Woman's Hour - Rumer, Kerry Godliman, Afghan women's cricket

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

The singer/songwriter Rumer is a MOBO award winner and double Brit Award nominee. Her new album In Session is out today celebrating the 15th anniversary of her platinum debut album Seasons Of My Soul. The success that followed that album affected her mental health. She stepped away from the industry and relocated to the US. Now back in the UK she has returned to the record that has shaped so much of her life both professionally and personally. Rumer joins Anita Rani to talk about her life and music and to perform live in the studio.Afghanistan’s women’s cricket team have played their first match since being exiled three years ago. Cricket commentator Alison Mitchell and Firoza Amiri from the squad discuss the game and their fight for official ICC recognition. Are people better served by sexual assault referral centres than by self- swabbing in cases of alleged rape? Tana Adkin KC says we should be careful. Katie White is the co-founder of Enough, who have developed these kits and currently running a pilot project in Bristol. They've given away 7000 in just 12 weeks. The two of them are in the Woman's Hour studio to discuss.Actor and comedian Kerry Godliman, is best known for her portrayal of Lisa Johnson, the deceased wife of Ricky Gervais’ character Tony in the hit Netflix series After Life. She now returns to the stage with her new stand-up show Bandwidth – on being a middle age woman – everything from parenting teenagers, to considering dealing HRT on the black market to losing her mum bag. And we look back at the life of Marianne Faithfull hearing her when she was last on Woman's Hour in 2011.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Kirsty Starkey

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, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast has been removed for this podcast. Good morning and welcome to Friday's Woman's Hour. Singer-songwriter Ruma had huge success with her debut album 15 years ago and then needed to take time out to look after herself. Well, now she's back and lucky us, we'll be performing a song live from her new album. The Afghan women's cricket team had to flee to Australia.

They played a match last night. They might be back at the wicket, but they're not recognised by the ICC as a team. I'll be finding out why and speaking to one of the team. Rape statistics in the UK are shocking, as we know, because we discussed the lack of prosecutions, convictions, even women coming forward to report them

often on the programme. Well, one woman has attempted to do something about it by creating a self-swab kit. We'll be discussing whether it will help or not. And actor and comedian Kerry Godleyman will be telling us about her new talk called Bandwidth, Tackling Life as a Middle-Aged Woman. So today, I'm checking in with all of you and your bandwidth, your mental capacity to deal with things right now.

Is there less you can tolerate, the older you get? And if so, what has been the first thing that you've let go of? Domestic duties, maybe. Ironing, cleaning, cooking. Are you sick of your child not being able to put on their gloves or tie their own shoelaces so you don't bother anymore? Mittens and slip-on shoes, I hear, are a pretty good alternative. Have you changed tack with how you communicate with your teenager?

Quit making other people's beds. Have you ditched friends because your communicate with your teenager? Quit making other people's beds. Have you ditched friends because your bandwidth can't take any more? Whatever is happening with you, take a check of yourself. Get in touch with me and share your bandwidth situation this morning. The text number is 84844. You can email me via the website or you can send me a WhatsApp or even a voice note. It's 03700 100 444 and social media we are at bbc woman's hour right delighted to say singer and songwriter rumor is with us she's a

mobo award winner and double brit award nominee her new album in session is out today celebrating the 15th anniversary of her multi-platinum-selling debut, Seasons of My Soul, which sold more than one million copies. The success that followed that album affected her mental health to the point where she decided to step away from the industry and relocated to the US. Well, I'm pleased to say Rumour is now back in the UK and has returned to the record that has shaped so much of her life.

Selected tracks have been given a fresh, soulful take. Tell me about the new album. Welcome, by the way. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. The new album, In Session. Why did you want to make it? Well, I've been playing these songs for quite a long time. And I started working with this group called Redenbacher's Funkestra, which is a group led by an Austrian music this group called Redenbacher's Funkestra which is a group

led by an Austrian music director called Stefan Redenbacher and we had so much fun sort of revisiting some of my older material that we decided to record the sessions and I thought it'd be a nice time with the 15th anniversary to come coming up of Seasons of My Soul to just yeah just a fresh take and a bit more of a soulful take on some of the songs that people love. What was it like revisiting them 15 years later? No, it was really nice because obviously when you play live, you know, things evolve and change and it was nice to kind of, you know, play those arrangements, different arrangements.

And it's nine songs and it's not just seasons of my soul there's one from nashville tears one from boys don't cry um and i think yeah there's a few other ones in there so it's like a sort of best of but it's a re-record and is it a statement of saying i'm back yeah i think you know i think i definitely you don't need to wear your headphones oh sorry you relax relax yeah um I definitely um you know have been you know I have been back now a few years and and I put out Nashville Tears in 2020 yeah um during you know during the pandemic and yeah I think it's it's nice to sort of get back out there you know I'm doing a tour in October and and also just yeah show my appreciation to the fans in the UK that you know I'm I'm here and I want to make more music and I'm working on my next

record as well so yeah I think it is a sense of yeah just just coming back into the marketplace we are very happy about it because we've missed you we've missed that voice that voice that had the comparisons with Karen Carpenter's voice i mean what does what do you think of that oh i love i love the carpenters i love karen carpenter so it's it was very flattering to be compared to karen carpenter so i yeah i'm a fan too we want to go back a bit now 15 years because your original album your debut season it was multi-platinum debut album selling more than a million copies huge success applaud it's from the likes of Elton John and Burt Bacharach no less but how did that success affect you? Well it was a bit of a shock at the time because I thought I was making quite a niche record I

