Woman's Hour - Northern Ireland, Kathryn Stockett and Mum's poem in son's exam

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

On Tuesday violence broke out across Belfast following a knife attack in the city. Stephen Ogilvie is in hospital with serious wounds after the attack, and a 30-year-old Sudanese man has been charged with attempted murder. Ogilvie's family, politicians and police have called for calm after people took to the streets, with some reporting that residents were targeted based on their skin colour. Anita Rani speaks to Louise Cullen, BBC Correspondent in Northern Ireland and Twasul Mohammed, who came to Northern Ireland as a refugee from Sudan in 2016 and has been helping families affected by the violence. It’s been 17 years since The Help was published, Kathryn’s Stockett’s first novel that sold 15 million copies worldwide, was translated into 38 languages and made into a successful film with Emma Stone, Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis. Kathryn has now written her second novel, The Calamity Club. She joins Anita.Have you ever had one of those moments when life feels so circular that you just can’t believe it? A 'once-in-a-lifetime synchronicity' is what the poet Emily Cullen called it when she discovered that a poem she had written seven years ago, inspired by her eight year old son, turned up on the English exam paper he was sitting in Ireland. Anita catches up with them both.Acclaimed horror film Under the Shadow is set in Tehran during the 1980’s Iran Iraq war and explores the boundaries between rational and irrational as fear encroaches. As a new play adaptation opens in London, Anita speaks to the director Nadia Latif and lead actor Leila Farzad. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Corinna Jones

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the programme. In a moment, I'll be speaking to a woman from one of the communities who have been under attack from violent unrest in Northern Ireland. Also in the programme, Under the Shadow, a horror play set during the 1980s Iran-Iraq War. It's the tale of a mother in Tehran in the 80s,

the fear and oppression and ghostly presence of gin. I'll be joined by the star Leila Fazard and director Nadia Latif. Her last book was an international bestseller and was turned into an Oscar-nominated film. It's been 17 years since Catherine Stockett wrote The Help. She'll be here to talk about her second book, also set in the American Deep South, The Calamity Club. It's a story of sisterhood and how women come together in the face of societal judgment. And a once-in-a-lifetime synchronicity is what the poet Emily Cullen called it when she discovered that a poem she'd written seven years ago, inspired by her son when he was eight, turned up last week on his English exam.

So have you ever had one of those moments when life feels so circular, so meant to be that you just can't believe it? That makes you feel maybe the universe has a plan after all. Tell me the story about the time when something has happened that felt. more than just a coincidence. A once in a lifetime synchronicity. Get in touch in the usual way with your stories. The text number is 84844. You can email the program by going to our website

or you can WhatsAppers on 0700-100-444. The text number, though, once again, 84844. First, the family of the Belfast stabbing victim, Stephen Ogilvy, expressed their disgust at scenes of violence after a second night of disorder in Northern Ireland. Riot police used water cannons on demonstrators in County Antrim on the outskirts of Belfast, where fires were lit and projectiles thrown at officers following similar unrest on Tuesday.

The disorder began after a knife attack on Monday night, which left Stephen with serious injuries. 30-year-old Haddy Alodid, who is Sudanese, has been charged with attempted murder and remanded in custody. Homes and vehicles were set on fire and family, families had to flee their homes. Police and politicians appealed for calm amid reports that some residents were targeted based on their skin colour. So what is this unrest doing to communities and how is it affecting families and children living there? Louise Cullen, BBC correspondent in Northern

Ireland, joins me now along with Tawasul Mohammed, who came to Northern Ireland as a refugee from Sudan in 2016. She now works with asylum seekers and refugees and she's been on the ground helping Sudanese community members over the past few days. Morning both of you. Louise, I'm going to come to you first. Can you tell us what unfolded last night? Just bring us up to speed. Yes, well, Anita, initially there were protests in various places, but for by and large, they dispersed quickly, they were peaceful.

But then in this part of Northern Ireland, Glenn Gormley, about seven miles from Belfast City Centre, there was quite a large crowd. Two to three hundred protesters gathered. and they were trying, it seems, to make their way to a hotel that gives accommodation to asylum seekers. The police stopped that and they actually pushed them back then from that road out to the hotel to the other side of the major Sandy Knows Roundabout and pushed them on up the road that I'm now sitting by the side of. When we arrived here this morning, the picture of the road told its own tale, debris strewn across it, bricks torn from garden walls and hammered out of people's gardens, paviers lifted to be used as weapons and missiles thrown at the police.

It was scattered all over the road, garden clippings from bins that had been dragged out to be set alight. And then there was the damage to the road, the tarmac blackened and lifted. some of the debris had actually sunk into the tarmacs such was the heat from the flames. A derelict property had been set alight. It's gutted. There's really little left of it other than chimney stacks and the outer walls. And then a vehicle as well had been burned out in front of that derelict property upside down on the road. And there's red and white striped tape around the wall that is at the front of that property and tariff. around that burnt out vehicle. So this morning, it's been a very, very wet morning here in Belfast,

bucketing rain. And you can actually see the surface water on the road, the slick, the sort of iridescent model of petrol from petrol bombs that were thrown last night. But that's all been cleared away now. Things are moving normally, traffic is moving normally, public transport is all functioning as usual. So last night in some ways seems almost a distant memory, but there's no doubt it's had an impact in this community.

