Right Side of the Brain

Nirjay Mahindru in conversation with Professor of Neurology Alexander Leff from Kings College London.  

Tony Banks spent 10 years at the Stroke Association and was the head of Conferences and events.  

Oliver Robert Ford Davies (born 12 August 1939) is an English actor and writer, best known for his extensive theatre work, and to a broader audience for his role as Sio Bibble in Star Wars Episodes I to III. He is also known for his role as Maester Cressen in HBO series Game of Thrones.

In 1959, as a member of the Oxford University Experimental Theatre Club, he appeared in his first Stratford performance in the Memorial Theatre's open-air production of Bartholomew Fair. His first professional appearances were, at the age of 27, in the 1967 season at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.[5] Short Seasons at the Mermaid, London, the Oxford Playhouse and the Cambridge Arts Theatre followed. His long and prolific association with the Royal Shakespeare Company started in 1975, when director Terry Hands cast him as Mountjoy in Henry V. He is an Honorary Associate Artist of the company. From 1990 until 2019 He appeared more frequently at the National Theatre, London, until at the age of 80 he lent his "sublime presence" to the part of the appraising button moulder in Henryk Ibsen's Peter Gynt at the Olivier Theatre.

On television, Davies had a regular role as Peter Foxcott QC in Kavanagh QC and was schoolmaster Le Bas in the serialization of A Dance to the Music of Time (1997). He also appeared with John Thaw in an episode of Inspector Morse and also appeared in the ITV television drama The Uninvited, and in a 2002 episode of the popular drama Foyle's War.

On film, his most prominent role was probably Sio Bibble in the Star Wars "prequel trilogy" films, released in 1999, 2002 and 2005. In 2003, Davies appeared in the film Johnny English, where he portrayed the Archbishop of Canterbury.

He appeared on stage as Polonius in Hamlet with the Royal Shakespeare Company, alongside David Tennant and Patrick Stewart, and in 2009 appeared in All's Well That Ends Well at the Royal National Theatre as the King of France. In 2010, he appeared as Balfour in the premiere of Ben Brown's play The Promise, about the Balfour Declaration.

In 2011, he appeared in a stage adaptation of Michelle Magorian's book Goodnight Mister Tom, in which he played the central character, Thomas Oakley. He was back with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2014 as Justice Shallow in Henry IV, Part 2. Davies again appeared with David Tennant in Richard II in 2013. In February 2019 Davies discussed his career in the BBC Radio Three series Private Passions.

Dr Adam Ali is an Orthopaedic Surgeon and NHS Clinical Entrepreneur. He is co-founder of carecompare.net, an innovative site that enables people paying for their own care to quickly find and choose between local care companies able to help. CareCompare is free-to-use and being supported widely by the NHS, Homecare Association, voluntary sector and Innovate UK. 

Stroke survivor John Gordon in conversation with Nirjay Mahindru.  John met InterAct whilst at Newcastle hospital and was inspired to write poetry afterwards.  He's published book of poetry Popcorn is available online.  

John's story was the inspiration behind InterAct's recent BBC Radio 4 Charity appeal.    A civil servant during his working life, John talks about his background, the civil service and his experiences both of stroke and InterAct Stroke Support.  

Ronald Ferguson is a music producer and stroke survivor who now campaigns for what he describes as "social prescribing enterprise".  Ronald is now a director of the charity  Arts4dementia

In this interview Ronald talks about his experiences of suffering a stroke and his treatment during his hospital stay, and how the organisation Headway, the brain charity, put him back together again.  

This interview was recorded during the period of the lockdown.

Allie Esiri’s best-selling anthologies SHAKESPEARE FOR EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR, A POET FOR EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR, A POEM FOR EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR and A POEM FOR EVERY NIGHT OF THE YEAR have lit an explosion of interest in poetry in the UK, are regularly chosen for National Poetry Day and have been picked as best books of the year in The Observer, The Times and the New Statesman. Live performances at festivals and theatres and on audio with poems read by some of our best-known actors - from Helena Bonham Carter to Dominic West - are capturing and enthralling a new generation of poetry lovers. 

Robin Norton-Hale is an English theatre and opera director. She is the Artistic Director of OperaUpClose, having founded the company alongside Adam Spreadbury-Maher and Ben Cooper in October 2009 and an Artist in Residence at Oxford Playhouse. She studied English Literature at Hertford College, Oxford and was a Clore Cultural Leadership Fellow (2013/14).

