01/12/2010

This week Libby Purves is joined by Xander Rawlins, Jane Milligan, Mary Ward, Mark Logue and Matthew Kelly. Xander Rawlins is a Captain in the Grenadier Guards. He releases his debut single '1000 miles Apart' this month, a song that was written whilst he was serving on the front line in Afghanistan's Helmand Province. He performed off-the-cuff concerts which he found was a way of bringing everyone together, and his two acoustic guitars travelled with him throughout his 6 month, 8000 mile tour of duty. Mark Logue is the grandson of Lionel Logue, the Australian speech therapist to King George VI, soon to feature in a film with Colin Firth. Mark is custodian of the Logue Archive and has written a book, 'The King's Speech', with Peter Conradi, based on recently discovered diaries of his grandfather. His grandfather was famously dubbed by one newspaper in the 1930s 'The Quack who saved a King'. 'The King's Speech is published by Quercus. Jane Milligan is an actor and the youngest child of the comic genius Spike Milligan. Mary Ward OBE, a former teacher co-founded the theatre company Chickenshed in 1974 with the aim of involving everyone, often people who had been excluded from other places. Chickenshed will be performing the show Badjelly's Bad Christmas, based on the children's book Badjelly The Witch, which Spike Milligan wrote for his daughter Jane when she was six years old. It's on at the Rayne Theatre, Southgate, London, N14 4PE with a cast made up of performers aged from 7 to 50+ years. Matthew Kelly is the award-winning actor who is playing King Arthur in Monty Python's Spamalot in Birmingham this Christmas. Winner of an Olivier Award for Best Actor for Of Mice and Men, he returned returned to acting after a successful television career presenting ITV's Stars In Their Eyes and Game for a Laugh. Spamalot is at the New Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham.