hijab.
Officials there say she fainted after boarding a Tehran metro train.
Well, we've heard from many remarkable Iranian women of the protests and struggle for change on this programme.
Well, my next guest, visual artist Shirin Neshat, describes what is happening in Iran, the country of her birth, as a revolution.
Shirin's latest work is called The Fury.
It's a short film and a series of photographs which explore the sexual exploitation of female political prisoners in Iran.
Shirin has lived in exile in the US since the 1990s.
She went there at the age of 17 to study art at Berkeley
and remained after the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
She's known for creating art that asks probing questions
about the female body within Islam and Iranian culture.
And I'm delighted to say she's in the studio with me now.
Welcome to Woman's Hour, Shirin.
Thank you for having me.
It's wonderful to have you.
We're going to talk about the exhibition.
I went to see it yesterday.
I have not been able to stop thinking about it.
But first of all, as I just mentioned there,
you said to me yesterday, in fact, when I met you,
that what's happening now is a revolution.
Why do you describe what's happening now as a revolution?
Well, first of all, this is the most significant pivotal political event since the Iranian
Revolution in 1979, where we inherited the Islamic Republic of Iran, where people for the first time
no longer asking for reform, but an overthrow of the government. This is really
the first time. And this is a revolution that has transformed from street protests to civil
protests and unrest, such as what you see by the young woman who are refusing to wear the hijab,
like Armita, who was just badly beaten and now in the hospital in coma.
And this is a revolution that is the first time female-led revolution
because the women of Iran have become the biggest threat to the order of this government.
And no matter what the government does to bend them, to break them, to have them submit and oppress them, they refuse.
And they have become the weapon of this revolution.
And I think, unlike what most people think, that the woman life freedom is unwinding and sort of ending.
As you saw the news today, the revolution is going on.
And what does that do to an Iranian artist living in exile
who's been talking about this throughout her life
to see that happening?
Well, you know, Iranian living outside and inside of Iran,
we have the same dream.
Most of us have not visited our countries for decades.
Our families, like myself, still live in there.
So although we may be different in ideologically,
you know, in religious beliefs,
we want the same thing,
which is the removal of this government
and a wholeness for the country, the unity.
So I may see the day I might be able to go back.
I hope so. Let's talk about the art. I went to see the day I might be able to go back. I hope so.
Let's talk about the art.
I went to see the exhibition yesterday.
As I mentioned, it's called The Fury.
Tell us about it.
The Fury developed before the woman life freedom revolution
and it was my pursuit of the psychological, emotional state of women living under such an oppressive regime,
particularly focusing on the history of political prisoners who've been sexually assaulted, raped perpetually by this regime.
And how often these women and young men become mentally dismantled and never recover from the trauma,
even after they're free and eventually commit suicide.
So this video and exhibition is really a highly surrealistic, stylized, fictionalized narrative
about one woman who, although living free in the United States,
is not able to cope with reality and still lives in a very haunted past.
Yeah, it's an incredible, powerful experience.
You're a visual artist, so this is a video,
but you walk into this brilliant space.
It's two big screens on one side of the room and the other,
and you're seeing different perspectives.
You're seeing what everybody looking at her is seeing
and what she is seeing and to the outside world.
Why did you want to do it in that way?
I'm very interested in the internal world of this woman versus the external world that she inhabits.
And so there are several strategies on visual and conceptual ways that we also have the audience to sit in between two screens that one shows her point of view, one that is very different,
because she's in a state of madness and she's possessed,
where the other is the point of view of the men in uniform
and the people who are watching her.
So the audience is physically and psychologically conflicted
between sanity and insanity,
reality and illusion. And they have to draw meanings within all these realms. And for me,
that really demands an attention from the audience that is usually not given, and they're usually
very passive and neutral. So I want my audience to be the editors of this video and decide for
themselves, what is the meaning of this? What is she feeling? What is the emotional urgency,
the violence, the beauty, the sexuality, yet, you know, the pain that this woman is going.
And at the center of it all, the incredible actor that you have playing the woman and her body.
And you see that at the beginning beginning she's dressed in this lovely,
kind of glamorous dress and she's dancing
and then you see her pretty much naked, bruised and battered.
But the men that are watching her, their facial expressions don't change.
It doesn't matter whether she's dancing or whether she's crying out in pain.
They are the same. They're looking at her in the same way.
Absolutely. I'm very interested how, in general,
women's bodies are at once an object of desire, an object of violence,
and how so many of us have had this experience, regardless of where we come from.
So we have certain power because we can create temptation on opposite sex,
but simultaneously we easily become this battleground for violence.
And then at the end, you see that she has got a wave of,
she's walking down the street in Brooklyn, which is where you live,
and then there is public support for her.
People support her and they're part of the cause.
But this artwork was created before what we're seeing happening in Iran.
You created this in 2020?
2022 in June.
It's very interesting.
It's very uncanny because when Mahsa Amini was murdered,
immediately we saw civil unrest and protests.
But in this video that I made months before,
when the woman who's a victimized person, she enters the street of New York, immediately other people, other citizens, other bystanders from regardless of where they come from and protest and in a very stylized way of dance.
And that it really unleashes their rage in a way, exactly what happened in Iran.
Whilst we've been talking, Shirin, I've just been given some breaking news.