People are a little on edge. They've said to me that they find it disgusting, but they also find it very scary. Can you tell us the types of areas and homes that have been targeted in these attacks? Well, in all of these protests, It has been aimed largely, certainly on Tuesday night, at streets where protesters believed that immigrants lived, people who were not from Northern Ireland.

We saw those images on Tuesday night of masked gangs in dark clothing, going door to door, targeting properties where they believed migrants lived and telling them to get out. We saw houses set on fire, vehicles set on fire. we saw people fleeing their properties and that was children as young as well a two-month-old baby rescued from one a little boy running from a house

in his sock feet to get to safety in the dark as the flames were burning around him these are by and large inner city areas this area where I am as I say seven miles from Belfast City Centre from further away still from East Belfast where those extreme scenes happened on Tuesday night. This is a slightly different area.

This is Glenn Gormley. It is by and large fairly mixed, but probably with a slightly more unionist slant to it. But this is a quiet area, and the scenes that we've seen over the last two nights are no longer familiar to people right across northern Ireland. The violence last night, very much lower in scale than it was

on Tuesday night, but people are still in a sense of heightened anxiety, a state of alert, just all quietly hoping that perhaps that downward trend will continue, but fearful that it won't. And people are being targeted based on their skin colour. So what concerns are being raised about racism and the safety of minority communities? There have been concerns raised by politicians, by representatives of, for example, health care workers, healthcare workers themselves, people from an Indian background, for example, have told us that they are very anxious. And immigration in Northern Ireland, post-Brexit, has shifted really towards people coming from India and Southeast Asia and so on. It's

shifted away from people coming from Europe. But immigration in Northern Ireland is still very low net migration is in the low thousands. In comparison to the rest of the UK, that's perhaps a little bit of a different picture. But it is, this is the people behind the protest. They will say that they are concerned about what they see as mass immigration. They have fears for how that is changing their communities and their culture. And that's certainly what people in East Belfast in those streets were telling us on Tuesday night that they believe that their culture is being changed by the people that are coming into the area and they're seeing people of different colour, people of different dress in their area and that then for them

they say creates a sense that their culture is in some way under threat. Thoassal, I'm going to bring you in here. You've been helping out families over the past few So give me a sense of what you've been seeing, experiencing and what people have been saying to you. Thanks, Anita. First, I want to say that the whole community are in shock. People have been terrified since this attack happened. We have been thinking of Stephen and his family, and we hope that he recovers from this horrific attack soon. We are also living in fear and extremely worried for our kids and families because of the violent

racist attacks that started on Tuesday night. I have seen terrified kids. I have seen women crying and having flashbacks of the terror they have been through before in their home countries. These are people who are fleeing wars in different countries, Somalia, Syria, Sudan, Yemen. and in Lithuia, and now this is repeated again for them. What sort of practical advice and help have you been giving them? What are they needed most of all this week?

What's been happening? So we have helped families evacuate the destroyed houses. On Tuesday night, people have been contacting us, texting and calling because they called the police many times and the police didn't respond quickly enough. So people needed help getting out of these houses. So us and volunteers in this response group, we have created an emergency response group with people across Belfast,

people from community organizations and individuals, just who hate this racist violence being in their city. So we have been going around to people who were under attack, help them evacuate their houses and provided secure houses for them. And this continued yesterday because there was a hit list of targeted addresses where migrants, black and brown people live. So these people who wasn't attacked yet, but were too afraid to stay in their houses.

We have secured accommodation for more than 200 individuals and families last night across the reception centres that we have set ourselves and we are hoping we are asking the department for communities and the housing executive for them to help us provide safe homes for these people. We have contacted the police service of Northern Ireland for their response and we haven't heard anything back from them yet. De Wassil, you moved to Northern Ireland from Sudan in 2016. Can you tell us how you're feeling right now and a bit about your own story and what made you decide to build a life here?

I am devastated, obviously, and this hasn't been my experience in Belfast. Since I came here in 2016, I felt Belfast is a welcoming place. People are kind and nice. They smile at you. They say hi. They help too. There are so many community groups. helping newcomers here. We have friends everywhere. We are surrounded by loving people who are

stepping up to help. My kids have friends in schools and with the neighbors, and we have been feeling safe. This started to change since 2024 when the riots, the violent riots, happened in Belfast, and then this continued every summer in 2025. It was in Belamina. And we knew this is coming this summer. They were just waiting for something. The far right and paramilitaries have been mobilizing people and waiting just for a moment like this to take opportunity and cause all of these violence. I love Belfast. I love being here. I love living here. And I want to help build this community together with my fellow immigrants and neighbors and colleagues from Belfast. So what are you saying to each other? What are women saying to each other and how are you talking to your children about what's

happening? It's a difficult conversation to have with a child, especially a child who has moved before, because of war or persecution or different issues people face in their communities. On the first night, I talked to my kids and explained. First, explained that they have to stay home and not go to school because we don't know what's going to happen. And then I explained that I might not be able to stay with them at home. all the time because they will need to go and help other families. This is not the kind of conversation you want to help with your kids. I want my kids to feel safe. They feel they can

walk in the street without fear, but I also want them to be cautious. Louise, what impact is all of this unrest happening on children and young people in general? A school's open, a family's confident about sending them in today? Well, a number of schools closed yesterday, but there wasn't a blanket closure notice issued by the education minister. He said that he would leave it up to schools to close on an individual basis and to take that decision. As I say, quite a number did. And we saw a lot of those children leaving school, being collected, being brought home.

