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Woman's Hour

Dame Harriet Walter, Runner Eilish McColgan, Post-mastectomy bras

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture

4.13K Ratings

🗓️ 27 November 2023

⏱️ 58 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Award-winning actor Dame Harriet Walter is back on stage at the National Theatre in Federico Lorca’s newly-adapted The House of Bernada Alba. After a break of seven years playing assorted television roles including ‘difficult’ mothers in Succession and Ted Lasso, she’s back treading the boards and once again playing a formidable matriarch. She joins Clare McDonnell in the studio to talk about her career so far, as well as her newest role.

As of today, police in Northern Ireland can now charge people with upskirting, downblousing and cyber-flashing. At the same time, British Transport Police are encouraging women to lower their tolerance for sexual harassment during their commute and report minor offenders more often. So is recognition of so-called 'minor' sexual offences improving? Clare speaks to Naomi Long, Leader of the Alliance Party and former Northern Ireland Justice Minister, and to women's rights activist Zan Moon.

What do women look for in a bra after breast cancer surgery? Clare is joined by Katy Marks, an architect by trade, who discovered after her single mastectomy that there was no bra on the market that was flat on one side. She didn’t want to use a prosthetic and so designed her own, called Uno, which launches today. She’ll be joined on the programme by Asmaa Al-allak who won this year’s Great British Sewing Bee and is a consultant breast surgeon who has made post-surgery lingerie for her patients.

Runner Eilish McColgan follows in the footsteps of her mother Liz McColgan in the pursuit of sporting greatness. Now she’s made a documentary telling their story, looking at their relationship and charting the times Eilish has broken her mother’s records – all except the marathon. Eilish joins Clare to talk about making the documentary, as well as the pressures and benefits of following in the family business.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey, it's Doleepa, and I'm at your service.

0:04.7

Join me as I serve up personal conversations with my sensational guests.

0:08.8

Do a leap interviews, Tim Cook.

0:11.2

Technology doesn't want to be good or bad.

0:15.0

It's in the hands of the creator.

0:16.7

It's not every day that I have the CEO of the world's biggest company in my living room.

0:20.7

If you're looking at your phone more than you're looking in someone's eyes,

0:24.6

you're doing the wrong thing.

0:26.0

Julie, at your service, listen to all episodes on BBC Sales. BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts.

0:35.8

Hello, this is Claire McDonnell and you're listening to the Women's Hour Podcast.

0:40.3

Hello and a very warm welcome to Woman's Hour.

0:44.4

Delight to say, I am joined in the studio this morning by award-winning actress Dame Harriet

0:49.9

Walter.

0:50.9

A familiar face on our TV screens more recently playing

0:54.0

acerbic distant mothers in succession and Ted Lasso.

0:58.3

She's continuing that trend at the National Theater in Alice Birch's

1:02.2

adaptation of Frederico Garcia Laucas play the House of Bernada Alba.

1:07.4

Also will today go down as a pivotal moment in how so-called minor sexual offenses against women are

1:15.3

perceived. Now you may be shouting at your radio right now there is no such thing

1:19.3

as a minor sexual offense but up untiland-blousing and cyber flashing were not

1:27.2

prosecutable in Northern Ireland. Well from today they are. It comes on the same day that a report from the RMT Union found

1:35.4

80% of women that they surveyed said sexual harassment on public transport is getting

...

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