Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman’s Hour: Fiona Shaw, Gurinder Chadha, Women Footballers, Fashion Disrupter Amy Powney

Episode Date: July 5, 2025

Award-winning actor Fiona Shaw is best known for her roles in Killing Eve, Bad Sisters, Fleabag, True Detective: Night Country and even as Aunt Petunia in Harry Potter, among many other things. She’s now starring in a new film adaptation of Deborah Levy’s novel, Hot Milk, playing Rose, who goes to Almería in Spain with her daughter, Sofia, played by Emma Mackey, to try to find a cure for Rose’s mysterious paralysis at an experimental clinic. Fiona joined Nuala McGovern to discuss it.Jenny Evans was a young actress riding high on the success of her first feature film when she was sexually assaulted by someone who was in the public eye. When she later found the courage to report this crime to the police, details of what she had experienced were printed in a tabloid newspaper. Jenny decided to retrain as a journalist to try and figure out how this could have happened. She went on to help expose the abuses of power in the press and police that have become known as the 'phone-hacking scandal'. Nuala spoke to Jenny about her memoir Don't Let it Break You, Honey.The film director Gurinder Chadha has released a trailer to celebrate this summer's cricket fixtures between England and India's women's teams. She joined Datshiane Navanayagam to discuss why she's chosen to put women's cricket under the spotlight and the legacy of her last hit film about women's sport, Bend It Like Beckham.Amy Powney is the fashion designer best known for being the Creative Director at Mother of Pearl for 10 years until she left to set up her own label, Akyn, earlier this year. Amy’s mission to create a sustainable clothing line was explored in the documentary Fashion Reimagined which saw her trace clothes from field to runway and cemented her as an authority on this within the wider industry. Amy joined Kylie Pentelow in the Woman’s Hour studio.The Women’s Euros started this week, with teams from both England and Wales taking part. The Lionesses won the Euros in 2022 and much was made of the number of openly lesbian players both in the England squad and across the other teams. In a new graphic novel called Florrie a football love story, Anna Trench tells the story of the ground breaking women footballers from the end of the First World War and highlights the pioneering lesbians players of the past. Anna joins Nuala in discussion along with Rachael Bullingham, Senior Lecturer of Sport and Exercise at the University of Gloucestershire.Presenter: Datshiane Navanayagam Producer: Annette Wells Editor: Rebecca Myatt

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. deal ratings and price history, so you know a great deal when you see one. That's cargurus.ca. Hello, I'm Dashiani Navaniagam and welcome to Women's Hour on BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome. Coming up, some highlights from this week. The acclaimed actor Fiona Shaw of Killing Eve, Bad Sisters and the Harry Potter franchise on her latest film Hot Milk, which looks at the mother-daughter, carer-patient dynamic. And do you know where the clothes we wear came from? I don't mean which shop, but where the cotton was grown or the fabric was made, the fashion designer Amy Powney has made it her mission to make us really think about sustainable clothing. Also, journalist Jenny Evans, who writes about fighting back against a system that had harmed her following sexual

assault, including abuses of power in the press and the police. And as the 2025 Women's Euros begin, a fictional graphic novel about women's football, a love story to the women who played and fought for the right to belong on the pitch, and about some of the lesbian players who broke down the barriers. When you look at the team sheets of the time, the names that often come up were Lily, Alice and Flurry. They're very much the names of that period. But they were actually real players. There was Flurry, Redford, Alice, Kel, Lily, Parr, who were real pioneers. And so I did want to nod to them, definitely. There's lots to get into. So let's get started.

Now she's starred in Killing Eve, Bad Sisters, Fleabag, True Detective Night Country, Aunt Petunia in the Harry Potter films, and not just that, she's won and been nominated for several Olivier Awards for her work on stage, and she's even directed opera. I'm talking of course about the BAFTA-winning and Emmy-nominated actor Fiona Shaw, who joined Nula McGovern last week to talk about her role in a new film adaptation of Deborah Levy's novel Hot Milk. Fiona plays Rose who goes to Almeria in Spain with her daughter Sophia, played by the brilliant Emma Mackey, to try and find a cure for Rose's mysterious paralysis at an experimental clinic.

It's a tense, simmering story that looks at the mother-daughter, carer-patient dynamic set in the hot sun. Well, Nuala began by asking Fiona about the title Hot Milk and what it means to her. Yes, I don't know what it means to me except that it is very hot between the mother and daughter and maybe the milk, yeah, certainly not cold milk or even body temperature milk. No. I think I suppose it's about the intensity of a mother and daughter. Perhaps even scalding. But Rose, what a character. How would you describe her Fiona? Well, anybody I meet who has seen the film say, oh my god, Rose is a terrible character and she's manipulative and really frightening. And I actually really enjoyed Rose. I think because she's brave.

Who she reminds me a little bit of is Winnie in Happy Days, you know, who people think is austere and about to die, in fact, full of life. And this woman has this neurological, she doesn't know what it is, she thinks it's physiological, she can't walk, but sometimes she can. And so that sets up a sort of hair running, Is she making it up or is it real? And I think she's someone brave enough to try and do something about it. But she doesn't do it alone. And I'm just thinking with some of the adjectives you've used to describe her. I think I'd add exasperating, perhaps selfish, kind of sensitive but not in the way of touchy feely in the sense of ready to be offended,

but doesn't care so much about other people's emotions at times. Well, doesn't notice her daughter's emotions. But I think that's just an exaggeration of things that are very true to life. You know, the mother keeps saying, get me some water, get me this, get me that. But she also loves her daughter. But of course, she doesn't and says the daughter should continue her studies, but doesn't realise that she's the reason the daughter can't continue her studies. So these sort of circular cells that they've locked themselves into I think are very true to many claustrophobic relationships. Yeah and I think what we're also, we're trying to guess the whole time or interpret what is going through their minds because there's not tons of dialogue in it.

