Woman's Hour - Tamsin Greig and Celia Imrie, Carers march, Botox and friendships

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

Care and support providers are coming together around the UK in a series of protests over the government's plans to increase employer National Insurance contributions. They are warning that care providers may go out of business unless they receive more support. Nadra Ahmed, co-chair of the National Care Association, which represents smaller and medium-sized care providers, joins Nuala from Westminster.Nuala is joined live in the studio by two of the country’s best-loved stage and screen Olivier award-winning actors – Celia Imrie and Tamsin Greig. They are currently playing mother and daughter in Backstroke, a new play at the Donmar Warehouse in London, that unpicks the complications of their relationship over a lifetime.Barely two months after the end of the sex abuse scandal which gripped France last year, another horrific trial has begun there. The case of the former surgeon Joël Le Scouarnec, will be the biggest child sex abuse hearing in the country. He is accused of raping or sexually assaulting 299 people, mainly child patients. Some were under anaesthetic as he was operating on them. BBC reporter Laura Gozzi was in court in Brittany and explains how this latest case has affected the French nation. Music writer Stevie Chick pays tribute to Roberta Flack who has died, aged 88. At a party recently, journalist Kate Mulvey found it hard to relate to her old friends because of the amount of Botox and filler they had. So now she’s decided to dump those friends. Kate talks to Nuala about the prevalence of these ‘tweakments’, and how it’s affected her friendships.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Emma Pearce

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Hello, I'm Robin Ince. And I'm Brian Cox. And we would like to tell you about the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. We're going to have a planet off. Jupiter versus Saturn. It's very well done that because in the script it does say wrestling voice. After all of that, it's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice.

And also in this series, we're discussing history of music recording with Brian Eno and looking at nature's shapes. So listen wherever you get your podcasts. BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. Hello, I'm Nuala McGovern 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. Hello and welcome to the programme. Well, this hour, the superb actors Celia Imrie and Tamsin Gregg are performing together in Backstroke, which is about so many things, all stemming from their mother daughter relationship.

But they are in the woman's hour studio this morning, and I'm very much looking forward to them. Also today, there is another shocking trial for France as a former surgeon accused of abusing hundreds of patients, most of them children, gets underway in Vannes in the northwest of the country. We're going to speak to our reporter who is there. Plus in a moment we'll speak about a march that is getting underway in London and also across the UK as care providers hope to draw attention to what they say is a crisis in their industry exacerbated by an increase in

the national insurance contribution. We're going to hear from one of the organizers that is at Westminster this morning. We will also mark the death of singer Roberta Flack, who has died at the age of 88. We will take a look back at her extraordinary life and career. Also, Kate Mulvey will be with us, telling us why she has dumped her Botox friends, as she calls them. Here is a snippet of her column. As more and more friends succumb to the syringe, this shift in the sisterly landscape has opened up a cleavage amongst midlife women, which has resulted

in the haves and have nots. So I'm asking, has the obliteration off a furrowed brow or other tweakment caused a wrinkle in any of your friendships? You can be anonymous. You can text the the program the number is 84844 on social media we're at BBC womens hour or you can email us through our website for a whatsapp message or a voice note the number is 03700 100 444. Maybe you have got the tweakment and have felt a difference from your friends. I don't know, let me know. But let me begin with care. Care providers have got the tweakment and have felt a difference from your friends. I don't know. Let me know. But let me begin with care. Care providers have warned the government that the UK social care system is at

breaking point as it struggles with rising demand and high costs. Thousands of care and support providers are coming together today all around the UK to stage a series of protests over the government's plans to increase employer national insurance contributions. So they are warning that care providers may go out of business unless they receive more support. Women make up 83% of registered social workers in England. That's according to the latest numbers from Social Work England. On the Today programme earlier, Anita Astle, Managing Director of Wren Hall Nursing Home, told Emma Barnett that many providers don't know if their

businesses will survive these price rises. We cannot continue to subsidise the government, subsidise the NHS local authorities, at the cost of our businesses going out, you know, going bankrupt, it just cannot happen. At the Renhall nursing home, if these changes do go ahead as are expected to do so, will you be able to keep going? That's the worrying thing. We don't know that yet. We anticipate at Renhall the increase of the national minimum wage and the national insurance is going to cost 300,000 a year. That was Anita Astle. Well let me speak now to Nadra Ahmed who is co-chair of the

National Care Association which represents smaller and medium-sized care providers. Joining me from Westminster, good to have you with us Nadra. How many are turning out today? What did it feel like when you're down there? Good morning. I mean, it's quite overwhelming actually because when we first started this, we hadn't anticipated that it would be these sort of numbers, but it demonstrates just what a challenge providers are facing. So we're looking at in the region about two and a half thousand, but it could be more. We're not quite sure. It's very difficult to tell, but it just definitely feels from this morning, I've had message after message after message. People are on their way. Coaches

are on their way. And you know, I think when people say the word care, we often think of elder care, but this is about more than that. Absolutely. I mean, elder care is obviously the one that most people kind of focus on. And when we hear about delayed discharges out of hospital, et cetera, it's usually about older people needing to go back into their own homes. But actually social care is mental health, it's learning disabilities, it's supported living, we are such a mix of what we do, we are one of the main pillars of communities. Without the social care sector, GPs wouldn't be able to function properly, we wouldn't be able to support people who

