Woman's Hour - The Cher Show with Oti Mabuse and Arlene Phillips, Kylie Moore-Gilbert

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

With over 100 million record sales, an Academy Award, an Emmy, a Grammy, three Golden Globes and an award from The Council of Fashion Designers of America, very few artists have a catalogue that matches the iconic Cher. A new musical, touring the UK - “The Cher Show” - tells the story of the Goddess of Pop’s meteoric rise to fame. The director and choreographer behind the show are two Strictly Come Dancing legends - Arlene Phillips and Oti Mabuse. They both join Emma to discuss the new show and their own careers.In August 2018, Kylie Moore-Gilbert, an Australian-British academic travelled to Iran to attend a seminar and conduct academic research. It was her first visit to the country. At Tehran airport on her way back home to Australia, she was arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Accused of espionage, she was imprisoned and later convicted and given a ten year sentence. She spent over two years in prison, half of it in solitary confinement. She was released in November 2020 as part of a prisoner exchange deal negotiated by the Australian government. She’s written about those 804 days, in a new book The Uncaged Sky, and speaks to Emma from Melbourne.The Chancellor Rishi Sunak, his wife Akshata Murty and their finances have been in the headlines for several days now. Emma gets the latest from the woman behind the story, Economics Editor for the Independent, Anna Isaac. Anna broke the news that Ms Murty was a 'non-domicile' resident - meaning she doesn't have to pay tax to the UK authorities on any income that she earns outside Britain, something that is entirely legal. 48 hours after the story broke last Wednesday, Ms Murty announced that she would pay UK taxes on her worldwide income.The actor Sienna Miller has said she took the step of freezing some eggs at 40, following the pressure she felt to have more children. Professor Imogen Goold has been looking into how women make decisions to delay fertility including in this way – and she questions the assumption often made in the media and in medicine that women are not properly informed, and make poor decisions about how long they can wait to have children. Imogen joins Emma to discuss, ahead of a lecture she is giving at Gresham College called Freezing Eggs and Delaying Fertility: Law, Ethics and Society, at 1pm on Monday 11 April. It can be viewed online for free. Professor Imogen Goold is Visiting Professor of Medical Law at Gresham College, and Professor of Medical Law at Oxford University.

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 Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. I think we need a hit of this. Oh, do you believe in life after love? I can feel something inside me say I really don't think you're strong enough, no The reason I have for being allowed to play Cher this morning, if one needs a reason or if you think I need a defence,

is the director and choreographers of the new show About Her are with me in the studio today, Arlene Phillips and Oti Mabuse, which gives me another brilliant excuse to ask you about dancing today. Of course, both on Strictly Come Dancing at different times. Now, neither of them are part of that, but doing many other things, trying to entertain people, bring a smile to people's faces. And at the heart of that is movement and dancing. Do you do it? Where do you do it?

Or do you sit on your bottom on the sofa watching other people doing it, wishing you were doing it? Tell me about you and dance your relationship to it how it works what it gives to you what you'd like to do with it and perhaps don't maybe you don't have anyone to dance with that might be the block maybe you don't know where to go or what to do anymore maybe you feel it's the only thing in your life at the moment that's kind of keeping you going text me here woman's hour at 8488 848 excuse me 44 that's the number you need. Text will be charged to your standard message rate

or on social media at BBC Women's Hour or email me through our website. I was looking back at a report that caught my eye at the end of last year because it was reported that GPs in England were to prescribe dancing, boxing, yoga classes to women because research commissioned by Sport England found that more than half of women

continued to say they were prevented from exercising at least occasionally by being worried about what others think. So dance may not be that for you, may not be to do with exercise, it may just be a way of life and I'd really like to follow up on that story. But for you, what is your relationship with dance? Arlene Phillips and Oti Mabuse coming up on today's programme. I'm very excited, I'm going to have them around the desk with me, actually sitting with me in the studio up close to talk about their relationship, of course, with dance and Cher. All that to come.

Plus, the woman behind that non-dom tax scoop, which could topple the Chancellor, she'll be joining me shortly, and we'll explore how women decide to freeze their eggs with someone giving a lecture on the subject today. But first, it is nearly a month since Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian aid worker, was sensationally freed from Iranian detention after almost six years away from her husband, family and London home. Someone who understands much of what she went through at the hands of the Iranian regime is Kylie Moore Gilbert, an Australian-British academic who spent over two years in Iranian prisons and half of that time in solitary confinement. All she had done was travel to Iran to attend a conference about her area of study.

And on her way home to Australia, at the airport no less, she was arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Accused of espionage, she was imprisoned, later convicted and given a 10-year sentence. She was released in November 2020 and has now written about her ordeal in a new book called The Uncaged Sky. Kylie Moore Gilbert, she joins me now from Melbourne, Australia. Welcome to the programme. Hey, thanks so much for having me. I want to come to your details, your story in much detail and some of the details you share in the book. But I just wanted to ask and take the opportunity to ask

about how it made you feel when you saw Nazanin being freed like that and being able to return to her home. Oh gosh, when I saw Anousheh Ashuri and Nazanin Zaghari Radcliffe both coming down off that plane, you know, I was ecstatic. I was so, so happy for them and for their families, both families of whom have really, really campaigned so hard over the past few years to get their loved ones home. But of course it was bittersweet because they didn't bring all the Brits home. And there's two, possibly three, most prominently Murad Tahbaz, whose family's also spoken out, I think, even on your program. They were left behind. And, you know, I was very, very saddened for their families because I know up until the very last moments, they were hoping that they'd be on the plane too. Yes, and I'm also very aware of the word free in this context, because Nazanin had served

