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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

Private Passions Podcast

Private Passions

Discussion & Talk

Music: Classical

Guests from all walks of life discuss their musical loves and hates

Guests from all walks of life discuss their musical loves and hates, and talk about the influence music has had on their lives

Private Passions: Kika Markham

26/10/2014

Kika Markham

BBC Radio 3 - Private Passions, Kika Markham

Michael Berkeley's guest is actress Kika Markham.

Michael Berkeley's guest is actress Kika Markham. Her selections include Beethoven's Violin Sonata No 5, a song from Guys and Dolls and the love duet from Handel's Rodelinda.

Michael Berkeley's guest is the actor Kika Markham, widow of Corin Redgrave.

'Actors by their nature are curious, fickle, insecure people: flirts. They should not live together.' So says Kika Markham; but she didn't follow her own advice; instead she fell in love with the actor Corin Redgrave - they were together for 33 years until his death in 2010. 

Kika's own career began in the 1960s; she made her name in a series of television films, directed by Ken Loach, Dennis Potter, and then, for the cinema, by Francois Truffaut. Now in her early seventies, Kika Markham is still on television, playing the mother of Mr Selfridge in the successful ITV period drama. 

In 'Private Passions' she talks to Michael Berkeley about the central role of music in her life. She remembers working with Francois Truffaut, and falling in love with him - against all advice. She chooses music by the French composer who wrote soundtracks for many of Truffaut's films, Georges Delerue.

But it's her marriage to Corin Redgrave that forms the heart of the programme. She talks movingly about living with Corin during the final years of his life, after he suffered a brain injury and lost a great deal of memory. There were huge challenges for them both. And one of the losses, at first, was music - he could not bear to listen. But there came a moment when Kika sat at the piano, and Corin responded to her playing.

Her choices include Beethoven's 'Spring' Violin Sonata, in which she used to accompany her father, the actor David Markham; a song from 'Guys and Dolls'; and the love duet from Handel's 'Rodelinda'. 

Producer: Elizabeth Burke

A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

To hear previous episodes of Private Passions, please visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/r3pp/all.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

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