Woman's Hour - Weekend Women's Hour: Saoirse Ronan, Tracey Emin, Nikki Doucet on women’s football, Friends 30th anniversary

Episode Date: September 21, 2024

Dame Tracey Emin is one of the most famous artists and leading figures of the Young British Artists movement of the 1990s. Hers is a uniquely provocative, confessional style which confronts issues such as trauma of abortion, rape, alcoholism and sexual history. In recent years Tracey has focussed on painting and she has just published her first in-depth exploration of her painted work, simply called Paintings. Anita Rani talks to her about that and her latest exhibition, I followed you to the End, on now at the White Cube gallery in London.Nikki Doucet has been called the most powerful person in English women’s football. She is the newly appointed CEO of the Women’s Professional Leagues Ltd which took over leadership of the two top tiers of women's football from the Football Association this summer. Nikki and her team have big plans to revolutionise the women's game, as she tells Clare McDonnell.Four-time Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan broke into Hollywood at 13 years old with her performance as Briony Tallis in Atonement. She has also appeared as Jo March in Little Women, as the lead actress in Brooklyn and won a Golden Globe for her performance in Lady Bird. She joins Clare to discuss her latest role in the film The Outrun in which she plays Rona, a young woman struggling with addiction.The number of women taking up NHS cervical screening test invitations has been declining for the last 20 years. Healthwatch England did research with women who were reluctant to accept NHS invitations for screening and found that 73% would do an at-home test instead. A trial done by King’s College, London earlier this year found that if self-sample kits were available on the NHS, 400,000 more women would be screened per year. Chief Executive of Healthwatch England, Louise Ansari, and Dr Anita Lim, lead investigator of the King’s College London trial, join Clare to talk about their findings.On 22 September 1994, the American TV show Friends premiered on NBC and the characters Monica, Rachel, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler and Ross became household names. To celebrate its 30th anniversary, Anita speaks to one of the show’s writers and producers, Betsy Borns. Plus, we hear from journalist Emma Loffhagen about why the show still resonates with Gen Z all these years later.Carrie Hope Fletcher is an author, singer, West End star – and now a new mum. She joins Anita to talk about her UK tour, Love Letters, which will feature musical theatre favourites and love letters from the audience. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Annette Wells Editor: Rebecca Myatt

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast has been removed for this podcast. Hello and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour with me, Anita Rani. In the next hour, the actor and four-time Oscar nominee, Saoirse Ronan, who's been astonishing audiences on the big screen since she made her debut at the age of 13 on her latest role as a young woman in the grip of alcoholism.

The most powerful woman in English women's football, Nicky Doucette, the new chief executive of the Women's Professional League on her big plans for the women's game. As the very first episode of the iconic US sitcom Friends was first broadcast this weekend in 1994, we hear from one of the writers, Betsy Bournes, on its enduring appeal and what it was like in the writers' room.

Smear tests. If you could do your own test at home, would you be more likely to have one? This comes as latest figures from the NHS show that last year Smear tests. If you could do your own test at home, would you be more likely to have one? This comes as latest figures from the NHS show that last year a third of eligible women under the age of 50 did not take up their appointments. And there's music from the West End musical star Carrie Hope Fletcher. There's a lot to get through, so grab a cup of whatever takes your fancy and settle in for the hour. But first, Dame Tracey Emin is one of the country's best known artists. She was one of the leading figures of the young British artist movements of the 1990s. Her work confronts issues such as trauma of abortion, rape, alcoholism and

sexual history. Her famous artworks include Everyone I Have Ever Slept With, 1963 to 1995, and she came to greater prominence in 1999 with a Turner Prize nomination for her famous piece My Bed. In recent years, Tracey has focused on painting and she's just published her first in-depth exploration of her painted work, simply called Paintings. It coincides with a new exhibition, I Followed You to the End, at the White Cube Gallery in London, which mostly features paintings that document her life during treatment and recovery from bladder cancer. Tracey joined me this week and I started by asking her what it was like looking through all her paintings for the book. It's quite shocking actually to flick the pages and actually see one after another in one small place

and to see that amount of work. I surprised myself, really. In what way? Well, when you paint, you don't think about what you're doing. You don't think about the time it takes. You don't think about the energy. You're just doing it. It's just part of you.

And then when you see it all compiled into a book say 300 works you realize how much time and how much energy and how much you know sports persons do they know how far they've run they know if they get a gold medal but they don't know how far they run necessarily in a lifetime yeah so it's a bit similar to that like actually seeing all the works together made me think about the amount of work involved and did you reflect on that time yeah some of the paintings made me feel really sad it's like looking for a diary I think the main ones that were around 2016 when my mum dying all the paintings of my mum and some of the paintings were from memory of her actually dying and remembering what she looked like when she died and that was quite different seeing them in a