thought I was making a jazzy kind of a record that you know might get a few reviews in a couple of jazz magazines or something so I wasn't expecting it to be in the pop world or to be received as well as it was. So I think at the time I just wasn't, I didn't have much support. You know, you know, I would come like say for like, like today, for example, I would go home and though, you know, to nobody there to make me a cup of tea and say hello kind of thing. So I had like very little foundations under me and it was very lonely. It was a very lonely time because I was doing a lot of traveling and I felt isolated. So I felt like I needed to kind of regroup and, you know, just put some things in place in my life that would give me more balance. Why, what happened? How did that affect you, the loneliness and having all the success

and the fame and all the rest of it and then going home to nobody? Yeah, it was, it's the extremes, you know. So, for example, you know, you get up, you go to, say, a morning show, not dissimilar to this one, or a TV show, and you're getting dressed and your makeup and the hair and everything and then, you know, you're back in a taxi at 9 30 and fully made up sitting alone in a flat you know and it just the contrast of it's not normal you know what I mean it's just not your adrenaline's quite high I imagine and yeah or like you're in you're doing a show and then you're in a hotel

room by yourself so it's it's it's the extremes, what it does to your body. And also just feeling like this isn't a natural way of life, you know, a natural way of life is to be part of your community. So when did you realise that it was affecting your mental health and you needed to do something about it? Oh, you know, I was somebody who was quite well, you know, quite a well person. And suddenly I was sort of wading through medication. I had medication for my ears, medication for this, that and the third. It was like I was getting physically unwell, actually, to the point where I was realising that, yeah, just not well physically.

So you decided to leave? Yeah, I just thought this is, you know, this is obviously, you know, I have to do something, you know, to reconnect with my soul, you know, and my spirit, you know, because it had been, you know, at risk of kind of getting seriously ill. So I went to America. I started off in Los Angeles um just on my own I rented an

Airbnb um cottage in the backyard of this family and um back then there were no Ubers so I was like I didn't have a car couldn't drive anyway so I just thought mean people are making friends and it was a bit scary at first um you know and then I spent a bit more time with my now husband, Rob, who was out there. And then we ended up moving to Arkansas. And then that kind of, that was the beginning of my sort of healing journey going to live in Arkansas. You really stepped away, didn't you?

Spending time in nature. Yeah. Yeah, because it was, America's a great place to immerse in nature because it's just so magnificent. And on a scale that we're not used to. And so a dog walk is a pretty epic dog walk out there, hiking in LA or river walks. So you've got epic countryside, you've got dog, very healing. And someone to make you a cup of tea, you've got dog. Yeah, I've got a dog. Very healing, very healing.

And someone to make you a cup of tea as well, Rima. Exactly, exactly. And, you know, it's interesting, you know, when I was looking at this, you know, when we heard the news about Liam Payne, it was so tragic. And I thought people think that he died of, you know, drugs or alcohol, but actually he died of loneliness. You know, it's loneliness that causes the loneliness of the job and the experience. So when I was reading about you taking time away

because so much had happened to your mental health and as you said, it was impacting you physically, I thought even that is a lot to make a choice as a woman when you've got success and you've got a career and you're working hard to say I'm thinking about me I need to that that moment that making that decision is quite a huge decision well you know you're going to take a hit you know you know you're going to be not punished but there is going to be consequences there's going to be consequences but you know I was at that time I was about 34 35 and you know it was like if I don't have a baby now, if I don't have get have a family, get married, have children, it won't happen.

So I had to make a decision about about focusing on that area of my life and deciding that that was an important part of my life as well. And I knew that, you know, eventually I would be able to, you know, come back into the music business. And you are here. We've got to talk about more of your personal life because I want to talk about your mum. Yeah. She sounds incredible. What was her name? Margaret. Margaret. So you were born in Pakistan. I was born in Pakistan. I was one of eight children. My mum was somebody who, you know, she was very, very bright. She got 100% in her 11 plus and got a scholarship to St. Paul's Cathedral Girl School. But my granny

wouldn't let her go because it wasn't Catholic. And so she ended up getting married very young. And she, my dad, you know, he was adventurous. And they went to Australia, went to Western Australia in 1962, to 10-pound poms. So they ended up moving out there and then they traveled the world with my dad's job as an engineer to remote parts of the world where they were building infrastructure and such. And then in the 70s, they ended up in Pakistan because my dad was the chief engineer of the Tarbela Dam project which is a huge world fund world bank funded um huge dam dam yeah um which took decades to build and um so they had like a sort of community and clubhouse and it was you know living together yeah it was quite international in those days you had to bring your whole family with you yeah so it was full of children and stuff like that so yeah that's where i was born in that community out there.