The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Iranian
women's rights campaigner Nargis Mohammadi. Oh, fantastic news. Fantastic news. Like I said,
the woman, the activists, the journalists, the two journalists in prison, these are the women who
have become the greatest threat. And I'm so happy that the world is recognizing them and acknowledging them.
And this really means a lot for the Iranian community.
You have lived in exile in the U.S.
As I mentioned, you grew up in Iran.
You moved to the States initially to study with your sister, Art at Berkeley.
How wonderful that must have been.
What an experience.
And then the
revolution came. Did you know then that you would not be returning, that you would then be living in
exile? Actually, my time in Berkeley was not pleasant. And I was really inundated with this
sense of extreme anxiety of being away from my family, knowing that they were behind these walls of this violence that came with theated in my personal angst and anxiety that I endured
for 11 years of not seeing my family. From the age of 17, I was alone. So I think much of my work
is an expression of personal pain. And although always from the outside perspective, I, you know, share a lot of pain that a lot of Iranians are feeling these days,
many of them living outside.
Alongside the video, there is a series of photographs as well.
Yes.
All in black and white. Normally you photograph women in the veil, but this time they are unclothed.
Yes. I mean, I have been very interested in how to tell the stories within portraits and
within video and movies. And I'm very interested in human portraiture. And when it came to the
subject of the fury and sexual exploitation, there was no doubt in my mind that you had to have the
naked flesh of the woman's body to show both the beauty, the sense of defiance and pride, and yet
pain and disturbance and torture and suffering that is the consequence of sexual assault.
So you are witnessing these images that are once showing the woman totally proud of their body,
regardless of size, age, ethnicity, whatever.
But then you see this woman in pain with very delicate calligraphy
that further expresses these emotions.
And the writings are by an iconic Iranian woman poet.
Yes, tell us about her because you are drawn into these images
and then you see that you have intricately written this poetry on there, and you get to get really close to see it.
Yes, because...
Who is the poet?
The poet is Furukh Farrukhzad, who is a beloved, iconic Iranian poet who sadly died at the relationship of female body to the problematics of female body to tradition, religion, political ideology, and how we're always subjected to feeling of shame, sin, guilt.
And yet we're punished for creating the sense of temptation for men.
So we always have to cover.
And so I've been very interested. But my inscription of texts over these bodies is almost microscopic because I felt that
the words are falling. They're breaking. At first, they're straight lines. And slowly, as the woman
squeezes her body, the words are falling. I don't know how I explain it well because it's an aesthetic decision, something I've never done.
But the words are, first you can read it and it starts breaking and breaking just as the women are broken.
Why did you want to do it then if you've never done it before?
What made you want to write on it?
Because I felt that this is an expression of pain. I think that the elegance of words first,
an expression of beauty and everything that I wanted to say
about the woman's body,
but then when it's breaking, the words have to break down.
I think it's for the audience to also experience it aesthetically
and feel the emotions.
And as someone who went to see the exhibition yesterday,
I can tell you that's exactly what you need to do. you need to experience it and sit with it because it hasn't
left me um it's the it's the fury it's uh it's on at the uh it's the uk debut at the goodman gallery
in london it's until the 11th of november and uh yeah the virtual reality version of the film shows
at the lff at the bfi london film festival from the 6th to the 22nd of October. I am about
to talk to Grace Dent, but before I do, Sharon, what is your comfort food? What's the place that
you go to that makes you feel safe? What food would you be eating? And you can tell Grace.
First is my makeup.
Oh, yes. We need to discuss eyeliner. I can't believe I haven't talked about the eyeliner.
First is my makeup and I first wake up.
And I actually wanted to immediately read your book because even though I look, I'm very small,
I have obsession with what food gives me the comfort.
And I eat same food every day.
It's the same as my makeup.
So I have a lot of insecurities and I'm a nomad. I'm constantly changing. But there
are two things that they don't change in my life. It's my food habit and my style habit.
So what do you eat?
I have my coffee and I have my toast. And I have, this is the way I start my day and I walk my dog.
With rituals, I think.
A ritual.
Rituals. I think food is a ritual.
Beautiful.
And the eyeliner is spectacular.
It's under the eye.
And we will see.
You'll just go onto our socials and you'll see a photo of Sharan.
Spectacular.
Sharan, thank you so much.
On to my next guest, the wonderful writer, broadcaster, and food critic, Grace Dent.
She has a new book, Comfort Eating,
What We Eat When Nobody's Looking.
The book's inspired by her podcast of the same name
where she talks with a variety of celebrities
to discover their secret snacks and their secrets.
It's a brilliant, brilliant way of getting to them.
And as I mentioned earlier,
we want to know your comfort food.
Has it changed as an adult?
What is it that you turn to for that reassurance?
I think this book should come
with a warning though,
meaning if you're on a diet
or trying to eat very healthily,
you will immediately fall off the wagon.
Grace extols the wonders of bread,
butter, pasta, potatoes and cheese
and so much more.
Lots of you getting in touch already.
Grace, I'm just going to read
a few of these out for you.
Deborah says,
white bread, blackcurrant jam sandwiches.
When I was six, I had two bouts of scarlet fever which in the 1950s meant two
weeks in an isolation hospital the nurses would make blackcurrant jam sandwiches and bring them
with a cup of tea to wake us up before the morning nurses came on duty Karen says my comfort food is
raw vegetables with mayonnaise the other one is liver bacon, bacon mash and onion gravy.