And in fact, Belfast as a city, basically ground to a halt at lunchtime yesterday with the amount of schools and businesses that just closed early and people who were told to go home from work early because of the concern of potential unrest later in the day. And of course, public transport was suspended as well. There were no buses from 5 o'clock, no trains from 6 o'clock, and there were restrictions on services as well. Now, all of that's back to normal today.

But this is affecting families. It's affecting the decisions that people are making. Do we send our children? children to school. As Twistle was saying there, yesterday people made the decision to take their children away from school. People are making the decision to work from home to avoid having to come into town or go into work and then potentially be faced with the challenge of getting home, whether that's by public transport or avoiding any potential disturbances. It creates a sense of low-lying anxiety and tension and a general kind of

disquiet and those of us who are of an age to remember when Belfast quite regularly shut down because of public disorder and violence and unrest and so on. For all of us who remember that, it creates that sense of disquiet and feeling unsettled. Yeah, Tawasol, you've been helping families whose kids couldn't stay home because they need to go to school to sit their exams and you've been helping them get their safely, how hard or easy has that been? From the first day, we created an emergency response group. This group now has more than 400 volunteers and they have been providing lift to

people who want to take their kids to school or people who have medical appointments. And these same people are hosting displaced families in their houses or calling other places to find accommodation for them. So in the group we would get requests from people who need to take their kids to exams, for example, and then we find volunteers to drive them or accompany them. So the response from the community has been wonderful and people are helping everywhere, but we shouldn't need this. Kids should feel safe to walk to school and they shouldn't need being escorted or protected.

Thabasal Mohammed, thank you so much for speaking to us this morning and Louise Cullen, BBC correspondent in Northern Ireland. The text number once again 84844. Now, after a 17-year break, New York Times best-selling author Catherine Stockett has published a new novel, The Calamity Club, set in a 1930s United States gripped by the Depression, a group of young women facing difficult economic circumstances,

are drawn together as they try to reclaim their lives. You will undoubtedly be familiar with her first novel The Help. It sold 15 million copies worldwide. A million here in the UK was translated into 38 languages and was the basis for an Academy Award-winning film. I am excited to say she is here now with me in the studio to talk about her new book, The Calamity Club. Already a huge success in the US.

I know you prefer to be called Kitty, Catherine. So welcome to Woman's Hour Kitty. Thank you. It's such an honor to be. here. It's great to have you here. 17 years between novels. Why so long? Well, I mean, I was living life. I was raising my daughter. But a few obstacles came my way. When, you know, when I wrote the help, I didn't write it with any expectations of me. It was just me living in New York City right after 9-11. and I really wrote it out of homesickness.

And I didn't think anybody was going to read it. I had 60 rejection letters to back that theory up. And so when I sat down to write the second one, you know, it wasn't just me alone in a room anymore. Now it was me in a room with all those readers and critics kind of staring back at me. Yeah. Huge expectation. A, because it was a huge success, but as we are talking about the help, I guess we must talk about the backlash that came as well as the success and your response to that.

How do you feel about it now? You know. And if you wouldn't mind just reminding people what was said at the time. Yeah, there was criticism about the help because I'm a white woman and I live in the South and I wrote in the voices of black women. the black women that took care of us as children, the woman that worked for my grandparents, her name was Dimitri, and she was wonderful. And it was really a way for me to explore and answer all the questions that I had never asked Dimitri. I just didn't have the sense to ask her while she was still alive when I was young.

So it was the criticism that came out of that was in a way, I understand it. I do. As a woman from Mississippi, I get it. But the thing that I believed when I wrote The Help, and I still believe today, and it's one of the reasons why I wrote The Calamity Club, is I think it is so important, just as intelligent, empathetic human beings to try to understand what it feels like to stand in someone else's shoes. And that doesn't necessarily always mean that you feel sorry for someone, but to understand someone else's problems opens up our minds. It gives us a better sense that there's so much more out there than just us, but not just to understand their problems.

also to try to understand their successes. And that, to me, is what gives us hope. How did you feel about it at the time, though? And did it impact how you wrote? I think it did. You know, when I sat down to write The Calamity Club, I was determined to write a very short book. The help was, I think, 450 pages.

The Calamity Club is about 600. And also, I was determined to write a book that didn't raised the kind of criticisms that the help did. So you were self-editing? I was. I was holding myself back. And after several, you know, years of this, I finally just had to give in to the fact that it's impossible to write a story about Mississippi in 1933 about women and not write about sexism and hypocrisy and racism and all the absurdities that come along with that. Yeah. Otherwise, it just wouldn't be truthful. So as you mentioned, you remain in Mississippi in the lives of women for the Calamity Club. It's funny. It's moving. You fall in love with the characters. Without any spoilers,

what is it? What's the Calamity Club? Give us an overview. Okay, so it's told in two voices. It's said in Oxford, Mississippi, 1933, during the Great Depression. But I wouldn't say it's a depressing story. Hopefully there are a lot of laughs. and a lot of moments of levity. But Meg is 11 years old, and she lives in an orphanage because her mother went to the store and mysteriously did not come home. So two years later, here we are. And she's found herself unadoptable because nobody wants the big girls.

