For our sixth podcast series we have partnered with Yorkshire Sculpture Park exploring our seasonal theme of Elemental Compositions through the work of six of the UK’s most exciting contemporary sculptors working today.

For our sixth podcast series we have partnered with Yorkshire Sculpture Park exploring our seasonal theme of Elemental Compositions through the work of six of the UK’s most exciting contemporary sculptors working today.

For our sixth podcast series we have partnered with Yorkshire Sculpture Park exploring our seasonal theme of Elemental Compositions through the work of six of the UK’s most exciting contemporary sculptors working today.

For our sixth podcast series we have partnered with Yorkshire Sculpture Park exploring our seasonal theme of Elemental Compositions through the work of six of the UK’s most exciting contemporary sculptors working today.

For our sixth podcast series we have partnered with Yorkshire Sculpture Park exploring our seasonal theme of Elemental Compositions through the work of six of the UK’s most exciting contemporary sculptors working today.

For our sixth podcast series we have partnered with Yorkshire Sculpture Park exploring our seasonal theme of Elemental Compositions through the work of six of the UK’s most exciting contemporary sculptors working today.

The role of an intimacy coordinator is still fairly new in the world of film and TV but one that is fast gaining adoption in production houses including the BBC and Netflix. A pioneer and principal practitioner in the field, Ita O’Brien works to choreograph the often complex rhythms of intimate scenes and ensure best practice on set and stage when performances include nudity and sexual content. Ita has worked on productions including Normal People, Sex Education, I May Destroy You, The Dig and It’s a Sin. Joining Laura Barton from her home in Kent, Ita speaks about her work, physical rhythm and how she moved from dancing to acting to intimacy. TOAST Podcast Series 5 is presented by Laura Barton and produced by Geoff Bird. Music for this season was written and performed by Laura James. All views expressed in the podcast are the interviewees own and not necessarily those of TOAST.

Musician Valerie June was in New York when Laura Barton spoke to her for our fifth podcast series. She spoke of the stillness she has found through guided meditation, the natural rhythms that have steered her new album, 'The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers', and all of the ways her music carries her history – from singing gospel to recording with the queen of Memphis soul, Carla Thomas. TOAST Podcast Series 5 is presented by Laura Barton and produced by Geoff Bird. Music for this season was written and performed by Laura James. All views expressed in the podcast are the interviewees own and not necessarily those of TOAST.

It would be hard to look at rhythm in all its forms without observing the breath and the way we speak. For over 40 years the world’s most formidable voice coach, Patsy Rodenburg, OBE, has done just that. Speaking to Patsy from her home in London, we discover her passion for storytelling, her focus on the breath and its rhythms which link us all. Patsy has worked with politicians, business leaders and actors including Judi Dench, Ian McKellen and Daniel Craig. She’s collaborated with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre and is head of voice at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She is the author of books on speech and presence and her great literary love, William Shakespeare. TOAST Podcast Series 5 is presented by Laura Barton and produced by Geoff Bird. Music for this season was written and performed by Laura James. All views expressed in the podcast are the interviewees own and not necessarily those of TOAST.

It was the first days of spring when Laura Barton spoke to our third podcast guest, the Forward Prize winning poet Fiona Benson. Speaking about the itinerant rhythms of growing up in an RAF family, of boarding school and academia, the pleasing rhythms of a settled life in rural Devon and how each has shaped her poetry. Fittingly for this spring season Fiona shares her poem Almond Blossom to ease us out of winter into a hopeful and trusting green havoc. TOAST Podcast Series 5 is presented by Laura Barton and produced by Geoff Bird. Music for this season was written and performed by Laura James. All views expressed in the podcast are the interviewees own and not necessarily those of TOAST.

Our second podcast guest is founder and artistic director of Ballet Black, Cassa Pancho. After completing a degree in classical ballet, Cassa founded Ballet Black in 2001 to provide role models to Asian and black aspiring dancers, gaining an MBE in 2013 for services to classical ballet. The founder of the revolutionary classical company speaks to Laura Barton about her deep need for rhythm, diversity in the ballet world and the sounds and sensations that led her to enter the world of dance. TOAST Podcast Series 5 is presented by Laura Barton and produced by Geoff Bird. Music for this season was written and performed by Laura James. All views expressed in the podcast are the interviewees own and not necessarily those of TOAST.

