Only Artists

Tamara Rojo was a principal dancer at the Royal Ballet for more than a decade, before joining English National Ballet as artistic director and lead principal dancer in 2012. The company won the 2017 Olivier Award for outstanding achievement in dance,( and Tamara has been praised for her bold programming). Josie Rourke is the artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse theatre, where her productions include Coriolanus, with Tom Hiddleston in the title role, and The Vote, by James Graham, with a cast including Judi Dench and Catherine Tate. Her first film, Mary Queen of Scots, was released in January.

Osman Yousafzada was born in Birmingham, where his mother ran a dress-making business. He studied anthropology before turning to fashion, and he launched his own womenswear label in 2008. Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Emma Watson and Taylor Swift have all worn his designs. Last year he staged his first solo art exhibition, Being Somewhere Else, at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham. Haroon Mirza was born in London and was obsessed by audio technology from an early age. He has exhibited his work widely around the UK and overseas. His installations have often mixed old-fashioned radios, TVs and gramophones with film loops, light and sound to explore sensory perception.

The comedian Sara Pascoe meets the performance artist Bryony Kimmings, to discuss laughter, making a living, and the art of revealing the truth about yourself on stage. Sara Pascoe is a stand-up comedian, writer and actor, appearing on shows including W1A and Mock the Week. Her first book, Animal: The Autobiography of a Female Body investigated sexuality and evolutionary history. Her current show, Lads Lads Lads, chronicles her efforts to be happily single after the breakup of a four-year relationship. Bryony Kimmings tackles taboos, stigmas and social injustice in her shows. In Sex Idiot she retraced an STI to its source and in 7 Day Drunk she investigated the link between intoxication and creativity. Her latest show is about motherhood, postnatal depression and finding inner strength. Her first screenplay, Last Christmas, written with Emma Thompson, is in production now. Producer: Clare Walker

Val McDermid is one of Britain’s most successful crime writers, and has sold more than 15 million books around the world. Since her debut in 1987, she has written several series of crime novels set in both her native Scotland and the north of England, as well short stories, radio plays and a prize-winning children’s book. Her latest novel is Broken Ground. Vin Deighan was born in Glasgow and draws under the name Frank Quitely. He is one of the leading artists in American comics, working for Marvel and DC on superheroes including Batman, Superman, and the X-men. He started drawing cartoon strips for the Glasgow underground comic Electric Soup in 1989 and continues to write and design his own short stories. An exhibition of his work was held at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow in 2017. Producer: Katy Hickman

The sculptor and land artist Richard Long meets the musician, composer and producer Nitin Sawhney. Richard Long is one of Britain's best known land artists: using natural materials such as soil, rocks, water and vegetation in works sited in rural landscapes. He lives and works in Bristol, the city of his birth and has been shortlisted four times for the Turner Prize. Nitin Sawhney is a musician, instrumentalist, composer and producer with over 20 studio albums to his name. He writes music for film, videogames, dance and theatre and received the Ivor Novello Lifetime Achievement award in 2017. Producer: Clare Walker

The writer Joanne Harris meets the composer Howard Goodall. Joanne Harris worked as a teacher for fifteen years, until the success of her novel Chocolat allowed her to write full time. Chocolat has sold more than a million copies in the UK alone, and became a film starring Juliette Binoche. Since then, Joanne’s work includes 15 more novels, short stories, screenplays and three cookbooks. She has written four books inspired by her long-standing love of Norse mythology. Howard Goodall’s music has reached millions of listeners through his film and TV scores, which include Blackadder, The Vicar of Dibley and Mr Bean. His choral work Eternal Light: a Requiem has received hundreds of performances around the world, and his West End musicals include The Hired Man and Bend It Like Beckham. He was also England’s first National Ambassador for Singing, encouraging primary age children to sing together. Producer: Clare Walker

The actor Katherine Parkinson meets the artist Roxana Halls. Katherine Parkinson is best known for her role as Jen in the Channel 4 sit-com The I T Crowd, which won her a British Comedy Award and a BAFTA. She has also appeared in the long-running drama Doc Martin and the science fiction series Humans. Her most recent stage work was at the National Theatre, where she starred as Judy – an obsessive housewife stuck in the 1950s - in Home, I’m Darling by Laura Wade. The production transfers to the West End next year. Roxana Halls is a figurative painter who has exhibited across the UK and around the world. Her work has been included five times in the renowned BP Portrait Award exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, and has been selected for the Royal Academy Summer Show. She has won numerous prizes , and next year her art will feature in a touring show reflecting the life of Christine Keeler. Producer: Clare Walker