her sentence as well, just to specifically come to her case, and had been a part for many, many years. And we'll come to, I know you've got strong views as well about how governments handle this and what has been termed quiet diplomacy. But just to stick with Nazanin for a moment, I believe you met briefly while imprisoned. Is that right? Yeah, I saw Nazanin a couple of times in the prison hospital. And I've, you know, I've been in touch with her since she's come home as well. Yeah. And I don't wish to pry into those private conversations. I suppose there's just been such a clamour to understand how she is, what's going on. And then there was that press conference, which was, of course, very soon after she was released. What did you make of that? I don't know if you did anything similar

upon your release. No, I didn't actually. I understand that Nazanin was being, you know, hounded by the press, obviously, given her profile upon her return. So I think she thought giving a press conference would enable everyone to then back off a bit and let her have some privacy to rest and recover and reconnect with her family. Of course, she hadn't seen her husband for the entire time she'd been in prison, nor her daughter for, I think, three years or so as well.

So, you know, I understand her wanting to speak out and to make a very strong statement about her treatment, and I fully support her in that. But I do really hope that, you know, she'll be given the privacy to recover as well. Let's talk about the beginning of this situation for yourself. It was your first visit to Iran. Did you have any concerns about making the trip when you went? Not really, no, not concerns out of the ordinary any more than any other Middle Eastern country where I'd traveled in the past. I did ask around other academics. I did get the advice of others who'd even done research projects in Iran itself before. And most people said, you know, in contrast to other states in the region,

there is no war, there's no terrorism. Sure, it's an authoritarian regime, but name a Middle Eastern state that isn't. And that it's relatively stable compared to its neighbours and you should be OK. So, you know, I didn't really have any undue level of caution before I entered Iran. And as I also said, it was when you were leaving, you were at the airport, at Tehran airport, that you were arrested. Did they explain, or those who took you to the room where you were first taken, did they explain why you?

No, they wouldn't even tell me who they were. It took me some time, I think about two weeks, to figure out that they were the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Before that, all I knew were they were plain clothes, thuggish looking men, largely old men, largely dressed in black with no identification whatsoever. And, you know, I didn't speak Farsi. So I was at sort of the mercy of those who decided they would translate information for me. Most of the stuff wasn't translated, even including the arrest warrant itself. So I had no idea why I'd been picked up and even who had arrested me. And even when I was thrown into Evin prison, I didn't know where that was where I was.

It took me several weeks and only when I established a channel of communication secretly with another cell was I told by those fellow prisoners that I'm in Evin prison. What were the conditions like in the prison? I was in Unit 2A, which is under the control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It's not the standard Evin prison. It's a maximum security interrogation facility, really only designed for holding people in that initial interrogation phase and then after they get convicted, they get sent to the regular prison, which is a little bit laxer and freer relatively.

So it's really, really dire. It's deliberately tough they want to psychologically break you down for purposes of interrogation solitary confinement is the norm the initial cell i was in didn't even have a toilet it had no furniture absolutely nothing to do complete sensory deprivation no window no natural light LED lights on in the ceiling 24 hours a day, static noises and such to disturb you in the room. And, you know, you really go insane in there. And it's deliberately dehumanising

and it's deliberately trying to break you down so that you would make a false confession in the interrogations or you would give up all the information you may or may not have. How did you cope with that? As I said, a lot of your time was in solitary confinement. The beginning was the most difficult. After about two weeks or so, I managed to slow down the frenetic pace of my mind and my brain and live in increasingly and inhabit my long-term memories, kind of close my eyes and be in this half asleep, half awake state where I'd go back 20 years in my mind and reimagine my childhood, revisit places from when I was in primary school, family members

who were long deceased, this sort of thing, and just become less and less aware of the passage of time and more and more living in a space within my own mind. This was not at all intentional. It was a sort of a state of mind that I developed over time in response to just the painful reality of solitary confinement. And I found that by switching off all other aspects of my brain, I was able to just focus on the here and now and the prison routine

and turn off everything else. And in such a mental state, I was able to tolerate the deprivations of solitary after a couple of weeks and once you were if i can put it like this it's not meant to sound like it was a good thing but once you were given the conviction you were told it was going to be a 10-year sentence for something that you know you didn't even understand you were being accused of how did you then live with that because the the terror of that reality must have also added another dimension of trying to quieten that mind. Yeah, thankfully, when I was actually given the conviction, this was about 10 or 11 months into my incarceration.

So I had a couple of cellmates at that point who became my dear friends and like sisters to me. To them, I actually dedicated the book and we coped with it by trying to have fun, trying to laugh and mock and, you know, find the black humour and the black comedy in the whole situation. So I wasn't expecting 10 years. That was the maximum for the charges that I'd been given in the sham kangaroo court that I'd been given in the sham kangaroo court that I'd gone to. And I came back and I just screamed 10 years and my two soulmates

jumped on me and we sort of danced around the room laughing and crying. And we had a bit of a party, which might sound bizarre, but really it's one of the only ways you can process or react to the shock of such an event. I knew I'd be found guilty, but I didn't in a million years expect them to give me the maximum sentence given there was absolutely no evidence. So, you know, me and my friends tried as best we could to laugh at it. And meanwhile, we should say your friends back home in Australia were trying to get you out because I presume you had very limited contact with those back home.

Yes. At that time, I had actually been banned from family phone calls and from consular assistance as a punishment. So I had zero contact with the outside world whatsoever. This was for a period of about nine to ten months that covered my trial, my conviction, my appeal, everything in the legal, so-called legal process. I didn't have contact with my family at all. So I had no idea how anybody would have reacted to my trial, my sentence. Of course, they were very, very worried about me and the embassy itself wasn't even able to access me. So that was quite a devastating period for my friends. And, you know, I had plenty of friends in the UK as well who were advocating for me, as well as people I didn't know in the UK. And, you know, I'm so thankful for that. And without them speaking up, I don't know where I would be right now. But you also found that playing up, going on hunger strike, resisting the situation you were in, even though it led to you having punishments, was more effective in some ways.