They only want to adopt the babies. And then the second voice is Bertie Calhoun, who's 24 and lives in the Mississippi Delta, and she's come to Oxford to ask her little sister, who's 21, for money, for her sister Frances, married well. And so Bertie and Meg's stories intertwined. I listened to the audiobook and I really enjoyed their voices. Like, it was just, I was so immersed in these two women, these two, well, 11-year-old and the 24-year-old. Why did you choose them to be your narrators? Why the two age groups are?

Jenna Lemieux actually narrated the help. And January Levoy is from Atlanta, Georgia. And she's of mixed race. And it was just the perfect combination, these two readers. I think we should hear something from the book. This is the voice of Meg, right? Yes, yes. I'm going to read a little bit about Meg, who's, as I said, she's an orphan.

and she has to go to what she calls the belt closet, which is where you get your spankings. The room has not changed since I was in here last. Chair, belt, holes to make it fly faster. I have dreams of this room along with another, though that one was colder and quieter. Behind the door, I can hear Dorella and some other girls snickering. My palms on the wall.

I stand there and take it like a man. But after seven or eight licks, I got to cry, not just because it stings and cuts the back of my legs, but it's like she's trying to get to something deeper. It's like she's trying to whip the hope out of me. I think about the pictures in the Life magazine. California, the blue of the pool, the lady holding the little girl's hand.

All the while, Miss Garnett is whispering, you dirty, filthy child. After 15 licks, Ms. Garnett sits down in the chair panting. She only quits because her arm gets tired. That piece really struck me when I was listening to it. It's that line. It's like she's trying to whip the hope out of me. Yeah.

I mean, hope is, you know, whatever it is, I think hope is something we can all relate to, whether it's a slip of paper or for Meg. In the story, it's a poem that she remembers by Emily. Dickinson, Hope is the thing with feathers that perch is on the soul. You've spoken about the appeal of writing through the eyes of a child, Meg, in this case, is 11. What do we gain as an audience? I mean, I think just children know how to cut through the baloney, you know, and just speak their minds. And I wanted to give voice to that kind of

honesty. And Meg is based on your own daughter and Birdie on yourself. Is that true? I don't know about that. How have the two of you manifested on the page? Well, when I started writing this story, my daughter, Lila, was about 11 years old. So I definitely drew inspiration from her. I wouldn't say I'm Bertie. But, you know, I think that a writer can honestly say that we are a little bit of every character in the book, good and bad, hopefully more good than bad. I also enjoyed the importance that you talk about in the book, your chosen family, through the force of circumstance. These women become a chosen family. Why do we need a chosen family?

What do they bring us? You know, not everybody can say that their family that they're related to by blood is someone that they understand or that they relate. to intellectually, emotionally, I mean, for me, politically. My family in Mississippi, we have very different outlooks on how the world should be run. But, you know, I think you were talking about serendipity. And here's the thing. After the help, the director, my best friend from high school, Tate Taylor, who also wrote the screenplay for the help, he bought a house in Mississippi. and he called me up one day and said,

Kitty, come on down. This is a great place. And so I bought the house next door. And one of the actresses from the help bought the house next door to Tate. The casting director bought the house across the street from me. A choreographer lives down the street

and the producer. Wow. And it's just like we are our own found family. Here we are a bunch of creative weirdos that, you know, all have second jobs They need to be in L.A. I need to be in New York to earn a living. But when we all get together, is this sense of family. And this is where the magic happens. Particularly between women.

Particularly. Yes. I love it. When women get together because, you know, as women, I think we often feel like if we have a problem or if there's a problem in our families, we have to solve it alone ourselves. I don't know why that is. But the truth is, when we come together, as a group. Oh my gosh. First of all, it's more fun to solve a problem. And things fall together so much more naturally. I mean, this book is already doing incredibly well. It's the best seller in the States. What kind of reaction are you getting? What kind of women are getting in touch with you to tell you how this book's impacted? Oh, so far. So good. A lot of people ask me, you know, which character do you relate to the most? And I've got to say, it's a prostitute name flossie. I have not ever held that profession before, but there's something about her

vulnerability and her honesty on the page that, I don't know, I just really relate to her. There you go. That's a little spoiler for you. You'll have to find out the rest when you pick up the book. Your sense of humor is clear throughout the novel, even in the darkest moments. Why is humor important to you? I mean, life is so funny. I don't know how people get through some of their darkest times without finding the humor in it. And to bring out the humor when I'm creating a character, I like to ask myself, what is the worst possible thing that can happen to a character? And when I was writing the help, you know, Hilly Holbrook, it was the chocolate pie. And in part two of the Calamity Club, you'll find out what is the absolute worst thing that can happen to

these characters and sometimes what these characters come up with, it just, it makes me laugh. They, they just, sometimes I just let them do the talking. I like to always ask a writer about their process because I think I've heard you say you write every day. I have to. I have to keep the thread. And your characters are a driving story. Yes, yes.