context with all the other works if you paint with emotion and feeling I'm not painting a picture I'm painting something which is already part of me that's coming out and people there's lots of different kinds of art and reasons for making it I would say art has many rooms and artists take a room the room that I take is this emotional kind of like you know mad room where all my energy and everything gets thrown into it and if I if I didn't paint it's very cathartic i think if i didn't paint make art i don't think i'd be here really i think i would have definitely have died or something spontaneously combust something like that it's an emotional response and what's very important about that is you don't have to be a great artist to do that what you can be sitting at home with with with some children's

paint at the table just painting and painting and making marks and releasing some kind of energy and and that's more what I do really I always say I'm a bit like a cave woman painting on the walls well I certainly felt that emotion when I stepped into the white cube yesterday tell us about the exhibition I followed you to the end how did this come together well um I I've been working on it for about three years so a couple of years without knowing that I was working on it it's just paintings that have accumulated and then when I realized that I was definitely going to do this show and I had the titles it all started to fall into place and into shape and I followed you to the end every all my titles

it's a bit like my neons they have like a double meaning meaning so I followed you to the end is like a complete um um acceptance of everything you know and and that's how I feel about art and that's I will follow art to the end, to my dying days, to my last moment. I will always be an artist making art. And I, you know, I know that from what you're saying, you've always needed art to survive. It's obvious. I just wonder how much it helped you

through your cancer recovery the last few years, creating that work. And what is it that we, I mean, I've been to see it and it's all there. I mean, the body, the bed, let's discuss the importance of the bed because we're back in your bed and a lot of those paintings. You know, how has painting helped you?

Well, my surgeon was at White Cube the other night and he said to me, Tracy, how did you do this? Because they're really, really physical. They're huge. It's a massive sculpture. Yeah. And the most amazing thing is when i because i'm i'm even though i'm out you know i'm out in remission i'm out of the cancer

after having you know half my body parts removed it's like i'm never going to walk again properly i'm never going to do this again properly i'm 61 anyway you know and when i'm painting it just feels like nothing ever happened to me nothing i'm just there in that moment you know and when I'm painting it just feels like nothing ever happened to me nothing I'm just there in that moment you know and I always say it's like those people that you know have have have terrible strokes or something and then you put them in front of the piano and they're just playing you know the most fantastic barque or whatever they're just completely like the most they forget everything bad that ever happened or they forget that they can't play the piano and me it's like that when I'm painting I'm just in my world in my element

I'm so happy and that's what happens to me and I think I think that can happen to a lot of other people and this is what I'm saying art is really positive art is a really fantastic thing it's not just about something you hang on the wall it's not a trophy it's not just an expensive thing it's something that has been made by a human being with feelings in that resonates that you can feel and that's why you felt something going to my show because you felt what I was feeling it come through the work and as an artist when you reach that stage with your work and you know that's happening it's it's alchemic it's magical it's spellbound and it's like I know I've reached

a level of with my work that is really true and that only comes through the hard work so to go back to what you said about the final book my paintings that is also what I was thinking when I was looking through it oh my, what a lot of hard work. Yeah. So nothing comes from nothing. Nothing, absolutely. As mentioned, the bed, we're back to the bed. The bed features a lot.

You know, the bed is about recovery, safe space, sex. You're sitting on your bed right now. I am, yeah. I spend a lot of time in bed because I don't have much energy. And all my energy I have, I have to save it and use it for special occasions, for special things, save it up. You know, like this week I was saving up all my energy for my opening and everything. And people don't really understand. It's like my doctor says to me, brilliant, like if you were in an air crash and you survived you wouldn't just get up and walk away and like I've survived one of the worst cancers ever that

most people don't survive from and if they do survive from it they only live at maximum another five years I'm in year four now I've got another year to go to get past that really dangerous phase. And I'm doing it and I'm doing it the best I possibly can. And since the cancer, the most amazing thing that's happened, a lot of people say this when they've had this life and death thing, is that every day that I live now is a real day, a whole day, a true day. And I really make the most of it. So even if I'm spending the day in bed resting I'm doing an interview yes absolutely we are delighted that you're doing it my time yeah um also you've set up the Tracey Emin foundation um because you're looking towards legacy now so

tell us a bit about that well when I when I had six months to live I thought oh Christ like you mentioned me being like a great 1990s YBA well that wouldn't be enough for my deathbed I promise you I'd have to do a little bit more than that so I set up this found started setting up the foundation and then I started getting better and better and better so I thought well it doesn't matter I'll carry on with the foundation and now I've set up an art school I set up the studios I've set up homes for creative young people at good rents and stuff I've set up an art school, I've set up the studios, I've set up homes for creative young people, good rents and stuff. I'm doing all of this stuff to make creativity and art especially good in Margate.

So that's been like a wonderful thing and I'm not dead. So I'm actually enjoying every single moment of it as well. I never thought I'd get so much out of something like that because that is hard work because it's having a real job, which I've never had in my life. Because you're an artist. I've always been an artist, always just been doing exactly what I want to do.