For our fifth podcast series, writer and broadcaster Laura Barton looks to the theme of Rhythm, exploring the ways in which it is harnessed creatively to stir the senses, how it forms in us, how we carry it and where it can lead us. From the rhythmic pattern that propels you into a poem, the expressiveness of a musical composition to the cadence of speech on stage or sculpting intimate scenes on a film set. Join Laura as she interviews six guests who have each developed their own unique sense of rhythm in their work. The episodes will be released weekly throughout April and May and are presented by Laura Barton and produced by Geoff Bird. Music for this season was written and performed by Laura James. All views expressed in the podcast are the interviewees own and not necessarily those of TOAST. Peggy Seeger Kicking off our fifth series, Laura Barton joins Peggy Seeger at home in Oxfordshire where they spoke about where rhythm sits in Peggy’s own relationship with music, growing up a member of America’s famous folk family, the music that carried her to the UK, her partnership with Ewan MacColl, and why music can never be in the background of her life.

Our final guest for this Flux & Flow series of our TOAST Podcast is the award-winning novelist and screenwriter Emma Jane Unsworth. In October, Laura Barton travelled to Brighton to meet with Emma at the seafront. With seagulls screeching and waves lapping on the shingle shore, they discussed sea swimming, love, leaving the North and Emma’s experience of postnatal depression. Emma Jane Unsworth has written three novels, including the Sunday Times bestseller Adults. She adapted her novel Animals into a screenplay, and the film, starring Alia Shawkat and Holliday Grainger, premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2019. Unsworth won the British Independent Film Award for Best Debut Screenplay in 2019. She is currently writing several shows for television, including an episode of a comedy drama with Stephen Merchant and a new comedy for the BBC.

Joan Bakewell is a writer, broadcaster and Labour peer. Born in Stockport and educated at Cambridge, she began her career as an advertising copywriter before moving into broadcasting. A pioneering female on screen for the BBC in the ’60s, Joan’s television career started with Late Night Line-Up (1965-72), followed by Heart of the Matter (1988-2000). Joan has been a columnist for The Guardian, The Times, The Sunday Times, The Independent and The Telegraph. Her books include the autobiography The Centre of the Bed (2004), the novel All the Nice Girls (2009), and her heartfelt reflections on life with What I leave Behind (2016). Joan was made a CBE in 1999 and a Dame for her services to journalism and the arts in 2008. In January 2011 she took her seat in the House of Lords as Baroness Bakewell of Stockport. Over the summer, Laura Barton joins our third podcast guest, Baroness Joan Bakewell in her North London garden to discuss growing up in Stockport, the shift she’s witnessed in women’s rights and the tiny changes that make life more tolerable.

For our fourth podcast series, writer and broadcaster Laura Barton explores the theme of Flux & Flow, how we navigate change and the forces that steer our lives. Join Laura as she meets with priest and writer Marie-Elsa Bragg, publisher Sharmaine Lovegrove, author, journalist and broadcaster Joan Bakewell and author Emma Unsworth. With each interview, we discover how the changing self is something to celebrate, and how we all have the capacity for great change and innovation. The episodes will be released weekly throughout October and November. The podcasts are presented by Laura Barton and produced by Geoff Bird. All views expressed in the podcast are the interviewees own and not necessarily those of TOAST. Laura Barton meets virtually with our second guest for this series on Flux & Flow, Berlin-based publisher Sharmaine Lovegrove. The founder of Dialogue Books, home to voices often excluded from the mainstream publishing world, discusses her move back to a city she loves, how her own life has encompassed many changes along with her route to becoming one of the most influential figures in modern publishing.