Her directing credits for OperaUpClose, all in her own new English translations, include La Bohème (Soho Theatre, Cock Tavern Theatre and King's Head Theatre), winner of the 2011 Olivier Award for Best Opera and Best Off-West End Production in the 2011 Whatsonstage.com Awards, La Traviata and Carmen (both co-productions with Belgrade Theatre, Coventry) and La Voix Humaine (Kings Place) .

Other directing credits include The Little Sweep and La Traviata (Malmo Opera, Sweden), Masters Are You Mad? by Glyn Maxwell (Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre), The Taming of the Shrew (Southwark Playhouse), the UK premiere of Martin Duberman's Visions of Kerouac (Half Moon Theatre).

She has written new English versions of six operas, including Eugene Onegin and The Marriage of Figaro. Her librettos for La Bohème and Don Giovanni are published by Oberon. Her agent is Micheline Steinberg.

Nirjay Mahindru in conversation with musician Lisa Lux.  As a professional drummer Lisa has banged the skins for various UK chart bands inc, Girls Aloud, Hepburn, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Michelle Gayle. Current band: The Priscillas  

This interview was recorded during the lockdown period.  

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon is a British Labour Co-operative Party politician. She was Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council. 

Jan Royall grew up in Hucclecote and Newnham on Severn, where her parents ran a shop.

She was educated at the Royal Forest of Dean Grammar School and Westfield College, University of London, where she gained a BA in Spanish and French in 1977.

She was a special adviser to Neil Kinnock, the leader of the Labour Party, in the 1980s, and she has remained a close ally of his ever since. She sought selection as Labour's candidate for Ogmore in a 2002 by-election, losing to Huw Irranca-Davies. In 2003 she became head of the European Commission office in Wales.

She is the currently principal of Somerville College, Oxford.

In conversation with Vanessa Bailey.  Founder of award-winning production company NINE YARDS FILMS, creating powerful stories. Multi award-winning director, screenwriter and actress. Irrepressible storyteller.

https://www.nineyardsfilms.com 

Nirjay Mahindru in conversation with actor Alex Hassell.  As well as being an actor, he is a co- founder of the highly influential Factory Theatre.  Alex was born in Southend, the youngest of four, to a vicar. He trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama after completing GCSE and A-Level courses at Moulsham High School, in Chelmsford, Essex.

He has appeared in a number of stage roles, most recently as Hal in Henry IV Parts I and II, and Henry in Henry V, for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

His first Hollywood role was in George Clooney's Suburbicon (2017), and later that year he appeared in his first major television role in the BBC adaptation of Jessie Burton's The Miniaturist.  He also starred in the hit Netflix series The Boys Series 1.  Other film credits include The Sick House (2007) – Nick
Anonymous (2011) – Gabriel Spenser
Miss In Her Teens (2014) – The Player
Two Down (2015) – John Thomas
Suburbicon (2017) – Louis
The Isle (2018)
The Red Sea Diving Resort (2019) – Max Rose.  Television credits include 
Queen of Swords (2000) Episode "The Pretender" – Andreo
The Private Life of Samuel Pepys (2003) – Balty
Boudica (2003) – Roman Officer
Robin Hood (2006) – Soldier
Torchwood (2006) Episode "Combat" – Mark Lynch
Bonkers (2007) – Felix Nash
Miranda (2010) Episode "Excuse" – Edmund Dettori
Hustle (2011) Series 7, Episode 1 – Viscount Manley
Life of Crime (2013) Episodes 1 & 3 – Colin Nash
The Miniaturist (2017) – Johannes Brandt
Grantchester (TV series) Series 4 Episode 4 (2019) – Ernest Carter
The Boys (2019) – Translucent

This interview was recorded during the period of the full lockdown.

Nirjay Mahindru in conversation with Stephen Haywood.  Stephen is a former businessman and was a member of the Territorial Army for over 30 years.  He is also a stroke survivor.

Helen Brice is an  existential psychotherapist, a Dialectical Behaviour Therapy
Practitioner, and founder of Stimmung, a busy private practice in
Piccadilly. She works trans-diagnostically, with or
without diagnosis. Passionate about bringing equal status to
psychotherapy alongside  psychologist colleagues and associates,
whether in the NHS, private hospital or forensic settings. She is
passionate  about what neuroscience has brought to traditional talking therapies, and was invited to speak  at the World Summit on Neuroscience & Psychiatry .

Helen's practice Stimmung can be found here

Nirjay Mahindru in conversation with actor Mitchell Mullen.  As well as being a performer, Mitchell is also a teacher.  Mitchell has been teaching at the London studio since it first opened its doors in 2013. He holds an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has been teaching acting since 1996.

