Woman's Hour - Melinda Gates

Episode Date: April 25, 2019

Melinda Gates’s new book The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World explains that empowering women can profoundly change the way that societies function. She is, along with husband Bill Gates, the founder the world’s largest private charitable organisation and has consistently been ranked as one of the world's most powerful women by Forbes. So why has creating equality in her home life been such a struggle?When Josie Rourke became the Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse she was one of the first female theatre directors to be appointed to that role. Nearly eight years later she tells Jenni why she has chosen the musical Sweet Charity as her swan song and, in terms of gender, how much the face of theatre has changed in the last ten years.The UK government is backing a Nigerian advertising campaign urging Nigerian women and girls to find jobs at home instead of “risking a life of modern slavery” in Britain. So how bad is the problem here in the UK? Jenni is joined by Kathryn Baldacchino, Project Manager at Protect, the Anti-Trafficking Project at the British Red Cross and Kate Roberts, Head of Office at the Human Trafficking Foundation. The World Health Organisation has advised screen time is best avoided for the first two years of life. But what evidence is there behind this advice? Jenni speaks to Sarah Jarvis, GP and Clinical Director of Patient.co.uk.Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Laura Northedge Interviewed Guest: Melinda Gates Interviewed Guest: Josie Rourke Interviewed Guest: Kathryn Baldacchino Interviewed Guest: Kate Roberts Interviewed Guest: Elizabeth Interviewed Guest: Sarah JarvisPhoto Credit: Jason Bell for Pivotal Ventures

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 Thursday's edition of the Woman's Hour podcast. I Am Not For Sale is an advertisement on show in Nigeria to try and prevent girls and women risking a life of modern slavery in Britain. The British government is supportive. Will the ads work? Josie Rourke is standing down from the job she's held for eight years as artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse in London. Why has she chosen Sweet Charity as her swan song? And as the UN says children under two should not be put in front of a television or an iPad,

what's the evidence of risk? Melinda Gates is ranked as one of the world's most powerful women. She's married to Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, and they share a multi-billion dollar fortune. Together, they founded the world's largest private charitable organisation, and in her book, The Moment of Lift, How Empowering Women Changed the World, she describes how important their work with women has been. Before she met Bill, Melinda was something of a pioneer in the early days of computer technology. She met her husband when she was employed in his company as a marketing manager.

She now describes herself as a feminist, which she says she would not have done 10 years ago. What changed? I am definitely a passionate, ardent feminist. And to me, a feminist means that a woman can take any decision in her home, her community, her work environment. And I think what changed for me was really turning the question of feminism back on myself and back on the United States. And it's because as I would travel, I would meet these women who were not empowered. And I'd think, oh, but if she could only have this, if she could only take this decision or be financially empowered or have her voice. And as I would be traveling home and turn the question back on myself and my own country, I'd say, wow, women are so empowered here in the United States.

And the truth is, we are to a degree, but we have so much farther to go. And that's when I realized, you know what? I totally believe in that. I am absolutely a feminist. Now, interestingly, you studied computing really quite early in the 1980s. What prompted your interest in technology? Yes, I studied computer science. I started around 1980 itself. And I went to an all-girls Catholic school.

I had a fabulous math teacher, and she had helped me know that I was good at math and helped me have my self-confidence. When she went to a small conference and saw computers for the first time, back then that was Apple II computers, she went to the head nun and advocated to get about a half dozen of them for our all-girls school. And I absolutely, as I started programming, fell in love with it. I love puzzles. I love logic. And I just could see all these opportunities that learning to code could bring. And so then ultimately, I went on to Duke University in North Carolina to study computer science because I absolutely loved it. And what about your family background? Because your father was rather involved in

technology as well, wasn't he? My dad was an engineer working on the early Apollo programs, and he totally believed that women could be great in the sciences. And he would often talk with us as kids about when he could get a woman, particularly a mathematician, on his team, his teams were better. And when I would go to his company picnics in the summer, we would go as families. I always met not only his male colleagues, but his female colleagues. And guess what? They were engineers and mathematicians and scientists. So to me, I could see that women could be great in the sciences. It's interesting, though, that there are fewer women studying computing now than in 1987, when you graduated. What do you reckon can be done about that?