For our fourth podcast series, writer and broadcaster Laura Barton explores the theme of Flux & Flow, how we navigate change and the forces that steer our lives. Join Laura as she meets with priest and writer Marie-Elsa Bragg, publisher Sharmaine Lovegrove, author, journalist and broadcaster Joan Bakewell and author Emma Unsworth. With each interview, we discover how the changing self is something to celebrate, and how we all have the capacity for great change and innovation. The episodes will be released weekly throughout October and November. The podcasts are presented by Laura Barton and produced by Geoff Bird. All views expressed in the podcast are the interviewees own and not necessarily those of TOAST. Marie Elsa Bragg Kicking off our Flux & Flow series, Laura Barton meets priest, writer and spiritual director, Marie-Elsa Bragg in a small park that stands between two churches in Hampstead Garden Suburb. Discussing Marie-Elsa’s early career as a dancer, the devastating loss of her mother, her quiet route to faith, and how 2020 is a real time for keeping vigil.

TOAST, https://www.toa.st, is a clothing and lifestyle brand that aspires to a slower, more thoughtful way of life. This season we have been examining our relationship with the line. Following the marks we make through writing and weaving and tracing the lines that shape our landscape, from telegraph lines and washing lines to those made by walking, railways and rivers. For this special episode, we delve into the subject further. Down the telephone line from Aberdeen, we hear Tim Ingold, academic and author of A Brief History of Lines. Tim takes us through his discoveries surrounding the line, suggesting that we are all interwoven and interconnected by drawing on archaeology, language, music and nature. In a lively London square, during early March, Laura Barton speaks to Max Porter, acclaimed author of Grief is the Thing with Feathers and Lanny. Max is known for his intermingling of prose and poetry, for his physical exploration of the line on the page. Both speakers give an insight into their own relationship with the line, seeing it as an entry into how we might better live our lives. TOAST Podcasts are presented by Laura Barton, produced by Geoff Bird and conceived by Emily Cameron. The music is part of TOAST Slow Sound, the full album can be heard at https://www.toa.st/uk/content/features/slowsound.htm.

*EXTENDED EPISODE* Vanessa Bell’s portrait is on display in Room 31 at the National Portrait Gallery. Painted by her lover and life partner Duncan Grant somewhere around 1918, it shows her in an easy, contemplative pose, wearing a floral red dress and holding a pale pink rose. The creative talent of Bell is often overshadowed by that of her sister, Virginia Woolf, and other members of the Bloomsbury Group, to which she belonged. More recently, her work has been reappraised and reconsidered, celebrated for its experimental, often radical force and raw sensuality. On a brisk Autumn day, Laura Barton heads to Charleston, the country home of the Bloomsbury Group, where the furniture and walls are still covered in Bell’s designs. There she meets the curator Dr Darren Clarke, head gardener Fiona Dennis, and Bell’s granddaughter, the writer Virginia Nicholson. Charleston Farmhouse is open to the public from Wednesday to Sunday, 10-5pm. Image: Vanessa Bell by Duncan Grant. Oil on canvas, circa 1918. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

The portrait of the Australian academic, writer and broadcaster Germaine Greer, by Paula Rego shows its subject filling the canvas, legs apart. Her hands are rough from gardening and she is dressed in her favourite Jean Muir dress and old, silver shoes. The portrait’s lack of flattery appealed to Greer: “A portrait that is kind is condescending. The last thing I would want is for Paula to condescend to me, and it's the last thing she would think of doing.” A major voice of second wave feminism, in 1970 Greer published The Female Eunuch, which argued that traditional family structures repress women’s sexuality. Still one of the most widely-read feminist texts, it has never been out of print. Greer has long courted controversy, and is regarded by many as a combative and frequently frustrating icon of feminism. A New Statesman column once stated that Greer “doesn’t get into trouble occasionally or inadvertently, but consistently and with the attitude of a tank rolling directly into a crowd of infantry.” For all of this, Greer remains a crucial and powerful figure in the development of feminist thinking. One Guardian commentator put it: “As it goes with pioneering figures, there is much to doubt and dismiss; yet we are still indebted to them, as we are to Greer, for taking risks in the first place.” Greer is 80 now, still writing, still vocal. On a midweek morning Laura Barton visits her at her home in Essex. There they discuss Greer’s current works and her plans to return to her homeland, leaving behind the garden that she has been creating for the last three decades.* Image: Germaine Greer by Paula Rego. Pastel on paper laid on aluminium, 1995. © National Portrait Gallery, London. Discover more pioneering women from the National Portrait Gallery Collection in the book 100 Pioneering Women, featuring portraits of remarkable women from the last five centuries. *Please note, this episode contains strong language from the start.

