Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Carey Mulligan, Mary Earps’ England retirement, International Aid, Folk trio I'm With Her

Episode Date: May 31, 2025

Three-time Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan, known for roles in films such as Maestro, Promising Young Woman and Suffragette, returns to our cinema screens in the comedy drama The Ballad of Wallis Island. She talked to Anita Rani about playing ex-folk singer Nell, working on a film set with a young baby, and why she loves musicals.Earlier this week, goalkeeper Mary Earps, one of England's most high profile footballers, announced her retirement from the international game. Her decision comes just five weeks before the Lionesses go to the European Championships to defend their title. Jessica Creighton was joined was joined by football writer for the Guardian Suzy Wrack, and sports lecturer at the University of Worcester and professional goalkeeping coach, Dr Julia West, to discuss why Mary took this decision.Announcements of cuts to foreign aid this year from both the UK and US governments, amongst others, have left many organisations facing funding issues and putting their programmes at risk. As humanitarian crises continue across the world, including in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, with many vulnerable people suffering including women and girls, the need to provide aid remains as high as ever. Dr Helen Pankhurst, Senior Advisor on Gender Equality for Care International UK, and Sofia Calltrop, the UN Women Chief of Humanitarian Aid, discussed with Kylie Pentelow the effects of these cuts on women and girls globally and the importance of gender equality programming.The American folk trio I’m With Her have routinely taken time out from their individual careers to dream up songs together. On their long-awaited second album Wild and Clear and Blue, they sing about reaching into the past, navigating a chaotic present, and bravely moving forward into the unknown. They joined Kylie in the studio.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Annette Wells Editor: Sarah Jane Griffiths

BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. Hello, I'm Jessica Crichton. Welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome. Coming up some highlights from this week. Oscar nominated actor, Keri Mulligan, on her latest film role in the ballad of Wallace Island. How cuts to international aid are impacting projects specifically for women, with almost half of global women's rights organisations expected to shut down within six months unless further funding is secured. Also as goalkeeper Mary Earps announced her shock retirement from playing for England earlier this week, what's led to this decision? And music from award-winning American folk

trio I'm with her. Lots to get into, so let's get started. Three-time Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan, the star of films including Maestro, Promising Young Woman and Suffragette, returns to our cinema screens this weekend in the comedy drama The Ballad of Wallace Island. An eccentric lottery winner dreams of reuniting his favourite folk duo. Carey plays one half of that duo and she sings. Her co-stars Tom Basden and Tim Key wrote the screenplay. Kerry came into the Woman's Hour studio to speak to Anita and started off by telling her about her character, Nell.

Nell is one part of the band that's, you know, Maguire Mortimer were a pretty successful folk band ten years prior. They were a couple and I think it's never explicit, but in the story you get the idea that they broke up and parted ways musically at the same time because Herb had ambitions to be very, very famous and Nell didn't so much. And so they've kind of gone in opposite directions. And Nell's now married, living in Portland, Oregon, and has a, you know, sells chutney in a farmer's market and Herb is just desperately trying to stay relevant with his music career and is going off in really bad directions with that. And so they're brought back together.

And I come in a little bit into the film. We've already established Tim and Tom's characters Charles is Tim Key who is obsessed with this band for lots of reasons and Tom plays Herb who's the star or sort of fading star and Charles is driving him mad and and it's really really awkward and awful And Nell arrives and sort of finds him quite charming. Yes and he didn't know that Nell was arriving. Herb was not expecting Nell to arrive. It's about navigating the tension between nostalgia and holding on to the past and moving on because as you say she's married, moved on and he still very much has feelings for her and hasn't moved on. Yeah yeah and they're kind of, I think Charles and Herb are both sort of

living in the past and Nell's quite sort of comfortable in the present and has found other ways to be creative and isn't sort of necessarily that concerned about being known for what she does, just sort of enjoying what she does. She brings joy to the screen, not least because I just really appreciated what she was wearing. She's free spirited. I wonder how much of an input you had in that? Well, we had an amazing costume designer. I had a very small baby, so my key requirements were outfits that would open up so I could feed a baby and things that were quite loose

and billowy, which suited her. She is kind of a farmer's market. We imagined that lots of her clothes were sort of secondhand, thrift store, vintage kind of stuff. So it was fun. She was colorful. You had a 10 week old baby, Kerry. I did. And this film was shot in 18 days in Wales. Yes. And baby was with you?