The inspiring Dame Tracey Emin there and her exhibition, I Followed You to the End, is on from now until the 10th of November at the White Cube in Bermondsey London and Tracy Emin paintings is available now. Now she's been called the most powerful person in English women's football I'm talking about Nicky Doucette the newly appointed chief executive of the Women's Professional League the company now running the top two women's leagues in the country. The responsibility, which was previously held by the Football Association,

was transferred to Nikki and her team just a few weeks ago. The top tier of the female game, the Women's Super League, kicks off this weekend. You'll be aware that interest in women's football has skyrocketed in the last couple of years, particularly after the Lionesses lifted that Euros trophy. But challenges still remain. How do you create a league that is competitive, future-proof, whilst not simply copying the men? It's Nicky Doucette's job to meet those challenges. And she joined Claire this week and she talked to her about how she's going to do just that.

I think we're guided by a bigger purpose here, a purpose that is to leverage the power of women's football to inspire a more equitable society. And I think that it has started with our athletes. You know, you look at what the lionesses have done and who they are, you know, they win the Euros. And the first thing what they want to do is influence government to try and make to make sport more accessible and give girls equal access to sport in schools. I mean, they're so inspiring. So when we think about the word football, we want it to mean women's football as well. We want it to mean something for everybody. I think the unconscious bias we have today, when you think of what game

did you watch on the weekend? or did you see Chelsea versus Arsenal? You automatically think men's football because that's the legacy and that's the history. I think qualifying it provides an equitable opportunity to grow. Since you've been working in the women's game, have you noticed that? Yeah, I think we've seen that. But I also think you're starting to see the shift across all sports in helping to

qualify. Look at what rugby's done when you look at Six Nations. It's the men's Six Nations and the women's Six Nations. I think we have opportunities. I see the FA starting to say the men's FA Cup and now the women's FA Cup. I think qualifying it allows it for the conversations that we're having to mean that it could have equal value whether or not it does in the future is up to the market when we look at the top tier of women's football in this country the women's super league 12 clubs in the women's super league are premier league clubs they're affiliated to the men's team and there's a feeling that without that affiliation i mean clearly that is driving success. How does that

need to change? Because surely it's a corner of the market that is driven by finances, not necessarily skill, passion and commitment. Do you need to kind of have a divorce in some sense? Is that even possible? I think we need investment in the women's game today. And I think the clubs that are currently in both our leagues are investing. I think you see, you know, we have a few independent clubs in the women's championship. There's investment coming in there. I think the top clubs in the women's Super League are equally investing.

And I think it's our role to continue to show the future investment opportunity to encourage more investment because women's football is not going anywhere. You know, what we saw off the back of the Euros is not just a bump, it's a sustained growth. When you look at our growth metrics over the last three, four years, everything is up. And so to me, that is what feels really exciting. And we have to continue more investment. I mean, I've been to quite a few WSL games. And often it's referred to as the men's stadium. This is what's changed in the last couple of years since the Euros in this country that you'll have the elite women's team playing in the

men's stadium. Does that, the way we describe that, does that need to change as well? Because I guess what you're talking about is two elite teams. One happens to be male, one happens to be female. And where they play, is that important? I think it is important. I think when we think about what we need to do over the next decade or where we are today, how we start to continue to grow our leagues. And ultimately what we're trying to do is make this the very best version of women's football globally. And if we do that, that will drive value.

And ultimately what that means, we're creating a distinct brand of football for her. And how we articulate that, how that comes to life will be an evolution. We need exciting football. The fans want to watch the best athletes in the world. They want to watch exciting football. They want games of consequence. All of that matters. And then to me, there's the entertainment part of it. And what I mean by that is ultimately the storytelling. The fans are telling us they want more content. They want to

be able to interact with the clubs, with the fans, with the league even more. And I think if we do that properly, we're creating the emotional connection with the fan base that ultimately will drive long term success. I mean, the skill is there without doubt, but it does all it seems in a lot of cases come back to investment. Let's talk about, for example, Reading FC women's team. They were the top flight. They were relegated from the WSL. And now they've had to pull out from the lower league of the women's championship, the one below, which obviously you oversee as well, citing rising financial costs. They have a rich history as a women's team.

They can't keep up with the costs. Is that a concern to you? And does it worry you that a women's team kind of has to go because the finances aren't there, whereas the men's team is, you know, there's no question about it continuing yeah I mean I spoke to a couple of parents who had girls in the academy at Reading and you know that situation I think was heartbreaking and I think everyone who was involved in that situation from a league perspective from an FA perspective you know at

the club itself I think worked really hard to try and figure out what the right situation and outcome was for that. So I think being a professional football club that gives the players the right infrastructure around them is expensive. And there's a cost to that. And I think we're at, we're, the reason why I keep using the language, we are a startup. We're at the very beginning of this journey as a professional league. And as a professional company, I mean, we've been incorporated only for a few weeks, you know, and so we're at the beginning of this journey. And I think when you think about it from a startup and an investment perspective, there is an investment ahead of revenue, there's a cost to putting on the competition that is world class for both the players, the clubs, the managers, the referees,

all of the stakeholders that are involved within that so that the fans are having an incredible experience. And so I think it's important that we find the investors, the clubs, everyone who has signed up to the Women's Super League, to the Women's Championship, understand the stage of the journey that we're in today. And it's our job to continue to show the growth metrics. You know, as the executive, on this growth journey, we have our job is to maximize the value at each point along the way. And the market will ultimately

dictate what we can maximize at each stage of the journey. Yeah, well, I want to talk a little bit more about you, Nikki, personally. I mean, you started your career as an investment banker, pretty much a male environment, I'm guessing. You went on to be a director at Nike. And this is, again, another kind of much more diverse role, isn't it? You have an all-female senior leadership team. I understand that was a coincidence. What do you think is different? What do women bring to that role as a leader as opposed to men?