John Opie’s portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft hangs in Room 18 of the National Portrait Gallery; a woman in high-waisted white dress and soft hat, her gaze falling somewhere off to the right. The sitter’s pose reveals little of her revolutionary life and the progressiveness of her views. She was a radical thinker, a feminist, journalist and author, famed particularly for her 1792 work A Vindication of the Rights of Women, in which she discussed the novel idea that the sexes should be considered equal. “I do not wish them to have power over men,” she wrote of women, “but over themselves.” When she sat for Opie, Wollstonecraft was pregnant with her daughter, the writer Mary Shelley. Wollstonecraft died days after her daughter’s birth, and in the years that followed her role in the feminist movement became largely forgotten. In 1974, Claire Tomalin wrote her first book, a biography of Wollstonecraft, kindling huge interest in Wollstonecraft’s life and works. Laura Barton visits Tomalin at her home near the river in Richmond to discuss Wollstonecraft’s remarkable legacy. Image: Mary Wollstonecraft by John Opie. Oil on canvas, circa 1797. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Emily Brontë’s portrait, by her brother Patrick Branwell Brontë, hangs in Room 24 at the National Portrait Gallery. For many years the paintings was lost, and only discovered in 1906, folded on top of a cupboard in Ireland. Today, it is one of the most popular works in the collection. Emily is best known as the author of Wuthering Heights, first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell. It is regarded as a pioneering text, drawing on themes of the Gothic genre; a love story that also touches on issues of domestic violence, alcoholism, neglect, and sexual obsession, against a backdrop of a wild Yorkshire landscape. Laura Barton travels to the Brontë Parsonage in Haworth to meet the museum’s learning officer Sue Newby and the New York Times bestselling graphic novelist and illustrator Isabel Greenberg, whose forthcoming book Glass Town explores the childhood imaginary world of the Brontë sisters. Together they discuss the unique, unconventional spirit of Emily. Thank you to The Unthanks who granted us permission to include their beautiful music, which turns Emily's poetry into song. Words by Emily Brontë. Music by Adrian McNally. Performed by The Unthanks. Image: Emily Brontë by Patrick Branwell Brontë. Oil on canvas, circa 1833. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Gillian Wearing’s portrait of Shami Chakrabarti, taken with a large-format camera, shows its sitter holding a wax mask of her own face. Wearing has said that the idea was inspired by Chakrabarti’s own comment about her “mask-like” public persona, often interpreted as “grim, worthy and strident”. A barrister, and former director of the civil rights group Liberty, Chakrabarti is now a Labour Party politician, and a member of the House of Lords. In her frequent appearances on the BBC’s Question Time and Radio 4’s Today Programme, among others, she has been consistently passionate and committed in her defence of civil liberties, particularly in areas of anti-terrorism measures and immigration. More recently she has been at the heart of the complex debate surrounding the UK’s departure from Europe. Laura Barton meets Chakrabarti in a park close to the House of Lords, where even on a dreary autumn morning demonstrators have gathered at the gates with placards. This podcast is a collaboration between TOAST and the National Portrait Gallery. All views expressed are the subject's own, and not necessarily those of TOAST or the National Portrait Gallery.

