Episodes

  • Simon Russell Beale on A Piece of Work: Shakespeare, Stalin, and Sam Mendes

    Simon Russell Beale on A Piece of Work: Shakespeare, Stalin, and Sam Mendes
    Oct 1 2024
    On this episode, we were joined by the legendary British actor, Sir Simon Russell Beale CBE, to discuss his first memoir from a life on the stage, A Piece of Work: Playing Shakespeare & Other Stories.

    Often described as the "best stage actor of his generation," Simon shares insights into the whopping 18 Shakespeare characters he has played throughout his career with the RSC and the National Theatre.

    He generously invites us into his process as an actor and explains why the personal and working relationships he has formed with collaborators like Sam Mendes and Nicholas Hytner are essential to his extraordinary success.

    Lastly, we discuss encounters with performing legends such as Stephen Sondheim and Lauren Bacall and an example of what it means to recieve a "bad note" from a director.
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    53 mins
  • Alan Hollinghurst on Our Evenings: Acting, Aging, and Adventures in Wonderland

    Alan Hollinghurst on Our Evenings: Acting, Aging, and Adventures in Wonderland
    Sep 24 2024
    On this episode, we were joined by Booker Prize-winning author Alan Hollinghurst to discuss his new novel, Our Evenings, releasing 3 October.

    Immersing us in the revolutionary world of British theatre in the 1960s, the novel follows Dave Winn, an English actor of Burmese descent, through his experiences of success and failure, love and heartbreak, acceptance and hatred, and a final coda that reshapes our entire understanding of this extraordinary story.

    Alan shares insights from his decades-long career of portraying queer life in Britain across the 20th and 21st centuries, highlighting how cultural and political shifts have influenced his storytelling.

    He also offers us a sense of both the attraction and repulsion that draws him toward a world of wealth and privilege, leaving his characters—and perhaps himself—on the outside, looking in.

    Hosts: Ryan Edgington and Matt Hennessey Producer: Lily Woods
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    38 mins
  • Elif Shafak on There Are Rivers in the Sky: The Tigris and the Thames

    Elif Shafak on There Are Rivers in the Sky: The Tigris and the Thames
    Aug 6 2024
    On this episode, we were joined by Booker Prize-shortlisted author Elif Shafak to discuss There Are Rivers in the Sky, her centuries-spanning new novel that follows three historical characters connected by ancient bodies of water.

    We cover matters great and small, from the idea of water as a holder of memory to whether Elif is the type of person who will dispose of a tea mug or article of clothing once there is visible damage to it. We explore her relationship with The British Museum, inevitably weighing in on the much-politicised Elgin Marbles debate, and whether cultural artefacts belong to a region’s government or its people.

    Finally, we discuss Elif’s years of investigation by the Turkish government following the publication of The Bastard of Istanbul, with its depiction of the Armenian Genocide, and the surreal nature of seeing your fictional characters be put on trial in a court of law.

    Hosted by Ryan Edgington and Matt Hennessey.
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    50 mins
  • Griffin Dunne on The Friday Afternoon Club: Joan Didion, Dominick Dunne, and His Days in Hollywood

    Griffin Dunne on The Friday Afternoon Club: Joan Didion, Dominick Dunne, and His Days in Hollywood
    Jul 16 2024
    On this episode, we were joined by actor and writer Griffin Dunne to discuss The Friday Afternoon Club, his fascinating memoir of his famous family – among them writers Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne – and his remarkable career in Hollywood starring in films like Martin Scorsese's After Hours and An American Werewolf in London.

    We also discuss his lifelong friendship with the late Carrie Fisher, and what it was like to watch his best friend and flatmate be propelled to unimaginable fame after she starred as Princess Leia in Star Wars.

    Finally, Griffin provides insights into how he navigated writing the great tragedy of his family history: the murder of his sister Dominique at 22-years-old, she too on the cusp of cinematic stardom.