She was there the whole time, yeah. How wonderful that you could make it work. It was amazing. And that was the thing. So when Tim offered me the job, I just said I'd love to do it But I you know It might be a bit of a logistical nightmare for you guys because I'm gonna have a baby that will just be there the whole time So I'll have to go off and feed her and be with you know her when she needs me And they were just great. They were just up for it and so sweet

You know it filmed in Wales the beach location was 10 minutes from Temby, which is where all my childhood holidays were. Great place. Great place. The house was in the town that my mum was born in, you know, so it was all very familiar. All my family were there. Was that coincidence or did they find it at the location before? Those were real coincidences. We knew that it was going to be sort of Pembrokeshire coast, but these two exact locations, it was kind of crazy that it happened to be those places. Because the backdrop, the setting, the feel of the film is just as beautiful as the story. Yeah. Wales is just gorgeous.

So gorgeous. And you are exceptional in it, as you are in everything I see you in, because you make it look effortless, you make your skill look effortless. And in kind of reading around you as a person before you came into Women's Out today, what struck me is that your tenacity into getting into this career in the first place. Thank you. Because, you know, I relate. My parents also didn't want me to, you know,

follow a career with maybe not as much sort of security as others, but you stuck at it, and you were really young when you started. Yeah, I was 18 when I started. And wrote letters. Wrote, oh yeah. I did write letters. I just always thought, you know,

it's not just gonna happen. I just wanted to give myself as much of a chance. I didn't have, you know, anyone in my life who'd ever acted or done anything in the sort of creative industries. And so I just, I knew I needed to knock doors down and prove myself. Where does that come from, that fearlessness? I don't know if it was fearlessness or that I just didn't think that there was anything else that would make me happy. I was, you know, I'm always sort of kind of impressed by people who fall into this job, who are like, well, I was kind of doing this thing and then I ended up acting.

I'm like, what? How did that? I've just been desperate to do it since I was, before I even knew it was a job, I just knew it's all I loved doing. So I think I just sort of felt like there was nothing else that I would, that would I that would give me a sort of joy in that, you know, it's just my favourite thing to do. Yeah, well you're absolutely doing the thing that you were meant to do. But another thing you do, because you are playing a folk singer in it, is sing in the film.

I do, yeah. Did I read that you wanted to be a singer on Broadway before anything else? That was my, yeah, well I grew up sort of wanting to do musical theatre first, because I did sort of am-dram, you know, school stuff and then sort of wanting to do musical theatre first because I did sort of amdram, you know, school stuff and then kind of drama clubs on the weekend when I was a kid. I never did anything professional till I left school but I did do that stuff and that was always musicals and I loved it and I love musicals more than anything in the world. I'll go and see a musical before I'll see anything else.

Okay, favourite musical you've got to… Les Miserables. I went and used to buy £10 tickets when I was a kid and sit in the gods like when I was about 14, 15 years old. I just loved it. And so that was my sort of big dream and then I think after a while I was like, I don't think I can dance really and I can sing but like I can sing in a choir. You know, I don't have a sort of, I can't belt stuff out the way that you need to.

But then singing has found its way into jobs that I've done over the years and I've always loved it. I've always found it very, very nerve wracking from the outset and then always ended up loving it. And when you got the script through from Tim for this, when did the music arrive? When did you hear what you'd be singing? Some of the songs were in the short. So Raspberry Fair is in the short and that's in the film. Tom just started sending songs over and yeah, I loved them.

Kerry Monaghan there and the ballad of Wallace Island is in cinemas from today. Now earlier this week, one of England's most high profile footballers announced their shock retirement from international football, goalkeeper Mary Earps. Her decision comes just five weeks before the Lionesses go to the European Championships to defend their title. And so there's been some debates and some criticism about the timing of her announcement, but Earps said it was the right time for her to step aside and give the younger generation an opportunity to thrive. I was joined by football writer for The Guardian, Suzy Rak, and sports lecturer at the University of Worcester and also professional goalkeeping coach, Dr Julia West. I began by asking Susie,

why has Mary made this decision now? That's a good question. I mean, it is shocking coming so soon before a major tournament when so many of the sort of keepers in the England orbit at the moment have so few caps but at the same time as I understand it she had actually been having discussions with Serena Vigman about possible retirement for the last 12 to 18 months and asked in April if she could go but was basically asked to reconsider it so for her I think it's been a much longer process than most people realize. Who knows what kind of discussions are going on behind the So for her, I think it's been a much longer process than most people realise.