Yeah, our leadership team was a coincidence. I believe in a diverse team. So I think having diversity of thought is really important. I think some of the differences, I want to be a great leader, whether I'm a female great leader, I hope to just be a great leader, and that I continue to evolve and what that means and what the needs of the business are and what the needs of the team are and that I'm providing the right type of leadership for us all to be able to grow and to enjoy the work experience. I think everyone's on just such a massive treadmill of life today. Everyone you talk to is so busy, everyone's time poor. Becoming a mother, I think, changed me a little bit in terms of leadership and just you have less time to do everything. So,

you know, maximizing that, ruthlessly prioritizing. and I think just having um you know more understanding about what everybody's going through and you know I have very high expectations I know what for myself what doing a good job looks like and I think trying to maybe just be a bit more kind at times and not driving perfection always. Yeah, it is interesting, isn't it? Because we're talking about diversity. How important is it for you to have diversity? At the top flight of women's football last year, Arsenal women did come under scrutiny for a team photo that featured all white female players. It's a team that play in, you know, what is a very multicultural part of the capital. And that stands out actually, in contrast to the men's team. How much are you going to be encouraging teams to diversify and look for talent across the board? Yeah, again, as part of the

talent pathway, I think, and going back to the concept of equitable opportunities for girls to play sport from the very beginning, you know, everybody has to have the opportunity to have access to sport in schools, first and foremost. I think grassroots football, I think the talent pathway, making it more accessible, especially if you, if girls or families may not necessarily have the financial means that the middle class or upper middle class families might have. I think all of that is really important that ultimately allows for a more diverse talent pool coming through as many girls as possible to want to play and enabling, I think, their access to the right coaching, the right leagues, everything to play in. And then when you get to the top, ultimately every team's going to want to have the best players. Yeah. And we need to have a diverse talent pool so that the teams are able to pick who the best players are. Nikki Doucette speaking to Claire there. Now, four-time Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan

broke into Hollywood at 13 years old with her performance as Bryony Tallis in Atonement. She's also appeared as Jo March in Little Women, as the lead actress in Brooklyn, and she won a Golden Globe for her unforgettable performance in Lady Bird. She's unforgettable in everything, quite frankly. She made her Broadway debut

in the Tony-nominated revival of Arthur Miller's The Crucible, and on the UK stage made her debut as Lady Macbeth at London's Almeida Theatre to rave reviews. She's now starring in the film The Outrun, in which she plays Rona, a young woman grappling with addiction. Saoirse joined Claire this week and she began by asking her what drew her to this particular part. So initially it was the book, it was Amy Liptrott's writing.

This is a story that is based on her life and her journey to and through recovery from an alcohol addiction. Home and the Orkney Islands plays such a huge part in that. And I'm a lover of Scotland and anything rural and wild and natural. So all of those elements were probably the things that made me most interested initially. But I think also from a performance perspective, being able to play someone who's at times their judgment completely lapses and there's a sort of this blurred grey area where anything can happen when you're under the influence it means that there's sort of nothing that's off the table for me as an

actor so it meant that I could I could do things that I had never really done with any performance I had given before. It is quite something and as you say it's Amy Lipthropp's memoir and she was there with you how much of responsibility did you feel was that useful having her there or i mean to have a a real life person that you're portraying on screen uh at their lowest ebb i guess comes with a huge responsibility a huge responsibility and um and i always felt that and i think am Amy was aware of that as well so she was also very respectful for our process um for mine and Nora's the director that you know we needed our own time and our own space to um help this story evolve into its film version so she kept her distance when she needed to and

she felt like I needed that as well. But I think I felt a huge responsibility to her, her story and also just anyone who is in recovery. It's something that I haven't been through myself, but I have watched people that I love go through it, some of whom are not in recovery and unfortunately are still kind of in denial about the illness and how it affects them. And that's an incredibly painful, confusing experience to have, especially when you're young. And there can be a lot of resentment that can come out of that, which is what I had experienced. And I think to be able to do that story justice for family and friends who are affected by this and also you know the addict themselves um I just really wanted to try and give it as honest a portrayal

of someone going through that as I could so I always had that in the back of my mind that was definitely the motivation for sure you certainly do that you mentioned that um you know that you been touched by this, you've seen it in your own life. And now you've played this character with the real life woman sat there talking you through it, because you feel exasperated watching her and you feel angry. And then you feel this incredible sympathy for someone who's in the grip of this illness. Having through all of this now do you do you understand alcoholism better or is it was it impossible to i think it's both i yes i understand the stages that someone goes through better than i did i have more of an insight into it in a way that i probably didn't want to have before. I'm more open to understanding that experience now. But of course, I can't ever really empathize with it in