And then your parents split up and you came to live. Yeah, back down in the New Forest. Yeah. And when did you discover who your actual father was? Yeah, I didn't find out till I was 11. I mean, I always knew I was different because my my sister brothers and sisters are blonde and blue-eyed and I used to be very confused like I knew there was something up because I was so I was dark and I was darker as a child than I am now but I was I was dark I had dark skin I knew

I was different I knew I was a person of color you know I was a person of color and um you know so I just I knew there was something up and then she she told me um when I was 11 and it was never really mentioned again it was like it was she told me and it was like she said um well how she approached it was you've got three dads and then she proceeded to mention um you know you've got you know your dad in Turkey who was living in Turkey at the time and I was thinking well I don't see him very much and then she goes well Peter and I'm thinking Peter this is her husband now and I'm thinking no next and she's like and you've got another dad and um yeah and then she who is your biological father yeah and he was the he was um

the you know part of our family you know a very big part of our family he um was our sort of bearer in pakistan so every you know international family would have a bearer somebody who would do sorry all the you know um just all the household stuff and translating all the shopping going into raupindi to shopping or whatever they had to do um and my mom was a linguist she spoke five six different languages and he was teaching her urdu and she was interested in islam and learning about the religion she was highly interested she's very bright she's very bright. She's very bright, very interesting woman, like really interested in it all. What's happened as an adult then when you really processed it? I know you went to Pakistan to try and find him,

but he'd only just died a few months ago. He'd just died. Well, this whole thing was never mentioned again until my mum got cancer and she was dying of cancer and she said, look, I really want to leave this planet with my house in order. I want you to go there and she arranged look I really I want to leave this planet with my house in order you know I want you to go there and she arranged for me to go there I went there all the way up to this mountain village and sat down and ordered a cup of tea and the waiter comes over and he says I said

I'm looking for this man and it was a pet photograph and he said that's my father wow he died three months ago and so there you are confronted with not only the fact that the man that you came to find had died, but also he said, this is your stepbrother. He's my half-brother. Half-brother, yes. Half-brother, yeah. So that was, I don't know, it was the whole thing was,

it was an interesting, it was a difficult trip because I was only young. I was only like 21, 22 at the time. And nowhere near as emotionally able to cope with that sure um but but you know it set off a chain of events because I kept in touch with Saeed and I've kept in touch with the family and then over the last sort of 18 years I've been I've been sending money over there to support them and an education of education of his children um and you know now the oldest girl is 18 and i'm sorry she's older than 18 she's got a degree wonderful from from the local university

from aptabad government university but i haven't even got a degree now bearing in mind they couldn't read or write yeah that's going to radically change everything yeah so the education and you know it was so important because none of them not even Saeed could read or write in his own language. So. How wild for them as well to understand that you are part of their family. Were they very accepting? We didn't really talk about it. We've only recently started talking about it now that Alishba is communicating to me on WhatsApp and she can speak a bit of English because I couldn't

speak with Saeed I could you know it was very difficult he would just give the phone to random people in the street or men in shops or whatever sorry we're talking a lot aren't we no we no we can continue I mean I could talk all hour but we've got quite a lot to get I've still got on my phone like the like men in the bazaar you know that have called me because he's given the phone to you know use their phone or whatever but yeah now I'm able to talk to her directly because she's educated and can speak a bit of English. And we've got a plan now. We're making plans together to, you know, help the other siblings along. And yeah.

Ruma, it's been such a pleasure to talk to you. We'll have to do the Woman's Hour extended version and continue the story because it's fascinating. I've got so much I need to ask you about. But we have run out of time. Thank you so much for coming in and performing for us. The album In Session

is out today. It's gorgeous and the tour begins in October. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you.

84844 is the number to text. What have you ditched from your bandwidth? Lots of you getting into touch. My bandwidth is always stretched to snapping point, full time in the NHS, single mum to three, two still at home, dealing with death, admin from my mum's passing. So I don't make beds.

I don't do ironing. I cut out idiots from my life. I make big efforts to see important people. I remind others to do the same. We have to make the best of what we can manage to keep up sane and healthy. Yes. 84844. Now, in 2021, life for women in Afghanistan completely changed when the Taliban took over.

For the country's female sporting stars, no longer being able to compete saw many flee in order to follow their passion. In fact, 19 of the 22 players on Afghanistan's women's team managed to escape to Australia. And after living in exile for three years, they played their first match yesterday. But despite this being an exciting milestone for the squad, they're still yet to be officially recognised by the International Cricket Council as a national team. Test match special commentator and host of the BBC's cricket podcast Stumped, Alison Mitchell is here. Been following the story closely. And also I'm delighted to say we're joined by Afghan cricketer Farooza Amiri, who played in the match. Farooza, welcome to Women's Hour.

Hi, Alison. Welcome. I'm going to go to Farooza first. Farooza, how was the game yesterday? How was it to finally get back to the wicket and play? Hi, thanks for having me here. I can't say about yesterday and what happened because it's been to finally get back to the wicket and play? Hi, thanks for having me here. I can't say about yesterday and what happened because it's been just amazing

having the teams cheering, support. I would say feeling proud and everything happened yesterday in the match. When did you first start playing cricket? So I started playing cricket actually when I was 15. So I never liked to play cricket. I would say before I started playing cricket. So I had a sister, my older sister, which is my,

she is my role model. So she started actually playing cricket and every day she was on the ground. So I was wondering to go to the ground and see what is that passion that she cannot stop playing cricket so I went to the ground as soon as I get that bat in my hand my opinion about cricket completely changed and I stopped playing cricket since that time I've been in love with cricket obviously. And then tell us what happened when the Taliban took over in 2021 so here you are as a 15-year-old enjoying playing cricket with your sister.

What changed then? How did things change? Oh, everything being changed. I left Afghanistan. I always say living in Afghanistan is the same as leaving your mum forever and never can see again. So I had to have the best life, achieving my dreams. I was playing as 17 years old girls. I was playing for Afghanistan. I got Afghanistan national contract. That was always my dream to represent my country at the highest level I can. So once Taliban came

to Afghanistan, I remember in a day I was sitting with my grandmas and my family. When Taliban took over, my oldest aunt came and she said to me that Afghanistan fell into Taliban. So it's like I'm talking and I'm shaking at the moment. And it's same thing happened. So I just went to shock. And only for like a few days, I was just crying. I was in shock. I didn't know what's going to happen. Because in fact, my parents experienced the same thing during their time, first regime of Taliban. So I already knew that what's going to happen for my family when Taliban took over.