Yes. So when I graduated college in the late 1980s, about 37% of computer science graduates were women. And today that number is down to 19%, as you say. Think about how ubiquitous computers and technology and our phones are in our lives. I mean, we have the computing power in our pockets now. And so we're creating all these amazing opportunities in society. So women need to be the creators of that technology. They need to have a seat at the table. women need to be the creators of that technology. They need to have a seat at the table. They need to be able to take business decision, get their ideas funded.

So what I think we need to do is to create more pathways for young women into computer science. We need to open that first computer science class so there are more female professors teaching it because we know role modeling makes a difference. We need to have problem sets that are real world problem sets that girls and women care about, not just theoretical math. We need to take some of the best examples of programs around the country that have pulled women into computer science and kept them in them and spread those all over. And

there are great examples that have come out. And now it's our job to spread those so women can see different pathways into technology. You described the atmosphere, though, at Microsoft when you joined as aggressive. That's the word you actually use. How much do you think the tech culture has changed since then? And if it hasn't, maybe that's putting young women off. Yes. So the reason I wrote about that in the book was I wanted

to be honest that I loved my career at Microsoft, absolutely loved it. And it was high powered, high charging. I had opportunities for advancement as a young woman very quickly. But the culture was aggressive. And when I speak with women today in tech, there are still many, many companies that are like that. Not all companies. And I'm actually hearing computer science graduates now coming out of college, females, saying, I'm actually picking a company. If they have three, four, five offers on the table, which women often do if they come out now with a computer science degree, they have three, four, five offers on the table, which women often do, if they come out now with a computer science degree, they will say, I'm picking the company

that has the best culture for women, because that's how I want to work. And I think that's important, because it will change the culture in all companies then, because guess what, they're going to want to attract the best talent, and women have some of the best talent. But it still can be aggressive. And women still discuss that in certain companies today. How did you come to get close to the boss? I came to Microsoft because I love the products they were creating. And unexpectedly, I met Bill within the first few months of being at Microsoft. Keep in mind, it was a very small company at the time.

It was less than 1,400 employees. We were in four buildings. And so often we worked late at nights on Fridays, and then you would often go in on Saturday till about three or four o'clock. Most of the company was in. And so it was a Saturday afternoon, and I was coming out of my building at Microsoft, which happened to be right next to Bill's, and our cars weren't parked far away from one another. And we struck up a conversation in the parking lot. And funny enough, he asked me out on a date. He said, well, could I have your phone number? And he said, could we go out maybe, you know, two weeks from Friday night? And I said, are you kidding me? I don't know what I'm doing two weeks from Friday night. You've got to be a little more spontaneous. Maybe call me closer to

the date. And then sure enough, he called me later that day and said, is this spontaneous enough? And he said, I have two other things on my, as you would say, diary tonight, a dinner and then a user group meeting, but maybe we could meet later downtown and, you know, have a glass of wine. And so that's how he first asked me out. But I never expected, certainly, after that, even after that first or second date, that we would end up married. But eventually we did. You describe him in the book as having a strong personality. And you also say there was a long climb to an equal relationship.

What did that long climb involve? Yes, I write about that in the book, because I think it's important for us as women to be very transparent, as transparent as we can be about equality is not always easy. It's not always easy in our workplace. It's not always easy in our communities. And we don't always have it in our homes. And I don't think it's a surprise to anybody that Bill's a strong personality, right? That's known well about his personality at Microsoft. He was also, when I married him, a hard-charging CEO in the tech industry, and he was used to running things. So at home, we had to work through the equality at home. And quite honestly,

I even went into the marriage thinking, okay, well, I'll leave my career and be the stay-at-home mom because he's got the CEO job. And then I realized, no, no, no, wait a minute. I love to work. And Bill even said to me, hey, I know you want to raise the kids. We want you to raise the kids, but don't you also want to work? And so it just took us time to constantly question our roles and to bring them up and say, well, who's going to drive the kids to school? I didn't want to do it five days a week, two times a day. And so Bill actually offered to drive several mornings a week. And we didn't even realize that when Bill started driving our oldest daughter, she was in kindergarten then, to school,

other moms went home and said to their husbands, hey, if Bill Gates is driving his daughter to school, you can too. And that is what we need. We all need to say any of these roles can be held by men or women, and we all need to participate both in the raising of the family and in meaningful work and in meaningful caregiving. You also say in the book that great wealth can be very confusing. What do you mean by that?