the way that one addict can to another, one person in recovery can to another. I think there's something that really bonds them together. Because also, especially no matter how you choose to recover whether like with drink whether that's AA or rehab or you just go cold turkey or whatever there is such a humility that comes out of that experience especially when you go through rehab which Rona's character does where you're doing therapy you know a couple of times a day in groups on your own. You're having to face every single aspect of your personality, your history, how you've hurt the people around you, how you've hurt yourself, how you've neglected yourself. yourself and what I found and what was so insightful for me as someone representing this group was that there's a sense of humor that so many of them have because it gets so bad

that it's sort of like if you don't laugh you'll cry so that working with those people there's people that we have in the rehab group are in recovery themselves. They informed that performance more than anybody else. And seeing how they were able to laugh at themselves, at the situation, the ego is completely eliminated from that experience because it has to be. You kind of have to go back to zero. And so having all of that insight now, of course, is just something that has added to me as a person, but I'll never fully understand unless I go through something like that myself.

What I loved also is the way that the dialogue is kept loose. It's improvised in parts, a script written in indirect speech. And sometimes when you're watching it, you think, I feel like I'm watching a docudrama here. This feels so naturalistic, which is so unusual. And you used locals, didn't you? We did. We used locals. We, as I said, we used people who have been in recovery for years some of whom have only been in recovery for a few months and everyone was encouraged to bring their own life experience to this movie and that was part of Nora Fingishite's our director's vision for the piece was that because she comes from the documentary world she always wanted it to feel like we were really stepping into this world

and that there wasn't anything enhanced or heightened but we were showing this experience as it really is because that's interesting enough and that is valuable enough and so yeah when we go obviously we have this stage where it's really horrific for Rona, but then also there's the aftermath where healing starts to take place and she starts to immerse herself back into a community that she ran away from a very long time ago that she didn't really want to be a part of. And so I was working with people who grew up with Amy Liptrot, who went to school with her, who served her tea in the local cafe, who worked on her dad's farm. We shot on the farm that she grew up in, which is an incredible place. And that's where the name The Outrun comes from because it's inspired by the sort of outfield

where they would put the sheep, which is right by the sea, like on a cliff. So we were so immersed in in that world and and it was a great experience for me as an actor a really interesting exercise in how to almost sort of edit and rewrite a scene through your performance as you're doing it because I was working with people who were either novice actors or people who had never even thought about doing it before, like farmers who had never been on camera before. And so sort of working with them to get what we needed from them while also delivering my performance

was like this whole other layer of acting that I'd never really had to think about before. Yeah. And just final question. You go to the remote island pape your character works for the rspb are you a twitcher now do you like looking for birds i don't right and you seem to in the movie you just started this interview saying you love the outdoors so you're a great actress because when you go into the very cold water in the movie it doesn't look like you're enjoying it at all. But that's the kind of thing you enjoy. I love it. And I and I and just to say no disrespect to birds.

There's just other animals I want to give my time to more. But I will say that like from working with the RSPB a little bit, the passion they have for it is like it does rub off on you a little bit. But I would just prefer to hang out with the seals. You love open water swimming. I love open water swimming, yes. And yeah, I've always done it. I grew up right beside this river in Ireland called the River Slaney. So I learned to swim in like freezing cold mountain water.

So I was always exposed to that. And when cold water swimming became a thing over the last few years, I was just always like, isn't that just swimming? Yes, it is. So yes, that required the most acting for me in those scenes.

And the Outrun is in cinemas from Friday the 27th of September. Still to come on the programme, it's the 30th anniversary of the iconic US sitcom Friends. I know, that's dated a lot of us. I speak to Betsy Bournes, one of the writers,

on its enduring appeal. And remember, you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10am during the week, all you need to do is subscribe to the daily podcast.

It's free via BBC Sounds. Now, did you go to your last cervical screening appointment? We all know they can be uncomfortable, a bit embarrassing and sometimes difficult to arrange around other things. Women between the ages of 25 and 64 in the UK are eligible for cervical screening tests and the NHS sends out invitations to appointments every three or five years. But the latest figures from the NHS show that last year, a third of eligible women under the age of 50 did not take up their appointments.

In a trial conducted earlier this year, King's College London found that providing at-home self-sampling kits for cervical screening could result in more than 400,000 more women being screened. And Healthwatch England have just released research showing that of the women who were reluctant to go to cervical screening appointments, 73% would be happy to do it themselves at home.

Dr Anita Lim, lead investigator on the U-Screen trial led by King's College London, and Louise Ansari, chief executive of Healthwatch England, joined Claire this week, and she began by asking Louise why it was important to do this research. Cervical screening has had quite low uptake recently amongst eligible women. So, as you said, around a third of eligible women haven't been coming forward. And NHS England have set a goal to eliminate cervical cancer totally by 2040. So we wanted to really dig into the reasons why people are hesitant to go for that screening. So we did a really comprehensive piece of research.

