23/03/2011

This week Libby Purves is joined by Ben Goddard, Dame Catherine, Jeff Pearce and David Wood. Ben Goddard is playing the role of Jerry Lee Lewis in the musical 'Million Dollar Quartet' inspired by the actual event that took place on 4th December 1956 at Sun Records in Memphis, when Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis came together to make music for the first and only time. 'Million Dollar Quartet' is at the Noel Coward Theatre, London WC2. Dame Catherine was a banker before becoming a Benedictine Nun. She co-founded The Benedictine Nuns of Holy Trinity Monastery, East Hendred, the first community of contemplative Benedictine nuns to be established in England for more than fifty years. They are using the internet and other innovations in order to make their message work in the 21st Century and are launching online retreats this month. Jeff Pearce was born in the slums of Liverpool in 1953, and from an early age he worked with his mother selling second hand clothes on a market stall. Leaving school at fourteen, unable to read or write, he embarked on an amazing journey, becoming a millionaire by the time he was thirty, losing everything in the nineties recession. Within ten years, however, he won the highest accolade in the fashion business, 'Independent Retailer of the Year 2002' at the Drapers Annual Awards. His memoir A Pocketful of Holes and Dreams is published by Penguin. David Wood is a children's dramatist, author, actor, director, composer and magician. He wrote his first play for children in 1967 and has since written over seventy more. His adaptation of 'Goodnight Mister Tom' together with three of his other adaptations, 'George's Marvellous Medicine', 'The Tiger Who Came to Tea' and 'Shaun the Sheep' - the latter two, David directed - are simultaneously touring the UK. Also 'David Wood's Storytime' is at the Arts Theatre, London during Easter.