They kind of speak through me. I know I probably look very schizophrenics, kind of crazy when I'm in my office, which is an old school house that I turned into an office. And if you saw me through the window, you would think, oh, that woman is absolutely mad. Do you talk out loud? I do. I say it out loud, but you can't really understand me. I sound like I'm making some kind of a cartoon show or something. No, it feels like that. When you're in the book, you're immersed in it because it's so alive. Yeah, and they're talking very fast in my... We get a lot of pit novelists here sitting in front of me, especially first time debut novelists.

And I always ask them how they feel the sort of night before the book coming out. I just wonder what the weight of expectation was that you'd put on yourself or how you felt, you know, the first book, huge success, the film, the awards, all the accolades, all of it, the backlash. And then here you are 17 years later. How did you feel the day before the book came out? I mean, as a writer, you just never know if your audience is going to connect with your characters. But luckily, I have this just incredible editor in the United States, Julie Grau. And I knew that if Julie connected with it and liked these women, that someone else in the world would also like it because she has such a worldview. And she's, I just, I think she's a genius.

And what do you want the reader to take away or to be thinking about? Well, you know, I want them to, to understand that women are losing their health rights in the United States. And I'm not saying that we've gone back to 1933, but for me, I think the car's headed in the wrong direction. And I want them to understand that we cannot take it for granted. The rights that we've fought so hard to obtain. It's a truth when I say that history can repeat itself. And I want them to take that away when they read the Calamity Club and understand we've got to hold on to our rights. Catherine, Kitty, Stockett.

Thank you so much for coming in to speak. to me. And the Calamity Club is available now. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I was going to say best of luck with it, but I don't think you need it. The Signal Awards recognize the podcast that define culture and being honored by the Signal Awards sets your production team apart with recognition from the industry's top experts and access proof that your work is a standard bearer for podcasting worldwide. By entering, your work is heard by the Signal Awards Judging Academy. an invitation-only body of podcast professionals from acclaimed organizations which include the BBC. Grow your audience, celebrate your team, and stand out.

The final entry deadline to submit is the 26th of June. Enter your podcast at signalaward.com for consideration. Now, CBB's Parenting Download returns this week with a new series of the visualized podcast that separates the facts from the fiction when it comes to raising children. and offers expert advice on the most important parenting topics. The first episode is all about laughter. Why babies laugh and what those early giggles can tell us about how they're growing. Presenters Katie Thistleton and Governor Bee were joined by comedy writer and actor Bronna C. Titley

and Professor Sophie Scott, director of the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience and head of the Speech Communications Group at University College London. We tend to think that laughter is about jokes and humour. But if you look at humans and you watch them and you look at when they laugh, what you find is we laugh primarily because we're with other people. And of course that's what it's doing. When babies first laugh, they're not laughing because something's funny. They're laughing because you're playing with them.

You're playing peekaboo or you're tickling, something like that. And importantly, of course, that's an interaction. You can't play peekaboo with the TV screen and you can't tickle yourself. You need another human there to do that. When babies start laughing, it's helping the parents and the baby bond together. I think that's an amazing first moment as well when you have the first laugh for the first smile from a small baby because up until that point in time,

it's real, real one-way street in terms of what you're getting back from that child. You know, there's a lot of domestic servitude and being a parent anyway, but certainly those first like eight weeks where you're just milking and feeding and cleaning, and then you get this little reward that's like a little spark or a smile or a giggle

and you think, oh, finally some return on my investment. And you can listen to that episode. more from the last series by searching for CBB's parenting download. Now, have you ever had one of those moments in life when it feels so circular that you just can't believe it? When something happens that makes you feel like you've been heading to this exact moment all along, like maybe life does have a plan. A once-in-a-lifetime synchronicity is what the poet Emily Cullen called it when she discovered that a poem she'd written seven years ago in, inspired by her son when he was eight, turned up on the English exam paper.

He was sitting last week in his junior certs, the Irish equivalent of GCSEs. Well, Emily joins me now, along with her son, Lee. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Thanks, Anita. Thanks. Oh, nice to see you both. Take me back to the moment that you, Lee, told your mum what had happened. Take us back there.

What, paint the picture. Well, when I was like finishing up A, B and C, and then I just turned the like section A, B and C, and then I turned the page for D. I was like shocked to see my mom come up with her poem. And then when I told her, she was like in tears. How lovely? How did you find out, Emily? I went to collect Lee, drove the car and I met him close to the school. and I could see he'd have, you know, a broad smile in his face.

And I thought, oh, that's great. He must have remembered, you know, the Shakespeare quotes we were memorizing together. And I said, how did it go, great, mum? And he said, you won't believe it. But the poem he wrote about me came off on the paper. And I just said, what, what, what do you mean? And he said the one about the chalk. And I was thinking, oh, my God, you know, how could this be happening?

You know, is this, it was a very, oh. You had no idea that your poem would be picked to be put on the English exam. It was just random by chance. It's never appeared before. Never appeared before. I had no idea. Nobody had contacted me beforehand or contacted my publisher or anything. So I had absolutely no inkling.