It was effective in influencing my immediate conditions inside the prison unit. Whether or not it was effective in influencing the diplomatic negotiations over my release, I think it perhaps was even counterproductive to that, or it had no effect whatsoever. But it was effective in that I was able to win concessions for myself, sometimes along with other cellmates or alone, in terms of being able to improve my own conditions, my living conditions, my access to medical care, this kind of thing, which is actually really, really important to the ability of a prisoner to survive the day-to-day deprivations of prison. I have talked to Richard Ratcliffe about this, and I've interviewed him many times during Nazanin's imprisonment about quiet diplomacy, this idea that the families of those should stay quiet while diplomatic channels are being worked. I should say you were eventually released through what was deemed a prison swap negotiated by the Australian government, but I don't believe the

Australian government have ever linked the two or discussed the details. What do you make of how your case was handled politically and diplomatically? Yeah, I commend Richard for all of his amazing advocacy on this issue. And I would certainly agree with him that I think it's far too convenient for Western governments, and they all seem to do it, no matter what country we're talking about, to claim that quiet diplomacy with a state like Iran is the best option. It's convenient for them politically. I don't think it's always the best option for the incarcerated person themselves.

I had been calling to my... I'd been having my phone calls hung up on by my captors by calling my parents and yelling at them over the phone, please go to the media, please go to the media, before the line was cut. I even was able to ask that of the embassy in one meeting I had with them before my meetings were cancelled. So I'd been very clear that that's what I wanted.

But, you know, the government here in Australia, because I was given the choice, the British government or the Australian government, which one do I want to represent me in dealing with Iran? And my own captors recommended I don't go with the British government because, you know, of Nazanin and Anousheh's case and the case of others which had damaged relations. And, you know, the Australian government very much pushed the same line as the UK government in that they said, stay quiet to my parents, my family, stay quiet. You'll harm Kylie if you speak up. And I myself wanted to be given the benefit of the doubt of knowing what was best for me and my situation and my fate.

And I judged it to be best for me that the media and my friends and family be able to campaign for me and draw attention to it because I'm of the belief that sunlight is the best disinfectant here and that shining a spotlight on my conditions in prison as well as the travesty of justice, which was my court case, would actually be of benefit to me and hasten the Australian government's ability to get me out, as well as pressure the Australian government and the British government in Nazanin's case to prioritise me as a hostage and my situation as one of arbitrary detention over the many thousands of other consular cases that they

have to deal with at any one moment. This is a big question, but I know you will have given a lot of thought to it through the journey of recovering from my ordeal. Everybody thinks that the first moments when you're released are the toughest and you're going to be shattered, you're going to be broken. But I don't think that's true. I think it happens, in my experience, at least much further down the track. And maybe I haven't processed through all of that yet. But I would like to assert that I haven't fundamentally changed as a person. I don't want to see myself as a victim. I want to turn the experience, which was profoundly negative and damaging, that I went through into a positive, find the silver lining and try to make hay out of it and do something good, you know, for human rights in Iran, for the friends that I have

who are still suffering in prison, for the arbitrarily detained in other countries. Try to use my voice to speak out for them and try to make the best that I can out of this horrible experience, looking forward with positivity and optimism. That's my goal. And, you know, I hope I haven't changed too much in that. Only become more determined than I was before, you know, to push forward that agenda.

I mean, all power to you on that front. And of course, you must still be processing it because it's not something that you can just say that was that. And here we are now. But I understand you're no longer an academic. And I also thought that it would be interesting to hear about how some of your relationships have fared you know how are you with your family with your parents I know you were also married when you were going into into prison and and also with some of those friends have you been able to keep bonds?

That's a really good question and it's so complicated. I know all detainees because, you know, there's a weird little network of us now sprinkled all over the world who've come out of Iran or a few other countries too and are in touch and I know a lot of us go through this. You really do learn who has your back and who's missing in action when you go through such an experience. And sometimes it's not the people when you go through such an experience and sometimes it's not the people that you'd ordinarily expect and that can be good and bad and it can hurt

you know I lost my marriage I lost my career I my relationship with certain family and friends has changed, not always for the good, and that's hard to process. But on the flip side, I've also strengthened my relationship with some members of my family and certainly some friends who really, really stood up and campaigned for me and stuck their neck out for me when nobody else was. And, you know, at the end of the day, I think that's a natural thing and a natural process. When you go through a life-changing experience, no matter what it is, if you're a cancer survivor, for example, if you survive

a terrible car accident, all sorts of things, you know, these big issues and big questions about what are you doing in your life and who's standing by your side, who really is there for you and who isn't, they come to the fore. And in a way, I'm grateful because I'm grateful to know that and to have learned those lessons about the people around me. You know, I'm grateful that I'm divorced, actually. I feel like I dodged a bullet in a way. So I really do try and see the positive from this. While it is negative to find out that maybe the people who you expected didn't always have your back, it's also positive because at least I have that information. And you find out who did as well,

I suppose, within that and focus on those bonds. It's lovely to talk to you. Thank you very much for talking to us today. Kylie Moore Gilbert talking to us from Australia and the book is called My 804 Days in an Iranian Prison, The Uncaged Sky. All the best to you. Thank you Kylie. There you go. Thank you to her. Many messages I have to say coming in while we were having that discussion about dance and movement and i'll be telling you a bit more about that but let me tell you about this because she has a hundred million record sales an academy award a grammy three golden globes there can only be one share I was sorry Too proud to tell you I was wrong