We did a poll of around two and a half thousand women who were hesitant about screening and we did with Local Health Watch did some really good in-depth interviews with some younger women, some ethnic minority women and some disabled women to find out the real reasons why. And what did they tell you? So some of the things

that you've just mentioned, actually, about physical discomfort and embarrassment. I mean, I don't know about you, but of all the times I've had a smear test in my life, you know, sometimes it's been really kind and sensitiveness. And sometimes they've been a bit dismissive about the amount of discomfort and pain. And it's not a nice thing. Generally, it's not a nice procedure to do.

But there were some really important findings. So there's the discomfort. There were some cultural elements, actually, for some women as well, where they wanted to see a female nurse or a female health care professional. There was some, you know, the myth of the test affecting virginity was there in some of the discussion that came back to us. And we really need to kind of bust that myth. But also really disturbingly, around one in seven people didn't attend. They told us because of a past trauma, like sexual assault. So actually, that really underlines the need for trauma-informed care, as well as cultural sensitivity. The other reason, a bit prosaically, was the fact that the tests need to be offered in a really flexible way, and in a way that's really accessible for women.

And it was just often hard to find appointments. Yes, yes. That's ringing bells with me as well. Let's move on, actually, to Dr Anita Lim. I'm guessing what you're hearing Louise saying there, very familiar to you, and the U-screen trial you conducted. Tell us a little bit more about that. It's very familiar with everything that Louise has just said. And this is the premise of the U-screen trial you conducted. Tell us a little bit more about that. It's very familiar with everything that Louise has just said. And this is the premise of the U-screen trial. So the reason why we started this trial is because of these long standing falling screening rates and cervical screening that we've seen in the UK over the last 20 years.

And we saw self-sampling as a really novel way of approaching this to really see a boost in our screening uptake. So the U-screen trial was the largest self-sampling trial in the UK that's been conducted to date, so that's been quite important. It's also the first time that self-sampling was integrated into the NHS program. So what we did is we offered self-sampling kits to over 27,000 women in North Central and North East London. And we did this in two different ways. So we offered kits at their GP practices when women who were overdue for their screening or who haven't been screened at all came and consulted for any reason.

They were offered kits when they turned up. And we also mailed kits directly to women's homes. And what we found is that if you offer kits to women at the GP practice that 56% of women who haven't been coming for screening did actually return a self-sample and if you are and for the mail out we had 13% of women who returned their kits and what this meant altogether what we what this resulted in is ultimately the pickup rate was an additional 400,000 women in England could be screened each year and up to a million of risk screening round. That's a huge number, isn't it? And for all the reasons just discussed, there's a reluctance to go and it can be incredibly uncomfortable.

I mean, I guess just talk us through how it works then, how you would actually do this to yourself and how effective it is. The self-sampling test is really easy to do and you can do it in just a few minutes and most women find it painless. So women would receive a self-sampling kit that would contain everything they needed in order to take that sample and return it to the laboratory. So in the U-screen trial, we used a very simple cotton swab. So it's like a long cotton bud. And there's also things that you can have for other cells, something like a small brush. But we used this cotton swab and U-screen. And all women would need to do is get themselves in a comfortable position.

They can do it in the privacy of their own homes. And they would gently insert the swab into the vagina, turn it around a few times, take it out, and then put it into its casing it's got a tube casing pop it into an envelope and just drop it into any will mail post box and then they'll get their result in the post so really really easy to do and one of the key things here is that you're removing that intimate examination that you would have if you had the test done at your gp or no yeah by your practice nurse Okay so the question is do you need to go right up to the cervix how does how does it work? No you don't because what we're

looking for is the DNA of the virus that causes cervical cancer so the human papillomavirus because we're just looking for DNA you can just take what would be known as a high vaginal swab you don't need to touch your cervix you don't need to insert a speculum or anything like that it really is just a simple swab test. The question is, so many women listening to this will have not gone because they might have had a painful one or embarrassment or cultural reasons. If this is available, why can't this be done by a nurse or a practitioner? Why aren't we being offered this already? To introduce any new test in the NHS, obviously we want the evidence and this is what the U-screen trial part of what we were trying to do here is to produce the evidence first

of all that you can increase uptake in women who haven't been coming for their screening because we know that women who haven't been coming are at the highest risk of developing cervical cancer. But it's what we're looking for is the evidence to show that actually to offer it that women are going to come and then the screening programs need to look at all the changes that they need to make to the program in order to offer such a test and making sure that it is a worthwhile test at work. Yeah. And I guess if there were abnormal cells, those women were required, weren't they, to go to a follow up appointment? it? They were and I think the good news about this is that the vast majority of women are going to be testing HPV negative meaning that there's no virus found on their sample and that is the reassurance of saying okay you don't have HPV infection at the moment and that this is you're

very unlikely to develop cervical cancer because cervical cancer is so preventable and cervical screening it's all about prevention. Louise do do you think, final question, do you think women who are reluctant to go to the screening in the first place would do the follow-up appointment? Because even with this test, this new way of doing it, that is the crucial appointment, isn't it, if something is found? Yes, that's absolutely right. And actually, three-quarters of all the women we polled said they would use a self-test at home. All the benefits about privacy, avoiding discomfort, no need to book, really chimes with the study.