And there is my beautiful 15-year-old son getting into the car telling me that he just did an exam and answered a question about a poem which he inspired. I mean, Lee, when you turn that paper over and you saw, that it was your mum's poem written about you. What went through your mind? Did you feel proud of the exam? Did you think, I'm going to waste this? Like, what happens in that moment? I was just like, oh, wow, now like writing about myself,

writing shocked. So, yeah, I was, yeah, I was just, yeah, I was shocked once again. Shocks, yeah. So, Emily, tell us about the inspiration for the poem. Tell us about it. It's called Envoy and Chalk. Yes, indeed, Anita. it's one of those poems that wrote itself really.

They're kind of a given poem or a gift, if you like. Some poems take a lot of grafting and, you know, a lot of work. This one just came out. I was having a bit of a tough time, lots of things happening. I suppose it's a poem for the sandwich generation, if you like, people who are caring for young children and also looking after elderly parents. And my late beloved mother was in hospital at the time. I was driving a lot to the hospital and my shoulder.

on my shoulder had gotten quite inflamed. You know, there was a lot going on, and I was worried about things, and I was calling Lee for his dinner. He was down on his scooter, scooting around the estate, and I went out the door, was calling him,

and then I looked down, and my eye caught on, he had choked something on the pavement, and I saw, in green neon letters, the world is great. And it just caught me, you know? It just, just really just stopped me in my tracks and I thought he's right. He's absolutely right. And I mustn't

forget this and we mustn't lose sight. The world is great. And, you know, we can get so caught up in, I suppose, you know, all our troubles and cares and we're careworn and I suppose the constant barrage of headlines, horrifying things in the news, wars, conflict, injustice, oppression. And then just at a micro level, you know, the things of our lives that are consuming our time and energy. And just to be reminded in that moment to get that Volta, if you like, from Lee and his beautiful chalk writing, it meant everything to me. And I came in and I thought, I have to capture this moment because it stopped me in my tracks. and it was a little message for me that I needed to be.

Yeah, message for you through your beautiful young son, that sort of innocence of a child, just seeing the clarity. So could you read the poem for us? I'd be delighted, be delighted. Envoyant chalk. I'm calling my son from the end of the estate when my eye snags on green pastel words.

He has chalked on the pavement. The world is great. This is just the line I need to read. My mother in hospital, my shoulder inflamed, our financial future uncertain, Earth eyeballing Armageddon. Yet, how right his perception. He bolts up on his yellow scooter, eight-year-old fringe, quift with gel, on the cusp of the age of cool.

It's beautiful. It really is beautiful. What a great line to end it with on the cusp of the age of cool there, Lee. I'm looking at you. It looks very cool. Does it land any differently to you reading it again today? I think it's perennial, really. I think we, you know, history is quite cyclical, unfortunately. We don't seem to learn from the mistakes of the past. There are continuous conflicts and wars. And yet the beauty of the natural world is all around us, the wonder of the everyday. and these magical synchronicities that can unfold. And, you know, and indeed having our parents with us is such a gift. And I think taking a moment for gratitude, you know, is something that I always come back to in the midst of my cares and worries as well. And I think poetry can help us to do that and remind us to do that. Well, I definitely think your poem has done that for us this morning. Lee, did you reference yourself in the exam paper?

Did you say it's about me? I was going to, but then I was going to, yeah, I was thinking that the examiners would be like, this kid thinks he's the son of the poet, so. Well, listen, I hope you do very well in that exam. Well, you should do, shouldn't you really? No pressure, but it's been lovely speaking to you both. Many thanks to poet Emily Cullen and Lee.

Davidson. The poem Envoy in Chalk is from Emily Cullen's third collection of poetry, conditional perfect. Thank you. How lovely to hear that poem being read by the poet this morning. 84844 is the text number. I'm going to read out some of your

messages coming in about your own moments of synchronicity in your life. One here saying, on his birthday, my husband received an email saying he'd been awarded a ticket for this year's FA Cup final. He cheerfully posted his good fortune on his social media account. almost instantly an old school friend from over 60 years ago responded saying

he'd got one too. They agreed to meet up so exchange seat numbers and they were sat next to each other. Oh I love it when that happens. So another one here. This happened to me in 1972. I was travelling the hippie trail with my then-boyfriend, later husband. Already loved this story. We arrived in a new country, new to us, with two names on a crumpled piece of paper. A couple who were friends are friends. The first city we went to was hosting an arts festival at an open-air theatre performance, we overheard a couple immediately in front of us and began to suspect that they were the people whose names we'd been given. Indeed, it was them. And I might add that their home was about 500 miles away, and that's from Julia. And one more here

saying, I have a very rare form of blood cancer. A search on Google produces no results. During my third bout of chemo treatment this week, I met a woman at the same hospital award with the exact same blood cancer. It is wonderful to have such a serendipitous meeting. I hope we will continue to remain in contact, and that's from Julie in Norfolk. 84844 is the text number. Now, a new play adaptation of an acclaimed film premiered at the Almeda Theatre in London last week, under the shadow. The film was dubbed a ghostly Iranian gem.

Like the film, the play is set amid the 1980s Iran-Iraq War and explores the boundary between the rational and the irrational and the question of whether to leave or stay. There's tension, there's frustration, There are jump scares. Lead actor Leila Fazard and director Nadia Lateef join me now. But before I speak to them, here's a clip. You want me to quit in solidarity? Join you on the blacklist so we all start. Yes, you could show a bit more solidarity actually.

