Midweek - 17/06/2009

Lively and diverse conversation with Libby Purves and guests including Kevin Wood, Ian Mulholland, Hannah Waddingham, Paddy Ashdown and Patrick Hennessey. A production of Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story recently took place in the unlikely surroundings of Wandsworth Prison. It was a rare collaboration between prisoners and prison officers. Ex-Wandsworth inmate Kevin Wood played the part of Action, a feisty member of the Jets, and Ian Mulholland is the Governor of Wandsworth Prison. Hannah Waddingham plays Desiree Armfeldt in Trevor Nunn's production of Sondheim's A Little Night Music. Her theatre credits include the critically acclaimed The Lady of the Lake in Monty Python's Spamalot both in the West End and on Broadway, as well as Lautrec, The Beautiful Game, Tonight's The Night, A Chorus of Disapproval and Bad Girls the Musical. In his autobiography A Fortunate Life, Lord Ashdown tells of the 17 years he spent as an officer in the Royal Marine Commandos, a member of the Special Boat Service, and as he reveals for the first time, an employee of the 'shadowy side' of the Foreign Office. From 2002 to 2006 he served as the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Patrick Hennessey is a former officer in the British Army. In his book The Junior Officers' Reading Club, he tells the story of how one soldier was made, through the testosterone-heavy breeding ground of Sandhurst, into the war zones of the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan's Helmand Province.