I know that I was blind And darling if I could turn back time If I could find a way I'd take back those words that hurt you And you would stay If I could reach the stars There we go. Danielle Steele singing Cher's classic Turn Back Time. Danielle plays Cher alongside two other actors,

also playing the goddess of pop, as she's known to some, from three different decades in a new production called The Cher Show. And the musical tells the story of Cher's meteoric rise. And the director and choreographer behind the musical tells the story of Cher's meteoric rise and the director and choreographer behind the show are two, of course, strictly come dancing legends

amongst many other things. They've just joined me in the studio. Arlene Phillips and Oti Mabuse. Thank you so much to both of you and I'm just so distracted

because you were both dancing a bit. Can't help it. Hear the music and you move. It's lovely to have both of you in the studio. As I was saying before, my first

closer into the studio mics that I've had, my guests around the table. So lovely to be together after these strange times we've been living in. And so many people getting in touch because we've asked this morning about what dance means to our listeners and where they have it in their life. I'll come to some of those stories. But Arlene, I'll start with you. How important is Cher to you? What does she mean to you? I was in my late teens when I first heard Cher sing and absolutely fell in love with her voice when she sang I Got You Babe. I got bumps and I couldn't I just couldn't believe that this young girl of a similar age um had a voice like that and the look the style I wanted to be Cher so it means a lot but also as a woman a fighting woman an older woman that wants to stay young I feel like there's so many things about myself that I identify with Cher. Well, there's an amazing quote from a Rolling Stone article about her career, which says

Cher's the coolest woman who ever stood in shoes. Why? Because her motto is, I don't give a about what you think. There are folks all over America who would in their heart of hearts love to date people half their age, get multiple tattoos and wear feathered headdresses. Cher does it for us. Oti, what is it about Cher for you? What have you learned looking at her life? Oh my goodness, so much. I think with what we've been through, especially with this musical, is just the ups and downs that she's had and how she's been able to remain resilient through all of them. You know, when the times were tough, they got really, really tough, but she always had the spirit that she would come back and make a hit again. And again, it's this idea of her really fighting for women

and always saying, all these men are telling me what to do, but I'm Cher, I can take control of my own life. And I guess the older I grow as well in my personal life, as a child, you're kind of not even aware of it. But I think all of us, we go, as women, you know, it should be normal. It shouldn't be something that we're fighting for. And everything that she's been fighting for since the 80s, 70s, she's still there for us to kind of look up to.

Yeah, and also, you know, as a single mother, there's so many parts of her story, aren't there, Arlene? Yeah. About what she had to fight for to keep going. Absolutely. And also she was dominated by men in every way. You know, there's a part in the show that tells how in her relationship with Sonny,

he owned everything and he worked her and worked her and worked her she had no time to see her child and it's her independence and it's her inner power of the sense of I am who I am I will not be knocked down. But should something tip me, I will come back. I will stand up. She's really quite remarkable. And also she's had emotional traumas in her life, awful relationships has come through them. And also, I think the thing you say, she's a mother and the mother is devoted to her children. And I think sometimes Cher looks back and regrets the hours that she in some ways was forced to spend away from them because she was forced to go on stage. And I know what it's like living with that.

You work even even as an independent woman. Your children are the most important thing in your life. All of that will be reflected, I'm sure. But interestingly, Arlene, you're the director here and Oti, you're the choreographer. So some changes a little bit there about what you're used to, certainly, Arlene. I'm sure, you know, very involved as well across the whole thing. But Oti, actually, she's not necessarily known for her dance. Is she brilliant shows, but amazing dance around her? Yes, she's not really known for her dance. Is she brilliant shows, but amazing dance around her?

Yeah, she's not really known for doing the five, six, seven, eight. But she's always had in a company of incredible dancers. All her music videos were all about movement. It was all that big showbiz that she would create at her concerts. And that's, I think, what I'm trying to bring to the show. It's very much about her voice and her story and telling the story. And the dance comes in when she was either on the Sonny and Cher show or when we're doing big finale numbers.

But the dancing was always there to kind of add the greatness that is Cher. Do we know if she's going to like this? Is she going to be in Leicester from Friday watching this? I wish. I'm confident enough that she'll like it. Have you had any contact? Not personally, our producers, yes. But it's just an honour to be able to actually put on a musical about her life.

I've worked with all the divas, you know, Diana Ross and Tina Turner and Whitney. I never got to work with Cher, but now I'm sort of feeling very close to her. Well, I'd love to hear a lot more about all of those different things. Maybe we'll have to explore that at a different time. But many of our listeners have been getting in touch knowing you were both coming on. And I used it as a brilliant excuse. I always talk about dance if I can because so many people want to dance don't they but they don't they don't find a space in their life they don't have a space I'm loving

some of these messages uh one of them says here a friend and I went out for dinner in York on Friday night while walking home we passed pop world nightclub on a whim we went in for a dance on their revolving dance floor we only stayed half an an hour, but it was joyous. We're 59 and 60. Both of you are smiling. Yes. Why are you smiling so much? I love it. I love the idea that you go in. Think about dance. Music and movement connect. They can raise your spirits. They can put you in a different place. You just have to watch people walking out of a theatre in a musical and the orchestra is playing and they have a spring in their step dance is life and it's and it fulfills something inside of you you never knew you needed well ot as well i i was saying this just at the

start of the program last year it was reported gps in england are going to start prescribing dancing and boxing and some yoga classes specifically to women because research shows that more than half of women, this was by Sport England, continue to say they were prevented from doing such things because they're worried about what others think. Isn't that a shame? Isn't that a shame that just living the best life, we still have people telling us what to do? But you know what?