really do need their care and support in communities. So it has forms, many, many different forms, but it's just not valued, it's not recognised, and it's completely neglected by government. So that sounds the way you describe it, that you might even consider it, that there's a culture that it is not valued. And we can talk about the pounds and the pence in a moment. But do you have any plans of how to change that way of thinking about care? Absolutely. I think part of this day is about trying to raise the issue that there is this view that social care, some people think it's free at the point of access because of the NHS, but most people don't value

it because it doesn't touch many lives, but when it does touch a life, when it touches one life, there will be at least 10, 15 people who will be affected by it. And I think we just don't think about it as a society. We don't think demographics are very clear. We are going to need more care, you know, dementia care, end of life care, stroke care, that's all coming into social care. We keep hearing government talking about keeping the NHS safe, which we all want to, absolutely. But in order to do so,

they keep pushing health tasks out to social care. So social care is actually operating in order to support those health tasks, but it's not being funded to do so. The NHS is being funded to do so, but we are not. So let's talk about the pounds and the pence. I mentioned briefly the increase in employer national insurance contributions. This is something that you and other people that are giving care and care providers are pushing back against. What do you want to happen? Well, I think they've got to fund it. I mean, I think this is, when we have contracts that we sign with local authorities, if there's anything that is a change in legislation that

is out of the control of the provider, it does need to be funded. For years and years and years, we've kind of embraced the increases in national living wage, because we actually value the people that support us. They are highly skilled people, and without them, we wouldn't be able to do the job. But each year, whatever the increases, whether it's 10% in the national living wage, we might get a 4% increase. So that has kind of led to this void, this gap in funding, which is about 8.2 billion, which the sector is subsidizing. And so what we're saying is that this this national employer national insurance contribution hike

in tandem with the national living wage, we're going to be looking at another 10, 11, 12% increase that the sector is going to have to look at. Local authorities are telling us that they don't have the money to do that. They just do not have the money to do that and therefore they will offer us 4% or 5%. So the sector again will be having to subsidise it. For small and medium sized providers where an average fee is about £700, that is around £4 an hour that we are paid in order to look after people with high level complex healthcare needs. And so I think this is where the math is just not going to... Anita mentioned what it would do for her organisation, an outstanding home, which is going to have to find £300,000 from April in order to fund this.

I should probably also mention that about two thirds of care home companies are often small family run businesses, I think also like Anita was talking about with hers. But you talk about the £8.2 billion, a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson did give us this statement this morning. they say we inherited significant challenges facing social care and have taken immediate action, including a 3.7 billion funding boost, 15,000 new installations to help disabled people live safely and independently in their own homes and a 2,300 increase to carers allowance. Dame Louise Casey, they also say, is leading an independent commission to develop recommendations for a national care service to provide high quality care for everybody who needs it and

help us deliver on our commitment to rebuild the sector so it's fit for the future. So the government is saying that there is an increase of 6.8% to core local government spending power. Now I know it's not what you are calling for, but is it at least a step in the right direction? Well I think any funding coming our way would be really helpful if it came to the front line. So when we hear these massive figures I think the public can be seduced into believing that that is all going to the front line. Well it's not. So what happens to it in your opinion?

Well, it goes into different projects, it goes into different ways of working, it'll go, partly will go to local authorities and the local authorities will, it's never ring-fenced, so they can use it for a social care budget in any way that they want. Children's services, children's services are included in that, of course. They take the lion's share of any way that they want. Children's services are included in that, of course. They take the lion's share of any funding that goes. So, you know, we are looking at this is smoke and mirrors, and we've got to stop talking about it in this way. So let's go to what you would be looking for, Nadra. You say it gets caught up before it gets to the front line. You'd like it to leapfrog to the front line, I think, in what you're saying, and used how? We want it to go to the front line so we can pay our staff properly.

To the care homes? Absolutely, to, and home care and mental health, learning disabilities, to anyone delivering social care. We need to have this money so that we can reward our staff, we value them, they need to be paid properly, but any on costs, which is where the NIC is the employer's part of it, that needs to be funded as well because we will not. We have no resilience left in the sector. During Covid, we were ignored up until the last minute. And so there's a lot of resilience that went.

Everything goes up. It goes up for us as well. So cost of living, insurances, energy prices. So we're not only talking about the 10% that's going up because of this NIC and the national living wage. We're not only talking about the 10% that's going up because of this NIC and the National Living Wage. We're not only talking about that, we're talking about all the other things that happen. But if they can just fund that part, that would really help us. That would really make a difference. The NIC, the National Insurance Contribution, for those just tuning in a little later. Before I let you go,

