Michelle Collins, Women's Golf, Access to work, Girls Like You

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Personal Journals

4.2 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 31 July 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Women’s Open begins at Royal Porthcawl on the south coast of Wales where over the next four days the biggest names in women's golf will compete to win the fifth and final major of the year. Datshiane Navanayagam is joined by The Telegraph's golf correspondent James Corrigan.

Actor Michelle Collins, best known as Cindy Beale in the BBC’s EastEnders, makes her Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut in Motorhome Marilyn, a dark comedy inspired by Michelle's real-life encounter with a woman Cindy saw in LA. The play reveals the toll of living in the shadow of an icon, exploring failure, ageing and the heartbreaking cost of unattained dreams. Michelle joins Datshiane from our Edinburgh studio.

The Bishop of Monmouth - Cherry Vann - has been elected as the new Archbishop of Wales. She is the first female Anglican Archbishop to serve in the UK. She replaces Andrew John who has retired after the publication of reports highlighting safeguarding concerns at Bangor Cathedral. She is the first leader of the Church in Wales to be in a same-sex civil partnership. Datshiane is joined by Madeleine Davies, Senior writer for the Church Times, to discuss.

Disability campaigners are calling on the Government to reform and protect the Access to Work scheme - which was set up over 30 years ago to offer financial support for disabled people in the workplace or trying to enter it. Datshiane is joined by disability campaigner and journalist Dr Shani Dhanda and Rachel Parker, a young woman with autism who had to shut her bakery business after delays and difficulties renewing her grant from the scheme.

British Asian girl band Girl Like You, released their first Punjabi song and track this year, Best Friend, as part of a collaboration with Indian Music Artists. It made its way to number one for seven weeks on the Official British Asian music charts. Now, they’ve just released their much-anticipated lead debut single, Boy Bye. So, who are these young women and how are they breaking barriers and challenging stereotypes? Yasmin, Naveena and Jaya join Datshiane in the studio and sing live.

Presenter: Datshiane Navanayagam Producer: Corinna Jones

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Dashiani Navanayagam and welcome to Women's Hour on BBC Radio 4.
0:06.1	Hello and welcome to the programme this morning.
0:09.6	Now, if you were a teen in the early 2000s like I was,
0:13.0	or if indeed you've ever been to an Asian wedding,
0:16.6	then you probably have heard the tunes of British Asian music stars like Punjabi MC,
0:22.0	J-Shorn, MIA, just to name a few blaring out at you.
0:26.1	But until now, there's never been a South Asian all-girl band
0:30.1	that's crossed over into the mainstream.
0:32.7	So could that all be about to change?
0:35.9	Listen to this.
0:37.1	Well, I'll be joined by Girls Like You,
0:39.6	the British Asian trio from London, Birmingham and Leeds in the studio shortly
0:44.0	to discuss how they became a social media and chart-topping sensation
0:48.6	and will be treated to their lead debut single that's out now.
0:54.0	Women make up the majority of people with disabilities in this country.
0:59.0	They also receive the majority of awards from the government scheme Access to Work,
1:03.6	which has been running for more than 30 years and offers financial support
1:07.0	to help people enter work and stay in work.
1:10.3	But more and more people say they're struggling to access the scheme or have their grants renewed.
1:17.1	Well, we'll be hearing from two women about the impact this is having on lives and livelihoods.
1:22.8	We'll also get the reaction to the first female and openly gay Archbishop in Britain,
1:28.8	right Reverend Cherry Van,
	...

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