As Arlene said, dance is life. It's very rarely when you go dancing even when you're doing the two-step or you're clicking your fingers that you're you're upset you're usually doing it because something about changing your physiological state makes you so happy and that's the thing about dance the end result is always this joy that you feel and it and it kind of releases those hormones. When do you dance? All the time. Do you? When you're not working? I mean seriously are you in your house? I don't dance in my house no I don't do that I probably sleep all the time in the house but you

know I'm either preparing for a tour I'm going out on my own tour doing Cher choreographing Cher yeah choreographing Cher but when'm dancing, it would also be in my studio when I'm just with my husband, and we're trying to create new choreography and new movements. I did Strictly for eight years. And I think what's interesting, I want to ask you the same question, Arlene, but I think what's interesting about Strictly is you do have this phenomenon of lots of millions of people loving it but sitting there watching people dance which is quite an odd thing you know Arlene they don't necessarily get up to do it because it's such a high standard but they love it oh I mean everybody loves

Strictly and and there's there was a time you know when I started on the show by year two, the expanse of classes grew around the country. Dance shoe shops, which really were sort of going out of business, suddenly were revived. Everybody wanted to dance. And so Strictly is responsible for a lot of people dancing. But a lot of people are afraid because of Strictly because it looks so complex, getting together with somebody else, trying to move with somebody else. But what people don't realise, there are many, many classes where you dance freely and alone. You don't have to have a partner. Do you dance enough as much as you should? I don't dance as much as I should. I walk a lot, but I definitely don't dance as much as I should because I'm on my feet

directing and it's physical, but it's physical with your body language trying to help them understand or create the characters, but I'm not actually dance dancing. No. You need to sort that out Arlene. When she hears a good

song, she'll get up and then she'll just do a little salsa. She does boogie does. She does boogie. She moves, which is always nice to see. You were on the show at different times. Had you worked together before this? Yeah. Yeah. Well, we did Dance No Lies together as well. Yes. And then I did a gala for Grenfell after the fire. And Oti very kindly came along and performed, came very, especially to perform in that show. And that's where we first met and connected. I wanted to ask, Arlene, what's harder, going into the jungle for I'm a Celebrity

or choreographing two shows at the same time, which I believe, well, choreographing and directing at the moment? Choreographing and directing, I feel like I could do it in my sleep. Yes, because Greece I'm choreographing, that's opening the Dominion. However, going into the jungle is one of the hardest things I have ever done. The biggest challenge. You were the oldest contestant I was reading.

You overtook the Prime Minister's father, Stanley Johnson, by a year. Emma, I'm the oldest person I know that does anything. Having a baby at 47, what? Oh, we're talking about freezing eggs coming up a bit later in the programme. There you go. But I didn't even know I was pregnant. I thought it was a menopause. So I've always been old.

So that doesn't bother me at all. But going into the jungle, it's having to bond with other people, sleep virtually on a freezing cold floor or next to a, you know, not very small mattress, snakes, living on rice and beans three times a week. It was tough. Yes, it was tough. Were you thankful you were one of the first out?

Oh, I was. I was skipping. I was preparing myself. Then she was tough. Yes, it was tough. Were you thankful you were one of the first out? Oh, I was skipping. I was preparing myself. Then she was dancing. Yeah. What could I do because it's time to go? And also, everybody wanted to win. You know, I was there for a personal challenge. Maybe that's the wrong way to go into it.

But I wanted to lose fear of snakes, fear of spiders. Did you lose it? I wanted to lose fear of snakes fear of spiders did you lose it fear oh my gosh yes I was in a glass I mean it felt like a coffin glass box with 35 snakes around me and I just just swam I can do this I can do this I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. Fear is something we have to lose. Fear is something that doesn't belong in our lives. And so for that, yeah, I picked a spider off the wall in rehearsal yesterday that no one else would touch. It's changed. You've obviously come out of Strictly now. Yeah.

How are you feeling about that? A bit more time? I feel okay. Do you know what I mean? I think, to be honest, I love that show so, so, so much. I'll always be a part of it in some way. I have a sister who still works there and will be there for many years. So I get a free ticket every week.

I'm very grateful for that. But also my best friends still work on the show, the producers. We're really close on Strictly. And when we say we're a family it's it's what we mean you know I could at any point know that Sarah James executive producer I can call her and be like hey I need help or let's just have a coffee and that will be always available but now for me it's just been great experiencing all the stuff that I have coming up, the stuff that I'm being offered at the moment, and to be busy like this because it's the first time I've had that time available

to be able to explore things. Well, when you say no to something or stop something, other things come in, don't they? Yeah, yeah. And people can be scared to do that. But it's lovely to hear how it is for you and to play Cher this morning. Aiti Mabuse, thank you. Arlene Phillips, huge thanks to you as well.

The Cher Show is at the Curve Theatre in Leicester from Friday running till the 23rd of April and then it's on UK tour through to March 2023. All the best. Thank you so much. And certainly after the last two and a half years, you know, theatres need all the support they can get as well. Oh, yes.

And people also texting and tweeting and messaging in to say they love their dance. Gina says, I love to dance in my art studio in the morning, gets my creative mojo going or just love to dance anywhere and live for it.

Another one here saying, I suffer from constant pain, chronic pain, and dance is the only form of physical movement where I can lose myself and forget the pain. It often puts me in more pain

sometimes in the day afters, but it's worth it for the joy at that time. So many people going to different types of dance classes as well and alex says we started off having dance parties on zoom with some good friends we jointly put a playlist together which we played all of our in all of our front rooms and we danced like mad because this hasn't happened often enough and because i'm still shielding i'm a 73 year old with type 1 diabetes i've got into silent disco now in a big way i put

on my bluetooth earphones, play Northern Soul on Motown and dance around my non-existent handbag. Dauphins kick in rapidly. You see? I love that. Huge approval here in the studio. Keep those messages coming in on 84844.