Well, I think when you have great wealth, you have many, many choices. And when I was growing up, for instance, as I said, in a middle-class family, we knew as four kids in our family that the resources were limited. And so when we were making decisions, money is almost always part of the discussion. I think if you're wealthy and money flows readily, let's say inside your family or in things that you want to do, you have so many choices that you actually have to pair through those. And all I can say is for us as a family, having this enormous wealth that came from Microsoft, it had Bill and me ask ourselves our question about our own values even before we got married. And it was in our first trip that we took to Africa. Neither of us had ever been and it was right, we were engaged right before we got married. It's when we committed to one another that the vast resources from Microsoft would go back to society. And I will say what that

has helped us do by creating our foundation and being in the philanthropy sector is it's helped us to live out our values as a couple, both in our work in the world and back at home, because we talk about our values often with our kids now around the dinner table. But how do you keep your children's feet on the ground when they know they are fabulously wealthy? Well, our children have been fortunate enough to travel very young to many different countries, say in Africa or Southeast Asia. And while, yes, they get to go on a nice tourism type trip, we almost always as a family also go and see the reality, what I say, on the ground. So my children very early were in some townships in Africa, very early did some homestays in Africa.

And what they know is that they are lucky. They are lucky to be born in the United States. Any child who grows up in the UK or the US are lucky. And so we instilled those values early in our kids. And we always talk to them about their job in life was to figure out their talents and their passions, and how to eventually give those back to the world. So I don't know what's right for all parents, but I just know that's what's been right for us. You question in the book your right to go into communities with Western ideals and try to change the ideals that exist in the communities. What actually does give you that right? We can only go into communities if they want us to be there. And we have to listen carefully to what they want and what their needs are. The best example I can give

you is one of the early programs that we did in India around HIV AIDS. We knew that HIV AIDS had not spread to the wide population yet, but that it was contained within the sex worker population. But if it broke out of the sex worker and trucker population, it was going to be an explosion of AIDS in India. We went in to talk to the sex workers about what could be done, thinking we could ask them to demand condoms of their clients and to be HIV tested themselves. And what we learned from those sex workers was that we had to first help them with violence. They said, if you don't help us with the violence we have from our clients, we can't begin to demand a condom or why would it matter we did HIV testing? And so we had to take an approach that was led by them and their community. And ultimately, they actually kept AIDS from

breaking out into the general population. And it was so successful that the Indian government took the program up over time. To us, that's what listening means. And that's what success looks like is you have a shared goal of let's not have HIV spread into the wide population of a whole country, but then you listen and learn and work in the way that's culturally appropriate. You write about some terrible suffering that you've witnessed as you've traveled around. How generally do you effect change? Do you deal with the powerful or do you deal with small groups who are working close to the ground? What we have learned over working in this philanthropy sector over 20 years

is that you have to work with everybody. So you absolutely have to work with the non-governmental organizations who are on the ground working in the communities have been there for 30, 40 years and they've built up trust in a community. You have to work with them to go in and to listen and to hear what could work and what could be lasting. And at the same time, you go into a local country government and you advocate on behalf of the poor. You advocate, in our case, for more dollars being put in the health system or in ways to fix the health system like perhaps a neighboring country has done. And so we try to work at both ends of the spectrum. And that's how we've been able,

we think, to affect the most change. Just one final question. You mentioned earlier that you went to a Catholic school, you were raised as a Catholic. How have you squared that with your firm belief in family planning to lift women? travels and listening to women and looking at the data, I had to make a decision about what I believe in and how that's played out in the world. And I believe in faith in action. And I believe that if there's a tool that can save women and babies' lives, we need to make sure that all women have access to it. I was talking to Melinda Gates and her book is called The Moment of Lift, How Empowering Women Changes the World. Now, adverts are appearing on television and on social media in Nigeria with the catch line, not for sale. And they tell the stories of young women who were tempted to travel abroad for a better job and a better life, but found it didn't turn out well for them.