How wonderful.
Welcome.
Hello. Thank you for having me.
Nothing sums up the podcast and the book more than that lovely mail about the blackcurrant sandwiches.
If I had asked that lady specifically for a memory, she wouldn't have thought of it but then the moment you ask for a comfort food these feelings of being loved and cared for at a point when you were ill she's associating that
with blackcurrant jam every time she puts it into her mouth I love that tell us exactly what you
mean by confeting and also what a brilliant way to frame an interview just getting people to talk about something that really gets to the heart straight away. I had no idea when I began that by getting celebrities
round to my house to talk about the things that they actually really eat, I didn't know it'd be
such a way in for them to talk about their childhood, their relationship with their mother,
their relationship with the lady down the road
that their mother left them with,
their relationship with school and boarding school.
It's been wonderful.
I think that when you ask them to bring a snack as well,
the thing they really eat,
they're not talking about a fancy restaurant
or a thing that they would put on Instagram.
Nobody puts these
things on social media it's that embarrassing thing that they would never ever speak about
i've bought my thing with me please what have you brought a thing that i eat when no one's watching
she's brought a tin i have a tin oh my goodness and i have it with me oh yes tin of spaghetti
it's little spaghetti i won't name any brands because I'm a good girl.
In tomato sauce.
These are little pigs in tomato sauce.
They're pig shanks.
Grace has even brought a spoon.
I've brought a spoon.
She's going to eat it.
Go on, let's hear that.
I'm having them cold because I think...
Because she's gross.
No, no, amazing.
That's just rude, isn't it?
I think the world divides into people that can
get spaghetti or beans to the
microwave without having
some and then perfectly sane
people like me that have to have a couple
of spoons before they get there
I'm delighted you brought the spaghetti and not
beans because I much
prefer the spaghetti and not beans because I much prefer the spaghetti
shapes over the beans. I think that when we eat these spaghetti in sauce, beans in sauce,
these come up a lot on the podcast, a lot of tomato soup. Yes. And I think even though this
sauce that I'm pointing at here, it doesn't taste of tomato.'s not tomato but i think it is a link back to
childhood we all remember coming in on a cold day and somebody loving us and giving us that tomato
soup or this to me that's caravan holidays that is a static caravan in great britain in the 70s
nine days in a static caravan livingavan, being bombarded by wind and rain
and coming in and eating that.
And I think that every time I come in from MasterChef
and I've spent the whole day eating very, very rich food
made by very stressed chefs,
haunch of venison and kumquat souffle,
I come in and I think,'m just i'm hungry i just want
something and i stand i take off all the accoutrements that make me the natural beauty i
am eyelashes pieces of clipping hair all these things the bra everything and then the shell of
me stands at the back door and i eat this while looking at the plants that have died in my garden.
And everything on television, everything in my life, I sometimes think is smoke and mirrors.
It's media. But this little can is complete reality.
And same for when I have chips taken out of the freezer, that draw of deliciousness that we all have.
Those things that we would never tell
people about 200 degrees 12 minutes everything takes that amount of time to cook um the other
thing you do that i think apart from just the premise of it that gets to the core makes people
open up is the other thing you do is invite them into your home to record the podcast yes that's
incredibly exposing vulnerable intimate is there but and also
disarming because they're seeing you and your real life do you tidy up before they come around what
do you think of course i tidy up i'm a i'm a i'm a working class northern woman the house has never
been so clean for those 10 minutes before they turn up. The entire place just smells of furniture
polish. There's a little fold in the toilet roll. I worry so much before people come to my house
that it completely overtakes the actual interview. Somebody's trying to brief me and tell me it's an
arc of an interview. And I'm worrying about the ply of toilet roll that Stephen Fry might need should he need to go to the loo and there's always a moment where
a celebrity's walking up the path and I'm taking pants off a radiator just hiding them somewhere
I think it um I mean more seriously yeah it does completely disarms people but every season I say
they're not coming back to my house
and yet here we are
they're still in my house
and now people want to do it
just to come to be in your house
to see
I love it
I love it
it's always interesting to
because I mean I live on
I live in East London
on a terraced street
so neighbours do look out
and kind of go
is that Lady Danbury from bridgeton walking in
it's wonderful um so some let's name some of the celebrities who've brought really delightful
things to eat was it shirley ballas who brought what cake did she bring in i shirley ballas is
a goddess and um i i mean i think i met her at a time when she's just coming up obviously either
in the new series she'd just been on a juice fast so I don't think she'd had anything actually delicious past
her lips for a long time so I said bring what would you actually like to eat and she said
coffee cake and she got she had it uh she brought it from a bakery that make these wonderful cakes
really really thick buttercream coffee icing with withised walnuts in it, covered in sugar.
She wanted it with a cup of mellow birds
with a load of coffee whitener in it and sugar.
And it was just that teeth-chatteringly,
slightly giddy amount of sugar
that ballroom dancers are never allowed to eat.
