Paulette is on holiday, so hosting of today’s Women’s Outlook show fell mostly to me. My thanks to Jackie for giving me 15 minutes off for a breather. Aside from that I did a whole two hour show.

We began with an interview with James Peries of Bristol Old Vic, talking about the show he put on as a memorial to the Jamaican/British playwright, Alfred Fagon. This is a fascinating, if somewhat depressing story. Fagon moved to the UK from Jamaica in the 1950s and, after spells in the railways and army (where he became a boxing champion) he moved to Bristol and got involved in the theatre. Acting led to writing and production, and he got as far as having one play produced on BBC2 before his untimely death. The way in which he was treated by the Metropolitan Police following his death is a national disgrace, and I’m very pleased that a statue of him was put up in Bristol. The award named after him, which benefits young African and Caribbean playwrights, is producing some tremendous results.

By the way, if you are in Bristol, you may want to check out the Old Vic’s production of Great Expectations. The part of Miss Havisham is being taken by Adjoa Andoh who will be better known to you as Martha Jones’ mum in Doctor Who.

The second half hour of the show features Suzie Price-Rajah who is part of the team organizing the Art on the Hill art trail in South Bristol this coming weekend. There’s load of amazing stuff going on. I wish I had the time to go along.

The whole of the first hour is available via the Listen Again feature here.

As noted above, Jackie took over for 15 minutes at the start of the second hour, I think talking mainly about garden gnomes. I’m back after that talking to Suzie again, this time about her career as a diversity trainer.

The final half hour had me talking to Marti Burgess and Delroy Hibbert about the Media Diversity UK campaign, which you may know from the @WritersOfColour Twitter account. Much as I love doing radio, and have my own little piece of the diversity jigsaw to push forward, I very much want to see these folks do well.

The second hour of the show is available via the Listen Again feature here.

When I get the time I will make both the Alfred Fagon and Media Diversity interviews available as stand-alone podcasts.