The screenwriter Hossein Amini meets the playwright and director Conor McPherson. Hossein Amini co-created and co-wrote the TV series McMafia, which focused on Russian gangsters and global organised crime. His screenplay for the film The Wings of the Dove, based on the novel by Henry James and starring Helena Bonham Carter, won an Oscar nomination. His other screenwriting credits include Drive, which starred Ryan Gosling. Conor McPherson's play The Weir, first staged in 1997, was voted one of the most important plays of the 20th century in a National Theatre poll, and has been performed around the world. More recently Bob Dylan's representatives invited him to create a stage-work featuring Dylan songs. The resultant play, Girl from the North Country, was widely acclaimed in London, and opened earlier this year in New York, where the New York Times described McPherson as 'perhaps the finest English-language playwright of his generation'. Producer Clare Walker

The opera singer Elizabeth Llewellyn meets the film director and screenwriter Amma Asante. Elizabeth Llewellyn first won wide critical acclaim in 2010, when she starred in Jonathan Miller’s production of La Bohème at English National Opera. Her path to success was unconventional: she gave up singing at the age of 22, and worked as a project manager for an IT company for a decade before gradually returning to music. She has now performed in opera houses around the world, including leading roles in Tosca, Madame Butterfly, and Porgy and Bess. Amma Asante appeared in Grange Hill as a teenager, and moved on to writing and directing. In 2004 she won the best newcomer BAFTA for her film A Way of Life. She went on to direct Belle, which was inspired by a portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle, a girl born into slavery, but brought up in the house of a British lord. Her film A United Kingdom, starring David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike, opened the London Film Festival in 2016. Producer Clare Walker

The poet Don Paterson meets the composer Thomas Adès. Don Paterson received the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2010, but when he left school at 16 he was aiming for a career in music, and worked as a guitarist and composer for many years. In 1993, his first volume of poems, Nil Nil, won the Forward Prize for the Best First Collection, and since then his work has won every major British award. He is professor of poetry at the University of St Andrews. By his mid-20s, Thomas Adès had won an international reputation as a composer, notably for his opera Powder Her Face, and his orchestral work Asyla, premiered by Simon Rattle in Birmingham. Since then he has written two more large scale operas, as well as numerous works for orchestra and for smaller groups. He is also a conductor and pianist. Producer Clare Walker

The architect Amanda Levete meets the filmmaker Asif Kapadia. Amanda Levete’s most recent work includes the bold new extension to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, as well as major buildings in Lisbon, Melbourne and Bangkok. Her earlier work, with Jan Kaplicky, includes the Media Centre at Lords Cricket Ground, which won the Stirling Prize, and the Selfridges store in Birmingham. Asif Kapadia’s film Amy, about the life and death of Amy Winehouse, won the Academy Award for best documentary in 2016. His film about the Formula One champion Ayrton Senna was widely acclaimed, and he has also directed a documentary about the controversial football legend Diego Maradona, to be released next year. Producer: Clare Walker

The opera singer Stuart Skelton meets the comedian, actor and director Chris Addison. The tenor Stuart Skelton was born in Australia, and has appeared in leading opera houses and concert halls around the world. His most notable performances include the title role in Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten, and Tristan in Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, with the conductor Sir Simon Rattle . He recently made his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, playing Siegmund in Wagner’s Die Walkure. Chris Addison started out as a solo comedy performer and writer. He played Ollie, a hapless junior advisor, in Armando Iannucci’s political satire The Thick of It, and also appeared in the spin-off film In the Loop. He has directed numerous episodes of the Emmy award-winning comedy Veep, set in the office of the Vice President of the United States, and is familiar as a panellist on shows such as Mock the Week. Producer: Clare Walker

Poet and novelist Jackie Kay meets Turner Prize-winning artist Lubaina Himid. Jackie Kay is currently the Scottish Makar or poet laureate. Her first collection, The Adoption Papers, was published in 1991, and drew on her own experience as a black child, adopted at birth by a white couple. Since then she has written prize-winning poetry, stories and fiction, as well as a memoir, Red Dust Road, about tracing and finding her birth parents. In 2017 Lubaina Himid became the first black woman to win the Turner Prize – and its oldest winner, at the age of 63. Her paintings and installations often focus on hidden black history and creativity - so for her work Swallow Hard: The Lancastrian Dinner Service, she overpainted willow pattern plates with images of slavery. She lives and works in Preston and is professor of contemporary art at the University of Central Lancashire. Producer Clare Walker

The landscape painter and print-maker Norman Ackroyd meets the writer Robert Macfarlane. Norman, who celebrated his 80th birthday this year, invites Robert to his studio in Bermondsey, London. They discuss their fascination with wild landscapes and islands, and how they attempt to come to a deeper understanding of place. They also share their thoughts on their working methods: for Norman, printmaking is like writing music - trying to capture and fix light and weather. For Robert, writing is a strange and solitary process: he reflects on the rhythm of prose and reads his latest “selkie” or seal-folk song. Norman has been etching and painting for seven decades, with a focus on the British landscape - from the south of England to the most northerly parts of Scotland. His works are in the collections of leading museums and galleries around the world. Robert has written widely about the natural world: his book The Old Ways is a best-selling exploration of Britain's ancient paths. Last year he published The

