Lucy Worsley explores the phenomenon of the Blitz Spirit

We hear much about the spirit of the Blitz and the dark days of World War II when the people of Britain faced relentless enemy air attacks with courage, humour and tenacity. We imagine mothers gathering children to their sides as...

A year after the death of Nicholas Parsons Just a Minute returns to BBC Radio 4

More than year after the death of its inimitable host, Nicholas Parsons, the BBCs’s longest running radio panel game Just a Minute is back on Radio 4 this evening (Monday 22nd February).The big question for producers was how do...

Sadness as plans for London's new £288 million Centre for Music are scrapped

We were sorry to hear that dreams of a new state of the art 21st century concert hall in Central London have now been consigned to the dustbin of history. However in the current climate, with the terrible economic fall out from...

The Brand is Female: championing Ubuntu and Black History Month

The Brand Is Female has launched two inspiring podcasts by black female creatives to mark this year’s Black History Month. One of them is by Mungi Ngomane, author of the best-selling self-help book Everyday Ubuntu: Living Better...

Buy Lucy Worsley's Jane Austen book for Mother's Day signed by author

Ever popular historian and frequent contributor to Clive Conway Productions Lucy Worsley is suggests that signed and dedicated copies of her latest book Jane Austen at Home’ might make a rather good mother’s Day present. She’s...

Veteran actress and singer Patricia Routledge turns 92

Congratulation to actress, singer and regular contributor to Clive Conway Productions Dame Patricia Routledge who celebrates her 92nd birthday on Wednesday (17th February).After a remarkable career in the West End and on...

Henry Goodman on John Preston's story of disgraced tycoon Maxwell

Many of the speakers who contribute to Clive Conway Productions’ talks pitch up on a virtually weekly basis as narrators, readers, commentators on podcasts, radio and TV programs. The simple reason being they are...

Take Five: Tutu Foundation UK and the peace principle

Since it was first established in 2007, The Tutu Foundation UK has worked tirelessly to prevent and resolve conflict.It aims to help people build peaceful communities across the UK by providing facilitation and mediation services...

Whoops! Let's enjoy the comedy of errors

In a world where criticism and even punishment can often be meted out for the most mundane of errors it is well worth remembering that we learn from our mistakes.As Samuel Beckett famously wrote: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No...

Elton John asks Culture Secretary for visa-free deal for musicians touring the EU

It was great to see Sir Elton John pitching in with direct action over the campaign to sort out the post Brexit chaos threatening the livelihoods of musicians and other performers touring Europe.The multi millionaire star had...

He started so he's finishing...18 years later

Despite there still being viewers of a certain age who think that Mastermind hasn’t been the same since the days of Magnus Magnussen, John Humphreys started hosting the show 18 long years ago.And in the grand tradition of the...

Tutu makes top five in list of world's most spiritually influential people

Great to see that Archbishop Desmond Tutu comes in at number five in the Watkins’ 2021 list of the 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People.The 89-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winning anti-apartheid activist and lifelong...

Trying to get performing arts back on track post pandemic and Brexit

The struggle to keep the world of performing arts firing on all cylinders continues. With theatres closed and the future looking bleak for many venues, the livelihoods of actors, musicians, dancers, technicians and theatre...

Chelsea Flower Show moves to Autumn

Look on the bright side. The prestigious annual Chelsea Flower Show may have been postponed to September but it opens up a whole new range of colourful possibilities for both exhibits and visitors.The change of season will...

Some Enchanted Evening and Prokfiev's 7th piano sonata - the inheritance tracks of Andrew Llloyd Webber

It was fascinating hearing Andrew Lloyd Webber delivering his ‘inheritance tracks’ on BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live at the weekend.The impresario and composer whose long running shows have changed the history of musical theatre...

Tutu calls for mass vaccination as soon as possible

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has pledged to have the Covid-19 vaccine as soon as it is available to him and has urged others to do the same. In a message on the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation website, the 89-year-old said...

Historian Lucy Worsley explores the homelife of Jane Austen

With theatres closed and lockdown restrictions keeping us all at home far more, our Curtain Up series of online celebrity talks have provided a cultural lifeline.They have informed, entertain and have over the past three montbs...

Poetry for the working class and Berkoff inspired by Edgar Allan Poe

Actor, writer, director and sometime Clive Conway Productions speaker Steven Berkoff's latest book, Poems for the Working Class, has just been published and it’s written from an intriguing perspective. For Berkoff was born in the...

Music industry heavyweights call for visa-free EU travel for performers

Good to see conductor Simon Rattle, cellist Julian Lloyd Webber and composer Harrison Birtwistle among more than 160 music industry figures signing a letter to The Times furious with the government for having...

Westway Trust racism: Kensingtion and Chelsea Council leader says time to reflect

The leader of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council Cllr Elizabeth Campbell has admitted that the body may have played a part in enabling the institutional racism revealed at the Westway Trust by the recent Tutu...

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