No, there's not tons going through their minds. I think when sometimes I was trying to come up with some very good ideas for some scene and Rebecca Lankovitz, who directed the film and wrote it, she would say, you know, you must remember Rose's life is very small. Doesn't mean that she has a small mind. In fact, she's reading The Min and the Floss as she's on this trip and so she's very keen on Maggie Tolliver. So there's a kind of a literary element to Rose. But she's in a wheelchair and, you know, they never go out. They haven't got any money and so they live a very small life. And I found that

very interesting that she was full of energy but she's actually lives quite a small life. And I found that very interesting that she was full of energy, but she's actually lives quite a small life. Yes. And we're trying to figure out what the next steps might be. No pun intended, because we never know whether she's going to walk or not. But there is a relentless nature to her as well. And we could see Sophia, her daughter, at times just exhausted in her capacity as carer. We've done many programmes on how difficult it can be to be a carer and what that breaking point can be. But I wonder, how did you get into the character of Rose, who's using wheelchair,

as you mentioned, and also were you drawing on any people that you know, considering that the character is Irish? I mean, I'll be honest, they've given echoes of various characters I've met through my life. Yes. I mean, there's a lot of my mother in it, that my mother used to love. If the sun came out at all, my mother would run into the garden and take off all her tops and sometimes, you know, lower her trousers just to get sun on her thighs. And my brothers would arrive and go, Mom, just pull up your trousers please. Oh no, I'm getting some rays. Well, I did that, you know, I did a lot of kind of my mother's things. And wearing, you know, sunglasses

with your reading glasses is very... I mean, I sort of recognize all of those things. And it's something to do with an intensity of being that I think Irish people do have. You know, it doesn't matter how big or small your life is, there's a sort of drama to being. You know, a scene is coming to my mind now. This is not a spoiler, anyone. And Rose is sitting there, as so many of us might have done, in her bra with the shirt open because she's a bit hot, while working on something at the table.

And it's just very evocative, I feel. It's the opposite of sexy, isn't it? It's just the opposite, but it's very practical. Very practical. Very recognisable. So I enjoyed playing her, you know, I enjoyed the selfishness of her. You know, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the her obliviousness of her daughter,

because it's much easier to play that than to be on the receiving end of it. You know. Yes. Yeah. You are a steensailer. There is no way about it whenever I watch my eyes are locked on you. But it is interesting because you have another Irish character which also exasperated me at times, which was Angelica in Bad Sisters, the second season. If anybody hasn't seen it, it's a gang of sisters. Angelica is the neighbour and this cohort of leading women really who's there. I'm wondering about her character as well. Is there any similarities you can see between Rose and Angelica? Yes, I mean, there's something about maybe the Irish way of life that is chaotic and it's sort of lawless. You know, I remember meeting people who say, who said they go to Ireland to do hunting. Not a sport I necessarily support, but they said because there's no rules. And

even, you know, Irish football, it sort of has very few rules compared to rugby and soccer. So there's a kind of lawlessness about the way of being, I think. We have Rebecca Frecknell on, as you know, with the Eugene O'Neill play, and a lot is centered on the daughter-father relationship in that. But it can be a very different relationship to the mother-daughter. I think the mother-daughter relationship is, of course, I mean, very intense. And it's lifelong. And my mother is 99 and I

still have quite an intense relationship. Which is wonderful. With her. It is wonderful and the other day on the phone I said, she said, but are you good in health? I really think I should be asking you that. But she, you know, that's that amazing care that a mother has which which is, are you good in health? And that all is all that matters to a mother, maybe. But good in health, to me, that term is from a different era. Yeah, yeah. Which your mother is.

Oh, yeah. She's almost 100 years old. Yeah. And it's amazing, I think, if you have parents, if you're lucky enough to have parents that are, that live to a ripe old age, that you have still that connection with, for example, in your case, the 1920s of Ireland. Yeah. And you can re- rethink your view of your mother. You know, my mother's alive long enough for me to have adored her, hated her. And now I'm beginning to think, actually, maybe there's something to be said for her. You know, I mean, I really, there's a lot to be said for her, is that she, you know, the

fantasticness of living a long life means that she was, of course, a product of her age. Time, yeah. And for me then, of course, much more conservative than I would like, and yet not conservative, I mean, completely, you know, wild in her behavior, but that embarrassed me like mad, you know, in my earlier life, and now I just accept her. Yeah, yeah. It's a wonderful thing to be able to see that trajectory and narrative. And you know who we had sitting in that chair not so long ago?

Your pal, Julianne Moore. Ah, yes. Yes. She was in for her role in Echo Valley. Yes. Which old Gleeson was in it as well, so good Irish showing as well. You were the friend in that particular show, which I really enjoyed as well. Another one with an awful lot of twists. How does that feel, whether you're in a more leading role or a more supplementary role? Well, I'm often in a supplementary role

and I really like that because... Tell me more about that. Partially I age is that I think when you play leading roles you do have to get up at 4.30 every morning which is you know people in this building have to do that sometimes and it's very tiring and the great thing about playing somebody who is the character who disrupts the event means that you have a lot of energy. If you're playing the detective, you're always saying, and now Mrs. Bloggs, when did you in fact see Mr. So-and-so stabbed the bug? And that's quite hard work.

But actually, if you can sort of intensify or concentrate the arrival of a character if it's smaller. But I very much was pleased and proud to be asked to play Rose because that was a lot, you know, a bigger part. But I read somewhere, just as we're talking about Wimbledon, that you always wanted to be a tennis player. Yes, I really want to be a tennis player and I am going to Wimbledon for one day this week, next week. But I loved it, I loved it. But you see, I wasn't really any good at it because I was a show-off. I thought that was good for tennis. No, I don't think so. I think, you know, I would lose the match point because, you know,

I do something funny. I mean, that was really, I think, you know, nature's telling you where you're meant to be. Yeah, I just wasn't able. I had no killer instinct. I just didn't have that. Do you know, I had an idea then for you because I was thinking, oh, Irish tennis players, we haven't had that many. And then I went back looking and there was a woman called Lena Rice who won Wimbledon. Yeah, Irish woman, the only Irish woman ever to win in 1890. So I'm giving that to you as my gift that you should do a film on her looking back on her life and how did she ever become the Wimbledon champion from Ireland?

