Woman's Hour - 08/12/2009

With Jane Garvey. Although best known for her role as the feisty Melanie Owens in EastEnders, Tamzin Outhwaite was treading the musical boards long before she turned up on Albert Square. She played roles in Grease, Carousel and Oliver and now, after 11 years, is back singing and dancing in the title role of Sweet Charity. Tamzin talks about returning to musicals, motherhood and acting, and her tendency to play strong women, continued in her lead role in BBC1's new five-part thriller Paradox. A new study into cancer mortality rates across Europe shows that British women are more likely to die from cancer than many of their continental neighbours. The Cancer Mortality in Europe report put England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland in the bottom 10 of 36 countries. It also showed that death rates for breast, ovarian and female lung cancer in Britain are higher than average for the EU. So how concerned should we be by the findings and why are women seemingly less likely to survive cancer? Jane is joined by health minister Ann Keen and Professor Carol Sikora, Honorary Consultant Oncologist at Hammersmith Hospital. You can always tell if you're renting a house from people who don't cook: their knives are totally blunt. Chef Marianne Lumb was a finalist in last year's Masterchef: The Professionals. She has written a book, Kitchen Knife Skills, that explains everything there is to know about knives, including how to choose and care for them, how to keep them sharp and how to use them most effectively. Chefs always work with their own knives, and Marianne brings hers to the Woman's Hour studio to show Jane some essential knife techniques. Hop, Skip and Jump: The Story of Children's Play is a new two-part documentary series on BBC4. It tells the story of children's outdoor games in the 20th century and how play varied between city and country, boys and girls, and different social classes. The programme's producer Steve Humphries joins Jane to discuss how children's outdoor play has changed over the generations and what this means for the childhood experience today. They are joined by journalist and scriptwriter Jan Etherington, who, as a grandmother, has experience of three generations of outdoor play.