And thank you to you for those messages and your inspiration this morning. Now to a different story, which of course has been dominating the news agenda over the past few days. The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, and his wife, Akshata Moti, and their finances have been in the headlines for several days now. And in addition to the family moving out of Downing Street over the weekend, a move that was said to have been pre-planned, Mr Sunak has asked the Prime Minister for an independent review of his financial affairs. The woman behind the story is the economics editor for The Independent, Anna Isaac.

She broke the news that Miss Morty was a non-domicile resident, meaning she doesn't have to pay tax to the UK authorities on any income that she earns outside of Britain, something that is entirely legal. But 48 hours after the story broke last Wednesday, Miss Morty announced that she would pay her UK taxes on her worldwide income. And now the Chancellor has asked for a full investigation into the leak that made her financial details public in the first place. Anna Isaac, the economics editor of The Independent, joins me now.

Good morning. Good morning. Had you been sitting on this for a while? The timing, of course, just after the spring statement. It's been a long-term investigation that's that's what i can say so definitely a matter of months not weeks and what were your feelings about this being uh information if you like about somebody's spouse in this case the wife um well it's very clear in the ministerial code that their spouse's interests

are um completely a valid area of concern in terms of the potential conflicts. This is someone that sets tax policy, fiscal policy in the UK. It's right within his brief. He's the second most powerful politician in this country. So unfortunately, that does mean that the rules somewhat change. I think it's also important to understand that Ms. Milti is an incredibly successful businesswoman in her own right. And that if you were to write this as a business story, it could still be relevant. She's one of the richest people in the UK, full stop, richer than the Queen. Because, of course, she's regularly referred to in terms of her father's wealth and success with his business in India.

You're saying separate to that. Well, via her shareholding in Infosys, which is this huge Indian services company, she is wealthy in that regard. But she also has investments in the UK. And she made that very clear in terms of paying UK tax as well on her interest in the UK. Now her worldwide income is going to be taken into account in her tax return. So what did you make of political figures from the prime minister through, of course, to Rishi Sunak himself talking about this not being fair as a hit job on the wife, as it were? I obviously disagree in terms of the public interest with this. I think what's crucial and in some of the response I found it quite troubling initially is that this is a choice.

It's not about being an Indian citizen. There are plenty of Indian citizens in the UK who choose to pay taxes on their worldwide income in the UK. And it's very important to understand that. And I think it's interesting that it was made a matter of citizenship. And then we heard within 24 hours about both of them having held green cards, which supposedly come with an intention to make the US your permanent residence. We heard about that within 24 hours of that. So I think the bigger questions that have subsequently followed have made the public interest case for this story even clearer. I suppose there's another element as well, which has been about, and I've seen some people write

about this, whether they should be considered, in this case, it is a woman, the wife, you know, it could be the other way around, whether they should be considered a unit, whether those who are married, two people who are married, whether it's, you know, two women, two men, a man and a woman, whether they should be considered one in an era where, you know, we don't still have a situation where women have to rely on men for their income. They can be completely independent. Yeah, I think that's I think it's always an important question to ask. Right. You know, people fought for the right to have their own independent tax affairs. I think the difference here is that when you have a household and remember that a lot of the UK's tax system, a lot of our benefits for people are based on their household.

Whether or not the two parties in that household are married can affect their tax status and but also more generally if you have children their interests are in a way become joint financial interests so the financial affairs of your households are intermingled you co-own assets you might set up certain mechanisms for ensuring your children will be fine if anything happens to you jointly that means you combine your interests and marriage is a legal and a tax status in this country and so whether it was a male spouse female spouse in some instances a civil partner of the same gender wouldn't affect the way I would report this story nor the public interest test for it. But I suppose has there been those those accusations of sexism in those

different ways towards you? Have you seen any of that? I haven't seen a great deal of it. I think what's quite interesting for me is that I got a lot of messages from people who had Indian citizenship, when the particular line suggesting that Indian citizenship would be a bar to this choice that was exerted to use the remittance basis using a non-domicile status, who were immediately very clear that this was not the case and it was news to them. And if they had a spare £30,000 to spend on sustaining a non-dom status for tax purposes, that they might have chosen to do so themselves. The Sunacs moved out of Downing Street this weekend.

Apparently that was pre-planned, of course, looked quite striking after your exclusive story, which of course has then led to other things as well. And it's also been reported that Rishi Sunak has asked for a leak inquiry within Whitehall, who, you know, you're not here

and I would never ask journalists about sources. You know, you of course had the right to protect them. But what do you make of that? Because there has been criticism of that, even from within his own party,

the former leader of the Tories, of the Conservatives, Ian Duncan Smith, saying you just don't do that. I think it's a tricky choice to make when it again involves taxpayers' money. So it was in taxpayers' funding

and investigation into this. It takes a lot of resource um people in the treasury have very little spare time as it is they're trying to deal with the fact that we are having very weak economic growth as we learned from this morning's gdp figures issued by the ons they're trying to deal with leveling up um supporting the leveling up department in their efforts to um boost economic activity around UK. So it's a question of time and resource here. And I'm not sure it's the best use of the Chancellor's or his senior civil servants' time. I mean, the leaking of this information, it's unclear whether this is a

criminal offence. It's reported when Mr Sunak was ordering the inquiry, he's raised concerns about the unauthorised disclosure could be a criminal offence. But what do you want to say to those who perhaps, and I know there's been a huge response to this, a lot of people very happy this is out in the public main, a lot of people saying, how just after the spring statement could we then learn this? And of course, I also mentioned nothing illegal done here, but that Miss Morty is now paying that tax as well. And that's also just been recently announced. But what do you say to those who do say such affairs should be private? I'd say that, you know, privacy is very important.