So it's been just, I would say, it's been the horrible time and moment that we all passed and came to Australia. How did you make that decision? How did you make that decision to leave and go to Australia, Farooza? Was it a joint family decision? I would say we never had a decision to be alive and survive. We were forced to leave Afghanistan forever. So my parents, when we went to one from Herat,

which is the western part of Afghanistan, when the Taliban took over, me and my family went to Kabul to get out of Afghanistan because all the flights and everything was in Kabul. So we went to Kabul. I stayed in Kabul 30 days, although I didn't know what was going to happen because my captain was the one in charge of everything. So once we got the visa and then we went to Pakistan.

So that was how the journey started. And then you ended up in Australia. I'm going to bring Alison in here. Alison, how did they end up in Australia? Good morning. Morning, Anita. It's an incredible story. We'll hear about the match in a minute. But how did the Afghan women's team end up in Australia? Good morning. Morning Anita. It's an incredible story we'll hear about the match in a minute

but how did the Afghan women's team end up in Australia? Well that in itself is an extraordinary story set about by a very small number of extraordinary women so Mel Jones who is a former Australia World Cup winner and now commentator

one of her good friends in Australia and Melbourne Emma Staples who has since become like a mother figure to the girls just like Feroza and the. And Catherine, Dr. Catherine Ordway, who's from the University of Canberra, researcher in sports integrity and a sports lawyer. And it was simply off their own back that they were touched by, you know, the Taliban moves in and Mel was actually staying with me in England at the time when it first happened. And I think both of our immediate thoughts were, well, there's some women cricketers there.

Like, what's happening to the women cricketers? But Mel took that on and set in chain what she and Emma and Catherine have referred to as a backyard immigration setup. She was in quarantine at the time going back to Australia. And they just got in motion, speaking to the Australian government, securing these emergency visas,

set about this chain of events where they're dropping pins on maps to instruct Uber drivers where to go to pick up the girls to help them get across the border. They won't say it themselves, but I know they put their hands in their own pockets, for example, to help the girls and their families stay and hide in hotels at some points. So they've put so much of their own energy into simply helping these girls and their families. What a remarkable story.

And that's before we've even spoken about the actual cricket. It's incredible. So finally they played, the team played last night, but what level of cricket are the team playing? Well, before the team left Afghanistan, they'd never been able to actually play a match together. Once they got to Australia, Emma, Mel, Catherine and Olivia Thornton, who's from Cricket ACT in Canberra, they helped the girls to find places in club cricket.

And the community club level cricket in Australia has absolutely embraced girls just like Feroza and her teammates. And ultimately, the girls were trying to, the women were trying to reach out to the ICC to say, look, what is our status as cricketers now that we're no longer in Afghanistan? You know, we were contracted. What now? What about funding? Is there any funding that goes to Afghanistan to the board that could actually be redirected to us in Australia? And they just kept getting pushed back. You're a matter for the Afghan Cricket Board. Well, that was the very board that they were ostracized from. Of course, they weren't members of the Afghan Cricket Board anymore. They've had to flee. pushing. Cricket Australia eventually has staged this match.

And I tell you that the great and the good of Australian cricket were there to support it yesterday. But that is one moment. And the big question now is sort of what next? It's a spine-tingling story. Well, what next? Because the ICC hasn't recognised them as an official team. What does that mean?

The ICC will say that they deal with their members. They are a constituent body. It's not as if they are sort of an autocratic organisation that can just take decisions unilaterally. They are a function of their parts, and their parts are primarily 12 member nations. That includes the Afghanistan Cricket Board, the England Cricket Board, Australia, the Indian Cricket Board.

And they will say, we can only serve our member. But the truth is the ICC can change their rules they change their own rules in order to allow the Afghanistan men's team to have test status and play test cricket and be a full member anyway in 2017 so this is a an extraordinary situation that Afghanistan cricket finds itself in which you would think requires an extraordinary solution where there is a will, there is a way. And it seems that there has been no will from the ICC to recognise the women as a group themselves.

So it's fallen upon that group of volunteers to make that happen. Firoza, what are your thoughts on that? Your team still isn't recognised by the ICC. Yeah, as Mitchell said, it's been the toughest journey for all of us. We were expecting that ICC is going to support us throughout this journey. But as Mitchell says, we have had people from Cricket Australia that we have always been grateful, Mel Jones, Emma Staples, Catherine Alderweire, Olivia.

So without these people, it's never been possible that we play for Afghanistan on a match like yesterday and it's not been possible that we could continue playing cricket and also we got so much support from the Australian cricket board that led us to play and to achieve our dream since we arrived in australia but you know this is something that we always been expecting from icc because they are international council and all the team being um they they left everything behind they lost everything they they their family i know some of our members they left their families just because to come and play cricket in their country like australia we never knew that if we're going to lose everything, ICC will not support us.