You can see Pauline Boty’s self-portrait on display in Room 31 at the National Portrait Gallery. A striking work of stained glass, it is an early piece from what would be a short career. Though she died at the age of just 28, in her brief, vibrant life she made a wonderfully varied contribution to the world of British pop art and culture. After decades in the shadows, Boty has recently been rightfully placed among the masters of the movement, from Peter Blake to Richard Hamilton. Laura Barton meets the writer Ali Smith in front of Boty’s portrait, where she is joined by the curator Lucy Dahlsen. Smith’s book Autumn helped ignite a new appreciation and love for Boty’s work — its intelligence, mischief, feminist stance, and distillation of 1960s London. As Smith says, “when you are anywhere near her work in the flesh you feel the life, you feel the energy.” This podcast is a collaboration between TOAST and the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Elif Shafak appears to have led many lives in a little over four decades. Born in Strasbourg, her early life was spent in Turkey with her mother and her grandmother, before her mother’s role as a diplomat took them to live in various postings overseas. She is the author of 16 books and her work has been translated into 49 languages. We meet Elif (and a cacophony of birdsong) in London’s Holland Park to talk about her upbringing, women’s rights, global politics and what it means to belong. This episode is part of our second podcast series, The Unknown Path, following the writer and broadcaster Laura Barton as she journeys across the country to meet six authors, actors and naturalists. Taken to places from their past and present, we learn about the various, and often unexpected, routes their lives have taken.

Born in Uganda to a Danish mother and English father, the writer Louisa Thomsen-Brits has made her home in East Sussex. Her first book, The Book of Hygge, was published 
in 2016. Path: a short story about reciprocity, was published earlier this year. Combining storytelling and nature writing, it is a tribute to the chalk paths near her home and to the restorative act of walking. On an early evening in March, Louisa takes us along one such path to visit the site of an old iron age fort, passing woodland and hawthorn and violets, and discussing the rich rhythm of writing, footstep and thought, and the particular relationship between women and landscape.

Maxine Peake is widely regarded as one of the finest actors of her generation, from her early roles in Shameless and Dinnerladies to the more complex parts she has subsequently chosen, including Hamlet, Myra Hindley, and Winnie in Beckett’s Happy Days. On a rainy spring morning, she takes us to Rivington Pike, near to her childhood home in Lancashire, to discuss the path that carried her from local youth theatre to revered performer and her decision to return to live in the North West. This episode is part of our second podcast series, The Unknown Path, following the writer and broadcaster Laura Barton as she journeys across the country to meet six authors, actors and naturalists. Taken to places from their past and present, we learn about the various, and often unexpected, routes their lives have taken.

We meet the writer and cultural historian Kassia St Clair on Cable Street in East London, site of the invention of the first synthetic purple dye, and an appropriate setting for discussion of her books The Secret Lives of Colour and The Golden Thread. Kassia’s first book told the story of 75 unusual colours, from amber to absinthe, while its successor spoke of everything from the woollen sails of Vikings to Michael Phelps’ swimsuit. Between discussing the unusual paths of certain colours, we find out how Kassia’s own passion for colour began in her mother’s flower shop.

In 2014 Helen Macdonald published H is for Hawk, an extraordinary memoir that somehow tethered together her grief following the death of her father, the story of the naturalist
 TH White, and her experience training a goshawk named Mabel. It won her many prestigious awards and became a worldwide bestseller. Today she is at work on a collection of essays, a new book about albatrosses, and remains an Affiliated Research Scholar at the University of Cambridge. We join Helen on Wicken Fen, the National Trust’s oldest nature reserve, to spot wigeons, coots and hen harriers, and to talk about the odd course of her life, her presiding love for the natural world, and the experience of unanticipated success. This episode is part of our second podcast series, The Unknown Path, following the writer and broadcaster Laura Barton as she journeys across the country to meet six authors, actors and naturalists. Taken to places from their past and present, we learn about the various, and often unexpected, routes their lives have taken. This episode is part of our second podcast series, The Unknown Path, following the writer and broadcaster Laura Barton as she journeys across the country to meet six authors, actors and naturalists. Taken to places from their past and present, we learn about the various, and often unexpected, routes their lives have taken.

