Private Passions

Royal Ballet Principal Edward Watson talks to Michael Berkeley about his life in dance and shares the music that has inspired him both professionally and personally.Known for his dramatic flair and astonishing dedication and stamina, he has become one of the Royal Ballet's best-known dancers, and has consistently championed new repertoire, working closely with many contemporary choreographers. Ed talks about his passion for creating new roles and his extraordinary creative partnership with Wayne McGregor, illustrated by music from Max Richter's Infra. His other music choices reflect the diversity of his career in dance - pieces by Schoenberg and Liszt from Macmillan ballets, and songs from Martha Wainwright, Bev Lee Harding and Concha Buika. And no ballet dancer's Christmas is complete without revisiting The Nutcracker. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus Production for BBC Radio 3.

Chris Hadfield has described going into space as 'strapping yourself on top of what is essentially a large bomb'. He is one of the world's most respected astronauts, and his career has included Space Shuttle flights and helping to build the Mir Space Station, as well as serving as Director of NASA's operations in Russia and as Commander of the International Space Station during his final five-month mission. If that wasn't enough he's also a bestselling author and an accomplished musician - indeed he plays in an all-astronaut band. His cover of David Bowie's Space Oddity - which he recorded while orbiting the earth on the Space Station at over 17,000 miles an hour - has had more than 33 million Internet hits. Chris talks to Michael Berkeley about his route to the stars, about overcoming fear and extreme danger - and the difficulties of playing a guitar in zero gravity. He chooses music by Strauss, Rossini and Hans Zimmer, which he associates with particular space missions. He talks about his admiration for William Herschel, the eighteenth-century astronomer and composer. And an astronaut's Private Passions would not be complete without music from Holst's Planets Suite. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

Charlie Phillips is a Jamaican-born photographer whose work has been exhibited across the world, and is part of the permanent collections of The Tate and the V&A. He's best known for his photographs of the area of London where he arrived to live as a boy: Notting Hill. His images are full of the atmosphere of Notting Hill in the late 50s and 60s: slum housing, market traders, churchgoers, children playing on the streets - and they're now valued as a unique record of the experience of that Windrush Generation. Later in the sixties, Charlie Phillips photographed the student protests in Paris, pop festivals and rock stars, while making a living as a paparazzo, chasing Elizabeth Taylor around. Simon Schama has described him as a "Visual Poet - chronicler, champion, witness of a gone world - one of Britain's great photo-journalists." But Charlie Phillips didn't set out to be a photographer; instead, he wanted to be an opera singer, and during his time as a paparazzo in Milan he achieved his ambition, singing from the stage of La Scala in Verdi's Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves.In Private Passions Charlie Phillips talks about his passion for opera, and about the racism he encountered when he first arrived in Britain. And although Charlie Phillips has now left West London, he goes back to Notting Hill almost every day - he can't afford to live there any more, but it's where he feels most at home. Musical Choices include Verdi, Puccini, Dave Brubeck, and a rarely-performed opera by the African-American composer Scott Joplin, about the importance of education in the black community. Phillips also loves hymns and chooses "How Great Thou Art", a rousing evangelical hymn he has planned for his own funeral. Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus Production for BBC Radio 3.

Geoff Dyer is a writer who joyously defies categorisation. The winner of many literary prizes, and frequently described as one of the most original writers of his generation, he surprises at every turn with his blending of fiction and non-fiction, and with his subjects, which range through travel, film, sex, photography, war, romance - and music.The book that cemented his reputation, in 1991, was about jazz - with the memorable title But Beautiful. It's a series of fictional vignettes of musicians from the great age of American jazz, including Bud Powell, Chet Baker and Thelonious Monk. Geoff talks to Michael Berkeley about how his life-long passion for jazz has taken him on a musical journey from Miles Davis, to Keith Jarrett playing Bach, and Indian classical music - and he explains why Beethoven's Late Quartets appeal so strongly to a lover of jazz. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

Thérèse Oulton burst on to the scene in 1984, fresh out of art school, with a highly-praised solo exhibition, which was followed three years later by a nomination for the Turner Prize.From the very beginning she has challenged the orthodoxies of both abstract and figurative painting. And her recent highly detailed landscapes find beauty even in a damaged, fragile earth, evoking both familiarity and strangeness.Her work is highly prized by collectors and is in major public collections around the world, including the Tate and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Thérèse talks to Michael Berkeley about her passion for Wagner, the physicality of music and painting, and the pleasure of listening to live music. Her music choices include Britten, Shostakovich, Wagner, Brecht and Mary Lou Williams - inspired by the time she spent waitressing at Ronnie Scott's as an art student.Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