Why? How? We could move, for example. Move? Where the hell to? Somewhere where I could qualify where I'd be allowed to study. Are you suggesting that we want? Just pack up and leave the country? No, I'm only suggesting that we go somewhere where we could both do our job. Are you seriously suggesting that we abandon everything and everyone we know, We uproot our daughter, drag ourselves halfway across the world to some dark, damp European city

where no one even wants us just so you can finish your precious studies. People do it all the time. And they never come back. It could be a change of scene, an adventure. Why can't you do something else? Like what? You could be a nurse. A nurse.

Don't be such a snob. And anyway, wasn't it your big political ideals that got you into this mess in the first place? I thought you lefties believed all work was equal. What kind of future will our daughter have in this country? Tell me. Don't play that car. Not really. Enlighten me. Enlighten me. This goes that clip. Layla, as did they there. And Nicholas Karimi playing her husband, Ayraj. Welcome, Leila. Welcome to both of you. I'm going to come to you first,

Leila. Why did you want to do this? What themes appealed to you? Oh, goodness. Why would I not want to do it? All the themes appealed to me. The motherhood, the living under conflict, the malignant other force of the gin. Nadia directing Barbax film, Carmen's script, all of it. All of it. Nadia, it was a BAFTA winning horror film. Why did you want to realise it on stage? Why horror?

I find horror incredibly democratic, actually. I think it's, you know, I watch a lot of horror films. I watch hundreds of horror films a year, but horror films are much better viewed together. They're not fun to watch on your own. And obviously, if theatre is like the great collective viewing experience, So the chance to try and scare, you know, 300, 400 people a night, and it doesn't care about how old you are, young, race, you know, all those things.

It's like, can I bring everyone together in a moment of really extreme empathy? And I think that the whole story requires that, right? You know, you're stuck with this one character going through what she's going through. So the scares feel very, like, sympathico with the kind of character experiences as well. Yeah, I agree with your horror. Should never be watched alone or without a pillow. bring your cushion. Are you a fan of horror?

I'm not the biggest fan. It's not that I'm not a fan. I struggle with it. My sensibilities are too weak for it, I think. But you're on the inside when you're playing. Oh, playing it is fine. Playing it is actually, when you know when the scares are coming,

it's a real delight, actually, hearing the audience utterly terrified. I think we should explain what gin is. Gin is... Actually, I think Nadia's better to... Nadia, why don't you explain to the audience? There will be, obviously, lots of people who will know, but some may not.

Yeah, my grandmother explained to me when I was very small as if angels are good and devils are bad, then the gin is something in between in so much as there can be good gin and there can be bad gin, but they have their own will. And she explained it to me as they're why bad things happen to good people.

And that's a really scary idea, right? Because we sort of believe in a binary universe where it's like, I'm a good person. Obviously terrible things happen to good people all the time. You only have to look at it. at the conflicts around the world at the moment or at any time in history to feel that. And I think that actually gin being the embodiment of this like malevolent chaos. I would say that they say they're a good gin, but I've never heard of gin being good.

They always seem to be up to nefarious things. But yes, it's a sort of, it's a, it's a Middle Eastern and North African kind of cultural belief that sits alongside Islam, but is not exclusive to it. And we were, I think in amongst the company and the cast, we could all agree that we were all raised to be afraid of Yeah. Layla, let's talk about your character. We heard a bit of her hair. She's based on the original writer's mother. She's unable to continue her studies in Tehran under the regime.

Was that interesting to explore? Yes, it really was. As someone who's had so many opportunities myself and been able to study, someone that can't do what she wants to do has an ambiguity towards motherhood, is living under conflict, and has a terrible sense of inertia and sorrow and nowhere for those feelings to go. So intense claustrophobia.

And Nadia, she's also experiencing more restrictions for women generally. So does that isolation aid with the suspense? Yeah, absolutely. You know, really, you know, all horror is really about somebody who doesn't believe in something, growing to believe in something. You know, the basic, plot of nearly all horror films. And I think actually when somebody is cut off from the rest of

their life, those ideas can take hold much, much faster because you're in a sort of chamber piece. And it was also quite, you know, I grew up in a certain political state in Sudan. You know, I sort of know what it is to feel increasingly cut off from the world outside. And I think it's where ideas can sort of take hold very quickly. Yeah, yeah, and you're British Iranian, Leila, and did you, you spent time in Iran when you were little? I spent time in Iran when I was little, yes. So were you familiar with this period? I was very familiar with this period and quite how oppressive Iran felt and the difference between the inside and the outside and just what it's like to live under that kind of totalitarian regime while you're also trying to pursue your dreams and parent is quite a task to ask of any woman.

And what's it like sort of, because, you know, you've got a very successful career, we've seen in lots of different roles, to play someone who's your heritage, your history, to kind of delve into that within yourself? Yes, it's the first time I've done it, really. And I've found the whole process very moving and quite profound. And I felt very supported by, you know, a brilliant Lebanese writer, Carmen Nassia, with her Sudanese heritage is sharing this kind of, It's an epigenetic trauma.