And actually, in Australia, for example, they've already rolled that out. So one of our key recommendations is that NHS England does roll this out nationally. Louise Ansari and Dr Anita Lim speaking to Claire there. And we approached the NHS for a statement. An NHS spokesperson said, These findings add to growing evidence suggesting that self-testing could have a really positive impact in supporting more women to take part in cervical screening from their own homes. And the NHS is working with the UK National Screening Committee to consider the feasibility of rolling this out more widely across England. In the meantime, if you are invited for cervical screening by the NHS,

it's vital that you come forward. It could save your life and remains vital towards our ambition of eradicating cervical cancer in England within the next two decades. Now, this should take you right back to a certain Central Perk sofa Phoebe from Friends played by Lisa Kudrow singing the unforgettable Smelly Cat And the reason I'm playing it is because tomorrow will mark 30 years since the sitcom premiered on NBC Yep, we've had 30 years of Monica, Rachel, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler and Ross being household names And amazingly, it's still just as popular today as when it first started. Since it was added to the UK's version of Netflix in 2017,

it's often been the most watched show on the streaming platform. Well, Betsy Bournes was a writer and producer on the show's second series. She joined me this week from New York, along with journalist Emma Loughogen, who's a fan, even though it was created before she was born. I started by asking Betsy how it felt hearing Smelly Cat again, a song she wrote. I enjoy hearing it. It was a joy to write it. It was actually like many things on TV based on my dog, who smelled so badly that his name was Gouda. And the smelly dog didn't rhyme quite like, not rhyme, it just sounded ridiculous. And for some reason,

smelly cat, completely normal. You actually co-wrote Smelly Cat with the pretenders Chrissy Hynde, who also appeared on the show. Tell us about writing it. What was that experience like? Like all experiences, you're in a room with mostly screaming guys, which is why I tend to scream now as a habit. And we were trying to figure out an interstitial piece to keep going back to. And so it just it was usually work till four in the morning, if we're lucky. And you get a little punchy and tired. And I just it was so late that I was eating gummy bears and thinking of my jog. And the Chrissy Hynde character is named Stephanie after my sister. And and it's a joy. It was a joy.

It was really, really exhausting at the time. But, you know, in the morning, it seemed like a great idea. And it's great to see it on TV. Yeah. 30 years later. Can you believe it? No. I mean, I can when I look in the mirror and I think, wow, this is, I've become my grandma

who wrote Smelly Cat. But no, I absolutely cannot believe it. Why do you think it's endured? You know, it's funny. I have heard it on TV, the show in Italian, in French, in Hebrew. And for some reason, comedy is very hard to translate historically because of expressions and things like that that don't translate. And for some reason, the song and the characters hit a note. And it's a catchy tune. You know, the Rembrandts did the music and it just and

there's humanity. I mean, you can see Phoebe struggling through it. So there's some humanity, even in the most ridiculous things. And it's all in the writing. I mean, every single episode is they are just brilliant and flawless. You mentioned being in the writing room then with all the men and work staying up till 4am. I think I don't think we fully grasp what a writing room is. Can you just explain how an episode comes together? What did you do? I don't know. There have been movies made about the French Revolution, and it's not funny.

And this is sort of the equivalent of that with jokes. But each writer will get a script, go off and write the script. Then you bring it back to the room. Hopefully it's funny. And it's, you know, eight screaming people saying, I can beat that joke. I can beat that joke. And that's how it's done. And the show has to be written every day, rewritten.

You read it on Mondays. Then the next day, the actors have it. And either it's funnier than what you wrote or it's, oh, my God, what was I thinking when I wrote that? And that's the main process. And it has to be ready for the Friday night taping no matter what. And we actually wrote new lines even on stage while it was being filmed. After a scene, you go, I don't know. To tailor it to the actors or would the actors have a say? What was it like once you were with the cast?

It's before Friday. It's for the actors. It's for the producer, the director. The network is there saying, you can't really say that or that's not really funny, which is always a great note to get. And so you're hearing different people. And I don't know if you know the show Roseanne. I wrote on that for a long time. I mean, hugely successful. I was obsessed with Darlene. Sorry, I'm just aging myself there, dating myself. Well, I'm aging myself because I wrote it. Oh, no, it's it's great characters. But in that case, the actress had more say. Yeah. And our friends, you know, there were six people.

So each actor, their opinion was a bit diluted. And sometimes they would come, specifically Matthew Perry, could come up with great stuff on stage during filming. How did Friends change TV at the time? I mean, this was a time of telly where we only, well, in the UK, we only had like four or five channels. Friday night, it was on, it was appointment to view, you'd invite your friends around. And if you missed it, you missed it night, it was on with this appointment to view, you'd invite your friends around. And if you missed it, you missed it, because it was a while until we got the, you know, the DVDs. How did it change, Telly? Did you know what you were doing at the time? In the beginning, no, I was on Roseanne. And I met a guy who I was trying to impress.