I mentioned Dame Louise Casey is chairing this independent report into adults social care. The first phase won't report until 2026. Are you hopeful? Well I think if she comes up with anything different it will be amazing. We've had 25 different ways of looking at this and we all know what the issues are. We all know what the solution needs to be. I have a huge amount of respect for Dame Louise, I have not met her but I've heard huge amounts about her but I don't think we should be waiting until 2026 when we know what the issue is and we know what the solutions could be. Nadra Ahmed, Co-Chair of the National Care Association down in Westminster today as many care providers take part in a series of marches in London also across

the UK to draw attention to the issues raised. I was mentioning Botox, other brands are available, fillers, all that sort of stuff. Kate Mulvey is going to be on with us a little bit later. Do you feel disconnected from perhaps pals who have done tweakments or maybe you're the person who's done the tweakments and they haven't? A couple of messages. It makes me very sad that I feel so disconnected from my Botox friends. I feel uncomfortable with their blank faces. I'm proud to be the token Winkley. Another. I have avoided various invites to reunite with a group of friends from university. All of them have had some form or procedure or surgery and look considerably younger than I do,

including those members of the group who are slightly older than me. Keep them coming. 8-4, 8-4-4. Now, a treat for you and for me. Backstroke is a new play currently on at the Dunmar in London, and it unpicks the complications of a mother-daughter relationship over a lifetime. It is starring two of the country's best loves stage and screen Olivier Award winning actors Celia Imrie and Tamsin Gregg. Joining me this morning in studio, welcome to Woman's Hour.

Hello, morning. Lovely to have both of you in. Wonderful to watch you on stage. I was singing the praises just before we came on air of this exquisite production that I think will hit home with so many people. Not least the interaction between the two of you. But I was wondering when you first met and from what I've seen so far, was it, am I right on this 2014 filming of the second best exotic Marigold Hotel? Exactly, exactly and I wish we'd had scenes together but I had the great joy

of meeting Tamsin's family, her children, around the swimming pool but we but that's all. Tamsin loves where your children be naughty. I mean, Ben, they were really well behaved. I was really proud of them. But Celia has a twinkle, as you can see. Yes, I can. So, you know, if there was naughtiness... And so do you, Tamsen. Exactly.

She's not so alone. If there was twinkliness, it came from her. So you also had Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Penelope Wilton on that set. Quiet Affair? Oh,, Lord no. But it was the treat of all time to be in India, I mean, you know, and such a cast of Dream and also Second Helpings because we met on the second best exotic. No, it was Dream. Dream, well you're back in another, I suppose, dream-like actually is one way I would describe Backstroke. Let's talk a little bit. It is, after I came out from the play, I wrote down about 25 things that resonated with me from it and I think will with many listeners and it

could be from aging, emptiness, pregnancy, miscarriage, abortion, body image, familial expectations. I mean I'm just throwing out a few that come to my mind as I sit in front of you. It's really what a life is also and what the relationship motherhood and daughterhood, if that's even a word. Let's talk about Bo. You are the daughter, Tamsin, even though only 14 years age difference between Tamsin and Celia. In real life. I mean, she looks like my daughter, so come on. We don't care. Bo is from the sandwich generation as it's often called caring responsibilities, interesting actually following on from our conversation we just had with Nadra, caring responsibilities for her mother and also for her child. Tell

me a little bit about what it was like to play her. Well, we are playing and we carry on until April 12th, so we're sort of bang smack in the middle of it. I've heard it called the middle squeeze. So that you, that middle part of your life where you have extraordinary responsibilities on both sides, wherever you look there's a desperate need and then you know a profound willingness within the heart of those people who are juggling different age spans and needs. I think as well the fact that the thing that really seduced me with the play is that we both play the different characters at different ages. Yes.

So, Bo, I have to inhabit her at the age of five, ten, thirteen, eighteen, twenty-two, up to fifty-one. And it really made me think about that peculiar experience of feeling all the ages of your life at the same time. And that there are some people who deliver a five-year-old in a grown-up's body and can be therefore very playful and charming, but can also be a massive pain in the bum. And so it's how you playfully engage with what you know and what you don't know of yourself at certain ages and you know you can get a five-year-old who is really in tune and knows about the world

and then you get someone who's you know in their 70s who is more childlike than the... And so perhaps you're talking about Beth there, your mother in a play by Celia. What a character. How would we describe her? Childlike at times, fierce, a fierce matriarch at other times. What was it like to play her? Well, I got to the stage where I kept being sent parts where I was in a wheelchair, dying, having Alzheimer's. How did that feel?

Well, rather depressing. I thought, hold on a second. I don't want quite to be buried yet. You know, I want to hang on to a bit of glamour. Why not? Well, I saw you up after, so we can get to that in a moment. No, but the thing is, first of all, Anna Machinman, our brilliant director and playwright, sold it to me by saying it was a love letter to her mother, which I thought was a wonderful way of putting it. And then when I read it, and I realized, yes, I was going to die and have Alzheimer's, but I could also jump out of bed and be 26. You know, and so that was the thing that clinched it. And even on the deathbed, there is fierce vitality within that character. There's so much movement in Aesiliad, which I was struck with the character of Beth,

as you moved across the stage. Even the arched foot, I was like, that looks like a dancer's foot. I thought, very graceful movement. And then I was reading last night you did want to be a ballet dancer at one point. Oh Lord yes. I wanted to be a prima ballerina and marry Rudolf Nureyev. Unfortunately I was too big and he was too gay but doesn't matter. But I have funnily enough because I sign up for anything to do with Rudolf Nureyev I have... Still? Well on my telephone at night I watch him dancing on my phone. It gives me great pleasure. So that love of ballet has continued. Yes completely and we both share dancer beginnings don't we? Well yeah I did lost ballet as a

