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Joan Smith

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Kirsty Starkey

Woman's Hour: 50th Anniversary of Hair the Musical

Factual

50th Anniversary of Hair the Musical

13/10/2017

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, 50th Anniversary of Hair the Musical

Hair the musical, victim blaming, Claudia Rankine and Salmon netting.

50 years of the musical Hair. Plus Weinstein - blaming victims and other women, the poet Claudia Rankine and Salmon netting in Devon.

Why are female celebrities being blamed for not speaking out sooner about Harvey Weinstein? Jenni speaks to Joan Smith, journalist and Co-chair of the Mayor of London's Violence Against Women and Girls Board, and Rebecca Hitchin, operations co-ordinator at Rape Crisis, about the impact victim blaming has on sexual assault survivors.

Hair the musical is 50 years old this year. With very little plot, nudity, plenty of four-letter words, explicit sexual content, rituals, drugs, lyrics that didn't rhyme, music that didn't follow the rules, and the sound of genuine rock and roll on a stage for the first time, the musical shocked and changed the world of theatre. The launch for many careers, actor Patti Boulaye was just 16 when she accidently found herself on a West End stage performing in Hair. Actor and author of The Real Rock Follies, Annabel Leventon played Sheila in the original cast on the London stage. Laura Johnson is currently playing the same role. The three of them join Jenni to discuss the impact of Hair and how relevant it remains for today's audiences.

Cornwall and Devon- places of heaving beaches, ice creams, body-boarding, tea-shops and fishing. Hannah Stacey from BBC Cornwall spoke to some of the women, and it seems there aren't many of them, who work hands on in fishing. She met 80 year old salmon netter from Braunton in North Devon, Sheila Taylor. Sheila has netted fish on the River Taw with her husband Stephen for the past 35 years... it can be a risky business .. 

Award winning poet Claudia Rankine's is Jenni's guest on Friday. Using a combination of poetry, essay, photography and visual art her book Citizen An American Lyric became an instant classic and examined the experience of race and racism in Western society including the language used to describe tennis star Serena Williams and the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida. Now she's in the UK for an international festival of poetry. 

Presenter: Jenni Murray
Producer: Kirsty Starkey.

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