And I remember we had a chat yesterday with some of the members. They said when we sent the letter to ICC, they simply responded, we are happy that you are safe. That's not the response that we want from ICC. Well, I have a statement here from an ICC spokesperson, and they said the ICC remains closely engaged with the situation in Afghanistan and continues to collaborate with our members. We are committed to leveraging our influence constructively to support the Afghanistan Cricket Board, ACB,

in fostering cricket development and ensuring playing opportunities for both men and women in Afghanistan. The ICC has established an Afghanistan cricket task force chaired by Deputy Chairman Mr Imran Khawaja, who will lead the ongoing dialogue on this matter. I mean, this is something we'll be following closely. Alison, thank you so much. Yes, go. Yeah, just one thing to say in terms of the what next project has been launched today called Pitch Our Future, which is to set up a three-year programme that will be run by those volunteers in Australia to give that wraparound support for the

women, so for their cricket education, even their life skills, because some of the women arrived in Australia without, you know, basic, say, water safety, swimming, certainly English language, you know, Feruza has worked on that. I remember meeting them back two years ago in Melbourne and the advancement they've made is so much. But Pitch Our Future has launched today, which the MCC are backing as well in order to try and give that support to the women where the formal governing body of world cricket is lacking. Well, what a remarkable story

of a lot of very powerful women involved who won't stop, I'm sure. Thank you so much, Alison, for coming in. Alison Mitchell, BBC's cricket commentator and has the podcast stumped. And Firuza Amiri, thank you, Firuza, for speaking to me. And may you score a six in the next match. Thank you.

Lots of you getting in touch about bandwidth. I'm managing my low bandwidth by scaling back what stresses I can and can't manage following a recent diagnosis of bipolar disorder. It's refreshing to set new boundaries and focus on my needs for once. I'm Sarah Treleaven

and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy.

And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now. Now, concerns around the low level of rapes being reported to police

and the few that are prosecuted and convicted in the UK are something we look at on the programme regularly. According to the most recent ONS statistics for England and Wales, released less than a week ago, there were 69,184 rapes reported to the police up to the year ending June 2024 and latest figures the crime survey for England and

Wales indicate that 83% of women who were raped in England and Wales do not report it to the police well her own disquiet about the situation led Katie White to co-found Enough, a non-for-profit campaign to stop violence against women 18 months ago. Enough has now developed their own self-swabbing kits for situations where a rape may have taken place. Currently being piloted in Bristol, so far they've provided 7,000 kits in three months to those in the city who've approached them. Tana Adkin is a KC who has prosecuted and defended in rape cases for more than 30 years and is currently the legal representative for the Forensic Committee of the Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians. Tana has voiced her

concerns over the introduction of these kits and their impact on the outcomes for victims and complainants and they both join me now. Welcome, both of you, to Woman's Hour. So, Katie, I think we need to start by understanding what a self-swabbing kit is. Tell us about them. Yeah, thank you for having me on today. Tom and I started enough because we're frustrated with the intolerable levels of rape in society. The vast majority of survivors choose not to report

what's happened to them. They are unsupported, perpetrators remain undeterred and if you speak to survivors many of them say what they want is a simple and discreet way of confirming something bad happened to them to help create a deterrent to protect other people and to get better. The point of our DNA kit isn't to funnel people into criminal justice, it is to validate them, such a crucial step in recovery, and to create social deterrence. Enough's not an alternative to the police, it is an alternative to inaction. We say to anyone who is considering reporting to the police or a sexual assault referral centre that they should go there first, that is the more detailed forensic examination.

So what happens then? What do your kits provide? What is it that they enable victims to do? We've given out 7,000 of them in Bristol already. So that initially creates deterrence. It's a very clear signal of there being consequences for sex without consent and allyship with survivors over perpetrators. If someone was to be raped and wanted to use one of the kits, they would

ideally have one already or their friend would have one, or they could get one from any one of our safe spaces across Bristol. They order a hot orange and they're given one for free. They use it, they put it back into the same packet that it came in, put it straight in the post, free post, go straight to the laboratory. And in 48 hours, they get confirmation of someone in or on their body. Tana, what are your concerns about these kits? Well, in court, we're used to being able to rely on the forensic evidence in rape cases that is collected from our SARCs, our sexual assault referral centres, because the methods that have been established are accredited, they're by experts in these centres.

Collection of samples, not just DNA, but all samples, is private and reliable, tested in accredited laboratories. And we're concerned that self-taken swabs are far more likely to be subject to contamination, to raise issues as to continuity of evidence, more likely to be admissible in court ultimately. And the results aren't even compared to the police national database. So we are very concerned that really to try and catch perpetrators and deter them, the criminal justice system needs to work effectively. And we worry that these self-taken swabs will undermine that. Can you understand Katie? Yes and that's why we encourage anyone who wants to report to the police or Sark to do that

first but we can't argue with the reality of the situation which is over 400,000 women each year are raped. The vast majority of them choose not to report officially. And even the ones that do decide to go to the police, more of them than not do so at least a week after it's happened. So the forensic window is closed at that point anyway. Tana, what could these be used then? If a woman has been raped and she's used the self-swab kick, what then could happen with them? Could they then use them? Well, the problem is they are the subject of challenge because at the moment, if somebody goes to a SARC, and in fact, they can go a week later.

A SARC is a sexual assault referral centre. They're free. They work under the NHS. They have expertly trained sexual clinicians who are there to have a holistic approach. So when a victim of rape goes to them they listen they take them through the process and explain what what they can choose to do and what they can choose not to do but samples that are taken are kept in an accredited system so we can always go back to them if we need to and if someone goes to go to the police subsequently the problem with DIY rape kits is there's no way of testing contamination if you're taking them in your room, for example. It's a clinical environment at a SARC,

but it's more than that because at a SARC, they take, as I say, the holistic approach. If mental health issues, you know, you need counselling. If you've got other injuries, if you need treatment, you might need treatment for pregnancy or HIV or sexually transmitted disease. So all of that is taken into account. The Office for National Statistics data, and I know you know all the figures,

but they say that women don't come forward because 40% is due to embarrassment and the process being humiliating is 34%. Wouldn't this, the self-swabbing, remove some of those underlying barriers? If the self-swabbing kits were admissible in court, that would help the system, but they are unlikely to be. And we already have a system which has been developed over many years. Cases now very rarely rely on forensic evidence, actually, because it's unchallenged, because it's so good.