child and tried to get into the Royal Ballet School and they took one look at me and were no too big also. And so we both and that was our gain. But I think that what's beautiful about this play is that it is about the like you say the vitality and the narcissistic dance of the individual that has to encounter the other and I think there's something very beautiful about how those two elements bash against each other. And when they let them in and when they don't because the exasperation that Bo goes through as the daughter is visceral, whether it's trying to get medical attention for her mother or when

she's a teenager, for example, and her mother wants to go to university with her. Oh dear. And when it comes to, this is what I thought was so one of those exquisite points, when it comes to almost fever pitch of frustration, humour comes in and diffuses everything. Talk to me a little bit about that, about how the humour kind of threaded through. Well Anna loves a laugh, Anna Macmon loves a laugh and is very quick to spot the hilarity in things and I

I've always talked about the kind of the biological response that laughing and crying are very similar muscular responses and And so, you know, if you're close to that kind of the tremor of crying, of sobbing, it's almost indistinctial at times with panicked laughing. So I think that they are very easy bedfellows. And I mean, you can't just cry all night long. You've got to have a laugh. Shakespeare knows, you know, switch it up, you know, awful bit then have a laugh. But it struck me very much because a lot of the audience will possibly have gone through losing their mother or having lost their mother and

it struck me very much that I personally wish that I hadn't lost my tempo with my mother maybe once, twice. I wish I could have those days back, you know, when she was being cantankerous or something and she wasn't, she was wonderful. But I think if there's anything this play might remind people of, it's make the most of them while you've got them. Because actually nothing prepares you for your mother dying. It's colossal.

Profound. Yes. And so don't regret any of the moments. But my goodness, Bo is tested to the limit. I mean, you know. And is the mother in some ways, which I think some of our listeners may also identify when the daughter has to mother the mother. One of the very moving scenes, there are many,

is this is a spoiler alert if I talk about it. But a list of small but also significant things that her mother taught her, the one that really stayed with me after way is the very best way to eat an orange, but also how to knit, darn, crochet. I wonder, C.D., as you talk about your mother, is there one thing that comes to the mind as Bo is reading out this list about your own experience? My favourite bit of the list, and remember I'm dead at the time, but I listened to it very carefully and very moved about it, but I think it's the moment when, and I can't

remember the word in times and would be able to tell me, about being perpetually late, but then the room being enchanted by your eventual entrance. Well done, you remembered that beautifully. I don't remember it because I've got it written down in a speech at the funeral. That's my favourite. Yes, you know it's something I aspire to. And certainly it was true of my darling mother. Oh how lovely, how lovely. But I think there are those things that it just brings you back to that, that parent-child relationship. But also you talk about, you know, treasure them while you have them, but also kind of how quickly the years go in because people are so busy.

That's coming back to Beau with that middle, what was it called? The middle squeeze. The middle squeeze. That you're trying to rely on other people and keep all these plates spinning while trying to have a family life and have a career and also kind of, how would I say, still looking for the approval of your mother, even at the age of 50. I think that doesn't ever leave you, really. You know, there is there's a hot string that's always being twanged there. But what's beautiful about the play is that Bo learns from a very young age to be a survivor, which prepares her for her eventual

taking on of this very complex child who is not her biological child, but it's what she's learned in that in that place of possible trauma or difficulty anyway which has prepared her for doing the very difficult things later on for this other child so I suppose it's about you know how one parents oneself yeah and that self soothing or being able to soothe perhaps somebody else. With the production it's female dominated. We have a great team actually and I'd love to give us a special mention to Georgia Rice, Anita Reynolds and Lucy Briars. We have the greatest fun actually and oddly I hadn't even noticed

that it was all women. Isn't that wonderful? Is that progress? Yes. We just get on with it. And it's a great team, isn't it? Yeah, it's very, very lovely and they make excellent coffee. And it's intimate in the Donmar as well. I felt like we have this relationship with every member that is on stage as we get to know both of you, of course, very intimately as well. One journalist referred to you both as TV to stage veterans.

How does that fit? Oh, I'm not mad about the veteran bit, thanks. Oh, Lord. No, no, as a veteran who's survived a war situation. That's, you know, that's... We have done that. Oh, yes, I guess. Well, Rupert Everett, my friend, says that, you know, putting on a play, I guess well Rupert ever at my friend says that you know putting on a play It's like going to war. I mean not going into battle. I think is what I would totally

And that must be true because I'm so doing both of you this morning But I often think when I've finished watching a play like backstraws. That's so intense and emotional that a play like Backstroke that's so intense and emotional that if afterwards I have so many feelings and emotions, what must it be like for those that are creating it? Yeah, it's tiring. Well, certainly we did get whacked out in rehearsals and couldn't quite understand it, didn't we? But we did make sure that there was a little space for each to have a snooze. So that's very, very important.