TV credits include: Deep State (Epix), Catastrophe (Amazon Prime/Channel 4), The New Pope, (HBO), The Feed (Amazon), Genius: Einstein (National Geographic Channel), Outlander (Starz), Absentia, (Sony Pictures), Undercover and The Interceptor (BBC One), Toast of London and Utopia (Channel 4), Harley and The Davidsons, (Discovery Channel), A Royal Christmas (Hallmark), The Assets (ABC-TV), Beauty and the Baker, (Keshet International).

Film credits include: About Time, RED 2, Made in Dagenham, The Infiltrator, A Good Year, Red Lights, Flying Home

Theatre credits include: The Exorcist (West End/Birmingham Rep), Death of a Salesman (UK No. 1 Tour), The American Wife (Park Theatre), The Shawshank Redemption (West End/Gaiety Theatre, Dublin), As You Like It (Peter Hall Company/USA National Tour), A Bunch of Amateurs (The Watermill Theatre), Orphans, Next Fall, Superior Donuts, The Hairy Ape and The Canterville Ghost (all at Southwark Playhouse), Speed-the-plow (Theatre Royal Winchester), Shear Madness (Boston and Cleveland Companies, more than 1,000 performances)

This interview was recorded during the period of the lockdown.

Tara Lakin of the Stroke Association in conversation with Nirjay Mahindru. She is the Service Lead for the South East covering Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. She is interested in all aspects of stroke recovery and has dedicated the past 12 years to this field.

with alan

Half-German, and born in Cuckfield, West Sussex Daniel  Betts trained at the Drama Centre London.  He trained under Yat Malmgren and Christopher Fettes at the Drama Centre, London, graduating in 1993. His varied career has included many roles on the British and International stage, as well as TV and film work including Fury (2014), and the Brad Pitt films War Machine (2016) and Allied (2016)As well as appearing in films and television programmes, he has been a voiceover artist on many commercials.

Jacob Sam-La Rose is a poet, performer, educator and editor who has performed and taught internationally.
His work has been published in several anthologies, including Identity State: New British and Irish Poets (2010); Penguin's Poems for Love (2009); City State: New London Poetry (2009); and Michael Rosen's A-Z: The Best Children's Poetry from Agard to Zephaniah (2009); and journals including Sable LitMag, Trespass magazine and X magazine. His debut pamphlet collection, Communion (2006), was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice and his first full poetry collection, Breaking Silence (2012), was shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize (Best First Collection)..

He runs workshops in schools and other institutions, and has developed programmes for poets and writers of all ages, being particularly well-known for his work with city-wide, national and international youth 'slam' poetry initiatives and for his advocacy for positive impacts of new technology on literary and artistic practice and collaboration. He has led workshops and seminars at Botswana University and for the Ministry of Education in Malaysia through the British Council.

He has undertaken many commissions and projects and has worked with organisations such as the National Theatre, The Barbican, London Open House, Glyndebourne, The Roundhouse, The Royal Festival Hall and Apples & Snakes, also being a former poet in residence at BBC London and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. He has been Artistic Director of the London Teenage Poetry Slam since 2003, and helped establish the first youth slam programme in Finland. In 2008 he established the Shadow Cabinet - pairing emerging literature in education artists with established professionals.  

This interview was conducted during the period of the full lockdown.

Born in Coventry, London resident for 30 years

Fayon Dixon is a broadcaster, host and facilitator with her purpose embedded in motivation, encouragement and inspirational interactions.

Fayon is a regular commentator with BBC Radio London and a newspaper reviewer for a variety of broadcasters on Talk Radio. Fayon is the creator, host and producer of ‘The Kids Are Alright Show’ where she encourages children as young as 4 years to provide content and present on Riverside Radio, achieving awards for best presenter and best community content in 2018 and 2019.

Her versatility in LIVE presenting stretches to shopping TV presentation, hosting at The Royal Albert Hall and is the energetic host for Engineering UK’s speed networking event Meet The Future You; and webinar co-host for Equal Engineers.

In schools across the UK Fayon delivers dynamic, interactive workshops, which give students the opportunity to explore their potential. Fayon uses her playful and strong personality to connect with young people, offering up her own experiences of breaking through obstacles when needed to empower both girls and boys to be themselves.

Fayon began as a reader for InterAct Stroke Support 18 years ago and in the last few years has been their community liaison officer setting up a number of creative workshops with in the community utilising the skills of professional actors to deliver creative and engaging workshops to stroke survivors supporting them to regain their voices and confidence.