The poet Hollie McNish meets the actor Paapa Essiedu. Hollie won the Ted Hughes Award for new work in poetry in 2016, and has published five books of her poems. Her most recent book, Plum, draws on memories and writing from childhood and her teenage years, along with her experiences as a parent. She first made her name as a performance poet, and her videos have received millions of views online. Paapa played Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2016 - the first black actor to take the role for the RSC. The production toured the UK earlier this year, and also travelled to North America. Paapa first joined the RSC in 2012, shortly after graduating from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He has also worked at the National Theatre, and at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol. Producer Clare Walker.

Natalie Dormer, who has reached a global audience through her roles in The Tudors, Game of Thrones and The Hunger Games, meets the singer and songwriter Tori Amos, backstage at the Royal Albert Hall. Tori was born in North Carolina and released her first solo album, Little Earthquakes, in 1992. It has sold more than two million copies around the world. She has released 14 more studio albums, winning eight Grammy nominations. Her musical, The Light Princess, premiered at the National Theatre in 2013. Most recently, Natalie has co-written the screenplay for In Darkness, a psychological thriller. Producer Clare Walker.

The writer Louise Welsh meets the artist Duggie Fields. Louise lives in Glasgow and is the author of eight novels, including The Cutting Room, Naming the Bones, and the Plague Times trilogy, which imagines a world ravaged by a pandemic. Duggie studied at the Chelsea School of Art in the 1960s, and is known for his colourful geometric canvases, inspired by pop and classical culture. For the past 50 years, he has lived and worked in the same Earls Court flat- which he once shared with Syd Barrett, a founding member of Pink Floyd. A re-creation of the flat is currently on show in Glasgow - complete with paint-spattered floor, furniture, and life-sized photographs of the walls, covered in art-works. Producer Clare Walker.

The fashion designer Sadie Clayton meets designer, artist and architect Ron Arad. Sadie Clayton launched her eponymous brand in 2015, 2 years after graduating from Kingston University, and has gone on to show on the catwalks of London, Berlin and Shanghai. Her signature fabric is copper and her architectural designs have been worn by Gigi Hadid, Skin and Ellie Goulding, as well as being exhibited in art galleries around the world. Ron Arad is an award-winning industrial designer, artist, and architect. He was born in Israel and went to the Jerusalem Academy of Art and later the Architectural Association in London. His career as a designer began in 1981 with the Rover chair, a recycled car seat anchored on a tubular steel frame, and he has gone on to design everything from furniture to eyewear to skyscrapers. For Only Artists Ron Arad gives Sadie Clayton a tour of his studio in North London where they discuss serendipity, escaping the design label and what to do with two thousand plumbing saddles. The sket

Singer and songwriter Tracey Thorn meets the film-maker and screenwriter Carol Morley. Tracey Thorn formed the duo Everything But The Girl in 1982 with fellow singer-songwriter Ben Watt when they were both students at Hull University. Together they released nine studio albums, and in the mid-1990s their single Missing sold more than three million copies around the world. Since 2007, Tracey has released four solo albums, and published an acclaimed memoir, Bedsit Disco Queen: How I Grew Up and Tried to be a Pop Star. Carol Morley grew up in Stockport and was in a band by the age of 14, because she felt it was the place 'where real life took place' - although she now admits she couldn't sing. She later studied film and video. In 2011 she wrote and directed Dreams of a Life, an investigative drama-documentary about Joyce Carol Vincent, who died towards the end of 2003, but lay undiscovered in her London flat until early 2006. More recently she has scripted and directed Out Of Blue, based on the novel Night Tr

The actor and writer Maxine Peake meets the musician and performance artist Cosey Fanni Tutti. Maxine Peake was born just outside Bolton. Her television credits include leading roles in the series Dinnerladies, Shameless and Silk. In 2014 she played Hamlet at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester. She has written for radio and the stage, and her play about Lillian Bilocca - who campaigned for better safety in the fishing industry - was part of Hull's City of Culture celebrations. Cosey Fanni Tutti was born in Hull, and began her artistic career there in 1969, when she joined a subversive art collective called COUM Transmissions. Founded by Genesis P-Orridge, the group staged surreal events or interventions around Hull and beyond. Cosey worked for two years as a model for sex magazines and films to create a show about pornography and the sex industry called Prostitution. When it opened at the Institute of Contemporary Art in 1976, it prompted walkouts, made headlines, and provoked questions in Parliament.