But also you talk about the intimacy of the domo, which is fabulous, which means that you can hear people sniffling, especially at the end, and especially men. Sitting there going... You could hear me and my pal that what I went with and that we would poke each other at each point that we felt was very poignant and I don't think we were alone in that either but you know you talk about that intimacy and I saw Tamsin that you commented that you see theatre as a kind of communion with people riffing off Nick Cave on Desert Island Discs and the way he talked about a communion with his

audience. Let's talk about that a little bit more. Well I have a thing about liveness. That when you're in the room with someone and there's a beautiful line in a Wim Wenders film called The End of Violence where a conversation happens between two people and he says us talking to one another changes us on a molecular level. Me just being with you and you talking is somehow changing you and I think that that happens in theatre and live performance and music when you're in the room. Something is happening and I think that's what's been captured in the

filmic elements of the evening, that you have a sense of something other. There is a screen, yes, above that, that is helping tell this story. So there are, so which is a sort of either, you know, an emotional, psychological, or spiritual realm, but it's also about intrusive memory. It's about something other happening that you kind of have a sense of,

but you can't quite name it. And you shouldn't ever. There shouldn't be a name for it, I think, sometimes it's too magical, I think. Which brings me back to that dream aspect as well. Speaking of audiences, Tamsin, I heard some of your ambitions are to be on Broadway and let your face be the age that it is. Well, the beautiful thing about

theatre is that you're generally about 200 feet away from people so you can be any age. But I'm kind of struck by it particularly perhaps because we're having this conversation a little later with Kate Mulvey and lots of people are getting in touch actually about their faces and fillers and all that but is that there's probably less pressure in theatre to... Really? I don't know, I'm not an actor. Well, the distance does help you get away with a lot. Not in the drama.

No, that's true. We're lumber, aren't we? We really are, they can really lean in and go, wow. Yeah, they're really odd. Look at those lines. Yeah. We had a lovely thing that I wanted to say that in the rehearsal, Anna, our brilliant director and playwright,

suggested us bringing photographs of our mothers in to the rehearsal room. And actually they're outside our dressing room door. So all our moms are on the wall. That is, that's a lovely transition. So they're sort of in the air with us. And I mean, even thinking about them I'm sure just must bring so much to the role as well. Celia I'm gonna move away from the stage and screen for a moment because you're also a novelist and after publishing your sixth novel

Meet Me at the Rainbow Corner. That was wonderful adventure to to go on. All about the young girls who fell in love quite understandably with the handsome GIs who came to England in the war. And then Rainbow Corner was a real club in Piccadilly Circus that was especially for the GIs. And then it tells the story of these girls who, you know, took quite a leap of faith actually, fell in love of course and during the war that sort of tension and extreme emotion. But then they had to take a boat over and start a new life. Sometimes it worked out, sometimes it didn't. You know, they had to say goodbye to their mothers and fathers at Waterloo station. That was it. May not see them again. It was a wonderful adventure to go on.

Might we see it on a screen? Oh, let's! That's what I would love, of course. I can kind of visualise it. I've written it apart for myself. Yeah, perfect! Yeah, naturally. Tamsin, if you're nice to her, she might like that. But I do know, of course, there's this Bridget Jones that is continuing on, lots of people talking about that, where you were there again, loved seeing you singing at the BAFTAs with David Tennant.

I know. Wasn't he marvellous? Wasn't he marvellous to get that going? He was fantastic. So if people don't know, it was the proclaimers, I'm going to be the 500 miles and he got... Oh, I know. And Celia was right there, though. You were right in.

Some people were a bit slow on the uptake, let's be honest. Well, you know, you have to jump in, don't you? Yes, totally. Him and his kilt. Fantastic. He looked great. And you, Tamsin, you were here before for the Deep Blue Sea in Bath, also amazing. But it's coming in London. Yeah, I mean, we finish on this one. I have a week's break and then...

I don't know how I'm going to do it. But you're going to sub me, right? Yeah, yeah. So she'll go on when I'm feeling a bit tired. Wonderful to have both of you in. Backstroke is on at the Donmar Warehouse in London until the 12th of April before these two start. We have Richard Osmond's Thursday Murder Club out in 2025. That CD is also part of.

Lovely to have you both in. Come back again soon. Thank you for having us. Thanks. Hello, I'm Robin Ince. And I'm Brian Cox. And we would like to tell you about the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage.

We're going to have a planetar. Jupiter versus Saturn! It was very well done that because in the script it does say wrestling voice. After all of that, it's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice. And also in this series we're discussing history of music, recording with Brian Eno, and looking at nature's shapes. So listen wherever you get your podcasts. Now, your comments continue to come in.

Let me see about wrinkles. Every time we meet, we're a group of women in our 50s. Our friends seem to be getting younger while I am aging naturally. It won't affect my friendships as I love them all. However, I haven't got the heart to tell them that their puffy faces and smooth foreheads look completely ridiculous.

They don't look like younger women. They wish to emulate. They just look like a plastic doll. And the neck can never live up to the lie. A plastic head on a wrinkly neck is not a good look, says Sarah as I pull up my black turtleneck. If you want to get in touch, the numbers are 84844. If you'd like to send us a WhatsApp message it's 03700 100444 or indeed you can email us through our website. Let me turn to France next. It is barely two

months after the end of the Giselle Pellicoe sex abuse case, which shocked France and the rest of the world last year. But another distressing trial has begun. It is the trial of the former surgeon. His name is Joel Lesquarnak and it will be the biggest child sex abuse hearing in the country. He's accused of raping or sexually abusing 299 people over several decades, most of them patients who were children. It is alleged many were under anaesthetic as he was operating on them. Our reporter Laura Godsey has been in court in Vance in Brittany. Welcome Laura. Tell us a little how this case came to light.

