Telling Tales

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Radio 4 Extra celebrates the best in storytelling. Different voices and different genres.

BBC Radio 4 Extra celebrates the very best in storytelling, showcasing different voices, and different genres, from the BBC archives and beyond.

Telling Tales: Katy Brand

Katy Brand

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Telling Tales, Katy Brand

Katy Brand shares her love for Baby Houseman, the screen character who inspired a book.

Katy Brand shares her love for Baby Houseman, the screen character who inspired a book. She also reflects on stand-up, personal storytelling and podcasting (for women).

There are two stars of this week’s Telling Tales:  the writer, actor and comedian Katy Brand and Baby Houseman, a beloved screen character, who inspired Katy’s latest work.

Her book, I Carried A Watermelon, is named after a memorable line from Dirty Dancing, the 1987 coming-of-age story, that placed its young female lead firmly in the foreground. 

We hear Katy read an extract from the audiobook, in which she describes watching the film for the first time, aged 11, and falling under the spell of Baby.

Katy reflects on the importance of female representation in film and the message at the centre of Dirty Dancing, which screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein had to fight to retain.

We also hear about a variety of Katy’s work, from the sketches and parodies of pop culture in Katy Brand’s Big Ass Show, to a very personal stand-up show that changed the direction of her career.

Finally, after tackling feminism, it would have been remiss to overlook her parody podcast, Women Like Us, which re-unites Katy with her long-time friend and collaborator Katherine Parkinson.  We hear an early incarnation, via 2008’s Mouth Trap, before enjoying the pair laughing live on stage at the London Podcast Festival. 

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