We left Nigeria but only made it to Libya, where we were sold. I live in a brothel where I was raped and tortured. I saw many Nigerians die, including my friend in Yorubong. I was deported, came back to meet my family the same way I lived then. I was so ashamed and depressed. Thankfully, I met people who renewed my hope by encouraging me and registering me in a vocation center. Today, I'm a proud baker in Benin. I now make enough money to take care of my family. I have new dreams and a new thinking. In my country, I have freedom. My name is Giftoje Jonathan. I am not for sale.

Well, obviously, the advert urged the young women to stay at home and find a job rather than risk a life of modern slavery in Europe. Nigeria is said to have one of the highest figures for trafficking in Africa, and 70% of the population is thought to be vulnerable to the crime. Last year alone, 208 Nigerian nationals were identified as victims of trafficking in the UK. The British government is supporting the Nigerian advertising campaign, but will it work? Well, Catherine Bardacino is the anti-trafficking programme Manager at the British Red Cross. Katie Roberts is Head of the Human Trafficking Foundation. And Elizabeth, who joins us on the phone, was trafficked into the UK from Nigeria some years ago.

Elizabeth, what happened when you got to the UK? What happened when I got to the UK? Yeah. what happened when I got to the UK yeah the I thought the article are we talking about the article or is this I thought this not this is not about me this is about the article well I mean obviously you have experience of being trafficked into the UK so we thought it might be interesting to know what had happened to you and then what you make of the advertising campaign that we've just heard about. Right, yeah. The advertising campaign I saw, it was quite disgraceful and shocking

because I feel that the girl, the one that told her story, I don't think she represents women who are trafficked to the UK. Why not? Why did I say that? Women who are trafficked to the UK, Muslim and general women who I've come across as well, women who came here with a passport and with the right visa process. They went through to get a visa to come to the UK with a different agenda, not knowing what is going to happen when they come to the UK.

But when they then come to the UK, it's a totally different issue. And they find themselves in this trafficking situation whereby they cannot escape from. So what does happen, Elizabeth, when they arrive in the UK, thinking they've come perfectly legally? Yeah, the arrangements that was made back home and when you get to the... It's totally different when you get to the UK.

Whoever that brought you and they've changed everything. Your passport has been taken away. You've been kept in a place where you cannot move or you cannot see people or you cannot speak to people or you cannot make friends. So everything becomes different. That is totally different with the story with the gay. She knew what she was going to try a lot to see if she can get a better life in a different country. She went to Europe and it's totally different coming to the UK. Elizabeth, thank you very much.

Catherine, if I can bring you in here, what's your response to the ads and Elizabeth's concerns about them? I think, yeah, Elizabeth raises some really important considerations and I think that there's a lot that can be done on prevention and I think that's an important aspect of any response and really trying to look at root causes and reasons why people are moving in the first place. But I think that reasons are much more complicated, as Elizabeth has highlighted, and people are often deceived. And there's many layers to how and why people become vulnerable

to being trafficked. So any response needs to really acknowledge that those complexities. Kate, the International Development Secretary, Penny Morden, told us the UK government is supporting these ads, working in partnership with Nigeria. She says to stop the trafficking at its source. She says they're tackling the root causes of dangerous migration to prevent vulnerable women being targeted. How likely is that policy very clearly stated to work? I have my doubts about how effective this campaign will be. I think taking a prevent response is obviously very important. We want to avoid people being exploited and trafficked.

But any prevent response to be effective needs to inform people, needs to help people access their rights, needs to give them choices in reality and practice, not scare them, which is ultimately what this campaign appears to be doing. And I think it's risky, because I think if you scare people in this way, you're sending a message that ultimately, once they get to the UK, they knew they're at fault. And you risk playing into the hands of the trafficker. Because the subliminal message of this is, you know, you knew and you've taken a risk. And traffickers use that. We know that victims don't come forward to the authorities in the UK, because they fear.