So as you rightly said, at the centre of this case is a former surgeon, Corge Le Squarnak. So he was first arrested in 2017 after a neighbour's daughter told her parents he had abused her. And this eventually led him to him being found guilty of assaulting or raping this child, another child and his two nieces. And when police searched his home after his arrest, they discovered diaries, stacks of them, where he apparently logged details of all of his alleged victims. So as you said, most of the patients of his throughout the decades. And that's how they got all the names and that's how the cases came to light.

So the case opened yesterday, you were in the court. How would you describe the atmosphere? Because as I mentioned, it comes at this particular moment in, you know, France's history, basically, with these huge cases. Yeah, so it was pretty tense and it's obviously an unbelievably horrific case. And you see all these victims kind of walking around. They've been given lanyards of different colours to kind of show whether they that they're open to be approached by the media or not. So it's green if yes, red if no. The majority so far were wearing red lanyards and I think it just you know they're just so frazzled

by all the media attention and obviously everything that they've been through. But proceedings will move at speed. So this is a trial that will go on until June on a really, really tight schedule. And at various times of the hundreds of victims will be attending as well as their lawyers and relatives and over 250 journalists are registered as well. So you can feel there's really huge interest in this case.

I want to play a little off one of the lawyers because most of these people had no idea that they had been abused until they were contacted. Francesca Sata is a lawyer for some of them. Can you imagine being contacted by the police who then read you an extract of the diary, in all its obscene language? Can you imagine the horror of discovering that you were treated as a child as a sexual object? Yes, it was a huge emotional shock. So with that, some might think that has echoes of the Giselleellico case that was raped by men without her knowledge.

Is it something that people are talking about in the sense of what it is doing to the French psyche, for example, having these two cases so close to one another? Yes, you're not the first to draw parallels between the two cases, of course they're so different. So I'm not sure the impact is easy to quantify at this stage, but I do know that this woman I spoke to yesterday, she was just a member of the public, was queuing to get into basically the overflow room where the proceedings are shown on the screen. And I asked her why she'd come and she said, well, I want to see this every man. And this is, of course, what people used to say in the Pellico trial as well, isn't it? You know, who are these every men? You know, starting from him, you know, Dominique Pellico, the main guy,

but also the 50 men who want to rape his wife. So maybe there is a new consciousness that one can be a family man, as in the case of Dominique Pellico, or a respected middle class surgeon, as in the case of Dominique Pelico, or a respected middle class surgeon, as in the case of Joël Ouskwaarnec, and still commit unspeakable acts. Yes, I think that aspect of them not knowing some of his alleged victims until they were told by the police is such a shocking detail. Another is he was initially charged with 349 counts as I understand it Laura. There has been one trial already because we're talking about 299 for this particular one. Yes so actually the first trial was back in between 2017 and 2020 and that's the one I mentioned earlier for the rape of his two

nieces and two other children. The number of cases you're referring to is actually basically it's the number of victims that police were able to track down but some of them actually date to before 1985 and so due to the statute of limitations they're not they won't be able to take part in this case but yes this goes to show that there's actually more victims than even the 299 that appear in this case. Laura Godsey thanks very much we will continue following this case she's been in the court in Vance in Brittany. Lots of you getting in touch I will get to some of your messages a little bit

later but first I want to turn to the soul singer Roberta Flack it was announced yesterday that she has died at the age of 88. You might know her for her hits, The First Time Ever, I Saw Your Face and Killing Me Softly with His Song. Her recording career began after she was discovered singing in a jazz club by the musician Les McCann, who later wrote that her voice touched, tapped, trapped and kicked every emotion that he had ever known. But she didn't have her first hit until she was actually in her 30s.

Well, to discuss her voice, her career and her impact, I was joined by the freelance music journalist, Stevie Chick, who's written an obituary for Roberta Flack in Today's Guardian. And I asked him if he was a fan. I was a huge fan. Yeah. Big, big, big fan. Big fan. Why? She's just a remarkable figure, really. I think there's a tendency, especially in black music, to imagine that there's one way of doing things. And so a black soul singer should

sound like, say, Aretha Franklin. And one of the remarkable things about Roberta Flackness is she just took her own path and she had a really interesting background and she drew on these different influences and each of these records is really remarkable and bold. Her debut record was just really ambitious and did things that you wouldn't expect an artist to do on their first record. She's covering Leonard Cohen, she's singing songs about closeted gay men, you know, in a track that's recorded months before the Stonewall riots and stuff like that. She's really ahead of her time. She's sort of tapping into the folk music scene that's been going on in music for a long time, as well as, you know, the more traditional soul jazz and gospel roots that she had. So she's very ambitious and different and has her own voice.

