Hello there! And welcome to a special Christmas (but not Christmas-themed) bumper episode of We’d Like a Word.
By way of a change, Paul and Stevyn recently hosted a version of the podcast in front of a live audience at High Wycombe Arts Centre with their special guest, Robert Thorogood.
Robert is the creator of one of TV’s most popular murder-mystery series – Death in Paradise – and is also the author of The Marlow Murder Club as well as several Death in Paradise novels.
He was a contemporary of David Mitchell, Robert Webb, Olivia Colman and Sacha Baron Cohen in the Cambridge Footlights and, for a time, ran a small theatre company that utilised their great talents. But his career wasn’t all plain sailing … the life of a writer is tough and, as you’ll hear in the episode, it took a long time to achieve the level of success that he has. There’s hardship, disappointment and surprise along the way but Robert is a wonderful raconteur and tells his story with charm and humour. And he has some great advice for new writers.
In this episode you’ll learn how Death in Paradise came about, how they handled the tricky changeover of lead actors and why filming on Guadeloupe isn’t quite as much fun as it might seem.
You’ll also learn why Robert eschewed the Caribbean for a pretty Buckinghamshire town in his new novel The Marlow Murder Club.
You’ll also hear Mark Page talking briefly about Wycombe Food Hub, a fantastic community-created resource that not only helps people on lower incomes but also prevents 50 tons of ‘food waste’ going to landfill every month. This is all perfectly good edible food that supermarkets would otherwise ditch due to damaged packaging or over-ordering etc. Volunteers collect it at the end of every working day. It is then checked and put on sale at a fraction of the supermarket price. The hub also supplies crates of food to local charities and anything left over is donated to farms as animal feed.
All proceeds from the night were split between the Food Hub and the Arts Centre.
Listen on iTunes, Spotify or pretty much anywhere that hosts good podcasts. Or just click here.
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We’d Like A Word is a podcast & radio show from authors Paul Waters & Stevyn Colgan. We talk with writers, readers, editors, agents, celebrities, talkers, poets, publishers, booksellers, audiobook creators about books – fiction & non-fiction. We go out on various radio & podcast platforms. Our Twitter is @wedlikeaword & Facebook @wedlikeaword & our email is [email protected] (and yes, we are embarrassed by the missing apostrophes). We like to hear from you – questions, thoughts, ideas, guest or book suggestions. Perhaps you’d like to come on We’d Like A Word to chat, review or read out passages from books.
And if you’re still stuck for something to read, may we recommend Blackwatertown by Paul Waters or Cockerings by Stevyn Colgan.