And I've always wanted to play a tennis player because I was taught in the old-fashioned way of you know wooden racquets so I know how to hit now the new way with this double-handed thing is completely anathema to me but... So do you still play tennis? Not very often I do every now and then but this new racket thing I can't stand it's a bigger racket and it hits the ball with a really big slap rather than stroking the ball, which is what we were taught to do. Fiona Shaw there. Now, Jenny Evans was a young actress riding high on the success of her first feature film

when she was sexually assaulted by someone who was in the public eye. When she later found the courage to report this crime to the police, details of what she had experienced were printed in a tabloid newspaper. Jenny decided to retrain as a journalist to try and figure out how this could have happened. Well, she went on to help expose the abuses of power in the press and police that have become known as the phone hacking scandal. Her memoir is called Don't Let It Break You Honey. Jenny joined Nuala this week and she began by asking her how the title came about from

meeting Maya Angelou. She was at the Hay Literature Festival which we used to go to every year as a family because it's very near where I'm from and we went to, obviously we knew of Maya's writing and she was an icon and I was 15, a little vulnerable, grieving. My dad had died a couple of years before and her presence was so overwhelming, her stoicism was just so inspiring. Her kind of vulnerability was worn with such grace and such strength that I kind of burst into tears when I saw her. And so at the end, when she finished speaking, she she called me to her and she gave me a really big hug. And that's what that's what she whispered in my ear. Don't let it break. You don't let it break you, honey.

How incredible. Yeah. Being embraced by Maya Angelou. I know. I mean, yeah, she's she's she's kind of feels like a guardian angel. I mentioned Twintown. You were cast in that film when you were just 18. I'm sure a very exciting time working towards acting in those years. But sadly, not long after that success, you were sexually assaulted by someone who was well known, someone you met at a party. It was. And just to let our listeners know, it was a brutal, horrific attack.

Even the taxi driver who picked you up afterwards wanted to take you to the police, but you felt you couldn't at that point. At that point I was in such shock. Yeah, I couldn't. He kept saying, let me take you to the police station. And I just said, I'm tired. I just, I want to go home, which I couldn't do. I was actually staying at someone else's house. I had to go back to their house first. But yeah, it was, as is very common when something like this has happened to you and you are so shocked and so full of shame and so wishing it hadn't happened, I just kind of closed down at first.

I understand that. And I should say also in in your book it's made clear that names have been changed or obscured, details changed for legal reasons, but when you did report the assault, and this is a number of years later, you had a new nightmare begin because details from your police statement appeared in a tabloid, not with your name attached, but it must have been incredibly shocking at that time and I'm wondering what you immediately thought. Yeah, I reported it when I realized that he'd been accused by somebody else and I suddenly it occurred to me that he might be serially violent because until that point I had done the classic thing of

thinking I had got myself into a dangerous situation. So I kind of felt a moral obligation to report in the end. And I found that experience actually not too traumatic in itself, but it was the first time I'd spoken about this stuff. And I was so stressed after I did so my jaw actually seized up and I couldn't open my mouth fully for months. I was I found the experience of disclosing this stuff the first time to the police so, so stressful. So to see it printed in the tabloid, well, it is the second violation. I don't know. I don't know how else to explain it. It was just incredibly frightening.

Suddenly, I just, I just, everything I thought I knew and the people I thought I could trust, I didn't think I could anymore. I just couldn't work out how it had got there. So I imagine you immediately suspect or you're trying to figure out how could it have got to the papers through what means, through what person. I will say that your case was dropped before you had met anybody from the Crown Prosecution Service. Was that normal? I understand that it is still normal that you don't meet your Crown Prosecution Service Solicitor in these cases and I think it would be a really quick change to the criminal justice system that I think women have lost trust in currently

for us to be able to meet those solicitors. I mean they're representing the crowd, not the individuals, so it's slightly different, but it's such a frightening system to enter into. You do lose control of this information, this very private, sacred information, and it would be good to be able to meet all of the team who are representing your rights. Yeah. So we asked for a statement from the CPS and they said we recognize how traumatic going through the criminal justice process is for victims of rape and sexual assault and where there is enough evidence to take a case to court we offer all adult victims of rape and

sexual offence as a pre-trial meeting with a member of the CPS prosecution team. But as we mentioned that your case was dropped before you did meet somebody, you did get criminal injuries compensation and tell our listeners what you decided to spend it on and why. Yeah well I spent the criminal injury compensation which is awarded for the damage to your body on retraining as a journalist and just to say the reason I did that, the reason the case was dropped was because I realized that some evidence that a friend of mine had found,

a letter that I'd written her which detailed this incident with the famous man and other incidences of sexual violence I had experienced, I thought was great evidence and gave it to the police in this kind of joyful look. This is brilliant evidence to show that this happened and I was writing about it years ago and I realised when they asked to interview me a second time that actually what they felt was that it discredited me. It's actually known as bad character evidence which is incredibly offensive. And so I stopped talking. I suddenly said, I'm

not going to pursue this anymore. And so that's why the charges were dropped. And I trained the journalist to try and find out how my shot at criminal justice had somehow crumbled in the face of this kind of the press intrusion and this liaison between the police and the press. Yeah, it's an incredible story of resilience from you. You used these new-found journalism skills to start digging into the emerging phone hacking scandals. Nick Davies, the journalist at The Guardian, was exposing many of these practices at the tabloids and he asked you to get some of those staff on the record. How did you do that and why were you so good at it? I don't know why. I mean I think those people were badly mistreated.

