The Arts Hour, BBC

Overview

Simon McBurney hosts a special edition of The Arts Hour on the BBC World Service.

In a curtain raiser to the World Service Arts Festival, Simon McBurney will be talking to filmmakers, novelists and thinkers from across the arts. They will examine our fractious relationship with the world, looking at how telling and listening to stories might help bring us closer together in lockdown and beyond, both to each other and to the Earth.

Our removal from community and from nature has been happening in the West, not just during Covid-19, but for centuries. Now is the time to reflect on those relationships and rethink the role of society and our place on the planet.

Joining Simon to discuss these issues will be: Naomi Klein, the award winning journalist and author; Colleen Echohawk, founder of the Coalition to End Urban Indigenous Homelessness; Psychiatrist Dr Iain McGilchrist, who explains why he feels we’ve become more reliant on the left side of our brains and why that’s not a good thing; writer, art historian and filmmaker Nana Oforiatta Ayim on nature vs the economy in Ghana; actor Fehinti Balogun, who talks about how theatre is the perfect place to highlight issues including climate change; and filmmaker Takumã Kuikuro who explains why, in his opinion, storytelling needs to begin and end with nature.

First broadcast on 13 March 2021 at 8:06pm GMT