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Arts & Ideas

Frank Cottrell-Boyce

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2598 Ratings

🗓️ 1 July 2020

⏱️ 45 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The screenwriter and novelist talks to Matthew Sweet about teaching creative writing to children in lockdown, attending mass on zoom, the changing meaning of community and the importance of family and he looks back to the image of Britain he created with Danny Boyle for the opening of the London 2012 Olympics.

Frank Cottrell-Boyce is the author of books including Millions, Framed, Runaway Robot and a sequel to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, He has worked on screenplays including The Two Popes, collaborations with Michael Winterbottom on films including 24 Hour Party People and scripts for Coronation Street and Doctor Who.

You can find Matthew Sweet talking to the author Sarah Perry https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08dmn6l and the actor Robin Askwith https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08fgxjp about their careers and this current moment in the Free Thinking archives.

And Frank Cottrell-Boyce giving the 2016 Proms Lecture on the importance of the arts https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p041vxwh

Producer: Karl Bos

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?

0:23.3

It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.

0:28.8

Listen to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds.

0:33.3

BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.

0:37.0

Hello, I'm Matthew Sweet.

0:38.7

Welcome to BBC Radio 3's Arts and Ideas discussion programme, which brings together leading

0:43.9

artists, writers and thinkers in conversation and debate.

0:47.6

If you enjoy what you hear, do subscribe.

0:50.3

Search for the Arts and Ideas podcast.

0:53.1

And while you're there, please rate and review us.

0:55.4

It'll help other people find us.

0:57.5

I can promise you Frank Conversation on this edition of Freethinking,

1:01.7

about screenwriting, about children's fiction,

1:04.5

about turning our national self-image into spectacle

1:07.8

and what happens to that self-image

1:10.0

when the nation goes through some pretty

1:11.9

radical changes. Frank Cotterall Boyce is the man who'll be supplying it. He's listening to

1:17.6

this hold up in his airing cupboard, I think, in Liverpool, and he'll have to forgive me for saying

1:23.1

something now that he might find a bit embarrassing. I meet a lot of writers and artists in this job, and not all of them are sweetness and light

1:32.6

all of the time.

1:34.0

But Frank Cotterall Boyce is frequently spoken of as being the nicest man in his profession.

1:39.9

That's not flannel.

...

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