I think those newsrooms really reflect the kind of microcosm of the way the tabloids treated all of us which is kind of a bullying culture right? They would steal secrets or take secrets and then use them to shame or threaten to shame people and the people who worked in those newsrooms were very often bullied and shamed. And so bullied, shamed people want to talk when you give them the opportunity. So I began to discover that there were loads of really angry staff members at those who'd worked in those newsrooms who had spent a lot of time, for example, women, pregnant women who had called into the news desk to say they were bleeding

and they needed to go to hospital being sent on some kind of wild goose chase to a different country sometimes. And when they got there phoning into the news desk and the news are saying, oh, there's no reason for you to be there, and then heading back, there was so much mistreatment of them. I think they wanted to talk. I think also personally, I probably find it really easy to like people and I liked every single one of those reporters who spoke to me. I could see the pressure they were under. I could see the mistreatment and I thought they were, many of them, really admirable people actually.

Which is really interesting, which people might not expect. You do talk about their shame, the fuel which tabloids engines run on. which people might not expect. You do talk about their shame, the fuel which tabloids engines run on. One of these hacks, as we'll call them, told you something about clause 11. I didn't know about this until your book. Can you explain? Yeah, I didn't know about it either. And it was one of the moments when I thought I might lose my composure when I was talking to a journalist about the kinds of things they used to do to get stories. So this person was describing to me that they would persuade survivors of sexual violence to talk to them on the record and offer them a lot of money. And then the more senior team would say do a clause 11 on them, which means

they would have to go back to the source, the survivor, and once they've given the story and say sorry we're not going to pay you because clause 11 which is we don't believe you and we only have to pay if we believe you. So people are given their story with hoping to have financial compensation shall we say for telling that particular story but then they would tell their story and then be refused the actual cash. They would and I think they shouldn't be judged for expecting that money. I think quite often people donate money when they are speaking to tabloids about things like sexual violence. What they want is to be heard because sexual violence comes with shame, a healthy dollop

of shame and shame has resonance and it lasts and it Can make you voiceless it can make you want to hide and I think when people speak out they they want To rid themselves of that and they should But what was it like when you realized that your story, you know that had been Revealed and the ones you were hearing about were actually converging revealed and the ones you were hearing about were actually converging? Right, so I persuaded, I discovered when I was studying journalism that Nick Davis, this Guardian journalist, investigative journalist, brilliant journalist, was also looking into the behaviour of the newspapers and so I kind of tracked him down, persuaded him to take

me on as a researcher and then he gave me this job, as you say, of talking to tabloid journalists to see if we could find out if anyone would go on the record about the extent of illegality in the news gathering practices at these tabloids. So I began doing that for him, but secretly because I didn't want to reveal to him my past necessarily. And obviously you don't have to do that. I was also kind of investigating it for myself. So when I was looking for people to write to the Met Police to ask if they were appearing in paperwork they'd taken from private investigators who had been working for the tabloids, I was also writing on my own behalf. Did I appear was my name in there.

So I had this kind of secret agenda. And that was very stressful because I was very concerned that I would be discovered and by, you know, these are journalists and they're brilliant journalists. And I was also speaking to parliamentary aides. I thought someone will Google my name. They knew my name, even if they couldn't print it, they will put two and two together and I will be exposed as having an agenda and I will discredit Nick. And that was my big fear really, which I carried for far too long until I told him.

And he was obviously very nice about it when I did. Yeah. And I know you have to read at times what had been written about you in people that were investigating your story, shall we say, in their notebooks, Glimmo Care in particular, a private investigator whose activities turned attention on phone hacking at the News of the World. He was jailed in 2007. But I do, just before I let you go, want to mention you talk about the enduring power of shame.

We've touched on it there that you write pain and moors you. Shame then steals your boat. Do you have your boat back? Oh, that's a nice question. I'm working on it. I'm still having some therapy. I've got a very good trauma focus therapist who's listening. And I'm working on it.

I think it's a very powerful feeling and it's hard to shed. But one of the ways to shed it is to keep talking and keep sharing our stories as survivors of violence and sexual violence. Jenny Evans, and if you are affected by any of the issues we've been discussing, please do go to the BBC Action. She was the epitome of elegance. She was the epitome of mystery, intrigue and beauty.

One of the 20th century's most amazing characters, a Hollywood sex symbol whose story you might think you already know. Hedy Lamarr, the film star. But there's another side to her story. She was an inventor at heart. Her scientific contribution, no other star has been able to match.

We really should put her into the limelight she deserves. From the BBC World Service, Untold Legends, Hedy Lamarr. Listen now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Still to come on today's programme, the fashion designer on a mission to create a sustainable clothing line. And, as the 2025 Women's Euros begins, a fictional graphic novel about women's football, and about some of the lesbian players who broke down barriers. Now, you, our listeners, have suggested some brilliant topics for discussion, from living

funerals to leaving a legacy when you're single, which we've featured on the programme. So with Listener Week just a few weeks away, we're excited to hear what else you've got for us. Whether it's a thought-provoking trend, a unique lifestyle, or a visit to your community, or a fresh take on everyday topics, do send us your ideas. Big or small, we do read them all and we would love to bring some of your suggestions to light. And remember that you can enjoy Women's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10am during the week, just subscribe to the daily podcast for free via BBC Sounds.