But surely, you know, with these very specific adverts, stories of abuse and prostitution, surely young women there will think twice about travelling for a job which may not exist. Well, I think it shows a lack of understanding of the lack of options which drive people to take risks. We're talking about people who are vulnerable to trafficking. And to stop people being vulnerable to trafficking, you need to give them options that keep them safe and in my previous job I was a caseworker and I met a lot of women who'd been trafficked who said they knew they were taking a risk but they literally had no option they had to pray they would be okay and they sacrificed they they knew they were making a sacrifice for their family and i think

what the uk needs to be concentrating on is giving people options and making clear that if if they are exploited they can come forward for help and they will be believed and they will be given practical options katherine what sort of numbers are you coming across who've come here from nigeria so at the british red Cross we see hundreds of people every year who have been trafficked, who have experienced exploitation and trafficking. About 84% of the people that we're supporting through a very specific pilot of longer term support, those people have come from Nigeria so a high number of people needing longer term support beyond what is currently provided through statutory support. And what sort of slavery, modern slavery, are they involved in?

So there's a vast range and we often find that forms of exploitation overlap. And so people won't be exploited in only one way but through multiple ways. But sexual exploitation, domestic servitude and labour exploitation are certainly very prevalent. And how do they come under your radar? So people can access support through the British Red Cross. But if they're in that situation where they're locked in and their passport's been taken away, how do they get to you? So I think conditions of exploitation really vary.

So some people will experience situations where they are locked in and where they do have limitations of movement and aren't able to go out and don't own their passports. In other instances, some people will be able to leave their homes and to leave the places where they are. And that's because the means of control that traffickers use are often less about force and more about sort of psychological control. And so people do reach out to us through those services or police will conduct an operation and recover people and then we'll be referred to the British Red Cross. So just to sum up, if you both are worried about these ads and think they won't work,

what specifically would work to prevent the young women from coming in the first place? Well, I think what we need to do is we need to prevent abuse. I actually think we need to have safe routes for people to migrate legally so they know that they are not going to be exploited. And as Catherine said, people generally, many people who have been trafficked are not under lock and key. They need to know that they can safely go to the authorities without fear, that the lies the traffickers told them

that they used to psychologically control them, that they can't go for help, are not true. So victims need to know that they will be believed and they will have options given to them when they come forward. But it's also important to say that the majority of victims identified by the UK authorities in 2018 were British. So we do have to look at our structures in the UK that allow this exploitation to exist. It's not only about preventing, you know, it's not about preventing migration.

It's about keeping people safe and giving them options. Well, Kate Roberts, Catherine Baldaccino and Elizabeth, thank you all very much indeed for joining us this morning. Now, still to come in today's programme, Josie Rourke, as she leaves her job as Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse in London with a production of Sweet Charity and the serial, of course, Episode 4 of Ordinary

Heroes. Now, as you may have seen in today's papers, there have been some slightly alarming headlines if your little one likes to watch Peppa Pig on an iPad. Ban your toddler from TV and iPad, little one likes to watch Peppa Pig on an iPad. Ban your toddler from TV and iPads

said one and it's apparently the World Health Organisation that's issued the warning. So what's the evidence that it's a dangerous practice? Well Dr Sarah Jarvis is a GP and Clinical Director of Patient.co.uk Sarah what is the evidence

that it's bad for under-2s to watch screens at all? Surprisingly limited, I'm afraid. And interestingly, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said exactly that in an article in the British Medical Journal just a couple of months ago. Now, I sort of get, in fact, I do get what the World Health Organisation is looking at.

We have a huge problem with children in particular growing fatter at an ever increasing rate. And it's largely because they have a very sedentary lifestyle. So this was part of their overall advice. So, for instance, they also said that under fives should not spend more than an hour strapped into a buggy or a car seat or whatever else. And again, I get that. But actually, if you've got a child who's spending half an hour watching Peppa Pig other others are available yes others are available but if they're watching something for say half an hour and then going off and running down to

the park and you know you've got them back they've got a bit overexcited because they've spent three hours running around with their friends and they've come back and you want to calm them down a little bit, then yes, I absolutely get that that is completely different from a child who is sat down, completely sedentary, in other words, sitting down, not doing the activities or following the activities on CBBs or whatever. Completely different to get them to do that than if they're being physically active. But I think we've got to put it into perspective. How much concern do you think there is here that parents or babysitters may be just using the television as the babysitter? I had never heard the term the Japanese babysitter until about 10 years ago.