Katie, what do you think? I mean, if they're not going to be permissible in court and they're not seen as reliable? Yeah, so it's not the point of enough. The many survivors do not want to go down the criminal justice route. And it is not up to anyone to say that that's the only form of justice for this crime. Many people just want that confirmation, their validation. People have described it to us as putting it in a box, being done with it, being able to move on with your life, especially with students at university. Those are the best years of their life.

They don't want that to take over and define them. What have they said to you? You've obviously done a lot of research. And what have young people and students or whoever you spoke to, what have they been telling you? The main response that we have had from students in Bristol is relief that this finally exists, that there is finally a solution that allows them to self-test in the privacy of their own home,

discreetly, no questions asked. And this is for people who would never go to the police or a sexual assault referral centre. But only if there's a reason. It's only useful if something can then be done with the self-swabbing, right? And you're telling me that nothing can be. Well, that's right. I mean, many, many victims don't want to go to the police initially. That's why SARCs are so important under the NHS. They're independent of the police. You don't have to go to the police initially. That's why SARCs are so important under the NHS.

They're independent of the police. You don't have to go to the police immediately. But the samples and the care that is delivered there can lead you perhaps to want to change that later and make a complaint to the police and support a prosecution later. That often happens, but you can't support the prosecution if you don't have the samples that were taken initially or the care initially, because your case may be undermined. I mean, both of you are doing essentially the same thing. We all want to get to the same outcome here. Absolutely. Tana, you've been working for 30 years in this industry. You're a casey, you're at the top of the game, you're involved in every level. You know what this, what you're in the system. The statistics, they they showed that 38 didn't think the police could

help 25 that the police wouldn't believe them is anything changing anecdotally what is happening what is happening with attitude well things are changing um operation soteria bluestone was a program put in place by the home office in 2021 which completely changed the game. Police officers were retrained, CPS were retrained, all on the aspects of rape, stereotypes, myths and so on. So that has made a difference. Last year, there were 51%

more prosecutions for rape. So things are changing. Perhaps they're not changing fast enough. We need to look at issues like embarrassment and people that feel humiliated. But the courts have changed. We have special measures now

for complainants. I'm not saying it's easy and I'm not saying it's perfect, but we really are making a difference. Is there a worry, Katie, that if this does happen to a young person and they think that self-swabbing is, maybe self-swabbing could be a deterrent from going to the police? I just want to add a couple of things because conviction rates today are less than 1%.

Even if that improves by 10 times, that is still 390,000 women who are not getting justice in the form that you're describing it. SARCs help 30,000 people per year. This happens to over 400,000. What about the other 370,000? The kits can be admissible because anything that is reliable and relevant to a court case and it will be decided by the judge can be considered admissible and it's not just frozen dna from the moment it happened it's accompanied with a time stamp testimony that confirms what happened the the result that we are that we are overwhelmingly hearing from students is and from survivors nationally is that people don't necessarily want to go to the police. It's a test case still, Antana.

Well, I think that's the important thing is that people have confidence in the criminal justice system and are looked after, which I think they are better than they used to be. It's only through that system and making a complaint. These perpetrators can be stopped and brought to justice. That's the most important thing. The reason there is only said to be 1% success rate as far as court cases are concerned is because people aren't complaining. And they're not complaining because of perhaps a lack of trust in the past. But police have been retrained. The CPS have been retrained.

And barristers who are specialist rape and serious sexual offence prosecutors like myself have been working so hard on this to encourage girls and women to come forward, but also young men. So we are working on that and we hope that things are improving. Katie White and Tana Adkin-Casey, thank you so much for coming in to talk to me about that. And I must add that if you've been affected by anything you've heard today, please go to the BBC Action Line website where you can find support links. Thank you both. Thank you, Lisa. 84844, that text number once again. Now, actor and comedian Kerry Godleyman

is best known for her portrayal of Lisa Johnson, the deceased wife of Ricky Gervais' character Tony in the hit Netflix series Afterlife. You can also see her doing some cosy crime in the drama Whitstable Pearl and also in Trigger Point, Derek, Adult Material and Taskmaster. She won Series 7. Yes, she did. She now returns to the stage with her new stand-up show, Bandwidth,

where she'll be tackling being a middle-aged woman on everything from parenting teenagers to considering dealing HRT on the black market. To Nicola Admin. Well, I'm delighted to say she market, to Nicker Admin. Well, I'm delighted to say she's here to explain all. Welcome. Hello.

First of all, congratulations on being a middle-aged woman. Oh, thanks, May. I'm enjoying it. This is a celebration of it. It started as a rant and it turned into a celebration. Explain. Tell me about the tour. Tell us about Bandwidth.

I haven't done a tour for a few years and it's I think my relationship with stand-up is it's something that I have a deep affection for and despite having all these lovely acting you know experiences I always just end up going back to stand-up because it just feels like a space where I can really say what I like and you really do and I really do and uh and I suppose that's what's joyful about stand-up comedy. You get to say what you like. So what are you going to be saying in this one? Well, what I think of it is the next instalment in the sitcom in my head.

