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Outlook: Risking My Life For a Kiss

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John Kani as Othello

05/09/2016 GMT

Risking My Life For a Kiss

BBC World Service - Outlook, Risking My Life For a Kiss

Actor John Kani took the risky decision to play Othello in apartheid South Africa

John Kani on playing Othello in apartheid South Africa, and the underwater explorer who found a long lost train.

When John Kani took to the stage to play Othello in apartheid South Africa,1987, romantic relationships between black and white people were just recently legal, and still deeply controversial. So when he was asked to kiss a white woman on stage, he was taking a very serious risk. Now in his 70s, he has been telling Outlook the amazing story of that production, and how he came to love the poetry of Shakespeare as a boy growing up in the Eastern Cape. 

In India, many villagers do not have electricity, and have to rely on kerosene lamps for light. But having a live flame in the house can be dangerous, and Ajaita Shah is on a mission to persuade people to use solar lamps instead. She was brought up in the United States, but her parents came from India, and Ajaita is determined to make a difference there after witnessing a horrible kerosene lamp accident some years ago. 

For 30 years, American Tom Crossmon was an underwater rescue worker. But since retiring, he has turned his attention to something else - shipwrecks. Last year, Tom was on a visit to Ontario in Canada when he heard rumours about a large vessel at the bottom of Lake Superior. This time, however, it was not a ship, but a train.

(Photo: John Kani (R) on the stage playing Othello. Credit: Ruphin Coudyzer/FPPSA)

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