And journalism is always about thinking about that line between the public interest and privacy and process. What I would say is that try and think about this in the same way as we think about, for instance, if someone was in charge of a financial regulator and their spouse were trading in certain securities that they were in charge of regulating and they were doing something that was absolutely within the rules but that might cause some questioning of the rules themselves,

those rules that their spouse was overseeing at some questioning of the rules themselves those rules that their spouse was overseeing at the head of the regulator and I think taking it out of politics and looking at the facts as they are and the interests in play as they are in a non-political context might help answer that question as to whether or not this is a valid line of investigation which I firmly believe it was but I think think about it as though it was a business story that's certainly how I approached it I took the politics right out of it. And I said, you know, as a business story, does this present a question over the interests at play? It does. Well, I mean, politics are a huge part of it now, I suppose, with with what happens next.

And also we learned that the health secretary, Sajid Javid, over the weekend, he admitted he was a non-dom, as it's called for short, before entering politics. So he'd always followed UK tax rules, but has also been accused of hypocrisy have you got many more of these scoops to come I fancy uh telling us here Anna I think my editors might be a bit annoyed if I did that not to mention the lawyers um yeah sorry my our lawyers wouldn't love that either but yeah go on yeah I think I think that's fair to say. I'm certainly pursuing a lot of interesting questions about the interface between finance and politics. And I hope to publish some more stories in due course. Said in a very straight way there. I mean, we wanted to talk to the woman at the heart of this because it also must have been quite a moment last Wednesday when breaking that story.

Yes, it was. And there's definitely something I want to say, which is that other organisations had highlighted this potential issue. So Private Eye, a magazine I'm a huge fan of, has said, you know, for many, many months, in fact, I think last year reported that she was eminently eligible for this status. I think what the position I was in

was that I had to get this to a point I knew where whether the Treasury or spokespeople either tried to deny it or in this instance refused to respond to requests for comment. I knew that I had to reach a burden of proof. I had to be absolutely sure, which is quite nerve wracking when you're about to hit publish on something. And these are very powerful people. They have huge networks of support for themselves. And so it was very scary. But, you know, I published an investigation on the CEO of Barclays before this. And so I kind of knew what would be in the offing and the intimidation involved. So I just took the same approach.

Have you had some intimidation around this? It was, it's been challenging um i i think um you know obviously people um there's a degree of upset around the story um and so um people people have very strong feelings um about it and you just have to um proceed um and detach yourself uh from that and just carry on regardless and and that's what i intend to do i mean i ask that as well because you know this is a program that's about women's lives and you know you're you're also doing this uh as someone working in a field trying to as you say get the information out there and there will be a reality to that as well which which i'm keen to hear about. Anna, Isaac, saying what you can say

at the moment, I'm sure much more to be read and followed from you, the economics editor of The Independent. Thank you very much for joining me. There you go, Anna, Isaac. And many messages, I have to say, still coming in. So many of you loving dancing. Gwen says, our streets started dancing in lockdown one, and it's made a huge difference to our neighbourhood. Our street dancers represented Northern Ireland in clapping for the NHS birthday in July 2020. And we still meet to have a boogie on Mondays at 11am. Oh, very shortly indeed. Enjoy. A message here, I'm blind and I love dancing, but it's hard finding the right conditions.

I love Ciroc because it's a partner dance and you can learn moves, which when I know them, I can follow without having to see. And another one from Vivian. I took up Scottish dancing this winter and I love it. There are a number of older people in the group who've been dancing for years and they're all super fit and mentally alert because you really have to concentrate

to remember the routines and the aerobic and fast dancing is so energetic. I'm a new woman. And many more about the various classes, whether it's Zumba, jazz, ballet, so many. A few of people saying they've just started things because of lockdown. And another one here from Florence, my daughter, Rosalind, who's nine months, has just learned to dance. Oh, I remember when my son did. It's just amazing, that tap of the foot.

Bopping along to the Bee Gees or Earth, Wind and Fire. Nothing makes me happier than seeing her enjoy music and dance movement in the way that I do. Well, talking about children, it's a very good segue into my next conversation. You may have seen these comments from the actor Sienna Miller. She said in a recent interview with Elle magazine that she took the step of freezing some of her eggs when she turned 40, following the pressure she felt to have more children. Professor Imogen Gould has been looking into how women make decisions to delay fertility, including in this way, and joins me ahead of a lecture she's giving today about this at Gresham College in London.

Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for joining us today. Now, you want to challenge some of this sort of the language around this and some of the myths that have grown up about maybe women aren't as informed or they don't quite know what they're doing with this. What do you want to say? Yeah, I guess what I've been interested in for some time is this culture of warning women and i find that women do need to know the facts they do need to know that it's that it's not something that's necessarily going to save them if they freeze their eggs and that they can rely on it but what i find really um frustrating

i guess is that the language just seems a bit sometimes a bit patronizing um that women don, that women aren't really perceived as really being really aware of that, when actually I think women really understand their fertility declines. It's not going to necessarily give them what they want, but they can make their own decisions. And also, I suppose, there's an element of control and wanting to take control. But maybe those warnings are with the concern that women perhaps think this will be an answer yeah and i think it's absolutely important um to understand so we know that um the

success rates with freezing your eggs depends on when you freeze them the earlier the better you want to do it you know late 20s early 30s ideally um but i think what's really interesting is the way in which there's less, there's not as much in this conversation about the impact for women when they don't delay motherhood. And that I think that's the part of the conversation I really wanted to put into this. Because you've got personal experience as well of that, haven't you? I am somebody who absolutely put off to having children until quite late on. And I did it for absolutely because I was waiting until I was in a secure job and I waited till I was 36 and then I had a bit of trouble um getting pregnant and so absolutely I'm someone who ran that risk and it and it nearly didn't didn't work out for me but but I mean we should say it did it did I have two lovely boys um now but I had them when I was

36 and 40 so I was pushing it and and you don't regret it I understand from the point of view of the career do you what do you want to say understand, from the point of view of the career. What do you want to say about that? Because that's, as you say, the other side we don't necessarily talk about. Yeah. So I think that there's lots of information out there about the low rate of success for egg freezing for women. I think what is less talked about is why they do it. And one of the things that we know is that women are really concerned to be financially stable and secure before they have their children.

