BROADCASTS.com

We announce and speak to the winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.

Peggy Ashcroft said that Winnie, in Happy Days by Samuel Beckett, \u2018is one of those parts\u2026that actresses will want to play in the way that actors aim at Hamlet \u2013 a \u2018summit\u2019 part\u2019. She was right, several great actresses, Ashcroft herself, Billie Whitelaw and Maxine Peake, have \u2013 while buried above the waist, then up to the neck, in a mound - scaled that summit. In Front Row, Samira Ahmed talks to two more, Juliet Stevenson, an acclaimed Winnie in 2015 and Lisa Dwan, in the 60th anniversary production that opens tonight, about the joys and trials of playing this desperately cheerful woman.

Tonight, the main stage of the Bristol Old Vic will play host to Outlier, a play about isolation, addiction and friendship in rural Devon. It is written by performance poet Malaika Kegode in her theatrical debut, and accompanied by the music of local Bristolian band Jakabol. While normally, debut playwrights may have been programmed for one of the theatre\u2019s more intimate spaces, the pandemic has given emerging talent the opportunity to occupy the spotlight. Tom Morris, Artistic Director of the Bristol Old Vic, explains how the pandemic has actually enabled more risk-taking.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed\nProducer: Hilary Dunn\nStudio Engineer: Giles Aspen