Between the Ears: Shifts

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Shifts

BBC Radio 3 - Between the Ears, Shifts

Poetry, testimony and interviews inspired by the experiences of nurses during lockdown.

Care-workers interviewed during the height of the pandemic, interspersed with a poetry sequence, Shifts, written by Stephanie Jacob in response to these interviews.

In Shifts, we hear from a paramedic, several ICU nurses, a mental health nurse, a retired matron and a perfusionist. They were interviewed during lockdown on zoom calls, on mobile phones and in gardens with microphones on boom poles. They were asked about their experience of the Covid-19 pandemic and how on reflection it may have changed them and shifted their ideas about nursing and front-line healthcare. In response, writer Stephanie Jacob listened to these interviews and wrote the poetry sequence, Shifts. The healthcare workers themselves read some of the poems along with actors. Extracts from the original interviews are featured throughout the programme with a soundscape by Gareth Fry, featuring music by Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry.

Shifts was commissioned as part of the BBC Culture in Quarantine with the support of Arts Council England and BBC Arts.

Producer: Judith Dimant and Julian Wilkinson for Wayward Productions

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