Now, when you think of sporting films, especially ones that challenge multiple conventions, one film in particular might come to mind. It's hard to believe that Bend It Like Beckham hit our screens more than 20 years ago, when, to avoid her Sikh parents' disapproval, football-obsessed teenager Jess Bamra hides the fact that she's joined a local female football team. It was a seminal film, one that many of the lionesses tribute with inspiring their love of the game, and the film's director Gurinder Chadha has now turned her attention to another sport – women's cricket. To coincide with this summer's matches between England and India, she's released a Hollywood-style

trailer – albeit with her signature sense of humour – to garner excitement for these fixtures between two great cricketing nations. Here's a flavour. Come to a ground near you this summer. England women versus India women. She's connected this one. Go on. Surely the majesty. A dramatic rivalry renewed. Come and be part of history. Well, Gurinder joined me in the Women's Hour studio and I started by asking her why did she want to do it and why cricket? Well, when the England and Wales cricket board approached me, they wanted to shine a light on the fact that the women's teams of India and England were also playing a series. Normally it's the men's team that gets all the attention and for me this was a fantastic opportunity to again shine a light on women

and sport which is something obviously I'm so passionate about. So I said yes let's do it but let's have fun with it, let's have a fun trailer and that's exactly what we did. So we worked with some of the team and we were at Lord's and we did a quite tongue in cheek kind of movie style trailer. But like the movie, I wanted these women to look powerful and strong on screen. So we did lots of great close up shots. We had a little bit of humor. We had in the Lord's long room, we had a big spread like you do with your Victoria cakes and cucumber sandwiches and samosas as well in the trailer. Exactly,

we had focora, samosas and the idea was to just really drum up excitement so people knew that there were matches with women as well this summer. Now, you said you're sort of a sports fan. What's your relationship with cricket? So my relationship with cricket really goes back to my childhood when my father was a massive cricket fan, like so many of our dads, right? And my memories are of him sitting in the living room on the floor, not even on the sofa, on the floor in a string vest, no turban on, his hair down and just glued to the TV. And I remember Bishan Singh Bedi was the Indian spin bowler at the time and he was a Sikh. And my dad was just like so proud and excited.

And my mom would be going, we've run out of atta, we've run out of chap chapati flour we need to go to the shops and he'd go no no no no no we can't we can't and so there'd be these arguments but like literally for hours he would be sat there watching but that palpable excitement of watching a sport with so much national pride and love really has stayed with me. So for me cricket always reminds me of my dad. And of course in Bend It Like Beckham, her dad was a big cricket fan and played cricket and there's that very kind of poignant moment where he says when he came to England he wanted to play cricket and he was kind of laughed out of it and people made fun of his turban.

I think a lot of people will remember that. Yes, I mean it was a tough time for Sikhs back in the 60s and even 70s, you know, if you had a turban and a beard, people just didn't accept you. Well, you know, you are of Indian heritage, you are also British, and I feel like we cannot talk about cricket without, you know without mentioning the kind of controversial phrase that Norman Tebbit coined back in the early 90s, I think, the cricket test. And I find this fascinating because he obviously meant people of South Asian descent or Afro-Caribbean descent supporting their country of origin over England and seeing that as a sort of test of loyalty.

And I've got friends born in this country of South Asian descent and seeing that as a sort of test of loyalty. And I've got friends born in this country of South Asian descent and it's very interesting because some of them are adamant England supporters, you know, and I've got others who will support India or Sri Lanka. And there's quite good humor, but I just wondered where you sat on that. You know what's amazing is look how much Britain has changed since Norman Tebbit. I think in 2018 he did row back on it. Well he had to really because England is a combination of so many cultures and nationalities now. But the great thing about cricket I find is it's a party.

You know when you go to Lords or the Oval or wherever you know it's a party. You know, when you go to Lord's or the Oval or wherever, you know, it's a party. And whoever is playing, whether it's England or India, you might have Indian shirts on or England shirts on or whatever. You might have an Indian doldrum or you might have an English drum. But the fans are so into the sport that even if your side's not winning, people are still loving the game. That's the difference, I think, with football and cricket. It's a fun day out. It's a fun day out.

And with the women, it's the same. Some of the skills of the England and Indian cricket team are exceptional and I think it's it really is the love of the sport probably comes first then all the kind of jovial national sort of support. I'm probably the worst type of fan because I'm sort of along for the ride and I'm along for the party. Yes. But maybe that makes me a good fan. That's a good fan. And the beer right? Do you think women are less tribal than men when it comes to sports? Oh, no, I don't think so. Look at the lionesses, right?

You know, and all the all the supporters of the lionesses. My best friends would be really annoyed by that. They are definitely tribal, I think. Yes. And I think we've got the Euros coming up. You know, we who doesn't get behind their national team, you know, whether it's men or women. I mean, people do. I mean, I remember when the Lionesses won the Euros, I was ecstatic, ecstatic. It was fantastic. And football was coming home and we were all so proud. And

I remember, you know, in Dear England, the wonderful play about Gareth, you know, the manager. And there is a bit in the play where he, the play focuses on the men's side, but there's a bit of the play where the women win a final and then, and there's a bit where a woman comes in and runs across the stage. And where I was sitting, a lot of people turned to me and clapped at me and I was like oh my god this is amazing so I think really for me women and sport is often not celebrated in the way that it should which is why I made Bend It Like Beckham. Well I was going to say because that came out 23 years ago which you know to me it feels a bit like yesterday but it is a lifetime ago and and especially now when you compare it to the lioness's and the huge excitement around them

I mean, there's so many great lines from Bender like Beckham because women's football was not seen as something to be really interested in Yeah, yeah people used to laugh at me when I was trying to get that film together people were like This is a joke, right? Women playing football? You know an Indian girl playing football as well. Even worse. Does it surprise you that it's still such a beloved film or do you? It surprises me that it's had so much love for so many years you know it's 23 years now and now there's whole new generations that watch it and discover it because it kind of hasn't dated in that respect. And that's a sad statement for women in sport, I think, that girls still, you know, relate to the

fact that they want to do something that society thinks isn't for them. And the great thing is, is yeah, we see women on TV, you know, in terms of the cricket series now, as well as football. But I think there are still places where women still struggle to play because it is still seen as a man's sport, which is why I wanted to do the trailer for the England and Wales cricket board, you know, just to bring attention to the fact that come and support these players because they're exceptional. Well, you know, as people can see when they watch the cricket trailer and, you know, Ben Delight Beckham, you know, your films at their heart are, they're extremely entertaining,

they're comedic, they laugh out loud, but there are some very serious themes running through them, especially I guess in terms of building understanding between different communities. So you know, yes, we've spoken about Bend It Like Beckham, but Blinded by the Light, you know, that's inspired by the life of Safras Mansour, a young Muslim boy growing up in Luton who is obsessed in love with the lyrics of Bruce Springsteen. Over your film career you have put across positive messages of inclusivity and overcoming differences between communities and kind of the shared values and how we can laugh not at each other but with each other about them. I wonder how you feel about the Britain you see

today and really the power of film to bridge these divides and foster community. Well interestingly the first film I remember being really struck by was Kathy Come Home. I remember seeing that as a child and that power of when the social workers take Kathy's babies away, I was just horrified as a child. So, it was building for me, even before I watched those films, not knowing I was ever going to be a filmmaker.