Horatio Clare takes us to visit a hill farm in the Black Mountains, the backdrop for his brilliant memoir Running for the Hills. He has written quite relentlessly ever since, on everything from the migratory path of the swallow to the allure of seafaring life. He is a regular contributor to both Radio 4 and Radio 3, where he won much acclaim for his ‘slow radio’ sound walks. On a glorious spring day we hike up to the top of his favourite Welsh hill to admire the land before us and the skylarks above, and to talk about the curious route of the travel writer, the pull between restlessness and rootedness, and the way his path was forged by his rural upbringing. This episode is part of our second podcast series, The Unknown Path, following the writer and broadcaster Laura Barton as she journeys across the country to meet six authors, actors and naturalists. Taken to places from their past and present, we learn about the various, and often unexpected, routes their lives have taken.

Maggie is the author of seven novels and winner of both the Somerset Maugham and Costa Novel Award. Born in Northern Ireland, she now lives in Edinburgh. Maggie took Laura to Little Sparta, the garden of Ian Hamilton Finlay, set in the Pentland Hills, south of the city. Finlay was a Scottish poet, writer and artist and, collaborating with stone carvers and sculptors, he created a beautiful, truly original garden. Our first podcast series, titled A Creative Practice, follows the writer and broadcaster Laura Barton as she journeys with six creative women to the places they find inspiring – from a walled garden in Wales to the rugged coastline of Northern Ireland.

YolanDa Brown is a saxophonist and composer. She has won the MOBO ‘Best Jazz’ Award twice and has collaborated with the likes of Jools Holland and Lemar. She is also a co-presenter on BBC Radio 4 Loose Ends. The writer and broadcaster Laura Barton met YolanDa in Alexandra Park, North London. There they discussed how the constant flux of London life inspires the breadth of YolanDa’s musical range – from reggae to soul. And how, just as the vibrancy of the city gives her great pleasure, so too does the quietness and calm of its green spaces. Our first podcast series, titled A Creative Practice, follows the writer and broadcaster Laura Barton as she journeys with six creative women to the places they find inspiring – from a walled garden in Wales to the rugged coastline of Northern Ireland.

Hannah is a singer-songwriter and composer. She is a member of The Magnetic North and released her first solo album in 2016. She is also a regular presenter on BBC 6 Music. Hannah took the writer and broadcaster Laura Barton on a coastal walk, near to her new home in Bangor, Northern Ireland. Along the way they discussed Hannah’s decision to settle in Bangor, the remarkable history of the town and how both the weather and landscape influence her work.

Rebecca is a painter and printmaker. She specialises in woodblock printing, combining Western and Eastern traditions. She is also a Royal Academician and holds the position of Keeper of the Royal Academy Schools. For the TOAST Podcast the writer and broadcaster Laura Barton met Rebecca in her North London studio, which overlooks the railway. With the aid of old photographs, Rebecca took Laura to Japan. Rebecca first travelled to Japan in 1979, attending the art school in Kyoto. Every year she returns. Our first podcast series, titled A Creative Practice, follows the writer and broadcaster Laura Barton as she journeys with six creative women to the places they find inspiring – from a walled garden in Wales to the rugged coastline of Northern Ireland.

Fiona is a portrait painter. Her work is regularly exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery and her sitters have included Andrew Motion, Juliet Stevenson and the Royal Family, to name but a few. On a blustery day in autumn, Fiona took the writer and broadcaster Laura Barton to Rye harbour, where they walked amongst the boats, ran across the shingle, and talked about the importance of vast skies and the sea for a creative mind. Our first podcast series, titled A Creative Practice, follows the writer and broadcaster Laura Barton as she journeys with six creative women to the places they find inspiring – from a walled garden in Wales to the rugged coastline of Northern Ireland.

Sarah is a garden designer. She co-designed the gardens at London’s Olympic Park and has twice won gold medals at Chelsea. She was trained in fine art and there is a distinct, painterly quality to her work. For the TOAST Podcast the writer and broadcaster Laura Barton travelled to Sarah’s own walled garden in Monmouthshire – a beautiful, Victorian garden which she inherited from her grandmother – to discuss the garden’s past and present and how it shapes her creative vision. Our first podcast series, titled A Creative Practice, follows the writer and broadcaster Laura Barton as she journeys with six creative women to the places they find inspiring – from a walled garden in Wales to the rugged coastline of Northern Ireland.