Selina Cadell
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Selina Cadell is one of our most versatile and accomplished actresses - from French and Saunders to Chekhov on Broadway, and from Alan Bennett to Shakespeare, she brings humour and sensitivity to stage and screen. Michael Billington described her recent performance in Charlotte Jones\\u2019s play Humble Boy as \\u2018one of the best pieces of acting you\\u2019ll see anywhere'.
Instantly recognisable to millions as the infatuated neck-braced pharmacist in the hugely popular TV series Doc Martin, Selina has another string to her bow \\u2013 as a director specialising in 18th-century drama and, particularly, opera. She talks to Michael Berkeley about how she coaches singers to become better actors and she chooses arias from operas she\\u2019s directed: Handel\\u2019s 'Arianna in Creta' and Stravinsky\\u2019s 'The Rake\\u2019s Progress', written in 1951 but set in Handel\\u2019s time.
Selina shares memories of her godfather Sir Ralph Richardson - and his acting tips \\u2013 and we hear his beautiful reading of Keats\\u2019s Ode to a Nightingale. She chooses a song by Noel Coward in memory of her brother, the actor Simon Cadell, and she speaks movingly about the death of her husband and mother earlier this year, choosing Debussy\\u2019s 'La Mer' as a celebration of her husband\\u2019s love of the sea.
Producer: Jane Greenwood\\nA Loftus production for BBC Radio 3
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