So I think for me, film really does shine a light on who we are as a nation, as a race, as humans, because we all share the same emotions, regardless of where we're from and film reduces us to the human condition and our emotions. And so, you know, when it's done well. And so I think that, you know, I think that for me, film is an incredibly emotional, visceral way of showing a multi-layered experience and shift society and society's views which I did 23 years ago with this film. Well look I can't let you go without asking this and I fear you answer slightly. Will we ever see a Bend It Like Beckham Tooth? Well I'm afraid you're gonna have to wait on that. Oh that's more

positive than I thought. Oh gosh, what a truth hanger. Right now I'm here to talk about cricket. No, let's see, I'll never say never, I'll never say never, but you know when you've made a film that so many people love it's really hard to come up with a sequel that will not disappoint because what you don't want to do is ruin the magic in the bottle that you already have. So you better come up with something really great. Otherwise, leave it alone. Gurinder Chadha there. Now, how much do you think about where the clothes in your wardrobe have come from?

Does the environment play on your mind when you think about your fashion choices? Amy Powney is the fashion designer best known for being the creative director at Mother of Pearl for 10 years, until she left to set up her own label, Akin, earlier this year. Amy's mission to create a sustainable clothing line was explored in the documentary Fashion Reimagined, which saw her trace clothes from field to runway and cemented her as an authority on this within the wider industry. Amy joined Kylie Pentelow this week and she began by asking her where her love of clothes initially came from.

People ask me this a lot actually and I mean essentially as a child I was just super passionate about creative, all I ever wanted to do was art design, you know. My favourite time was crafting with my mum. But fashion specifically, ironically, came from the fact that growing up, we were actually, you know, kind of incredibly, we had a very low income. We lived in a caravan. We didn't have water, electricity for a lot. So I didn't have the coolest clothes at school. And it was the bane of my life at the time as a teenager and so I think it was like a fusion actually of my passion for creativity and textiles and you know kind of the love for that and actually

just the obsession with subcultures and kind of your status in the world based on how you you know presented yourself and the pros and cons of that and the negativity it brought me in my in my youth actually kind of gave me my obsession with them with fashion which has changed today and has gone more back to creativity. But yeah, that's how I ended up being a designer. So you talk about the negativity. What do you mean? There was criticism for what you were wearing when you were a kid? Yeah, I mean, you know, I grew up, I was different, I guess. And, you know, that's always a subject

of to be, I guess, pulled out from the crowd. But yeah, growing up, it was Spice Girls and everybody's wearing three-stripe Adidas tracksuit bottoms and we couldn't afford them. My parents couldn't afford them. So yes, it was the running joke when you're at school with kind of hand-me-downs on or kind of non-branded clothes or like the fake, you know, the two-stripe. That was the real dark moments where it was like so obvious that you know you were trying but you know you couldn't have it. Oh and kids can be cruel about what other kids wear. And it was your parents and your upbringing

that kind of gave you this push towards sustainability and thinking about the environment. Yeah people also just assume I guess grow up in a caravan, off-grid, no water, no electricity, you know, therefore sustainable human being. But actually ironically at the time it was like the bane of my life as well. But I think it runs just so much deeper from that. Actually it's like form from respect because I think as a kid you know I worked on the farms the way my parents worked on the farms you know I was cutting cabbage in the field at 7am, like in my teens and you know, we worked at the bottom of the supply chain. My father actually still runs

the Monster Munch machine at Walker's Crisp Factory and you know, so I guess it's just a deep respect of working class people and supply chains and you know, the environmental side, you know, we grew up without the water, electricity, etc. but it was really just the appreciation when I got it in my adult life, like even today, like flicking on a switch and the lights coming on, like it still hasn't left me that that's a privilege and I know in certain countries it's still a privilege and so I think it's just like a deep found respect for the resources that we have, that we use and for the people that you know are at the bottom of supply chains or through supply chains in any form. It's just

a deep found respect for them and therefore like whatever industry I got into I think if I was to crack open the behind the scenes and uncover what you uncover in the fashion industry I think it would have just applied the same passion and narrative. It is quite remarkable then that you ended up in the fashion industry, this very high-end luxury world. It was 2017 wasn't it that things kind of changed for you because it was then you won the British Fashion Council and Vogue Designer Fashion Fund and you used that money to launch No Frills which was part of Mother of Pearl but really looked at sustainable fashion and you did the documentary Fashion

Reimagined as I mentioned. A fascinating watch, I have to say. What was that experience like for you? Yeah, I mean, so the film was actually just the director, Becky Hutnall, she was actually filming me as I won the Vogue kind of award. That was her job. She worked for a production company at the time. Excuse me. And she was kind of grappling in her own life, in her own industry with waste and sustainability and how she could be better. And then she just met me and was like light bulb moment, I'm going to film you and I sort of very naively said sure, and had no idea it would become a feature documentary and even made cinemas which was incredible, all kind of you know

due to her. But you as as a viewer, when you're watching that documentary, are watching me for the very first time on that journey, trying just to get to the bottom of my supply chain. I mean, I thought, how hard can this be? Like, I want to use cotton, I want to meet the cotton farmers or the pickers, like, and I want to... And we were trying to piece the chain together, like, link the chain back up. And you were literally watching me in that documentary trying to do that firsthand. It was not staged. And at the time I was you know learning all about sustainability and fashion and what that

even meant as well. So you know you really that was five actually my daughter was born at the end of the film and she's five now. So that film was like started ten years ago, was filmed over the course of about five years and then in the latter five years apart from juggling being a parent, which is epic, I've learned obviously even more since then. Yeah. Has and have things improved, do you think? Because it was, you know, you, you did in the, in the documentary, as you said, find it really hard to find out actually where things were coming from.