Brilliant. So it's this chapter. So where I left off last time, we moved on from that. I'm now 51. I'm going through the perimenopause. Did struggle to get some HRT initially. Got a little bit of gaslighting off the NHS. Finally, they let me have it.

Then they ran out. There was a supply issue. So there was a sort of temptation to start buying it off the dark web. But it's all good now. I'm back on track. So and then dealing with. Back legal. Yeah, back legal.

Back getting it legally. And then, you know, compounded by teenage kids. And all just it's quite domestic. It's quite a domestic space. But obviously, it's a kind of just a look at life. Yeah. I mean, lots of people can relate to it. Two teenage kids.

You're in that kind of in-between generation where you're doing all the looking after. I'm a Gen Xer raising some Gen Zers. How is that? Tell us about some of the challenges. Well, do you know what? I actually love it. That's the thing to say first that's why it feels like it's fairly safe to then go at it you know because I do love it but uh

what's interesting my daughter's about to turn 18 is sometime I mean she's very much a person in her own right don't get me wrong but it does sometimes feel like I'm living with a ghost of my former self so things that are going on for, I have vague recollections of them going on for me. And I think I'm one of the generations where we do have quite a lot of arrested development. So I still sometimes think I am 18, but I very much am not. So yeah, it just brings up a lot of stuff. How does touring fit into family life? How is that? Well, now they're teenagers. They don't even notice whether I'm there or not. It's just whether the crisps run out.

So, yeah, I'm not as needed as much. And also my husband is brilliant and he's around. Good. Yeah, I don't often, when people say, how do you juggle it with kids? I'm like, well, my husband is at home. I'm going to talk about, you said you don't, the acting is one thing, but you always go back to comedy, but you started out as an actor. I did.

How did you end up doing stand-up? So when I left drama school, I did all right. I got, you know, a bog roll advert and a couple of lines on the bill. But it wasn't quite enough. It wasn't enough to feed. Bog roll adverts, though. Yeah. Well, back then you did get decent money for bog roll adverts. But yeah, it didn't sort of creatively fulfill or financially fulfill.

So I'd always had this itch with stand up, love stand up, always used to go to gigs when I was younger. And I saw, I mean, my parents loved comedy. They took me to see Billy Connolly when I was a teenager. Victoria Wood I saw live as a teenager. So I did have a deep love of stand up. And but I didn't know how you did it. And then I, after a couple of years after sort of being a, not struggling actor,

sort of a staggering along actor, I then did a course at the City Lit, an adult education college in London, and they had a stand-up comedy course. Can I ask how old you were when you did that? I did that when I was 20 26 or 7 okay yeah a young but also a young person but I'd been out of college I'd graduated from college I'd sort of been trying to do that for a while but I and also that course is very popular so you had to pounce

when the place when it dropped what we now say say, it would fill out immediately. And I missed out two or three times. I was like, oh, I missed it again. And I had to wait a term to sign up for it. So when I finally got on it, I loved it. I didn't fully think I was going to go ahead and become a comic. I just thought I was doing it for fun. But as the course went on, it became increasingly clear

that I really wanted to do it. How did you know what subjects you wanted to talk about? You just talk. You just do these. I suppose I'd had a bit of experience at drama school of doing improv games. Yeah. So you just kind of like, you do sort of games to find where you want to go. So if you do something like list 10 things that wind you up,

you will find that that will evolve to a set list. I'm thinking about uh you and the kind of uh your contemporaries and how you've come up and things have changed so much uh for female comics yeah in the last 10 years yeah very much um but i was listening to um sarah pascoe talking to a case young on young again and she talked about how she didn't want to tackle women's issues at the beginning of her career no because you would just put in a well you'd be like oh here she goes oh so did you i'm just wondering whether that doesn't seem to tackle women's issues at the beginning of her career. No. Because you would just put in a... Well, you'd be like, oh, here she goes. So did you, I'm just wondering whether, that doesn't seem to have been a thing for you.

I didn't, I agree with Sarah. I didn't hugely, I would consciously not do women's issues. And even now... How do you do that though? Well, it's hard. You just talk about life and it's coloured by the fact that you are a woman and you just go, well, this is my world view. But you wouldn't, you'd have to be careful.

I always likened it to sort of Tai Chi. You just had to sort of move with the energy of it and kind of be mindful of if you use certain words or you go down certain avenues, people will shut down. Like what? Well, periods, anything to do with, they'll be like, oh, here she goes, going to go on about her womb, I'll go and get around in.

You would feel the energy in a room shift when a woman came on. So if you went down the road of meeting their prejudices and expectations, you would probably not have a good gig. So you'd have to sort of find a way to, you know. So when did things start to shift? I did all right fairly early on I remembered sort

of um I did I did open spots and they usually went pretty well and then I remember doing a long car journey as an open spot somewhere like Truro with John Oliver he was the headliner very good he's done all right open spot yeah he's done all right and I remember had a good gig and then on the way back the promoter rang John and said was she all right. And I was the open spot. Yeah, he's done all right. And I remember I had a good gig and then on the way back, the promoter rang John and said, was she all right? Was she any good? And John said, yeah, she was great. And then the promoter rang me the next day and pretty much filled my diary with gigs, with open spots, because I was a female comic that could, I got laughs and I drove. And that was like hen's teeth at the time.

