Illegal weight-loss drugs, Actor Jackie Clune, Birth scrolls

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Personal Journals

4.2 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 11 November 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The UK's medicines watchdog has said criminal gangs in the UK have started making their own weight-loss drugs, with packaging and branding designed to look like legitimate products. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has warned that the new trend poses a significant threat. Presenter Clare McDonnell is joined by Sukhi Basra, vice chair of the National Pharmacy Association who also runs a weight loss practice, to dicuss the risks.

'Buy now, pay later' credit schemes are increasingly being used to pay for everyday items like food, bus passes and school uniforms. Leading debt advisors have told the BBC that more women are juggling these debts as they struggle to cope with the cost of living. BBC Yorkshire investigations reporter, Stephanie Miskin, and Rebecca Routledge from debt advice organisation Money Wellness talk to Clare.

Jackie Clune is an actor, writer and performer whose eclectic career has included a Karen Carpenter tribute act, Shakespeare, Mamma Mia! and most recently the narrator in a UK tour of The Rocky Horror Show. On screen, she’s familiar to many as Motherland's school secretary Mrs Lamb, but she’s also written novels and a memoir about unexpectedly becoming a mum to triplets at 39 and finding herself with four children under 19 months. She’s now on stage in The Meat Kings! (Inc.) of Brooklyn Heights at London’s Park Theatre, playing a tough, no-nonsense boss fighting to keep the family business afloat. She joins Clare to discuss the play, parenting and grief.

A rare 500-year-old English parchment birth scroll is to be shown in the UK for the first time following recent pioneering analysis that confirmed its use during pregnancy and childbirth. The medieval scroll is central to Expecting: Birth, Belief and Protection at the Wellcome Collection exploring the protective practices and beliefs around pregnancy, childbirth and infertility that existed in medieval times. Dr Elma Brenner, Research Development Lead at Wellcome Collection and Professor Valerie Worth, Fellow of Trinity college oxford who holds a research grant from the Leverhulme Trust talk to Clare.

Presented by: Clare McDonnell Produced by: Dianne McGregor

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts.
0:07.3	Hello, I'm Kimberly Wilson. I'm a psychologist, and in my new podcast, Complex, I'll be your guide
0:14.4	through all the information and misinformation that's out there about mental health.
0:19.0	I'm joined by expert guests covering topics from people pleasing to perfectionism,
0:24.2	burnout to empathy, to find tangible advice so we can understand ourselves a little better.
0:30.5	Complex with me, Kimberly Wilson.
0:33.0	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:37.1	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:40.9	Hello, this is Claire Macdonnell and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast.
0:45.4	Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour.
0:48.3	Buy Now pay later schemes, once used for bigger ticket items
0:52.5	and are being increasingly lent on for day-to-day essentials, such as groceries and school uniforms.
0:59.4	That's according to leading debt charities who say they are seeing a rise in the number of families needing help to clear debt racked up on these apps.
1:08.9	We're going to hear from one of those charities on the program today
1:11.8	and a woman who ended up owing £3,000 to buy now pay later funds. There is an absolutely
1:18.8	fascinating exhibition that has just opened at the Welcome Collection about the rituals and
1:24.6	practices of childbirth through the Middle Ages.
1:31.9	It draws parallels with certain practices that have sustained to this day,
1:37.2	like hypno-birthing, for example, and others like tying an eagle's feather to your right foot during labour, that have not.
1:40.9	We're going to hear from the lead researcher at that exhibition.
1:44.5	Now, you may know her as Mrs. Lamb, the school receptionist in Motherland, or even the narrator in the recent tour of Mamma Mia, or anything from Shakespeare to Karen Carpenter, for that matter.
1:55.4	She is the inimitable Jackie Clune and her latest role in the Meet Kings Inc of Brooklyn Heights.
	...

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