Who knows what kind of discussions are going on behind the scenes and things like that. But I think Leah Williamson actually hit the nail on the head when she said it must have been an extraordinarily tough decision. So I think it is important to remember that there is a human at the basis of this decision. And yeah, I feel quite sorry for her having to sort of kind of step into the limelight like this and sort of step away at a time where you know it can be perceived that she's leaving England at a time in need. Is she leaving England at a time of need?

I mean I would argue potentially yes in that you know Hannah Hampton is a hugely inexperienced goalkeeper at international level. She's got 11 caps or something. She's performed in some big games for England, but generally not on the biggest of stages. She's not played a major international tournament yet. So when you then consider if Hampton gets injured, we're left with players who are completely uncapped, then you could say that yes, that is leaving England in the lurch. But at the same time, when you've had the career that Mary's had and delivered on the biggest stages in the

way that she has, I think you have to also give a bit of leeway to someone who has done their time, right? And like, given a lot and never shied away from sort of stepping up on the big stage. So in her statement, which is quite lengthy, as you might imagine, for someone that's achieved all that she's achieved, she does mention the younger generation and allowing them to now take the spotlight. Can we read between the lines to perhaps deduce that because she wasn't going to definitely be England's number one, she doesn't want to be number two's number one, she doesn't want to be number two and so has decided to step aside?

I mean, I think that is a take for sure, but I don't think we can necessarily say that with any kind of degree of certainty until we sort of get more of what's going on behind the scenes because she has deputised for Hannah Hampton at various points across the last sort of couple of years as Serena's sort of been working out exactly who she wants to be first choice or not and you know I think there are plenty of England goalkeepers who have played that role historically I think of Carly Telford who did that really well or Karen Bardsley who also you know towards the end of her tenure was watching this new generation come through and And there is a role to play, right, in being

the elder stateswoman helping nurture those new generation goalkeepers. Only if you want to play that role. 100% yeah. And perhaps that's where some of the criticism has come in because people don't understand why she wouldn't want to play that role. It's a chance to play for your country still, isn't it? Oh, 100% and it's like a very real chance to win a medal potentially as well. So, you know, that's the thing that I take a little bit of sympathy towards in that, you know, she's made a decision potentially to, you know, walk away from being a player that wins a second European

Championship medal because she, you know, would have been sat on the bench essentially for that medal, you still get the medal, right? So to have to make that decision, there must be something deeper going on there, whether it's a fallout in England camp, whether it's a fallout with the other goalkeepers, whether it's some disagreement with Serena, whether it's frustration over the process around her retirement and those discussions, I don't know. But I think that you know, yes, the criticism is valid five weeks before the major tournament kicks off. We've got it's 13 caps, Sahana Campton's got Kiara Keaton Animal House have none. So that is a big, big experience hole there. But at the same time,

like I think that is an incredibly difficult decision, a big personal sacrifice to make when your profile is so high and you could be two-time European champion potentially, to step away from that. So I'm just cautious of making assumptions on the way she's thinking and feeling and whether it's, you know, petulant or as some people have put it, or some kind of like, you know, fit of frustration at not being number one versus something much deeper than that, which I think is very, very possible. Of course. So how have the Lionesses reacted? Because I know the captain, Leah Williamson, and the manager, Serena Vigman, have both spoken out about this. Yeah, they both did the press conference yesterday. And, you know, Serena was very protective over sort of the conversations they had had, didn't sort of kind of give it give anything away on whether those conversations, as I

understand it, they'd be going off 12 to 18 months have actually happened. They've had conversations, she wouldn't give any detail. Leah was very, very sort of emotional about the impact that Earps has had on the team about her personal relationship with her, their close friends., and you know, again, like similar to what I've been saying, sort of reiterated this point that there's a human at the heart of this, it must have been an extremely difficult decision and whilst they're obviously extremely disappointed that she's not going to be with them at the Euros, they're also, you know, concerned for her and her feelings and emotions at this time and, you know, whatever's pushed her

