This Cultural Life

Bestselling Turkish-British novelist Elif Shafak talks to John Wilson about her formative cultural influences. Renowned for epic stories that connect the past and the present, told from multiple perspectives, her novels explore marginalised communities and exiled people. An activist who has campaigned for the rights of women and freedom of expression, she faced prosecution in Turkey in 2006, accused for ‘insulting Turkishness’.
Elif Shafak’s 2019 novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and her 2021 novel The Island of Missing Trees was a finalist for the Women's Prize for Fiction. Her books have been translated into more than 50 languages. In 2025, she was elected as President of the Royal Society of Literature. Her latest novel One Brief Moment All Eternity is a portrait of the French writer Gustav Flaubert told through the eyes of the women who shaped him.
Producer: Edwina Pitman

American photographer Joel Meyerowitz talks to John Wilson about his cultural influences and formative experiences. A pioneer of the artform, he first began capturing life on the streets of his native New York in the early 1960s, and helped to establish colour photography as a fine-art medium. After travelling throughout Europe he made his name with a groundbreaking show at the Museum of Modern Art in 1968. Following the attacks on the World Trade Centre in 2001, Joel Meyerowitz became the only photographer to secure access to Ground Zero and, over several months, captured the scenes of devastation.
His work has been the subject of more than 350 exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world, and he is the recipient of many awards, most recently the prestigious Outstanding Contribution prize at the Sony World Photography Awards 2026.
Producer: Edwina Pitman

Actor Ray Winstone talks to John Wilson about his formative cultural influences and inspirations. A schoolboy boxing champion, he built a reputation playing tough, working class characters after being cast in the borstal drama Scum at the age of 17. Winstone won huge acclaim for his performance as an alcoholic abusive husband in the film Nil By Mouth, directed by Gary Oldman, and Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast in which he played a bank robber forced out of retirement. Other big screen roles include the Martin Scorsese gangland drama The Departed, and Anthony Mingehella’s American civil war film Cold Mountain. On television, he’s played Henry the Eighth, Magwitch in Great Expectations and most recently, an imprisoned crime boss in the Netflix series The Gentlemen.
Producer: Edwina Pitman

Theatre and film director Sir Nicholas Hytner talks to John Wilson about his formative cultural influences. Over a career spanning four decades, he has directed Shakespeare, contemporary drama and musicals, including Miss Saigon which ran for over a decade in London and on Broadway. He served as artistic director of the National Theatre for 12 years, overseeing more massive box office hits including The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time and War Horse. Productions that he directed himself include One Man, Two Guvnors and The History Boys, one of several collaborations with Alan Bennett. In 2017, he co-founded London’s Bridge Theatre where his productions have included Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Guys and Dolls. One of the most influential and successful figures in British theatre, Sir Nicholas Hytner was knighted for services to drama in 2010.
Producer: Edwina Pitman

One of the world’s greatest living pianists, Mitsuko Uchida, talks to John Wilson about her cultural influences and her career in music. Born in Japan, and a British citizen for over 25 years, she is renowned for her interpretations of work by Schubert, Mozart and Beethoven, and for the intellectual rigour of her approach to musical manuscripts.
She has won two Grammy Awards, three Gramophone Awards, the Praemium Imperiale, presented by the imperial family of Japan, and the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society. She was made a Dame in 2009 for her services to music.
Producer: Edwina Pitman