Cath Drake’s The Poetry Curve is a short series of interviews over six months with inspiring people who reach wider audiences and stretch format so that exciting poetry finds its way to appreciative audiences, beyond the usual audience in radio, TV or performance.
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Episode 1: Adrian Bate producer of ‘The NHS: To Provide all People’, a one hour film poem ‘In the voice of the NHS’ to celebrate the 70th anniversary in 2018, talks about the making of the film and poetry on film generally. The film was written by poetry Owen Sheers and made for the BBC by Adrian’s company Vox Pictures. Director Pip Broughton previously worked with Owen Sheers on ‘Aberfan: The Green Hollow’ (2016). Pip also directed the Dylan Thomas’ iconic ‘Under Milkwood’ for BBC TV in 2014. I started by asking him about his background in working with poetry. Listen here
Episode 2: Mair Boswell. When she first joined the BBC, Mair Boswell was re-organising the Poetry Please library. After mentoring from Tim Dee, she has since produced many poetry radio programmes, including episodes of The Echo Chamber and bespoke programmes focusing on one poet, in particular the first poetry book serialised for ‘Book of the Week’ on BBC Radio 4, ‘The Deaf Republic’ written by Ilya Kaminsky. (The series has been shortlisted for the 2019 best director award in a BBC audio drama. ) Mair gives insight into the production process. I started by asking her if she grew up with poetry and what she liked reading. Listen here.