into making this decision. And I think, think you know it's telling that they they want her there right Serena said she wants her there. Yeah and Julia let me bring you in at this point because you are of course a professional goalkeeping coach so did this announcement take you by surprise as well what's your thoughts on this? It did yes immediately before a However, I've been in some question and answer sessions where Mary was part of that for the Future Lionesses goalkeeper program. And she was very much this person that didn't want to be in the way of the up and coming talent. I think we can see that she's quite humble

in the way that she approaches some of these decisions that she makes and there could be so much more going on. We really don't know what the underlying premises are for Mary there but it's a really hard thing. If you think about goalkeepers for an example, there is only one position on the pitch. So for midfielders, if I had midfielders, I've got potentially five positions and I can jiggle people around. For the goalkeeper to give Hannah Hampton or Kiara or even Anna a little bit of experience, I've got to take a goalkeeper off to put another goalkeeper on. So we've got this problem even in the men's game, you know, the youngsters are sitting on the bench at the top level, so they're still not getting any experience. And the question is, how do we, how do you bridge going from team experience to international experience?

And okay, immediately before a tournament, that's not great. Could it upset the apricot? Maybe. But it's not just about one person, is it? It's about the whole team as well at the end of the day. Now, don't get me wrong, right? I'm a goalkeeper through and through, and I absolutely fully support the goalkeeper side of this argument but I'm just trying to also have a look around the corner a little bit. Mary wears her heart on a

sleeve, she's become really personable for people but also you know Hannah Hampton hasn't had a bad run in on the international stage for her caps and and Kiara Keating is an exciting young prospect coming through and and even below that which is the level, you know, I coach between the 12 and 15 up and coming keepers. And there's some exciting prospects, I think, coming along the queue. So when do we give all of these keepers their experience and their opportunities at international level? – Susie Rack and Dr Julia Westler. BBC Sport has been following Mary this season as part of a new documentary which you can watch now on iPlayer. It's called Mary, Queen of Stops. Now last week more than 60 UK and international NGOs published a joint statement to the UK

government against what they deem a shameful proposal to eradicate standalone funding for gender equality programmes in foreign aid. They're asking the Foreign Office to protect the funding for this area, which currently sits at 12% of UK aid. This doesn't only affect the UK, as global aid cuts have been impacting programmes worldwide since the beginning of the year. A recent UN Women report surveying over 400 agencies found that 90% of global women's rights organizations said their operations had been financially impacted by the cuts and nearly half expect to shut down

within six months unless further funding is secured. To discuss this, Kylie Pentelow was joined by Dr. Helen Pankhurst, the Senior Advisor on Gender Equality for Care International UK, an international NGO working in over a hundred countries with a focus on women and girl programs, and Sophia Caltrop, the UN Women Chief of Humanitarian Aid and Director of UN Women's Geneva Office. Kylie began by asking Dr Helen Pankhurst what do we mean by gender equality programmes? What's awful about this idea of a gender mainstreaming approach which is being talked about, it hasn't

been brought in yet, but the idea is that instead of having standalone programmes for example that address issues of violence against women, women's particular economic issues, sexual reproductive health, public health. There are many aspects where having that focus on women and girls makes all the difference to those who are most marginalised. Even issues about climate change. If you provide funds that are specific to women and girls, you address certain problems that you don't see if you have this gender mainstreaming approach. The government is now saying that it's going to bring this general gender mainstreaming approach which means you lose that very specific approach and we think this is devastating. This isn't about money. We

can come on to the fact that there's been cuts in funding. It's about the approach. So we have this call, we've had many organisations, over 60 organisations horrified by this idea that this is going to be the approach. So we have this call, we've had many organisations, over 60 organisations, horrified by this idea that this is going to be the approach that they're going to use. It's against the Labour manifesto that had focused and talked about the importance of women and girls in international development. It's against all of our experience. Your statement opens with the line, the UK is poised to deliver the worst aid budget for women and girls on record.