And I'm afraid I hear it fairly regularly now. Now, absolutely fine every so often if you're taking your child on holiday and you know a lot of people will just have come back from their Easter breaks or whatever they've got older kids they'll have sat the child down because they don't want them to interrupt everybody else on the plane and for a couple of hours that's absolutely fine but we shouldn't be doing this as a regular thing and interestingly this review by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health set out some really sensible questions to ask. What they said is, think about, is your family's screen time under control? Does screen time interfere with other things that your family

want to do? Does screen time interfere with their sleep? And very importantly, we do recommend you don't use it just before bedtime, because we know that the blue light in particular not just for babies not just for children adults as well all of you listening there I know you all look at your screens and your phones just before you go to bed bad idea and likewise can you control snacking during screen time so it's really part of the bigger picture my personal feeling is that if you've got all the other stuff under control the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health is the one to go with. Now, there is another really very worrying story this morning. How concerned are you as a GP about the story that half a million children are not vaccinated against measles and there's been a fourfold increase in measles cases in England in a year.

I am very, very worried indeed. And I've been very worried for a long time. Wakefield, he is not a doctor. He was struck off by the General Medical Council for basically fraud, was exposed decades ago. And I've spent 20 years talking in the media about the fact that this was a non-story, but that it preys on the worst fears of parents. The World Health Organization has got it exactly right here. What they've said is that along with Ebola and HIV and AIDS, anti-vaxxers are one of the biggest risks to world health today.

I find it absolutely terrifying. I tweeted yesterday about the fact that if other people do not get their children immunised, it's not just their responsibility, it's not just their problem, because they are affecting other people, either babies who are too young to be immunised, or people who are immunocompromised. Obviously, we know that people's worries about autism have been fuelled over the years. And debunked. Why do you think they're not worried about measles, which can be a killer disease? It absolutely can be a killer disease. It causes pneumonia, it causes ear infections, it causes inflammation of the brain. We know that

mumps, for instance, used to be one of the biggest causes of meningitis before the MMR was introduced. And measles can cause encephalitis, inflammation of the brain and death and disability. I don't know. I suspect what's happened is that, of course, because it didn't kill everybody in the way that tetanus does, say, or it didn't disable so many people so obviously in the way that polio doesn't, that people assume, oh, I got over it, therefore it's just the government trying to be the nanny state. It really worries me. Sarah Jarvis, thank you very much indeed for being with us. And we would like to hear from you about this.

What have you done? Have you had your children vaccinated or not? And indeed, are you vaccinated yourself or not? Now, for four years, Josie Rook was Artistic Director of London's Bush Theatre. She then took over the Donmar Warehouse in 2012, becoming one of the first women to run a major London venue. After nearly eight years, she stood down, presenting Sweet Charity with Anne-Marie Duff in the title role as her swan song.

It's a very famous musical in which a young woman trying to get by as a taxi dancer in a dance hall meets a respectable, professional man and pretends she works in a bank. Here, Oscar explains that he's found out the truth. That night when I went home, I tried very, very hard to hate you, Charity, but I couldn't do it. I just couldn't hate you.

Maybe you'll have better luck tonight. And do you know what other business some of the girls are in? I'm not interested. Don't you want to ask me if I am, too? It's not important. Not important? Well, it is to me. I'm in love with you, Oscar, and I'm not going to waste being in love with some jerk who isn't interested enough to find out if I really am what I'm hinting I might be.

Don't look at me. Charity, I don't care what you are or what you did. All I know is I want to marry you. Let's just settle one thing at a time, huh? I am not in any other business. All I sell is my time. And to keep the record straight, I am not a poetical virgin. Charity.

Charity, it's all... It's all right. Please don't cry. I believe you. I know you believe me. I'm crying about the other part. What other part? The marrying part. I didn't hear you the first time. Marry me! Oscar, played by Arthur Davylin. Charity, played by Anne-Marie Duff.

Josie, why Sweet Charity as your swan song? I've always loved the show. The music is incredible, but what it has at its heart is this wonderful part for Anne-Marie Duff. And what Anne-Marie has amongst many other qualities is an extraordinarily courageous spirit as a collaborator, as a woman. And she did something she'd never done before, which was to leap into musical theatre.

