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Woman's Hour: Meera Syal in 'Roar', Women prisoners facing racism report, 'Goblin mode', Single women Ukrainian refugees, Esme Young

14/04/2022

Meera Syal in 'Roar', Women prisoners facing racism report, 'Goblin mode', Single women Ukrainian refugees, Esme Young

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Meera Syal in 'Roar', Women prisoners facing racism report, 'Goblin mode', Single women Ukrainian refugees, Esme Young

'Roar'- a new series of 'darkly comic fables'- includes Meera Syal as Anu,

In a new 8-part series 'Roar' Meera Syal plays Anu, a character making radical life changes in 'The Woman Who Returned her Husband'

Described as 'darkly comic feminist fables' ‘Roar’ is a new eight-part drama series adapted from Cecilia Aherne's short story collection. Each episode shines a spotlight on women's experiences and how women navigate through other's perceptions of them as well as their own. Comedian, writer, playwright, singer, journalist and actor, Meera Syal, plays ‘The Woman Who Returned her Husband’. She joins Chloe Tilley.

A new report highlights the experiences of over 260 Black, Asian, minority ethnic and foreign national women in the twelve prisons across England. Their accounts of indirect and direct racism have been described as shocking and distressing  The report is compiled by the Criminal Justice Alliance in collaboration with the Independent Monitoring Boards. Nina Champion is Director of the Criminal Justice Alliance and  Dame Anne Owers is National Chair of the Independent Monitoring Boards and the former Chief Inspectorate of Prisons.

Have you got an inner goblin? Do you ever let it out? Not washing for days, slobbing in bed, binge watching TV series in one sitting, eating random things left at the back of your fridge with melted cheese on… these would all be considered ‘goblin mode’. You might do it in private but would you post pictures to social media for the world to see? Well this has become a new trend taking over TikTok with videos using the hashtag gaining over 2.1 billion views. So why are generation Z women turning their back on the gym going, smoothy drinking, ‘It’ girl whose aim is self-improvement, to reveal their inner goblins to the world? To explain more we hear from Ione Gamble, writer and editor-in-chief of Polyester zine and podcast and Halima Jibril, writer and editor of Ashamed zine. 

The UK government has been told to stop matching lone female Ukrainian refugees with single men. The UN has intervened following concerns that women and sometimes children are at risk of sexual exploitation. Under the government’s Homes for Ukraine scheme, British hosts must link up with refugees themselves, leaving tens of thousands of people to resort to unregulated social media groups to connect. More than 200,000 people in Britain have applied to host refugees under the scheme but just 28,500 visas have been issued so far. We hear from Louise Calvey, Head of Services and Safeguarding at Refugee Action and Times reporter, Shayma Bakht. She posed as a 22 year old Ukrainian woman online and within minutes was inundated with inappropriate messages. 

Esme Young has been at the cutting edge of the fashion industry for over 50 years. From launching her own label Swanky Modes, dressing stars like Grace Jones and Cher and more recently being one half of the judging duo on The Great British Sewing Bee. Esme joins Chloe to discuss her new book, 'Behind The Seams', where she recounts iconic outfits and raucous parties and the clothes in her wardrobe she just can't part with. 


Presenter: Chloe Tilley
Producer: Kirsty Starkey

Interviewed Guest: Meera Syal
Interviewed Guest: Nina Champion
Interviewed Guest: Dame Anne Owers
Interviewed Guest: Ione Gamble 
Interviewed Guest: Halima Jibril 
Interviewed Guest: Louise Calvey
Interviewed Guest: Shayma Bakht
Interviewed Guest: Esme Young

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Meera Syal in 'Roar', Women prisoners facing racism report, 'Goblin mode', Single women Ukrainian refugees, Esme Young

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