One to One

Football writer Suzy Wrack talks to urban geographer and professor at Boston University, Loretta Lees, about how growing up on council estates shaped their lives, and led them to studying the impact of space and design. Produced for BBC Audio by Caitlin Hobbs.

Football writer Suzy Wrack meets with Joanne Marsden to share their stories of growing up on council estates. Suzy grew up in on an estate in north east London, while Joanne was born on Park Hill estate in Sheffield; the council block inspired by the French architect Le Corbusier, who designed high-rises with community in mind. They discuss his idea of 'streets in the sky' - landings wide enough for milk floats to drive past high in the air and rows of shops within the estate. Together, they...

Ellie Gibson has spent her life playing and writing about video games. It is a passion that she enjoys sharing with her son but as a parent she's become interested in the impact games play on the mind and behaviour. It's an emerging area of science and one that's frequently skewed by fevered debates about whether games are "good" or "bad". Ellie's theory is that exploring online worlds and connecting with one another through games is far more constructive than endlessly scrolling through...

Keza MacDonald left home at sixteen to work in video games journalism, and when she first met Ellie Gibson on a trip her glasses were held together by sticky tape. Ellie was already established in the industry and became a mentor to Keza. They talk about what it was like being one of only a handful of women working in video games journalism at the time which meant being taken to strip clubs and having to laugh off inappropriate behaviour by male colleagues. Comparing their experiences to...

Imagine this: you've spent months, years even, working on a show. Now it's press night. Sat in a silent row, or peppered around the theatre, are the people whose life's work is to criticise yours - the critics. So what’s it like when your lovingly crafted new play opens and you see them out there, ready to tell the world what they think of it? Top theatre director Simon Godwin, who's worked at the National Theatre, the Bristol Old Vic and is now at Washington DC's Shakespeare Theatre...

As a journalist who investigates human rights abuses and conflict in countries that can be tricky to operate in, Ramita Navai is good at compartmentalising the trauma she's seen and feels mentally resilient. But when her own father died three years ago, she was - and still is - overwhelmed by the grief. She talks to bestselling author and friend, Richard Osman about his experience of grieving for his estranged father compared with her own. Produced by Caitlin Hobbs for BBC Audio.

Ramita Navai is a foreign affairs journalist who investigates human rights abuses and conflict around the world. She has reported from war zones and hostile territories in over forty countries, and although good at compartmentalising the trauma she's witnessed, nothing could prepare her for the grief she felt when her own father died three years ago. In this episode, she speaks to Mary-Frances O’Connor, an associate professor at the University of Arizona, who runs the grief, loss and social...

What's it really like wielding the little notebook of doom or glory? Sarah Crompton, theatre critic for What's On Stage and dance critic for The Observer, tells all to broadcaster Luke Jones, who once dipped his toe into that world himself. They talk warm white wine, the imagined audience, vomiting and the most unforgiveable critical gaffe of all. Producer: Beth Sagar-Fenton

BBC Radio 1Xtra's Reece Parkinson meets Dr Lucy Chambers from Diabetes UK to discuss type 1 diabetes, swap stories about travel, and talk about the future for diabetes treatment. Producer: Melanie Pearson

BBC Radio 1Xtra DJ and long distance runner Reece Parkinson meets Welsh athlete Melanie Stephenson-Gray to talk about type 1 diabetes and how it impacts their lives and love of sport. Producer: Melanie Pearson

In 2014 the biologist and presenter Gillian Burke joined a community choir in Falmouth in a bid to strengthen her voice. Singing is Gillian's passion and it's her way of switching off from work and the pressures of life. In this third programme Gillian speaks to the conductor of The Kingdom Choir, Karen Gibson. Karen grew up singing in church and Gospel groups, before graduating to the role of choir conductor on a BBC radio programme called The Gospel Train. She was asked to perform on the...

In 2014 the biologist and presenter Gillian Burke joined a community choir in Falmouth in a bid to strengthen her voice. Singing is Gillian's passion and it's her way of switching off from work and the pressures of life. In this second programme Gillian delves deeper into the mechanics of gospel music and asks Musical Director Richard Penrose exactly what makes a Gospel song. They discuss Richard's own route into Gospel music which began when he was a teenager in his home town of Porthleven....

In 2014 the biologist and presenter Gillian Burke joined a community choir in Falmouth in a bid to strengthen her voice. Singing is Gillian's passion and it's her way of switching off from work and the pressures of life. Ley Adewole is the Director of the Falmouth Community Gospel Choir. Ley began singing in a Pentecostal church in Coventry; she joined various singing groups, got spotted and went on to do session work. She relocated to Falmouth and set-up a gospel music workshop to fill-in...

Emma Garland lives in London but was born in Wales. Welsh stand up queen Kiri Pritchard-McLean has returned to her roots in Anglesey and she explores hiraeth in her latest tour ... hiraeth being Welsh for a sense of longing for your home. So what is this draw both of them clearly feel, and can you be Welsh if you don't speak Welsh? Emma Garland was born in the valleys of South Wales and writes about culture for numerous magazines. Kiri Pritchard-McLean's latest show is called Home Truths....

Emma and Mike have done a kind of cultural house swap - Emma left South Wales when she was 18 and is now London-based. Mike left England over two decades ago and has learnt to speak Welsh. So which of them is more Welsh? Emma Garland was born in Ynysybwl. She writes for Dazed, Vice and Rolling Stone magazine. Mike Parker lives in Powys and is the author of Neighbours from Hell and the forthcoming All the Wide Border, which is about the frontier between England and Wales. The producer in...

Before her life as a financial journalist began, Felicity Hannah could more often be found wearing a top hat, leading tourists round the ghostly streets beneath Edinburgh. She loves sudden startles and that sense of creeping enjoyable fear in person, in books and on screen, but she wants to know why. Why are some humans wired to get a thrill out of fear? Why not all of us? Felicity talks to fear expert Dr Margee Kerr, sociologist and author of Scream: Chilling Adventures in the Science of...

Spooky tour guide turned financial journalist Felicity Hannah wants to know why being scared can feel so good. Why do we frighten ourselves for fun? Why do we love scary stories and terrifying TV? She asks Neil Gaiman, author of Coraline, The Graveyard Book, Neverwhere and The Sandman – a storyteller who knows all about the power of fear to fascinate and delight us. Felicity and Neil talk about what scares them the most, when fear loses its thrill, and, of course, ‘horror for four year...

Faranak Amidi, World Service radio presenter and women's affairs reporter, talks to anthropologist Dr Martha Newson, who has studied rave, about why humans have always partied, how it can bond us, and whether rave can change society for the better. Producer: Beth Sagar-Fenton

Faranak Amidi, World Service radio presenter and women's affairs reporter, talks to DJ Eris Drew about how rave culture triggered massive changes in each of their lives. For Faranak, it meant rebelling against the strict culture of her home country of Iran, and finding a new life elsewhere. And for Eris, it meant even more profound questions about identity. But what is it about the "motherbeat", as Eris calls it, that makes it so powerful? Producer: Beth Sagar-Fenton

Vee Kativhu has a kind of fame incomprehensible to most people aged over 40. She makes videos in which she struggles with essay deadlines, gives study tips and celebrates getting the keys to her first flat. Tens of thousands of people watch each vlog she posts, so with so much of her life public, how does she maintain her privacy? Producer Sally Heaven