So it's not just that they're looking for the right partner. They understand that the point at which they step out of employment, out of education, has really lifelong impacts on them potentially. And they're really trying to hit that sweet spot. And I think when they're looking at things like egg freezing, what they're trying to do is not rely on it per se, but they're trying to add in this extra bit of help so that when they're balancing that, they've got a bit of a better chance. And also, is it important to bring up that lots of women, I don't know if this is true, but some women will just won't use them. It's an insurance side of this that they relax perhaps when they know they have something banked, as it were. Absolutely. There's lots of stories out there of women just not using them at all but saying once I'd done it it took a bit of the pressure off and I stopped being so

anxious and relaxed. Well last year at the end of last year I spoke to Professor Adam Balan he's a consultant in reproductive medicine at Leeds, Leeds Teaching Hospitals about why he thinks it's a good idea to have special messages in contraceptive packages. I don't know if you remember this, advising women not to leave it too late if they want a baby. What do you think about that? I can see why he says that. But I actually think most women really understand that their fertility declines as they get older. I mean, I think most of us as women, you spend your 20s trying not to get pregnant, and then your 30s worrying, can I get pregnant?

It's not that we don't know. And I think that's the part that I I find frustrating is this presumption that women just don't know that I think what women need to know is the point at which it becomes problematic and not this idea that you get to sort of late 30s and then it falls off a cliff actually your fertility is going to decline slowly over your 30s you don't know if you're going to have some problems so keep an eye on it but i don't think women need need telling i really keep an eye on i mean how you keep an eye on it is is quite tricky as well and and we should also bring up you know freezing your eggs costs it does you know it's not an option for for many if not most i mean i don't know what we know about who's who's eligible and

how we get there but it's not it's not when you say keep an eye on it it's a very hard thing and it's often a very expensive interest. Yeah, so to freeze your aches will cost a couple of thousand pounds per cycle. But when you go and look at the cost, make sure you look at all of the costs. So it will not just be the freezing cycle, but with the medications and the ongoing storage costs, which are a couple of hundred pounds a year. The cost for women is, you know, in the tens of thousands. And so it's not open to most people. And I think that's why Matt Hancock about two years ago was talking about how we might fund it on the nhs to help

women um whether we would want to do that obviously is a is a different question but i think that the keeping an eye on it is just the regularly thinking about the balance of risks for yourself and if you have this different focus on why you would want to do it how it might make you feel putting aside you know the practicalities of it, which you can't easily put aside and the money. What do you think that would do about the conversation around this? What would you hope it would do? And you're trying to address in your lecture today. I think what women need is really good, hard information about the impact on their fertility.

They need good information. So going to places like the HFEA website website you'll get proper data about success rates look at the human fertilization and embryology embryology authority yeah i've got that right okay that's it that's it the regulator so so look at the real information i mean at the moment the average success rate is 18 but it depends on the age when you freeze your eggs so get really good information about your age is important um but i think that what we also need to bear in mind in all of this is why are women in this position in the first place? And it's actually because women crystallise into the carer.

Women take on, we know, higher burdens in terms of childcare, and so they are the ones who step out of employment. What we really need to do is work on changing the conditions that put women in this position of having to make this really difficult choice sometimes. So you would rather there was no egg freezing because we've got the conditions right? No, no, no. I absolutely think women should make their own choices about their risk. But what I think is that women are often caught between a rock and a hard place. You know, they know that they will probably be the one who becomes the

carer. So they take that burden, but they're under pressure because theirs is the fertility that decreases. And so it's putting them in this quite invidious position. So what I think we should do is give them this option that allows them to balance the risk they want to, give them egg freezing, that's fine, give them information. But keep bearing in mind the fact that because women have these pressures in the workplace and as carer, they're always going to have a tough choice. And egg freezing helps, but it's not a panacea. Would you support it on the NHS? That puts me on the spot i have to say what you do isn't it i i think that i i would struggle without possibly but then if you think about that's what we do with ivf i mean ivf is

about helping people um but i think that would be a tough one it would be we could we can we can go for that at a different point perhaps in more detail uh but you know ivf again i should point out and i obviously know this myself intimately is a is a postcode lottery a lot of the time as well on that front. Professor Imogen Gould, Visiting Professor of Medical Law at Gresham College and Professor of Medical Law at Oxford University. And that lecture at Gresham College is at one o'clock today and can also be viewed online. Thanks for coming to talk to us. Do you do much dancing? No, only in my kitchen with my children. That's good. That counts. I love a kitchen disco. I've got so many messages here.

Again, coming in, dancing has been my saviour at times, says Claire, with struggles with my mental health. I can dance around my flat, expressing the emotions I cannot articulate. I absolutely love it and always have. I recommend everyone close their curtains once a week and let loose and be free. It's the wonderful, the most wonderful release of energy going. I fully concur with that, except don't close your curtains once a week and let loose and be free. It's the wonderful, the most wonderful release of energy going. I fully concur with that, except don't close your curtains. Give the neighbours something to look at, Isaac. But listen, if you're feeling embarrassed, I understand.

But I'm saying you shouldn't. And there you go. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. 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 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.