Yeah. There's pros and cons and things have changed a lot. The world has changed a lot. The pros are in the documentary, you actually see me go to me, there's a giant fabric fair in Paris called Premiere Vision. And it's like where all kind of raw material supplies turn up, it's like aeroplane kind of hanger style,

just fabric after fabric. And in the documentary, you see us going there and just start talking to suppliers and everybody looks at us like we're completely insane. My colleague Chloe at the time you know we just sort of drowned ourselves in a giant glass of red wine after two days thinking how on earth if they can't tell us like how are we gonna get past them? And I'm pleased to say now if you go and speak to you know many suppliers the kind of the back end of the fashion industry has been cracked open and it is I'm here today right and the topic is now widely discussed so I'm

pleased to say suppliers have kind of had to start kind of or wanted to depending on who they are kind of crack that open so it's an easier conversation however at the moment given the climate of the industry and the world and everything that's going on all the sustainability policies are being just like pulled back and I think what was this like momentum train that's going on, all the sustainability policies are being just pulled back. And I think what was this momentum train that was going, the film came out at this perfect moment where the industry was starting to make shifts, the public knowledge was becoming very aware of what the impact fashion has on the planet, and the momentum was driving.

I have to say it's kind of stopped at the moment, which was slightly depressing. So you've launched your own label. What are you kind of trying to do with that? And how do you want it to be different? Because there are so many fashion brands out there. Yeah. I mean, my ultimate vision essentially is I just, my number one, like I don't see myself as a designer as like being about me, which is why a kin is called a kin and it's not called Amy Powney. I like, I've always seen myself as like a service to women that I just want to give women their like best final layer to go out into this world to be who they want to be and give them confidence and joy.

And that remains there. But no one is doing that and celebrating, you know, kind of making incredible clothing for women in incredible quality, you know, the craftsmanship and the product. And then making sure that it's completely ethical and sustainable. There's very, very few brands marrying the two up there and we get a lot of kickback in the industry about, you know, oh but it's too hard, it's too difficult, you know, sustainability is too hard and actually I'm just case in point I want to prove that there's absolutely no reason that we can't make women feel amazing, give them what they want and do

this in a way that essentially you know doesn't impact the ultimate mother earth and also all the women in the supply chain. So yeah. But I mean it is pricey you know it's not the kind of it's not a high you know your normal high street it's roughly 400 pounds for a jumper 900 pounds for a coat I mean, that's not a typical thing that coming from your background know that people can't afford that I know and it's a really good question one that digs very deep into my soul and There's multiple reasons for it The main reason I can tell you is just an economic one

Which essentially is if I want to use those fibers at the scale that my brand is which is small like these are the price points we have to pay so when we're buying from mills and suppliers when you buy in small quantities the price is high when we're manufacturing in such a you know atilio style we make a lot of stuff in-house we do a lot of it with really independent people in Portugal you know if you're paying for quality and craft at that level where we're paying people correctly, paying the farmers correctly, paying the people correctly, that's the price you have to pay. But it must frustrate you that then, you know,

most women just can't afford to buy that, even if they want to. What I will say though is if you're a massive brand, even at high street level, I mean I'm not going down to the very, very fast fashion, like you can't make a t-shirt for a pound and it'd be okay. But the ones that are kind of in the mid price point on the high street, they absolutely can be doing this because they have the power and the scale and the ability to work with the manufacturers and do this. I'm just independent and therefore that's why the prices are high.

But there is no reason that some of the bigger ones cannot change this. If there was one kind of key thing that needs to change in terms of what is happening within the industry, what would that be? Number one, legislation. I change because I have empathy and the desire to do the right thing. There are people in power, as we know, that don't have the same moral compass, so we need to push them by legislation. That is also very complex. And the thing I just say to everybody listening is like, these people making these decisions in power across industries and specifically in ours, only

here because we fund them. And the vote that we have with our pound and our money and where you put your money is the most powerful thing that we have. Give your money to the right people." Amy Powney talking to Kylie there. Now the Women's Euros started this week with teams from both England and Wales taking part. The Lionesses won the Euros in 2022 and much was made of the number of openly lesbian players, both in the England squad and across the other teams, but in direct contrast, the men's game still doesn't have any openly gay player in the English Premier League.

So what is it about the culture of women's football that enables this openness? In a new graphic novel called Flory, a football love story, Anna Trench tells the story of the groundbreaking women footballers from the end of the First World War and highlights the pioneering lesbian players of the past. Nuala was joined by Anna and by Dr Rachel Bullingham, senior lecturer of sport and exercise at the University of Gloucestershire. Nuala began by asking Anna about the story and how it came about. Florey's grandniece discovers in the attic these football boots and photos and love letters

that reveal this incredible history of women's football and her great aunt's part in it. And we then go into Flori's story and she joined this football team. I set it in North Norfolk but they actually play against some of the top teams at the time and we're talking sort of after the second world war, sorry, when it was huge, really really big and then leading up to the ban in 1921 and the kind of devastating consequence of that for these women. So Flourie joins this team and she gets totally swept away and she has these amazing experiences both in

England and France and she makes friends and she really feels that joy and liberation on the pitch that I also you know I play football so I really felt that too And yeah, she falls in love with this other player She's from a French team. She's called Vivian and I guess I wanted to tell the story of French team, she's called Vivian. I guess I wanted to tell the story of Florey's love for football and her love for another player who shares that joy and that wonderful experience with her. Why did you put it in a graphic novel?