Helen Oyeyemi wrote her first novel The Icarus Girl, about a mixed race child and her imaginary friend, in secret, while she was still at school studying for her A levels. Four more novels have followed and, most recently, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, a collection of short stories. She appeared on Granta's Best of Young British Novelists list in 2013. Helen's twisted fairy tales possess a heightened reality, blurring the everyday and the fantastic, making her readers question what is real and what is unreal. In her world it's not just narrators that can be unreliable - even geography and time are unstable. She talks to Michael Berkeley about the pleasures of storytelling, the power of fairy tales and her passion for her adopted city of Prague, reflected in music by the Czech composer Martinu. And she chooses music that sparks her imagination from Rimsky-Korsakov, Offenbach, Elgar, and a South Korean rock band.Produced by Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

Paterson Joseph bunked off school when he was thirteen and spent the next two years going to the local library instead, reading his way from Agatha Christie through to Alexander Pushkin. It was a good training for someone who's become one of our most versatile and successful actors. Paterson Joseph is well known from numerous Shakespeare productions at the RSC and the Royal Exchange Manchester, and from Casualty and Dr Who. He achieved notoriety as the grotesque boss Alan Johnson in Peep Show. Paterson Joseph has recently been touring America with a show that he's written himself, about one of his heroes - the black 18th-century London grocer and composer Ignatius Sancho. He talks to Michael Berkeley about why Sancho has been unjustly neglected, and what he thinks about "colour-blind" casting. Music choices include Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Louis Armstrong, Bach, Charlie Mingus, Billie Holliday - and Ignatius Sancho. Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

Lara Feigel made her name writing about the relationship between life, love, literature and history in London during the Second World War with her wonderfully titled and highly praised book The Love Charm of Bombs.Her latest, The Bitter Taste of Victory, returns to the 1940s and looks at British and American attempts to impose culture from abroad in the hope of 'civilising' post-war Germany. She talks to Michael Berkeley about what it was in her family history that drew her to writing about the Second World War, the perils of romanticizing it, and the emotional toll of engaging with such a distressing period of history. As well as Bach and Beethoven, Lara chooses music which reflects preoccupations and personalities in post-war Germany - Furtwängler's recording of Tristan und Isolde, a song from Marlene Dietrich, and music by Richard Strauss. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus Production for BBC Radio 3.

Grayson Perry burst into the public consciousness in 2003 when he accepted the Turner Prize with the words: 'It's about time a transvestite potter from Essex won the Turner.' Since then he's become celebrated for his beautiful, intricately decorated vases, which juxtapose images of innocence, obscenity and humour. He's worked across many other media as well - from tapestry to bronze, print-making to architecture, and the outrageously flamboyant frocks he wears when he goes out dressed as a woman are works of art in their own right.He chooses Tchaikovsky, Philip Glass, Marcello and Kathleen Ferrier and explores with Michael Berkeley the emotional power of music and memory; escaping an unhappy childhood; the fun of demystifying the art world; and the joys and perils of moving from rebel to national treasure. Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

As BBC Radio 3 celebrates 70 years of pioneering music and culture, Michael Berkeley travels to Sussex to meet Dame Joan Plowright for a special edition of Private Passions. Dame Joan's extraordinary six-decade career has taken her from the Royal Court Theatre to international movie stardom, via the West End, Broadway and the National Theatre. Along the way she has won a panoply of awards, including an Oscar nomination for The Enchanted April. In a moving and wide-ranging interview, Dame Joan shares memories of a life well-lived: from her childhood in Scunthorpe, to her work with figures such as Franco Zeffirelli, and the man who was to change the course of her life: Sir Laurence Olivier, whom she married in 1961. Looking back to the Third Programme, Private Passions has unearthed a clip of one of Dame Joan's signature performances, Margery Pinchwife from Wycherley's The Country Wife, broadcast in 1960. (Laurence Olivier himself was a leading member of the 'Third Programme Defence Society'.) Dame Joan reveals her love of music, with her since childhood, and now especially important since she lost her sight a few years ago. Many of her choices are associated with special friendships in her life. Where better to start than with 'Nimrod' from Elgar's Enigma Variations, a series of musical sketches depicting some of the composer's closest friends? Other music includes Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, and William Walton's Cello Concerto. We also hear Olivier's electric (and highly musical) delivery of the St Crispin's Day speech, before Dame Joan herself recites, from memory, a Shakespeare sonnet: 'Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments...'.A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3 Produced by Jane Greenwood and Oliver Soden.