That is a strong statement and from what you've just said that you believe that that is potentially the situation we could be in. Absolutely, because you're losing that really clear focus on the most marginalised, those that are least likely to be causing a lot of the problems in the world. And yet without that support we're leaving them, we're abandoning millions of women and girls. And it's linked to the second point about the funding reduction. So the UK used to give 0.7% of its national income. That was reduced by the previous government to 0.5. Now it's being reduced to 0.3. Again, against the Labour Manifesto, against what a lot of polls are telling us that people think should be done. And the combination of losing the strategic vision of the importance of women and girls

and the reduction in funding to this area together means that this government is going to be on record for delivering the least for women and girls despite its ideology of actually understanding the importance of that focus. But of course the government has said that you know it needs to spend money elsewhere, defence spending for example, what do you say to that? I say that there's a direct connection between development diplomacy and defence and a lot of people in defence have said and there's media analysis of this, that defence is at the end of that spectrum of the three factors, that the more you do in international aid, the more you are starting at the causal factor, that is where the problems occur. And this is, you

know, I know many people also feel that there are issues that are around defence and for example refugees that are taking people's time and all the rest of it but many people the polls show us can both be worried about issues such as the refugees and internal issues and care passionately about the position of women and girls. So we have had this polling that's shown that 68% of people feel that international aid should focus on violence against women and polling that shows that six out of eight labor supporters feel that there needs to be this focus on women and girls. So both for the issue around the focus, the need to focus on women girls,

we are calling for the government to abandon that idea the need to focus on women and girls, we are calling for the government to abandon that idea of not having the mainstreaming approach and asking for a focus on women and girls, and we are calling for this allocation of at least 12% of funding to the area of women and girls. And the importance of funding women and girls who are at the forefront of problems in the world is understood by the public. So that idea that we need to cut aid is not a popular position. We have asked the Foreign Office for comment. They gave us this statement.

The UK remains committed to empowering women and girls around the world through our international work. They say they will continue to work with international partners in support of this. They say they will use targeted funding and diplomatic engagement to provide leadership on gender issues. This includes supporting leaders and activists in their home countries and ensuring our development and humanitarian programs integrate gender and women's perspectives. I just want to come to Sophia Kaltorp of UN Women. Sophia, this is not happening in a vacuum as foreign aid cuts are happening globally. US government, the world's largest aid donor, this year cut 83% of its foreign aid budget. So can you just tell us what the wider impact of global aid cuts has been on women and girls? As you said, in every crisis, women-led and women's rights organizations are the ones stepping up. They are providing care, they ensure that women's voices

are heard and they really help shaping local solutions. So for us at UN Women, when we saw the foreign aid cuts unfolding globally, looking into how this affect women led organizations globally was key for us, because again, those are really the ones at the front lines who are there for the communities, for the women and girls in humanitarian crisis. And as you said in the beginning of the program, the findings that we showed when we launched this survey was really shocking with 90% of women-led organizations being impacted and

almost half of them having possibly to close down within the next six months. So this is a crisis that is unfolding in front of our eyes in all humanitarian contexts around the globe. We looked into 44 of them, surveyed 411 women's organizations, and this starking result is really an alarm bell that for us as UN Women, how can we advocate for more funding to go to women-led organisations, not only to respond to the needs of the women, but as we know, if we resource local women-led organisations, we will get a more effective human-turn response that also, of course, helps support and develop local communities

in those very, very fragile settings. Some listeners may be thinking, you know, why do we need these type of programs that are aimed at women and girls, you know, in 2025? Why do we need them? For many different reasons. Today there are more than 308 million people who are in desperate need of humanitarian aid. And we see across all conflict and humanitarian settings that women and girls be at the brunt of this crisis. Women and girls, they lost services, they lost their safety, they lost their autonomy. And also, you know, resourcing women and girls is not only resourcing women and girls

and attending to their needs, but making sure that they can respond within their communities. So it's not only the right thing to do, but it's also the smart thing to do if we want humanitarian aid to reach the most vulnerable and have the greatest effect. Then of course, we see the rise of gender-based

violence, we see the rise of conflict-related sexual violence. I just come from Sudan where we have a triple increase in GBV services over the past two years. So the needs are there but also the women's organisations ability to respond within the communities. Thank you to Dr Helen Pankhurst and Sophia Couchrop there. That's it from me today. On Monday's programme we have Eta O'Brien, the world-renowned intimacy coordinator. She's worked on the kisses, embraces and sex scenes of TV shows including Normal People, I May Destroy You and Gentleman Jack to name a few. Now she's used her expertise on set to inform her debut book Intimacy.

She'll be joining Newler to discuss it. Have a lovely weekend.