I do think that sits in all of us that we, I park a lot of the time and letting it come to the surface and talking about it and listening to the music and really going there has been, I feel very lucky to have been part of it. And the horror comes from supernatural forces and your character has her beliefs challenged.

Tell us a bit more about that. Well, she's a very rational, cynical, woman of science. and has all everything in compartments in her body and doesn't let anything come to the surface. And through the gin haunting her, she has to confront other huge things in her unconscious, like her ambivalence towards being a mother

and just the rage that she's sort of suppressed for so many years and the pain. So the gin is physical, but it is also metaphorical. Any women out there want to, express there in a rage. 844-4-844 is the text number. It's, Nadia, it's set in Tehran, there is bombardment. Does it seem more relevant than ever? I think to certain people, it will seem more easily relevant, but I think the real horror is that it has always been relevant. And actually, the thing that is one of the most remarkable thing about the Iranian

people is their endurance of suffering. And I think, you know, we've got a lot, we've got people from Palestine in our cast, from Syria, from Lebanon. It's something that we all, you know, understand and live with. You know, my family fled the war in Sudan in 23, which is a slight difference. It's a ground war. But I think it's something we all understand, which is to live with the constant terror of having to leave in a split second. And I think it's a, it's, you know, maybe for audiences here, it is utterly incomprehensible. But I think that what you hope for in an active theatre is an act of extreme empathy between an audience and the story. So I think, you know, a lot of the play is about how much Shida is like people like us in London in

2026. And when you realise that there are sort of elements of a life that are so extremely different, you know, to keep running into bomb shelters, you know, every evening to hide from shells and that kind, you know, and to think that, you know, there's not a kind of gross relativism between like what would it be like for me, but to just understand that there are millions of people living around the world with that type of fear every day. And as we started the program this morning, women and children living with that fear in Belfast. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and what it must be like, you know, if you are lucky enough to have children,

what it must be like to raise children in an environment like that, and how you can keep them safe, not just literally physically from the effects of war, but also how you can keep their childhood safe, that sense of being a child and feeling protection. and feeling like actually your worldview is quite small, you know, and how impossible that is. I think it's interesting as well that how normal, how it's so normalized in Iran to have done all these things,

to be panicked about your headscarf, to be, there is no self-pity. There's no time for poor me. There's no time to go and talk to even therapists about your pain and your suffering. You just have to get on with it because, that's just everyday life. So it's a really interesting thing to examine that none of these people are sobbing on the stage

and angry about what they've been dealt, the cars have been dealt. That's just you just get on with it. And do you think about the women and your own sort of family when you think about when you were playing that character? Yes, I do. I think, I mean, my parents' generation that all live through the revolution and have definitely developed a kind of very thick skin

when it comes to this sort of thing. And yeah, you don't have time to wallow. You just get on and you develop quite a dark sense of humour, I'd say they all have. And yeah, your empathy is extremely high because you understand. What was it like, Nadia, putting this play together with this extraordinary cast? And as you've mentioned, the kind of backgrounds that people come from to have. And Lela, for the first time, playing someone, being Iranian, actually playing somebody in Iran. Do you know what?

I always find amazing that the hardest plays I've ever done, and this would be one of them. You inevitably spend most of your time worrying about getting props on and offstage, less about the grand themes. But I don't think that's a coincidence. I think that for a lot of people, it's much easier to fixate on the kind of technically demanding elements of which this play has hundreds. And actually to just let everything else kind of sit in the kind of agreed, shared emotional space.

Like we all know, because we're all from those backgrounds, we all understand each other. And actually sometimes we don't need to talk about it. We just worry about how are we going to get that thing from there to there. I think also the element, because we've got young children in the play in very large parts. And, you know, the little girls who play Leila's daughter, daughter, means that you're having to do everything three times

because they obviously rotate. So actually having the kids to fix on really focuses you. And, you know, lots of, I'm sure there's lots of big conversations happening after people see the play, but actually, most important question, are they coming out scared? Are you terrifying the bejibas out of your audience? Oh, they're utterly, utterly terrified. The scream last night was extraordinary.

It had a ripple effect. It was unbelievable. Yes, Nadia is the Queen of Scars. It really is terrifying. Brilliant. I'll take that crown. Thank you. Well, Under the Shadows is now on at the Elmida in London,

and it's until the 4th of July, Leila Fazard and Nadia Lateef. Thank you so much for joining me to speak about that. I'm going to end with a message from one of you, and this is from Betty, who says on Emily's poem about her son, oh, how I love this poem. chills up and down my spine and in tears. Join me tomorrow for more Women's Hour. That's all for today's Woman's Hour.

Join us again next time. I'm Gemmiganda, and for BBC Radio 4 and Shadow World, this is stolen years. More than two decades ago, Andrew Malkinson was found guilty of a crime he didn't commit. There's a massive hole in your life, and it's been filled in with suffering. Now in 2026, another man has faced a jury of his peers.

On trial for the very same crime, Andrew spent years of his life imprisoned for. I'm 55. I was 37 when I went in. It's damaging. Driven by Andy's passion to see the system held to account. We follow him as he tries to build back a life. And we discover how Paul Quinn came to finally be convicted. Subscribe to Shadow World Stolen Years on BBC Sounds.