She'd never sung or danced before, had she? How did you persuade her to do it? Well, we did a very serious French play, a tragedy at the Donmar at the beginning of my time there. And we went for lunch afterwards and I said, look, what do you want to do next? You're wonderful. And she said, I've never done an American comedy comedy musical and I think one of the things about Anne-Marie is on stage she tends to play these tragic figures in very serious drama and above and beyond anything else she's a wickedly funny woman she's one of the funniest people I've ever met in a rehearsal room so to give her the opportunity to work on that material and also to take a daring leap felt like a fitting end to my time at the Donmar. Now, I was there on the first night and it was a bit of a surprise that Adrian Lester was to sing the Daddy Brubeck song.

How hard was it to persuade him to do that? It actually took about 100 seconds because it's one of the great numbers. And, you know, these Broadway shows tended to be made out of town and then brought to Broadway. And that's a late addition to the show, that number. So it's a standalone song. And the character doesn't appear before, never appears again. And I'd just done Mary, Queen of Scots with Adrian

and we were sat around before a BAFTA Q&A and I said, listen, I've had this mad idea. What if we got people to guest star for this number? And he said, that's brilliant, I'm in. So that really gave me the confidence to ask him and other people. And the audience that night were very pleased to see him, I think. Well, I mean, it's Adrian Lester. I'm never anything less than a thousand percent pleased to see him.

I don't know about you. He's extraordinary, isn't he? Now, it is a big musical in a small space the Dunmar is not very big with a large cast so how complicated was the staging yeah the compression of those big shows into that small room is a gigantic logistical puzzle and you need an amazing team to help you work that out I worked with the choreographer Wayne McGregor who I collaborated with on the movie as well and actually one of the things that allowed me to jump into it was knowing that I had this amazing

mind and another artist just to work out the geometry of that space. But that's what's a great thing about the Donmar, I think. You know, I've done... I mean, the production I did before that was Measure for Measure with just a bench. So you can distill the epic into that room, and it is revealing, I think, at that proximity.

It's such a small theatre. But there were lots of things going on. I mean, there were ladders, there was the swinging when they were at the fun fair. That's right. All kinds of things. Were you worried at any point that it might not happen, that somebody might fall off something?

We are very, very careful that people do not fall off ladders. And no, I mean, that's why you have an amazing choreographer and that's why you have the time in the rehearsal room to work that stuff out. And I think that the jeopardy and the thrill that you might feel is something that has a kind of Swiss watch precision behind it. That's what's so amazing about that ensemble. They're great movers, they're in control of their bodies,

they know what they're doing, and that's half the joy, I think. Also, you need to feel a little bit of danger as an audience in theatre, particularly when you're in a 251-seat auditorium. You know, you want to feel that you're breathing with the actor. I think that's the beautiful thing about Anne-Marie's performance. You're really breathing with her. That's one of the glories about and privileges of working on that small scale. Now, what impact would you say the last eight years at the Donmar have had on you?

What a good question. You know, I'm a bit knackered. It's, you know, these are big jobs, you know, they kind of get up early, go to bed late. They can, I think, nibble away at your personal life and your family life a little bit. Between the Bush and the Donmar, I've been an autistic director for 12 years now, and it feels like time, I hope not in a selfish or an indulgent way, just to see what my work is like as an artist when I've got a bit more room and a bit more breathing space. You know, I kind of walked in this morning, there were almost no emails coming through on my phone. It's a very strange feeling actually to let your shoulders drop and to start to consider that. How much of the work of the artistic director goes far beyond the artistic in that there's

fundraising to be done and lots of things that are not just about putting productions on? No, I think the below the waterline stuff is quite profound. And it's everything really from fundraising, very key at the Donmar because, you know, only 8% or 9% of the Donmar's money is public and everything else is raised, either philanthropically or via corporate support. And, you know, there's a complicated conversation

from all points of view. How do you find the amazing philanthropists to give? How do you make sure that the right people are giving, which is a big question in the arts at the moment the right institutions and partnerships and it's been a gigantic part of the job also at the bush before you know the mission there really i mean the arts council gave us a deadline which is you've got three years to find a new home and uh it was three years in my life that were a bit like a kind of building seeking and fundraising action film um running around shepherd's bush trying to find somewhere to to make that work so that's a big