So you needed comics to drive the other comics down to the gigs all over the country. So I just filled my diary. So you were a designated driver? I was a designated driver. So that was how it goes. So then drinking wasn't part of... Drinking wasn't part of it at all. Comedy and alcohol have parted company.

Serious young comics don't drink because they want to move on and do well. And do well and focus on the job. I mean, you appear lots on panel shows, TV and radio. Was there where there was often just a token woman? Oh, God, yeah, absolutely. I remember being in a room once at a comedy club and I was, I think I was opening or closing and one of the other comedians was slagging off one of the other comedians.

And he went, and you're doing the woman's spot and there's a woman on the bill. And the woman's spot being the middle spot because you're not strong enough to open, you're not strong enough to close. So you just sort of put her in the middle. So it was named the woman's spot. It was named the woman's spot, yeah.

And for a long time, there were no women on panel shows or if there was, there was only one. I was on the first episode of Mock the Week that had two women on it. Did that feel like a revolution? Yeah, and I think if if I was honest I was too much of a coward to go on it earlier I just occasionally got asked and I'd be like no thank you but that's not that's not on you if it's not an environment you don't want to step into the bear pit there were certain clubs as well that I knew were bear pits and I avoided them I just made sure that I didn't go

into spaces where I didn't feel safe do you feel feel like there's, I mean, there must be a great sense of empowerment then in the community, the female comedian community? Totally. Oh, definitely. And it's completely changed now. I mean, now you can be on an all-female bill and it's not even International Women's Day. And now you can have podcasts with your mate, Jen Bristow, which is brilliant. Yes, that memory lane, that's been a lot of fun doing that podcast. We joined the podcast community. Yeah, well, we love it. It's very, very funny. The two of you together are absolutely brilliant.

What have you got coming up next? Well, we're filming another Trigger Point. And then I'm on tour from March all over the country doing Bandwidth. And apart from the tour, can you tell us about the Spinal Tap sequel? I can, yes, because it's all out there on the internet. So we shot it last March. And hopefully it will be on later this year. That was amazing.

I was in New Orleans for a month hanging out with Elton John. I mean, I wasn't hanging out with Elton John, but Elton John was there. But I wasn't. In the same room or just in the same? I had a scene with him. Oh, OK. Yeah. So, yeah, hanging out.

I'm going to go with it. Hanging out. We love all of this for you, Kerry. Oh, thank you very much. Thank you for coming in. And very quickly, I've been asking the audience what they're ditching to kind of level out their bandwidth. And lots of them ironing, lots of different things. Valerie says she's 76 and she's had to stop watching news programmes because that's too much for her bandwidth.

Yeah. How about you? Same. A lot of stuff. I've had to be very selective about what I allow into this very precious database. Well, you need it. You need it to keep your mind ready for the stand-up tour and the comedy. Thank you so much for coming in. Thank you very much.

And best of luck with it. Thank you. Kerry will be on tour with Bandwidth, and it begins in Poole on the 5th of March. That's right. Very soon. There we go. Got it right. Now, singer, actor, and renowned 60s wild child Marianne Faithfull died yesterday at the age of 78.

Born in Hampstead, Marianne's father was a major in the British Army and her mother a bohemian Austrian aristocrat. Marianne launched her folk singing career in 1964 and had chart success with her version of As Tears Go By, written by her new friends Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. She went on to release several more singles and in 1966 left her husband, with whom she had a son, to start a relationship with Mick Jagger. She also appeared in films including The Girl on the Motorcycle with Alain Delon in 1968. A notorious drugs bust later described by Marianne as destroying her cemented her reputation as a rebel. She became addicted to cocaine and heroin and after splitting up with

Jagger was homeless in Soho. She continued to make music throughout her life later releasing synth pop and collaborating with Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Lou Reed, amongst others. In 2011, she talked to Woman's Hour about playing the lead in the film Arena Palm, which took her back to Soho. Jenny Murray asked what it was like returning to a place where she'd hit rock bottom. I mean, I've long, long gone past the moment where if I go past Shea Victor's,

I want to have a shot of heroin. I'm not like that anymore. It's been a long, long time, you know. So it wasn't anything bad. But it was the first time I'd been into a sex shop or a sex club, you know. It was a made-up one because it was the set of the film, but still it was a weird feeling.

I've never been into that before. You were, for a short time, actually homeless there that before. You were for a short time actually homeless though, weren't you? How did you live when you were there? I was really homeless by choice. I could have gone back to my mother's and lived with her. I didn't want to. I couldn't. I just couldn't bear it. So I came up to London and lived wherever I could and however I could, yeah. The voice is extraordinary and has become more extraordinary as you've got older. How much does it owe to fags, sex, drugs and rock and roll? Probably quite a lot, but yeah, I'm sure it does.

But the other thing was when I was at school and studying music and singing and piano and all these things, my teachers always said that it would become a contralto. And it has, but it's been filtered through a lot of cigarettes and all sorts of other dreadful things. hear Marianne Faithfull. That was Marianne speaking to Woman's Hour back in 2011. On Weekend Woman's Hour tomorrow, Mary Robinson, the first female president of Ireland, on a new documentary about her life, and the explorer Preet Chandi, or Polar Preet, on how she hopes to become the first woman to travel solo to the North Pole. So join me tomorrow just after four. There's a divide in American politics between those who think democracy is in peril and those who think it's already been subverted, hollowed out from the inside. As President Trump returns to the White House, we go through the looking glass into a world where nothing is as it seems. The Coming Storm from BBC Radio 4. Listen on BBC Sounds.

I'm Sarah Trelevan and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know it was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con

Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.