Great Lives

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BBC Radio 4 FM

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Factual: Life Stories

Biographical series in which guests choose someone who has inspired their lives.

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Matthew Parris

Steve Knight

Jacqueline Fear-Segal

Perminder Khatkar

Great Lives: Steven Knight on Sitting Bull

Steven Knight on Sitting Bull

BBC Radio 4 - Great Lives, Steven Knight on Sitting Bull

Steven Knight, creator of ‘Peaky Blinders’, nominates Sitting Bull.

Steven Knight, creator of ‘Peaky Blinders’, nominates Sitting Bull. With Jacqueline Fear-Segal and Matthew Parris. From 2017.

For Steven Knight, the screen writer and director of ‘Peaky Blinders’ and ‘Taboo’, it was easy to nominate his great life. For him there was just one choice, his all-time hero Sitting Bull. 

As a young boy growing up in Birmingham in the 1970s, Steven was obsessed with stories and tales of Native Indians. At the age of thirteen, Steven searched for pen-pals and ended up exchanging letters with the great grand-children of Sitting Bull who lived in South Dakota. The correspondence and friendship he built up has continued into his adult life.

Steven, makes his case for why Sitting Bull is a great life and to help unravel this story he is joined by Jacqueline Fear-Segal, Professor of American and Indigenous Histories at the University of East Anglia. 

Presented by Matthew Parris.

Producer: Perminder Khatkar

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2017.

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