But it is principally that voice as well. And her background, tell us a little bit, because in many of the obituaries, they don't just say soul singer, which some might, but that she was a pianist as well, that she was a musician. She was a marvelous pianist. And in fact, that's where she saw her future when she was a real child prodigy. She got a scholarship to Howard University in DC when she was 15 to study piano. She used to accompany the choir in her own church back when she was

growing up in Virginia and indeed she saw herself as being a pianist but then when she was at Howard there was a freshman talent show and she was supposed to accompany a young singer there and the singer got cold feet so she sang the song herself an old 40s pop song by Henry Nemo and she won the competition and it was like she just suddenly was like oh actually I am also a very good singer and indeed she ended up switching her major to singing rather than piano playing and even directed production of Aida so she was definitely a hundred percent able to go in any direction she she decided to take. But didn't have her first hit until she was in her 30s. What happened in the intervening years?

I think she was just really busy. It's like she when she even though she started university really young, like when she graduates, she's considering postgraduate studies. But then her father dies. And so she goes home, takes care of the family for a bit. And then she finds herself back in DC and she's a student teacher. And in the evenings she's playing piano,

accompanying opera singers. And then every now and again, she gets to do sets in DC nightclubs and she's singing jazz and soul. And the jazz musician Les McCann catches her one night and is just completely enraptured by her and then sends her to Atlantic Records and she gets signed. I mean this is the really funny thing is that there's like, there's like periods where the story doesn't seem to be progressing and then it progresses really quickly. She records a debut

album in 10 hours. One sit- down session and it all pours out. And it's a fantastic record, but it takes Clint Eastwood's using her version of The First Time Ever I Saw Her Face in Play Misty for me, his directorial debut, this amazing film about stalking and weirdness. And he really taps into the fact that her version is really desolate and isolated and really quite a chilling as well as beautiful piece of music and that sends it to the top of the charts as a result of maybe an unexpected diversion or appearance

of Clint Eastwood in the career of Roberta Flack. But let's listen to a little of that recording of Ewan McCall's The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face that that brought her to public attention, as you mentioned, but perhaps even more will have heard Killing Me Softly that was originally released in 1973. Some might know it through the Fugees, if not through Roberta Flack, but they also collaborated. They did, they did. You know, she was, she was, I think she really embraced the attention that came with the Fugees cover

and she was definitely up for working with younger artists. I mean, it's interesting. She was, she collaborated with different artists throughout her career. She had a really productive collaboration with Donny Hathaway in the 70s, who was just this amazing but incredibly troubled talent. And they did one album of duets and then a second album was about to come out. She was she was working on it with him when he when he took his own life in 1979. And then she collaborated with Pibo Bryson, who's another early eighties, late seventies soul star.

And they had a few hits, but the lightning didn't strike again. And I think she was sort of searching for ways to sort of express herself. I think this is common with lots of artists. I think you've got 10 or 15 years where she makes these really sort of centered visionary records where she knows what she's saying and each one is different.

Each one has got a purpose. And then there comes a point where it kind of becomes a career or it's less about making statements and more about using that amazing instrument that she had. I said this in the piece, you know, the last few couple of decades of her life, she's, you know, she's doing Beatles covers albums, she's doing Christmas records. These are not the things you do when you're in the flush of youth or anything like that. But still, like all of these records that she did, that voice was there.

And you know, it's a very powerful tool that she had. And she wasn't about sort of flaming the room with her fiery voice at all times. It was very much a sense of she knew what it could do and she knew that there was power and restraint. But there's a record that came out a couple of years ago that was the initial audition tape she did when she was getting signed to Atlantic Records. And I mean, it's an astonishing

record it's just her covering standards just showing to the record label that she can sing but she does this cover version of to Sir with Love and I mean it's just breathtaking because it's just slowly building and then next thing you know she's just soaring away and it's very hard to listen to and not be completely encapsulated by it. So she had this ability to just cook slowly and then take off. It was just this slow build. It wasn't always pyrotechnics. It was always with purpose. I think that's the thing. I think it's easy to sort of do lots of melisma to just show how far you can push it. But with her, it was always a sense of, well, what's the effect that I want from this?

And so there is that sense of restraint. And then she'll just let it go full blast. And then you'll just be completely subsumed by it. It's a wonderful power she has. Freelance music reporter Stevie Chick there talking about the soul singer, among many other talents, Roberta Flackack who has died at the age of 88. Now at a party recently journalist Kate Mulvey noticed that her old university pals had changed their appearance that is all because of tweakments whether it was Botox or

another brand eliminating wrinkles fillers plumping up lips or a host of other cosmetic treatments. She said she found it hard to relate to them and that she couldn't compete with them. So she's dumped them. Kate, welcome to Woman's Hour. Hi there. Hello. So tell me a little bit more about this dumping of the friends, about the impetus for it. about the impetus for it? Right, well the thing is it all happened when, as I said, I had this reunion with my old university friends. When I went in there, I was shocked. They had turned into this identikit blonde tribe. It was like my mothership had kind of offloaded a load of aliens. And what I noticed immediately was what they call the

fat face where you have the frozen forehead, the botox, and they clearly had quite a lot of it done, and they had the smooth skin whereby, so I think what you've got today is a lot of very different fillers. So you've got the piriform, which fills in the labia nasal lines, the smile lines. And what it does, it almost pushes all the wrinkles out from the inside and you have this complete flat face. And the thing about it is, I thought afterwards that we often, a lot of our communication is nonverbal. It's how we express, it's how we raise our eyebrows. And I think that on a subliminal level, I couldn't relate to them. And I felt inside myself a kind of wave of panic because they weren't who I thought they were.