Let's be honest to
get in those kind of backless frontless thongs they have to wear it's uh i don't think they
ever get to really eat do they but for that moment shirley shirley was quite alive i love it
so many of our listeners getting in touch grace i've got to read some of these out
my comfort food go to is a packet or or five of
best mini cheddars other brands are available very good matthew thanks for that accompanied
by a glass or five of shablay check you out nothing beats them another go-to is fish finger
sandwich uh yes we are we're all nodding but not in sourdough it has to be it has to be the white bread that it could be a bap it could be but
preferably the white bread that we are now made to feel embarrassed for buying that you have to
sneak it where you have to sneak it out of the news agent or whatever but you have to and that's
what that's for uh for fish fingers never sourdough we're bombarded by sourdough it's not comfort
eating how much of this is and you, you've spoken a lot about class,
but how much of this is about, you know, class?
Because a funny thing happened, Grace.
My parents, whenever they come round,
they always bring,
my dad brings instant coffee and a pack of sugar
and my mum brought ginger biscuits
and she said, because we know you're not going to have them.
I said, yeah, because I don't eat them.
They said, yeah, but we do.
And then they came round
and of course,
all of us sat down and ate the biscuits together.
And my dad, it's a running joke.
It's basically she's changed because she's trying to tell us
she's a bit better.
You know, she's moved up in the world.
So I just wonder.
I am very wary of saying about these foods,
it's working class, it's working class, it's working class,
because I know that upper class people go,
Grace, I do know what a potato waffle is.
Do they?
I do know my way around the freezer cabinet of a garage
when I'm on my way home.
So I do think that these things, and especially in the book,
I talk about cheese being actually a great leveller,
because even if you completely don't understand
each other around a table you're all different classes you you're all going to be you know
made to feel delicious and wonderful and warm by the fatty majesty of cheese until you're working
class and you go and cut the nose off the cheese and then you're never invited back i don't know
we only had slick cheese slices growing up the indian families did not buy cheese in the 80s and 90s may mac is nodding asian families why would you have cheese but i discovered
cheese as an adult but that is my comfort those plastic slices of cheese though they were just
so magical as a child for because you could hide them up your sleeve yeah and walk out so your mum
would say don't take anything out of that fridge. But you would put one up your sleeve and you could leave.
Same as the cheese triangle in foil.
Oh, yes.
Which I think, because I think that, you know, your average British person is not adventurous really about food.
We don't really, we're not really into rotting things and smelly things.
But the cheese triangle is, I think, the very edge of ick if you just eat it out of the foil.
But as long as it doesn't hit your silver fillings.
Yes.
Which I haven't got.
I've got so many.
Yes.
It's all that sugar.
We'll talk about sugar in a minute.
A few more from the audience listening in.
Jane from Oxford says, buttered toast or crumpets with marmite.
Shona texted in to say, my indulgence is croissants with blackcurrant jam
and a glass of champagne in the bath on Christmas day.
You can tell I'm on Radio 4.
You can, can't you?
Shabbily and champagne.
Nobody having a carton of Mbongo.
Not one person.
Come on, someone listening.
Somebody listening.
Come on.
Rebecca texted in to say,
I'm an absolute glutton.
So how wonderful to talk about comfort food. Ice coconut please to calm a hot flush and then a handful of dark chocolate
covered almonds yum uh jacqueline says stewed blackberries and custard picked in september
and frozen eaten in the depths of winter the glorious smells of cinnamon and fruit cheer up
a gray day a gray day great for mental health it's a tradition originally started when i was a child
with my now 85 year old mom dot we both still continue the tradition um that brings me on to
a bit of your book that i read and had me in floods of tears and actually recounting it in
the office this morning i was crying and it was the you talk about uh your mom who you lost during
the pandemic yeah and the food that you shared with her and how important that was.
I'll let you tell us.
Darling, I can see your emotion.
Yeah, I know, it's very powerful.
And, you know, I'm on book tour at the moment
and we've had a lot of crying
because food, delivering food, comfort foods to the people
that we love when they're sick or when they are end of life
it is is the most sincere form of love you can't just stand around people telling them that you
love them because caring uh in all its shapes and forms especially when you're caring for your
parents when they're leaving when they're on their way out. It's all in trays.
It's just trays. It's just trays of food and nothing complex. It's bready things and sugary
things and cheesy things at very push, maybe pasta. But really, nobody lies on their deathbed
and asks for something very, very complex. And there's often not a lot of protein it's carby things uh i lost both my
parents uh very recently and i had to write about it i don't think i'm the only person that's lost
my parents i think i'm generation x i'm just on 50 this is when it happens that we're the grown-ups now apparently I'm the grown-up now and when I was writing about the book
when I was writing about comfort eating
I think I thought it was going to be a jolly book
my last book Hungry
I talked a lot about my father's dementia and food
and also a memoir about food
Can we name your mum and dad?
Oh my mother was called Grace
and my grandma's called Grace.
We were all named during
a name shortage, I think.
No, my dad was
called George. Grace and George.
And I think when I
sat down to do Comfort Eat and I went, absolutely
this time, no.
I'm just going to make it jolly and it's
going to be about spaghetti and crispy pancakes.
But I'm incapable of doing it.
And I ended up writing about the end,
about the end with my mother
and those going home for what I knew in the end was going to be.
I was always there back and forth, back and forth
when they were old and ageing and on their way out.
