Suite (212)

Following from December 2021’s Resonance 104.4fm show on the cultural impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic with James Butler and Sarah Schulman, Juliet talks to writer Huw Lemmey about Channel 4’s landmark miniseries 'It’s a Sin'. Written by Russell T. Davies and broadcast across January and February 2021, 'It’s a Sin' follows a group of friends who meet on London’s gay scene in September 1981, just as the first British cases are being diagnosed, and charts the impact of HIV/AIDS on their sex lives, relationships, families, friendships and careers over the following decade. In this subscriber-only episode on the miniseries, Juliet and Huw talk about the conservatism of British television and their reluctance to commission it; critical reactions to the show, and call-backs to the 1980s ‘moral panic’ about homosexuality; Davies’ skill in writing for television; how the programme looks at the personal impact of HIV/AIDS, and its portrayal of LGBT activism and its relationship with wider British politics; and how 'It’s a Sin' is ultimately a show about care, and how it represents models of queer (and straight) kinship.

For Suite (212)'s final edition, host Juliet Jacques talks to writer/editor Owen Hatherley (Tribune and elsewhere) and Fatema Ahmed, acting editor of Apollo, about the current state of British cultural criticism and what the next few years might have in store. They discuss the reasons for stopping Suite (212) and the changing cultural climate between and after the General Elections of 2017 and 2019, and what's happened to the Labour Party; the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic; state funding, the media and the BBC; and what the left might focus on when thinking about the arts and culture.

In this month's Resonance 104.4fm, Juliet spoke to London-based artists, writers, musicians, curators and teachers Pil and Galia Kollectiv about their practice, the art world's reaction to Covid-19 and the state of British higher education, especially in arts universities. They talked about Pil & Galia's Immigrants exhibition (2018), their short films, their bands WE and UrBororo, their background in Israel and their writing for the music press, and more.

A full list of references from this episode is available to Patreon subscribers. To sign up for as little as £1 per month, visit patreon.com/suite-212.

In this month's Resonance 104.4fm show, Juliet talks to playwright and screenwriter Trevor Griffiths, born in Manchester in 1935, about his life in writing for stage and screen since the late 1960s. Although Griffiths wrote the scripts for Warren Beatty's Reds (1981) and Ken Loach's Fatherland (1986), this interview focused on his plays Occupations (1970) and Comedians (1975), his TV series Bill Brand (ITV, 1976), his BBC TV film Food for Ravens (1997) and his play A New World, staged at Shakespeare's Globe in 2009.

A full list of references for this episode is available to Patreon subscribers for as little as £1 per month. You can subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/suite212.

In this month's Resonance 104.4fm show, Juliet talks to poets Ed Luker (based in London) and Nat Raha (based in Edinburgh) about the state of poetry, publishing and funding in 21st century Britain. She asks Ed and Nat to share their poetry and their influences, discussing the Cambridge school of poets around J. H. Prynne and their studies at Sussex with Keston Sutherland. They discuss the divides between 'big' and 'small' presses and what sort of work(s) they publish, and the flaws of the 'underground' vs. 'mainstream' binary; the relationship between contemporary poetry and new currents in feminist and socialist politics; funding models for poets and publishers; and how new left-wing media might work with sympathetic poets.

For a full list of references from the show, please subscribe to our Patreon for as little as £1 per month, via https://www.patreon.com/suite212.