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Midweek: Sir John Major, Caitlin Moran, Andy Torbet, Colin Blumenau

26/09/2012

Sir John Major, Caitlin Moran, Andy Torbet, Colin Blumenau

BBC Radio 4 - Midweek, Sir John Major, Caitlin Moran, Andy Torbet, Colin Blumenau

Libby Purves meets former Prime Minister Sir John Major and columnist Caitlin Moran.

Libby Purves meets former Prime Minister Sir John Major, columnist Caitlin Moran, adventurer Andy Torbet, and actor and director Colin Blumenau.

Andy Torbet spent ten years in the British forces as a paratrooper, diver and bomb disposal officer before turning his hand to television. He co-presents the BBC Two series Operation Iceberg in which a team of adventurers and scientists travel to the Arctic to chart the life cycle of icebergs. 

The former Prime Minister, Sir John Major, uses his own unconventional family past to tell the story of British music hall in his book, 'My Old Man: a personal history of Music Hall'. His father Tom Major was a music hall performer who, with his first wife Kitty, toured as Drum and Major. Sir John reflects on his father's life and explores the origins of music hall in the pleasure gardens of the 18th century to its decline with the arrival of radio and cinema. 'My Old Man: a personal history of Music Hall' is published by Harper Press. 

Caitlin Moran is a columnist and writer. Her new book Moranthology is a collection of her columns written during the last 20 years. She looks back on her early life, raised with seven siblings on a Wolverhampton council estate, and how she turned to writing and journalism at 15. Moranthology is published by Ebury. 

Colin Blumenau is an actor who is directing Mansfield Park at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds. He is also directing a rehearsed reading of Lovers' Vows, the scandalous play which is featured in Jane Austen's novel. Written by Elizabeth Inchbald, the play causes consternation in Mansfield Park with its moral ambiguity and daring themes. 

Producer: Paula McGinley.

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