And he said, you know, there's this really funny show that just started called Friends. And I thought, okay, I got to get on that show. So he'll just be overwhelmed with me, marry him immediately. But not knowing that this would change TV, it changed the status of my dating life. But then when it went on, it was appointment TV, and it would be the show Seinfeld and Friends,

and everybody showed up and would talk about it the next day. And I don't recall that in my life as being normal. And it was so different because it was younger than most shows, And it was, the characters were so well-defined. And it was one of the, we used to say in sitcom writing, first write the story, don't think about jokes. And I think a lot of shows before that had thought about jokes and wrote the story around it. But this had real moments,

but then they were broken by something. And I'm thinking of the scene where Ross and Rachel are about to kiss and you're waiting. And then out of nowhere, an angry cat jumps on Ross's shoulder and it goes from awe to ah, which is a lot of my life, frankly. But it was so silly and so in depth. I think it became popular because it just hit people in their lives. Yeah, it was something so universal about it. I'm going to bring Emma Luffigan in because Emma wasn't even born when it was first on TV, but she's a diehard Friends fan. Why are,

Emma, Generation Z or Z just as attached to the show uh the Generation Xers that first watched it 30 years ago yeah I was not born I'm born in 99 so all right don't need to rub it in we know you're young Methuselah should be my uh my pen name um so I started watching Friends when it was on reruns on comedy central and then obviously it came onto netflix and that opened up to even more audiences but i think what you were saying about it being universal is probably the biggest draw like no matter when you're in your early 20s those themes of kind of bumbling through life and trying to figure out what you're doing with your life they they're always relatable but i think more than, it's kind of the balance that it strikes

between being relatable and still being kind of aspirational. Like, you know, Monica and Rachel have this amazing apartment and they all dress really well and, you know, all the characters are beautiful and very conventionally attractive. So it's this, like like kind of relatable but also very glamorous version of being kind of floating around your early 20s not knowing what you want to do with your life um i also think there's something about it being so some people just just to pick up on that because some people use that as a criticism of how it's not actually aged well

because there is that kind of you said aspirational it's not really that real and also the lack of diversity he said conventionally beautiful what do you think about that i mean yeah that is obviously i think a lot of people are a little surprised that it's still so popular with gen z because we're seen as a generation that's very critical of that kind of oversight. And, you know, you're right, it is in this kind of fictitious version of New York where there are only white people. But I think that kind of thing, it kind of underestimates us as a generation because, yeah, there are bits of the show that are dated. I mean, some of the jokes about Monica, for example, being overweight is just a punchline in and of itself and seen as a kind of moral failing and the jokes about chandler's dad as well being trans that is

also a punchline and it is uncomfortable those things but i also think we can kind of put it in the context of when the show was made and it doesn't tarnish the entire show and much of the brilliant writing. I think, you know, there are a few episodes that I don't watch back, particularly the ones with Chandler's dad. But yeah, it's one of those things that I think we can put it in that context and still enjoy the fun of it as well. What about Emma the fact that there are no mobile phones or internet yeah I think the lack of social media is really nice to see and those relationships not being impinged by the internet at all um it is kind of this nostalgia that we all you know that seems like the good old days to us and it's kind of like a period piece now.

Like you look back and you're like, oh wow, they have all this connection without ever being on the phone. I'm just going to bring Betsy back in for that. A period piece, Betsy. Yeah, I feel like I was co-writing with Oscar Wilde at this point. I'm really, I promise you,

even though apparently none of you were sentient when it was born. It was great. But I think of it now as almost the plot destroyer after cell phones and internet, because most sitcoms then were, oh, my God, he can't know. And I'm here and I can't call him because there's no pay phone. And now it's sort of, oh, my gosh, you know, she's isolated. Well, she'd pick up a cell phone and, you know, you have a big secret. Well, I can look it up on Facebook. And so it makes complications. It decreases them. And also, I think with the Internet, you can get in more trouble. I used to love to use people and

situations from my life. And now I think, wow, those people wouldn't be talking to me anymore, including my parents. Including your dog as well. My dog. And I wanted to comment on the lack of diversity. I absolutely agree. And I, with Chandler's dad, I mean, you wouldn't think of making that joke. It's incredibly insensitive. On the other hand, Ross was married to a woman who was a lesbian and left him for that. And when I was on Roseanne, we did that story. And as far as I know, on Friends, that was the other story.

And we got network notes saying, no, too much. Betsy Bournes and Emma Lofagen. That's it from me. Next week on Woman's Hour, Kylie Pentelow will be sitting in for Nula. She'll be joined by Elizabeth Strout, the Pulitzer Prize winning author, to talk about how she's united two protagonists from her previous work, Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton, in her new novel, Tell Me Everything. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered.

There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this?

From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.