I really love words and pictures. I love drawing, I love writing. I've always done the two together. And for me, it just makes so much sense in terms of storytelling sometimes the words take a lead sometimes the drawings do and you can do I think really special things with pacing and with details and It just yeah made so much sense. I was also sort of thinking actually about about football being this visual thing You know, we want to hear and so maybe there's something about showing that movement on the page as well that works quite nicely with drawings. I also, you know, I wanted to do it in black and white to reflect the period of the 1920s in which it's set. How did you get your research material photographs? Because there's a lot of little images that stay with me from your book after reading it.

Do you know what I really loved doing the research actually, yeah I got really into it, from working out what football boots they'd have worn at that time, these really heavy football boots. And then the berets, the prison teams wore berets, which I loved. Or the trains that they traveled on and the coats that the women would have worn. There's actually quite a lot of photographs and even video footage of teams playing at the time, which I found completely extraordinary to watch and incredibly moving actually. A lot of people know about this match on Boxing Day in 1920 when Dick Herladies played St. Helens.

Which were a huge team, Dick Herladies. I love the name of it. Absolutely. Yeah. And a lot of the teams I mentioned in Florida were real teams. They've got great names and Dick Herladies actually went on a name of it. Yeah, and a lot of the teams I mentioned in Florrie, you know, were real teams. They've got great names and Dick Her Ladies actually went on a tour of America. But this match on Boxing Day had 53,000 people there with 15,000 more at the gates. And there's pictures of these matches and it's just so incredible to see the players,

the joy on their faces, their muddy knees and these huge crowds loving watching them. But after the FA banned women playing in 1921, they had to be covert about their playing and they were already, for some that you are describing, this one player, Lily for example, based on Lily Parr, is it? Well no, she's not directly based on Lily Parr at all but Lily Parr was definitely someone I had in my mind, you know, an inspiration. When you look at the team sheets of the time, the names that often come up were Lily, Alice and Florey.

They're very much the names of that period, but they were actually real players. There was Florey Redford, Alice Kell, Lily Parr, who were real pioneers. And so I did want to nod to them, definitely. And I mentioned Lily Parr because she was seen as one of the first gay footballers, which is like the covert part, perhaps, of the sexuality, as you can imagine, at the time. But I want to bring in Rachel here because Anna is depicting other lesbian footballers in the book as well. In women's football, there are a number of players that are openly gay.

There was a famous moment in 2019, we're talking about 2019 quite a bit today, the FIFA Women's World Cup when the captain of the US champions Megan Rapinoe, of course very famous, she ran to the sidelines and she kissed her long-term girlfriend. Why do you think it is such a welcoming space in a way that the men's game is not, Rachel? It certainly is seen as a really inclusive game now. We're going to the Euros, as you said, to start this week. Nearly 20% of players are either openly lesbian, gay or queer. And as already has been mentioned, Lily Parr was one of the kind of groundbreaking players and was very open about her relationship. But there's been a kind of ebb and flow in that inclusivity. Certainly, kind of in the 1980s,

things were not as inclusive as they potentially are now. And so we've seen this real shift from the 1920s when Lily Parr was able to talk about having a female partner, and then things went downhill a little bit in terms of inclusivity. And we now seem to be really celebrating the inclusivity of the women's game, which is fantastic. And seeing that players are able to come out publicly if they want to. And but also that idea that some players are coming out in a way that has not been seen before. So, for example, it's not a big deal anymore. There's not this kind of big celebration or big event. They come out quietly just by posting pictures on their social media which shows the level

of inclusivity in the game. It's not this big event as it is in the men's game when a player announces that they are gay. And I suppose it is something that so many women, as we know, played part-time. You know what I mean? They were not put on this professional track from the get-go compared to the men's game for many, many years. Do you think that's part of it? Yeah, there's certainly that element of professionalism at play. We saw it in tennis for the women, you know, when Navros Lover and King came out in the 1980s and they lost all their sponsorship. And, you know, if you're looking at Canary in a coal mine and you see

people do that and that it goes horribly wrong, you're not, you're going to stay hidden. And I think that that has helped the women's game, that, you know, they have been able to be themselves without that kind of scrutiny at the same level of the men's game. However, things are changing now, you know, that we're getting more and more people watching it, more and more people going to games. So it'll be interesting to see how that shifts over time with the popularity of the women's game growing exponentially. And we're talking about women here, but I'm just curious, Rachel, whether you see any way there could be inroads into the men's game for it to be more open? Yeah, I really hope so. I think often the men's game, people are

hit up on the fact that there are no openly gay footballers in the Premier League. And actually they forget about the positive elements. You know, they forget about the allyship that men, male players have shown. Certainly recently, Harry Kane's really vocal in his allyship, you know, so we can see that things are starting to shift within that. We also know that there's been research done on things like chanting. We know that the chanting in the men's game isn't necessarily homophobic in nature in the ways that the spectators are wanting it to be homophobic.

They are just doing anything they can for their team to win. So they want to put off the opposition. But if you talk to those spectators making those homophobic chants they don't deem it homophobic which is really interesting and I would really hope that there is going to be an openly gay player soon so so to be quite honest we can stop talking about it. Dr Rachel Bullingham and Anna Trench. That's it from me. On Monday's program we'll be marking the 20th anniversary of 7-7, when four bombs were detonated in London, killing 52 people and injuring 700. Crew per party will be talking to two women who have formed a deep bond since that day.

Jill Hicks, who was severely injured in the attack on the Underground, and Kate Price, the nurse in the intensive care unit at St Thomas' Hospital who looked after her. Join us then. She was the epitome of elegance. She was the epitome of mystery, intrigue and beauty. One of the 20th century's most amazing characters. A Hollywood sex symbol whose story you might think you already know. Hedy Lamarr, the film star. But there's another side to her story. She was an inventor at heart. Her scientific contribution, no other star has been able to match.

We really should put her into the limelight she deserves. From the BBC World Service, Untold Legends, Hedy Lamarr. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts. ZOOM