But there was a specific 60 days,
which was, I always say, the final push. although we couldn't quite name it me and her because if you
just don't say it it's not happening I was always very angry afterwards that I'd even allowed nurses
to say the word palliative because I felt like it was then my fault for saying it and accepting
accepting the pain relief because then you realize you're but you've
bargained and in making them comfortable you've stopped them speaking uh but i'm i will always
treasure the last 25 days because we just ate a lot of cake and watched home improvement shows
and i think that's living yeah that is living my happiest memories is eating plum loaf and her saying
well i'd knock that wall down you know that kind of and telling me exactly i'd get rid of that wood
chip and they were the happiest times well it's a it's a beautiful book thank you very much and it
came out yesterday and it's out there for everyone to enjoy and you're it makes you laugh it will
make you cry it will make you feel nostalgic it will make you get the white bread and the butter out and just you'll have a wonderful time if i leave
you these pasta shakes will you eat them just i'll just do it in secret in the toilet
grace dent thank you so much thank you for having me so you can stay around though stay around don't
go um thank you all as well for getting in touch ruth says later on in
life i learned how to make jamaican chicken peas and rice it's the most wonderful comfort food i've
ever tasted i eat it with my family and it feels like home we always smile and chat while we eat
i feel warm and happy inside that's what it's all about 84844 keep your comfort foods coming in
now there's been a bit of news around recently about slavery reparations. You may recall the announcement from Buckingham Palace earlier this year
that King Charles is supporting research into the monarchy's links with slavery.
Former BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan has said that she left the organisation
after 30 years to campaign for slavery reparations
after learning of her own ancestors' involvement in the slave trade.
Charles Gladstone, a descendant of the Prime Minister William Gladstone,
has joined a campaign group asking the government to make reparations,
and there are many, many more.
Well, my next guest is campaigning for those reparations too,
to be made public and permanent in the form of plaques,
fixture buildings and historical landmarks
that commemorate money made from slavery
or people who profited from the slave trade.
Gloria Daniel is the great-great-granddaughter of John Isaac Daniel,
who was a slave on a plantation owned by the British family of Tom Daniel, no relation.
She's the founder of TEACH Plaques, which stands for Transatlantic Trafficked Enslaved African Corrective Historical Plaques,
who are putting on an exhibition at the moment in London.
Gloria, welcome to Woman's Hour.
Thank you, Anita.
Thank you very much for creating the space for me
to share the work with your audience.
I really appreciate it.
The exhibition is the culmination of three and a half years' work
of campaigning for memorial in Bristol Cathedral
to my great-great-grandfather and 4,424 enslaved people
that Thomas Daniel and his brother John Daniel
received compensation for.
Now, the compensation is really a marker of the end
of the profiteering from people for over 200 years
by British legislation.
So it's important
to say the only reason why
I concentrate on that date
and that figure is because there are so many
lies, so much obfuscation
so much erasure around
this subject that this is
one irrefutable thing. If you
go to Q, if you go to the National
Archives at Q, there are pages
and pages of claims with the people who received compensation for enslaved people.
So it's important when there are many, many opportunities for people to say it's this or it's that. If you go to the National Debt Office in 1834 to 1838 and you pick up your cheque from the National Debt Office, you are guilty of a crime against humanity.
So that's really important to say it is an end point.
Also, just to slightly correct you, if you forgive me.
Yes.
Because you did say earlier on when you were introducing us, you said blue plaques.
It is not blue plaques.
It is black plaques.
And the reason why it's black plaques is because we are flipping the script on the blue plaque. But it is interesting that you bring up blue plaques, because the blue
plaque scheme was started by an MP called William Hewitt. William Hewitt's father was in business
with John Gladstone, who is Charles Gladstone's father. So and he came up with the scheme to
celebrate where people lived.
So what our scheme does is say, this has to do more than that.
You can't just say you lived here and that's it.
But obviously it's important enough for English heritage to decide that they should do that.
But what our plaque does is say, no, this person lived here and they did other things.
And we are all sensible human beings. We can
hold two or three ideas
about what people are
in our heads at the same time.
So that's what the plaques are about.
It's about somebody who received compensation at a time.
It was described...
It's understanding the history of the country.
It is understanding the history of the country. And I'm glad you
brought up
Charles Gladstone as well. I've
spoken with Charles Gladstone and Alex Renton and they have both supported our campaign.
Our exhibition is currently on, as you know, at the Tabernacle and Charles actually has
supported our exhibition with the frames.
When did you first discover your own family connection?
So my cousin, who sadly passed away very young at 52 in 2017,
he had done a lot of research into our family.
Now, we started going on family reunions to America and Barbados in the 80s.
But these were celebrations of family events
and, you know, the diaspora of our family in America, in Barbados and in Britain.
But he had actually traced our last enslaved ancestor.
So really, I'm carrying on his work.
And carrying on his work as a woman and crucially telling the story of enslaved women.
Why do we know so little about the women?
Well, I think it's really important that you bring that up,
but it's what I just wanted to say about the last bit,
about the culmination of this.
We started in Bristol, we started in the cathedral
because the great west window in Bristol
was erected to this family by this family.
So it is right that I a descendant come along and
actually have a corrective underneath that which is what I've been campaigning to do but what is
what is so interesting to be on your program with these wonderful women here is to say that it's a
female bishop yeah a female dean and I'm a female campaigner and we hope we're only in this we're
only we're in the final stages but we are talking design and fabric of what this memorial could look like.