Now it sounds extreme, but if you're looking at someone and you're not getting that expression back, it's empty. And I think that this is happening a lot. And I think that it's creating a sort of weirdness, you know. So let's talk about this. In midlife women. You call it succumbing to the syringe. I'll read a message that came in and a lot did.

Not much shocks me these days, but I am taken aback by this woman who judges other women who've had cosmetic treatments. No way would I have a needle stuck in my face. Thought makes me shudder, but it wouldn't occur to me to judge or reject anyone on that basis. I value my friends for their personality, not their appearance. We are so much more than a face. That was Julia. What would you say to Julia?

Well, I would say that it's not so much judging in a moral sense. It's a visceral response. It's the fact that, you know, a lot of friendships are actually based on mutuality, things that, you know, we share things in common. And once you, and we're not talking a little sprinkling of bird does, we're talking the full fat phase, we're talking the rejuvenation of midlife women and all of a sudden you don't have anything in common because don't we wind most of the time we go my god I woke up I had a good night's sleep but I look terrible but then you can't say that to them and

I think it's not so much that I'm judging them so go ahead it's that we're not on the same page anymore. So you don't have the camaraderie that there might be in getting wrinkles together? Well, that's it. And sorry to say, but there is a kind, and I was sitting with a friend, a wrinkly friend. We were, and it was actually about some data I had, and we were kind of going, and we were comparing texts and all things like that. And then an injectable came up. And she almost sneered at us,

and whether it's because they have more money, whatever it is, there was a disconnect because come midlife, I think a lot of women are on the side of, oh my god, I look terrible. What do you think this date thought? I did this, I did that. But of course, they're all swishy haired. Swishy haired, with enormous lips and all that kind of thing. So that's the aspect of competing. You call them an injectable. Did I get that correct? Yes.

Yes, that some people of course would find very derogatory, but that is how you're describing it. But, you know, you do your own things, right? You say you slather expensive creams, you have facials, you banish white carbs, you exist on a diet of quinoa and kale. That's your line. And some might disagree with those decisions and think you're taking it too far. Is it not too judgmental to decide that their line is too far? It's not a question of judgment. It's a question of fact that in one sense, eating healthy food, yes, is extreme, but nevertheless, it's take it's hard work to arrive

where one arrives. If you're cheating, it's a bit like a zempik, isn't it? It's not that I, it's not that you're a bad person because you're cheating. The fact remained that the difference is so stark that it creates a gap of the haves and the have nots. So do what you want. And I say in the article, I'm not morally against it in any way. You've done it. You've done it yourself. I just want to be a full disclosure to listeners. You have done Botox or some other filler.

It's not a filler, whatever. Some other treatment, a treatment at some point, which some might find confusing if you've done it yourself, why others can't do what you did. Right, so first of all, I had a friend of mine took sympathy, he was, and he did a sprinkling of Botox around the eyes, okay? Now that was £300 and it opened the eyes so bright, I couldn't believe it. I'm not actually talking about that now, but the problem, I couldn't believe it. I'm not actually talking about that now, but the problem is I couldn't afford it. So one of my things is that if you look objectively

around at society, what I'm saying is, is that as this has become normalized, Trini said she had Botox in 35. She now has injectables into her lips. This has now trickled down to normal society. We've got love islanders, even young people. And what we've done, we've raised the bar of acceptability for women. So, I think that in a way we're criminalizing aging. Criminalizing aging. It's an interesting line. Trinney that you mentioned, I imagine is Trinney Woodall, who, of course, talks a lot about fashion, skin care, various treatments as well.

Before I let you go, though, can I fit this into one minute? Maybe I can. You talk about it as a feminist issue as well, that these were women that you were like fight the patriarchy with, but surely the feminist approach is women can do what they want, including getting filler. Maybe you agree with that, but you're just not going to be friends. No, I don't agree with that. The whole point about feminism, and you can't have your cake and eat it here, is that it's all inclusive. It's celebrate your curb, fat forward, me too. We're not interested in men, we don't cave into society. Feminism isn't something that one can, a moveable feast.

It is what it is. If you have the injectables or anything, what you're saying is, I want to look best. And I think it's virtuous. You don't, I'm not a feminist. So you don't have to be one. But I say, don't say you're a feminist and have all the rest of the ejectable. I'd need a longer time with you, Kate, to find out why you do or don't identify in that way. But Kate Mulvey has that column, sparked conversation. Thank you so much for joining us on Woman's Hour.

Here's one from Claire. She says, yes, after having a bit of Botox in my frown lines, which otherwise make me look tired and angry, the response I got from female friends was pretty aggressive. I don't care. It's my choice. I'm back with you tomorrow. We're going to talk about body positivity and confidence and dopamine dressing from influencers Laura Adlington and Lottie Drynen, also Egyptian soprano Fatima Saeed. Join me then. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. I was definitely too young

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