part of the job you know how much have you led what what really does feel at the moment like a big change in the representation of women in the theatre in recent years yeah the all-female shakespeare trilogy that was very near the start of my time running the Dunmar with my great friend Kate Pakenham, Phyllida Lloyd's extraordinary work there. It's easy to forget now that's something that's happening more frequently. What a big cultural impact that had at the time. I remember waking up the next morning and reading a reviewer really quoting Samuel L. you know, this is like watching a dog walk on its hind legs. You know, extraordinary stuff that you just basically wouldn't get away with now. You know, we did have people at quite senior levels within the leadership

of the Donmar concerned about fundraising. You know, a board member said to us, that was very good, but you won't do another one, will you? And actually, my response to it, Kate's response, Phyllida's response, and response and this is I think in a big way what artistic direction is is to say actually it's a trilogy like it's not going away we're going to make a cultural purchase with it from a venue that does have because of its London space because of its space in the heart of Covent Garden the ability to make a big cultural impact and, you know, get into print when you're doing stuff like that. Now you did mention a film

in which Adrian Lester took part. First feature film, which was screened earlier this year. Why were you fascinated by Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I? Because I think it's a bit like with actually the work I'm alluding to with

Phyllida's work in an all-female trilogy or my work on Sweet Charity. I think as much as it's our responsibility as artists to push forward and find and tell new stories, it's our responsibility as women to go backwards as directors into history and look at those stories, actually particularly within period drama and in that period on film that have principally been told by men. And for me, there was an incredible opportunity not only to work with Saoirse Ronan,

who was attached to that film, but also to try to look at the story of Mary and Elizabeth from a woman's perspective and a woman's gaze. That was a big deal. But you brought them together, as did Schiller, when there is no historical evidence that they ever met. We are sure they never met. Why did you want to do it?

Well, there's a few reasons. One, it would be strange not to dramatically. You'd wind up dramatising a lot of letters in between their correspondence. The other reason, and I feel like we're in a very interesting moment, as someone who has spent a lot of time during her career as a director, an artistic director, telling stories from the present day. So, you know, I've put Edward Snowden in plays and done plays about Occupy at St Paul's and spoken about the current Labour Party and looked at climate change in my work. There is always a responsibility, I think, on the part of the artist, not simply to go, this is a reproduction of the facts, but this is a poetic representation of the essential truth at the heart of these characters.

And the space and right of artists to do that is incredibly important in the time through which we're living. I was talking to Josie Rourke and Sweet Charity is at the Donmar Warehouse until the 8th of June. Thank you for all your feedback on today's programme. Safiye Ashtiani on Twitter said of the interview with Melinda Gates, Melinda mentioned that any child born in the UK or US is lucky, really, with child poverty rates rising in the UK and multiple aggressions against visible minority communities in the US. Sounds a bit Western-centric. Patricia Askew emailed, Melinda Gates' description that equality within her marriage was predicated on equal caregiving and working outside the home is stereotypical. This type of thinking can be challenged by bringing to attention the work both physical and emotional of parenting.

I'm sure that they had additional help with childcare, cleaning, etc. And this would have been paid for and therefore a proper job. Looking after children is still real work. We also discussed the suggested dangers of screen time for babies and young children. Emily Marbach tweeted to say, forget fat, how about depriving children of boredom? The worst thing is watching a child in a pushchair with a screen. They say they're bored, you say then walk, and that can distract you or look around at the world while I push you.

Gavin Whittaker emailed to say, Can I suggest that there is not only a problem with children being put in front of screens to keep them quiet, one thing that constantly amazes me is the number of parents who are with their children but almost completely ignore them as they focus on their mobile phones. Walk down any high street and you can see innumerable instances of babies in prams crying out for attention and young children talking to their parents but being brushed off with grunts

while the parents chuckle to themselves about something they're viewing on their screen. We're at risk of breeding a generation of children who've been brought up to think that failing to make eye contact is normal, and that ignoring other people is acceptable. It is not normal, and it is not acceptable. Now do join me if you can tomorrow morning at two minutes past ten when we'll be discussing the environment and the number of women who have led the environmental movement. That's two minutes past ten tomorrow.

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