And we hopefully will have a female letter carver do the work for us.
So that is really important.
You don't hear the story of enslaved women so much
because the crime, as Shirin was talking about with violence,
those crimes are so horrific.
So with John Isaac, I don't know who John Isaac's mother was.
Is that not a crime that we cannot know that?
So it is great that people like Laura Tavellian
is able to explore her history,
but she knows who those people are going back 800 years.
We stop at 1828.
1828 is where the last we can go to now we're all getting into fantastic
um resources with dna and there is so much being you know revealed with that so hopefully we will
know more but um i think that is really telling uh that we cannot know who john isaac's mother was
so her he was ripped away from his mother. He was owned by somebody.
I mean, this is beyond really.
Tell me, you've been working with female artists involved in this exhibition. And what are
some of the testimonies that women have been telling you?
Well, we've got, so we have 50 plaques. About 44 of the plaques are actually, well, 27 of
the plaques are by women. We have artists, wonderful artists such as Jade de Montserrat.
We have Joy Gregory.
We have Holly Graham.
We have Kath Kennedy in Barbados.
We have my own sister, Sandra Daniel.
We have artists who are poets, Ros Martin, my own niece, who is a singer, Lynne Luthier-Yanier.
We have Belle Ribeiro Addy,
who is our MP for Stretton, as you know.
I've brought her testimony along.
It's probably too long for me to read.
No, I'll tell you, it's actually official.
We're not going to get any time for me.
No, but I could probably read you one last paragraph
of what she said, because she is an MP.
Let's end with that.
End with that, that'd be fantastic.
Okay, so we'll end here.
So Belle Ribeiro said said in her last paragraph,
every day when I enter my place of work,
I am reminded that former members of my parliament
decided who, what and where could be owned
and even who suffered less worthy of compensation.
I hope this plaque serves as a reminder
of how politicians of the past used their power
to do what was wrong and impresses upon members today the past used their power to do what was wrong
and impresses upon members today
the immense duty they have to do what is right.
So Bell chose Parliament.
Charles Gladstone chose Parliament.
Let's hope we get those plaques in Parliament.
Gloria, well, I say the last bit, you're sticking around
because I want to hear your comfort food as well,
but I'm going to move on to my next guest and we'll come back to that.
But just to say we've had a message in from Kate saying
I was just messaging to say surely the plaque should be black they are and such important work
I applaud the unpeeling of and exposing lost stories how very moving uh Gloria thank you so
much now on to my next guest uh Olivier award nominee and star of the stage, Mae Mack. Mae was nominated for her
role in My Neighbour
Totoro, thank you,
at the Barbican. I always say Totoro, Totoro.
Totoro's great too.
She now stars as Kim in the award-winning
untitled F. Miss
Saigon play at the Young Vic
in a series of parodies
stretching back to Puccini's opera
Madame Butterfly. The play confronts a century's worth of stereotypes
about Asian women on stage and screen.
Let's have a listen.
Lights up on a muddy road through a muddy village,
which, though muddy, is also misty and mysterious.
There's music, a swelling overture
of some kind of vaguely shakuhachi, shamisen type of
thing, with a western vibe laid over the top for dramatic tension. Peasants shuffle to and fro.
Some might have baskets on their heads. They gesticulate like peasants do. Kim enters.
She is young, virginal, frightened, plucky, hopeful, noble, dirt poor, but very clean otherwise.
And has really great skin.
What was brilliant is watching May actually act it
whilst we were listening to it.
That was the narrator played by Rochelle Rose.
As you can tell, the play is very funny, very satirical.
Delighted to say May, who plays Kim, is in the studio.
It's brilliant, very funny, very punchy as well
and makes some really serious comments
about stereotypes of South and Southeast Asian women.
Tell us about it for the people who haven't seen it.
Tell us about Kim. Tell us the plot.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's so inspiring to be around this table of incredible women.
And we're really proud of the play.
And because, you know, Kim, the protagonist of our story,
you meet her in the extract, as you saw in Pacini's opera.
And Kim's story is one of fighting through a century of oppression and sexism, misogyny, imperialism.
And honestly, by the time you get to the third cycle of seeing her trying to bust out of these bamboo ceilings,
you'd forgive the poor woman for giving up.
I'd be close to giving up too.
But the brilliance of what Kimberley,
the writer, has done with the play
is to show her resilience.
And I think that's the theme
that I feel like I've learned this morning
from all of these stories
is the resilience of women,
the resilience of women across generations
from different cultures and backgrounds.
And it's something that I'm very interested in in my work,
is portraying women in this light, giving us a voice,
voicing to those who don't have their stories told as often in mainstream media.
But in our play, we get to laugh really hard alongside it.
Like, it's very silly.
It's a very silly play, and it takes a very sharp turn because actually the
way in which we laugh at these really painful and oppressive narratives that have been told time and
time again in the western world about east and southeast asian women is to take the power back
is to laugh at something that is incredibly painful and reclaim it for yourself and so yeah
it is something that we're incredibly proud of.
And it's not linear in the way that you might expect, you know, a play to be in the West End,
but it plays with form. And it's really delicious in the way that it does so because it is, you know,
it's clever and ridiculous and then really heartfelt.