    Signed copies of the book are available to purchase at our London Piccadilly location as well as on our website.
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    50 mins
  • Lauren Elkin on Scaffolding: Fidelity, Freedom, and the French New Wave

    Lauren Elkin on Scaffolding: Fidelity, Freedom, and the French New Wave
    Jul 2 2024
    On this episode, we were joined by author Lauren to discuss her hypnotising debut novel, 'Scaffolding', which charts the lives of two couples, both living in the same Paris apartment almost fifty years apart.

    Lauren spoke to us about the decades-long journey towards bringing this novel to life, and how her career as a translator and non-fiction writer allowed her to freedom to craft this book in precisely the way she envisioned it.

    We also spoke about monogamy and relationships, and how the novel was crafted 'in the key of Eric Rohmer,' the idiosyncratic 20th-century filmmaker who told Paris-set stories following the romantic and moral conflicts of glamorous young people.
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    48 mins
  • Richard Flanagan on Question 7: HG Wells, Hiroshima, and How to Live

    Richard Flanagan on Question 7: HG Wells, Hiroshima, and How to Live
    Jun 11 2024
    On this episode, we were joined by Booker Prize-winning author Richard Flanagan to discuss his fascinating new memoir, 'Question 7', a meditation on the decisions that we make and the reverberating effects that these choices can have on the course of history.

    Richard spoke to us about why he feels that books must exist outside the moral grammar, and why good readers are as important as good writers.

    He shared amusing anecdotes about a life spent on the road promoting his work, and his dissatisfaction with living in cities – where value is placed on the man-made over the natural world.

    Finally, he contemplates the difficult question of whether he would even be sitting across from us had the atom bomb not been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, freeing his father after years of back-breaking work in a Japanese POW camp.

    'Question 7' has been chosen as the Hatchards Non-Fiction Book of the Month for June. Signed copies can be purchased across our three shops as well as on our website.
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    34 mins
  • Rachel Khong on Real Americans: Mao, Memory, and Multigenerational Trauma

    Rachel Khong on Real Americans: Mao, Memory, and Multigenerational Trauma
    May 14 2024
    On this episode, we were joined by Rachel Khong, author of the New York Times bestseller Real Americans – a multigenerational story about a Chinese American family that is three great novels wrapped into one.

    The novel begins in New York City just before the attacks on September 11th when an unpaid intern with immigrant parents meets and falls in love with a blue-blooded stranger who is heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. As the story moves back and forth in time – from China’s cultural revolution of the 1960s to Silicon Valley in 2030 – our perspective shifts between the members of the family, with their stories exploring themes of race, class, and cultural identity.

    Rachel spoke with us about her journey towards writing this epic novel; Western ignorance towards the legacy of the Chinese dictator Mao Zedong, a literary phenomenon known as the 'The Gosling Effect'; and the differences in family relationships between the East and West.
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    35 mins
  • Percival Everett on James: Mark Twain, Tennis, and Nat Turner's Rebellion

    Percival Everett on James: Mark Twain, Tennis, and Nat Turner's Rebellion
    May 2 2024
    On this episode, we were joined by author Percival Everett — Booker Prize finalist and poet of “pathological irony,” — to discuss his landmark new book, James, a retelling of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of Jim.

    Following the retirement of his longtime editor in 2021, this novel casts Everett into the centre of the literary ‘moment’ with the book climbing the UK’s bestseller lists despite it sacrificing none of the madcap invention or gallows humour that has cemented his cult reputation.

    It also comes in the wake of his 2001 novel, Erasure, being adapted into the Oscar-winning film, American Fiction, itself a satire of a writer entering the literary mainstream.

    Percival spoke to us about why his book is neither homage nor take down of Twain’s iconic novel; why ‘distractions’ like fishing and tennis are essential to his process; and finally, that thorny American issue — in his view the only American issue — addressing the legacy of slavery.

    Hosted by Ryan Edgington and Lily Woods (Hatchards.co.uk manager).

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    32 mins