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Steve McQueen and The Why Workshop

Steve McQueen, the Oscar winning director, chats to Zoe about his new miniseries Small Axe on ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ One. There's also the return of the QI Elves with The Why Workshop.

Steve McQueen, the Oscar winning director, chats to Zoe about his new miniseries Small Axe on ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ One. Steve directed and co-wrote each of the five episodes and the series title comes from an African proverb popularised in Jamaica and the West Indies by Bob Marley’s 1973 song of the same name which features the lyrics β€œIf you are the big tree, we are the small axe.” It essentially means that the mighty can be brought down small, but sustained action.
The five-film anthology, a hugely ambitious, unprecedented project for the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ, reflects Black British experience from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. Moving between the political and the personal, the dramatic and the ordinary, they are undercut by a desire to illuminate a part of recent British history and experience that remains relatively untold. Steve is a British artist and director who won the prestigious Turner Prize in 2006 and then he made history in 2013 by becoming the first black filmmaker to win Best Film at the Oscars for his movie 12 Years A Slave.

It’s The Why Workshop, and Zoe quizzes the QI Elves with more wonders and ponders, including your questions.

Plus Zoe delves into her emails to read your Christmas Tails of Epic Fails, finding out about about some of your worst festive disasters. You can share yours by emailing zoeball@bbc.co.uk

Along with Tina Daheley on news, Richie Anderson on travel and Mike Williams on sport, she and the team have the best start to your morning. With celeb guests, quizzes, headlines, tunes chosen by listeners, and more music that you can shake a glitterball at!

There's also a daily Pause For Thought with Rae Duke as Zoe entertains the nation with fun for the family!

2 hours, 59 minutes

Last on

Wed 2 Dec 2020 06:30
ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 2

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Music Played

  • Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel

    Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)

    • 20 Number 1's Of The 70's (Various).
    • MFP.

  • Miley Cyrus

    Prisoner (feat. Dua Lipa)

    • Plastic Hearts.
    • RCA.

  • KT Tunstall

    Mele Kalikimaka (Christmas in Hawaii)

    • The KT Tunstall Holiday Collection.
    • EMI.

  • Savage Garden

    Affirmation

    • (CD Single).
    • Epic.

  • Supertramp

    Breakfast In America

    • The Very Best Of Supertramp.
    • Polygram Tv.

  • The Wombles

    Wombling Merry Christmas

    • (CD Single).
    • Dramatico.
    • 1.

  • Slade

    Merry Xmas Everybody

    • (CD Single).
    • EMI.

  • Marisha Wallace

    Before I Go

    • (CD Single).
    • Decca.

  • Toto

    Africa

    • The All Time Greatest Rock Songs ....
    • Columbia.

  • Girls Aloud

    Can't Speak French

    • (CD Single).
    • Polydor.

  • Olly Murs

    Wrapped Up (feat. Travie McCoy)

    • (CD Single).
    • Epic.
    • 1.

  • Greg Lake

    I Believe In Father Christmas

    • The Anthology, A Musical Journey.
    • BMG.

  • Callum Beattie

    Don't Walk Alone

    • People Like Us.
    • 3Beat Productions.

  • Darlene Love

    Christmas (Baby Please Come ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ)

    • A Christmas Gift For You (Phil Spect.
    • Phil Spector Int.

  • Meghan Trainor

    Holidays (feat. Earth, Wind & Fire)

    • A Very Trainor Christmas.
    • Epic.

  • The Human League

    Don't You Want Me

    • Dare!.
    • Virgin.

  • Alesha Dixon

    The Boy Does Nothing

    • (CD Single).
    • Asylum.
    • 1.

  • Wham!

    Last Christmas

    • That's Christmas (Various Artists).
    • EMI.

  • ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Children In Need

    Stop Crying Your Heart Out (ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 2 Allstars)

    • (CD Single).
    • Decca.

  • Alison Moyet

    Love Resurrection

    • Alison Moyet Singles.
    • Columbia.

  • Kim Wilde

    Hey Mister Snowman

    • Wilde Winter Snowman.
    • Wildeflower Records.
    • 001.

  • The Ronettes

    Sleigh Ride

    • A Christmas Gift For You (Phil Spect.
    • Phil Spector Int.

  • The Weeknd

    Save Your Tears

    • After Hours.
    • XO/Republic.
    • 11.

  • Janet Kay

    Silly Games

    • Fantastic 70's (Various Artists).
    • Sony Tv/Columbia.

  • Daryl Hall & John Oates

    You Make My Dreams

    • Greatest Hits.
    • RCA.
    • 5.

  • Dermot Kennedy

    Giants

    • (CD Single).
    • UMGRI Interscope.

  • Go West

    King Of Wishful Thinking

    • Pretty Woman - Soundtrack.
    • EMI.

  • Carly Simon

    Let The River Run

    • The Very Best Of Carly Simon.
    • Global Television.

  • Mental as Anything

    Live It Up

    • Drive Time (Various Artists).
    • Dino.

  • Cliff Richard

    Saviour's Day

    • Together With Cliff Richard.
    • EMI.

Pause For Thought

Pause For Thought

I’ve had a little three-month hiatus – or should I say pause (!) from this special segment on Radio 2.Β 

Before the breather I’d happily become pregnant – another one of the lockdown babies that’ve become a bit of running joke in some of my whatsapp group chats. Or so we thought. A couple of months in and things headed south. Sensing all was not quite right we dashed to the hospital where the worst was confirmed. Lying on the bed without my husband there to hold my hand - such were the Covid restrictions at the time - I was shown a now empty womb on the screen that almost three years previously had revealed my toddler’s thundering heartbeat.Β 

Unbelievably, two months later the same pattern of events unfolded; joy, trotting along with life, worry, before another blow.Β 

Rory, our two and a half year old, rolled out the phrase she had coined during the first heartbreak. After kissing my tummy she’d say knowingly: β€œbaby back soon Mummy.” On reflection, it hadn’t been the smartest move of mine to share incoming sibling news with her whist the stakes were still so high - although I’ll always remember and beΒ immensely grateful for just how consoling those words were when that double-whammy came.Β 

It’s astonished me ever since just how many women have been dealt this hand. Only last week, walking home from the nursery-run, my phone pinged with a message from a friend letting me know that they too sadly had had a miscarriage, and minutes later the news broke of Meghan Markle’s article in which she shared the loss she and Harry had recently suffered.Β 

It’s as clichΓ©d as it gets, but my goodness me, the sharing is a helping balm.Β 

Thankfully, Rory’s hopefulness was well placed – and we are expecting another baby in the spring.Β 

And it’s such lovely timing to be sharing this with you Zoe, what with it being the week after the first Sunday in Advent.Β Β I think we all need Advent more than ever this year – not just for those glittering trees now in situ (it seems that most, like me, have jumped the gun with this) but of course for that invitation to awaken new hope within us all and to lift our eyes from the gloom to the light yet to come.Β Β 

Broadcast

  • Wed 2 Dec 2020 06:30
    ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 2