And as an actor, when you got the script, what did you think when you started
reading it? Oh my god. I mean, when the script landed in my lap, it felt like someone had poured
fuel onto the fire in my belly. And that's what art can do, right? It is the playground to practice
empathy. And so actually, when I turned over the first page, I cackled like a witch. And I was like,
this is hilarious. I cannot wait. And I kept flipping. And the funnier it got, the more
painful it got. And that juxtaposition is what is so clever about the play and what I enjoy doing
so much about it. What nerves was it hitting? I mean, all of them. I think my whole nervous
system was on fire. Because I was doing these two really
odd things, I was laughing at the ridiculous nature of something that I find incredibly painful in
my lived experience and is shared by anyone who is marginalized in this society, and especially
women and for East and Southeast Asian, especially, you know, this is something that we have seen time
and time again, and suffered through time and time again. My really dear friend Don Lee, who works in human rights, he says this really gorgeous thing that the double edged sword of intergenerational trauma is learning intergenerational resilience.
And I think that is the juxtaposition that this play captures really perfectly, whilst also cackling like a witch. What are the issues and the playwrights you mentioned,
Kimberley, wanted to draw attention to throughout the play?
So, I mean, at a first glance,
we are looking at very specific narratives
that have been told over the past hundred years.
And it's the same story and it really does highlight it.
So you look at South Pacific, you look at Miss Saigon
and you look at...
MASH and Madam Butterfly.
And it all stems from a book called Madam Chrysanthemum written by a French man who had really no understanding of what he was writing about, obviously.
And the extreme exotification of East and Southeast Asian women.
And it's very easy to trivialise that to say like, oh, the over sexualisation of women.
Sure. But over 100 years, that leads to direct violence. easy to trivialize that to say like oh the over sexualization of women sure but over a hundred
years that leads to direct violence and that's what you learn in the play that you can laugh at
something very silly and very that seems very trivial and you can sort of brush that off like
you know microaggressions or or you know mild sexism or racism imperialism fine but over a
hundred years the accumulation of that results in very real violence. And the play
takes an extremely violent turn. And that is the point of it. The point is to demonstrate
the damage and the harm that these narratives can do in society. I think it's very easy also
to say like, you know, it's just a story. It's just a play, a musical, a TV show. But when
representation is so minimal, and the only way that we as a society, we see East and Southeast Asian women is in this docile way or over-sexualized or without agency or without power, you might start to believe that.
It seeps into culture.
Exactly. And I, as an East Asian woman and British East Asian, I experience that on the streets, you know, and the rise in anti-Asian hate crime and the way that I experience violence on the street is directly related to these narratives.
It's directly related to things that our politicians say, to the way that legislation is built.
And it is something that I live every single day.
So to have the opportunity in a piece of art to reclaim that and be like, no, no, that's mine, is incredibly empowering and healing.
What's the reaction been like from the audiences that have been to see it?
It's been huge in a way that, you know, when you make something, you go, I don't know if it's any good, guys.
I don't know. And then you put it in front of an audience and the audience are always part of what you're making.
You're making, and I especially, make work for the community.
I serve the community with art.
And so to have the experience of our audiences,
you know, lots of audience members come up to me at the end of the show
and they grab me and they look me in the eyes
and I can see that they've got so much to express.
Yeah.
But it hasn't digested yet
because what they're experiencing is so visceral and so embodied.
And that's the power of what kimber has written and roy alexander weiss our genius director has has created that this experience of being seen for the first time or feeling heard
or have something that is so core to your pain and trauma and and the attempt of trying to reclaim that to be voiced in such a clear and sort of entertaining way.
Yeah. And I feel it. I know exactly what you're saying.
And also you're so grateful that finally somebody is saying it.
I want to talk about the sort of intergenerational viewpoint that's explored in the play,
because Rosie, who plays Kim's mum, doesn't understand why she's so concerned about Asian representation in the play because Rosie who plays is Kim's mum doesn't understand
why she's so concerned about Asian representation in the media what does this show us? I mean it's
a really interesting narrative so Rosie's character she describes this feeling of settling
for crumbs that a crumb from the table is still food, even if it leaves you a tiny bit
hungry. And that is a response to survival trauma. When you have nothing, you are grateful for
anything. And it is so easily empathised with, of course, we understand Rosie's plight,
because these are my parents, immigrants who are coming to this country who are having a
really hard time because this country can be so hostile to immigrants, as we see time and time again.
And so the dehumanization of that experience where you are settling for mere crumbs is very real and prevalent in our society, especially.
And Kim, as someone who is American born in this version of the story, because there are many versions of the story,
her plight is that she demands more. And as someone who is British, I empathise with Kim in that way. And so yes, I understand the immigrant experience and just needing to survive.
But I am not here just to survive. I want to thrive. I want to enjoy my life. I want to comfort
eat. I want to do all these beautiful things that I actually believe are kind of my human rights. I believe in my right to education and my right to health care and my right to being a citizen of this country. So it's not a second class citizen. And that is what Kim is fighting for the right to reclaim her power, reclaim her narrative to just be like every other human being. And but also very poignantly, it impacts the relationship between mother and daughter.
Oh, exactly.
That is really interesting,
especially right here on Woman's Hour,
because she's blaming mum.
And mother is saying,
why is it always me that gets blamed?
Yes, exactly.
And the sort of the competition culture
that does happen in spaces with women
because of the patriarchy
and the way the world is set up,
that women are forced to fight
against each other
when it is completely unnecessary.
And actually, you know, the future looks much brighter,
like everyone on this table,
that we can support each other and champion each other.
Can we talk a bit about typecasting?
Let's.
Yeah, let's.
Because obviously this play landed in your lap
and it's incredible and it's an experience
that you've not had before.
But what was happening in auditions before that? And are things changing?
Things are changing and I'm glad for it, but it is a slow change.
And it feels like we're fighting for change. The bar is in hell. The bar is so low. But at the start of my career, and because Miss Saigon is a conversation
that has been re-entering the artistic world as well,
the amount of times that I have been asked to audition for a sex worker,
and actually I have no problem playing a sex worker
if that story is humanising and nuanced and 3D,
but the number of times in my career I've been asked to play a sex worker,
which is simply to play a sexy object in the background for you to leer at,
or I don't know what your intentions are with this character,
but it is incredibly dehumanising.
And for years, you know, as I was getting these auditions in,
I started to say no to them.
But it leads you to
ask, is this how the world sees me, sees my body, that you view me as this over sexualized object?
It's really horrifying. And, you know, the revival of Miss Saigon, we touch upon that a lot,
you know, in an untitled F Miss Saigon play as well, that so often, you know, East Asian women are stripped to this
demure, but sexy, but smart, but not too smart. You know, there's these dichotomies constantly
that we must be all of one thing and not too much of something that would be dangerous or a threat.
So what do we do with the plays that exist already?
We write new plays to challenge them.
Okay.
Because these plays exist and they are part of history
and we must remember that's the way that humans have found us.
But also, let's move on.
Reclaim the narrative.
You're Olivier nominated for My Neighbour Totoro.
Congratulations on that.
Thank you.
Coming back.
Are you looking forward to that?
That's going to be... I'm thrilled. I'm so excited to i'm so excited there's a four-year-old yes i'm so excited it's it's the
most beautiful thing i've ever been a part of creating and i think our audiences really felt
that yeah absolutely stunning it's been such a pleasure speaking to you but i want to bring
everybody in because i'm just so aware i think we should talk about comfort food because I would love to know, May, what your comfort food is.
My comfort food is Chinese steamed fish with spring onion, ginger and soy sauce with a fluffy bowl of jasmine white rice.
Yeah, I was going to say, where are the carbs involved in this?
There had to be rice.
There had to be rice.
Or noodles.
Listen, I'm not about to get into the rice slash noodles chat
not here uh noodles um uh gloria we've got to we've got to ask you as well
well like you sheree and i like to walk my dog before i walk my dog i want to have a coffee
very strong and toast and i'm very sorry grace i do like sourdough toast and but i but i will
say one thing i actually have butter a butter burst and I just
have the bread on the side it's butter really that I have I believe you I believe that you enjoy the
sourdough I may have been slightly mean about that no you were mean as a restaurant critic I'm
bombarded by it and sometimes I want something that doesn't hurt my mouth yeah I'll come I'll
be your sourdough eater shall we let's hear from some of the audience that have been
getting in touch as well, Beatrice listening in
France says you can
keep your champagne and cheese, my comfort
food is milk chocolate with really
strong salt and vinegar crisps
Anne says I
had completely forgotten that as a child I adored
eating tinned spaghetti on
buttered Mother's Pride white toast
for breakfast, it was only listening to Grace's description of eating tinned spaghetti on buttered Mother's Pride white toast for breakfast.
It was only listening to Grace's description of eating tinned pasta pigs this morning that I remembered this childhood pleasure from 60 years ago.
Thank you, Grace, for bringing back this memory.
Yes, Patricia says, as a little girl, I would use my pocket money
and secretly buy a tube of condensed milk.
Yes.
I would take it up to my room, punch the seal with a knitting needle
and squeeze it straight from the tube,
winding it up,
winding up the end like a tube of toothpaste.
My father was a dentist,
so this was not really allowed.
Still hits the spot years later.
I bet you're going to be doing that tonight.
It has been quite a remarkable program.
I want to thank all of you for joining me.
Gloria,
May,
Shirin, Grace, best of luck with all your projects. And thanks thank all of you for joining me. Gloria, May, Shirin, Grace, best of luck
with all your projects. And thanks to all of you for listening. I'm going to end with a few more of
your comfort foods. I will be back tomorrow for Weekend Woman's Hour. My comfort food, someone
says here, is Weetabix and butter, no milk. And another message says, my mum's favorite was
homemade macaroni cheese made with fried onions. I made it for her regularly until she passed away
seven years ago.
Enjoy your comfort food tonight.
That's all for today's Woman's Hour.
Join us again next time.
Have you ever wondered who you really are?
It clicked in my mind suddenly.
I was like, why have I never done this?
I'm Jenny Kleeman, a writer and journalist.
In my new series, The Gift, from BBC Radio 4,
I've been uncovering extraordinary truths that emerge
when people take at-home DNA tests.
He said, what do you know?
You don't even know that your father's black.
So I'm like, Jeff, we got him.
And he's like, what are you talking about?
And I go, we got him.
Obviously, it was a completely unintended consequence of a gift.
Join me as I investigate what happens when genealogy,
technology and identity collide.
Listen to The Gift 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 was faking pregnancies.
I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It 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.