This week, Lilah speaks to Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, whose new show Plays for the Plague Year asks us to remember, process and grieve the pandemic. Suzan-Lori is best known for her 2001 play Topdog/Underdog, which was reprised on Broadway in the autumn. But her new show is different: she wrote one short play a day through the pandemic, and collected them into a lively, music-filled theatrical event. Suzan-Lori and Lilah talk through big questions: when is the right time to look back? What does ‘back to normal’ mean? What can and should we do with our memories? And how do you create complex art about difficult things?

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Want to say hi? We love hearing from you. Email us at ftweekendpodcast@ft.com. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap. 

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Links:

– Plays for the Plague Year by Suzan-Lori Parks is running at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater until April 30 https://publictheater.org/productions/season/2223/plays-for-the-plague-year2/ 

– Suzan-Lori’s Pulitzer-Prize winning play is Topdog/Underdog: https://bookshop.org/p/books/topdog-underdog-suzan-lori-parks/10486222?ean=9781559362016   

– The FT interviewed Suzan-Lori and Cynthia Erivo on the alchemy of Aretha Franklin (2021): https://on.ft.com/3V120Jt

–Suzan-Lori is the playwright in residence at the Public, and does a regular virtual ‘watch me work’ session over zoom for people to get writing done together, and ask her questions: https://publictheater.org/productions/season/2122/watch-me-work/

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Our US edition of the FTWeekend Festival is back! Join Jamie Lee Curtis, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alice Waters, your favourite FT writers, and more on May 20 in Washington, DC, and online. Register now and save $20 using the promo code weekendpodcast at ft.com/festival-us

Special offers for Weekend listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial are here: http://ft.com/weekendpodcast.

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Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco. 

Clips in this episode courtesy of The Public Theater

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There’s been a lot of big finance and economics news in 2023. Whether it's stories about rising interest rates, tech industry layoffs or bank runs, it can almost feel like you need an MBA just to make sense of it all. That’s why the Financial Times is launching a bonus series called Behind the Money: Night School. 

Over the next five weeks, this show will help you understand the concepts behind the biggest economic stories of this year. U.S. managing editor Peter Spiegel chats with FT journalists as they unpack the basics around things like energy markets, inflation and the rise of artificial intelligence. This series is supported by Blinkist. If you want to find out more about conversations like this, check out the Blinkist app.

Behind the Money: Night School is out now. Find it by subscribing to the Behind the Money podcast wherever you listen.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, we go to a racetrack in Miami, Florida to drink some beers, place some bets, and discover how AI is changing the sport of horse racing. FT data journalist Oliver Roeder joins Lilah to talk about how the ancient sport is being upended by anonymous computer-assisted bets. These secretive gamblers are injecting billions of dollars into the pools, and aggressively tipping the odds, and it’s putting the whole sport at risk.

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Want to say hi? We love hearing from you. Email us at ftweekendpodcast@ft.com. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap. 

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Links:

– Oliver’s piece on horse betting: https://on.ft.com/3UDrX1t 

– Oliver’s on Twitter at @ollie 

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Our US edition of the FTWeekend Festival is back! Join Jamie Lee Curtis, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alice Waters, your favourite FT writers, and more on May 20 in Washington, DC, and online. Register now and save $20 using promo code weekendpodcast at ft.com/festival-us

Special offers for Weekend listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial are here: http://ft.com/weekendpodcast.

--------------

Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco. 

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, we talk tequila. Over the last 20 years, it has become wildly popular, celebrity-endorsed, and top-shelf. Tequila and mezcal are the fastest-growing spirit category in the US; this year, they are set to overtake vodka as the country's best-selling spirit. But the impact on local Mexican farmers and distillers has been damaging, and demand is outpacing supply. Ivy Mix, author of Spirits of Latin America and owner of respected Brooklyn bar Leyenda, talks us through what's at risk – and what can be done. Then, we head to Mexico City to learn the traditional way to drink the spirit from Gina Barbachano, one of the city's top bartenders.

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Want to say hi? We love hearing from you. Email us at ftweekendpodcast@ft.com. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap.

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Links:

– Lilah’s magazine piece, ‘How Americans ruined tequila – and the true believers saving it’: https://on.ft.com/40QnpXW

– Ivy’s book is called Spirits of Latin America. She’s on Instagram @IvyMix

– Gina is bartender and co-owner of Hanky Panky, in Mexico City. She’s on Instagram @GinaBarbachano

– Ivy poured Lilah Tequila Ocho, Siembra Azul, and Fortaleza, as examples of tequilas doing good work. Gina poured us Caballito Cerero

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Special discounts for podcast listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial are here: http://ft.com/weekendpodcast.

Our US edition of the FTWeekend Festival is back! Join Jamie Lee Curtis, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alice Waters, your favourite FT writers and more on May 20 in Washington, DC, and online. Register now and save $20 off using promo code weekendpodcast at ft.com/festival-us

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Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco. 

Additional clips this week copyright Atlantic Records and Universal Music Group. 

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This weekend, we bring you a conversation with actor Michael Patrick Thornton, who is currently in a buzzy Broadway production of A Doll's House alongside Jessica Chastain. When Michael was 24, he had a series of spinal cord strokes. Reciting Shakespeare's sonnets taught him how to breathe and speak again, and continue his career. Michael is at present the only actor on Broadway who uses a wheelchair. The interview was recorded a few months ago, while Michael was on stage in Macbeth with Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga.  Then, we learn about Melissa Dring, Britain's top forensic artist, from journalist Will Coldwell, and the techniques she uses to catch criminals — they are surprisingly cute, and include a jar of strawberry jam.

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Want to say hi? We love hearing from you. Email us at ftweekendpodcast@ft.com. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap. 

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Links and mentions from the episode: 

– Will’s profile of Melissa Dring, ‘To catch a criminal: what a forensic artist knows about the mind’: https://on.ft.com/3rw0lht 

– Michael Patrick Thornton’s theatre company, The Gift: https://thegifttheatre.org/ – Michael is on Twitter @ThorntonMPT, and Will is on Twitter at @Will_Coldwell

– A Doll’s House is on Broadway through June 10 https://adollshousebroadway.com/ 

– Select coverage of the war in Ukraine is free to read at https://www.ft.com/freetoread

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Special offers for Weekend listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial are here: http://ft.com/weekendpodcast. 

Our. US edition of the FTWeekend Festival is back! Join Jamie Lee Curtis, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alice Waters, your favourite FT writers and more on May 20 in Washington, DC, and online. Register now and save $20 off using promo code weekendpodcast at ft.com/festival-us

--------------

Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Lilah compares notes on interviewing with podcaster Sam Fragoso. Sam's show Talk Easy features in-depth conversations with some of the biggest names in culture: from Cate Blanchett and Judd Apatow, to Noam Chomsky. He tells Lilah about his highlights and difficult moments, and they discuss what makes a great conversation. Then, we challenged listeners to submit boring topics for us to make interesting, and this week we take on the UK citizenship test. To become a British citizen, you have to pass a uniquely esoteric test about "British customs, traditions and laws". What do the questions suggest about what it means to be British? And should these tests exist at all?

Note: After this podcast was aired, Jonathan Majors was arrested for assault. His lawyer says he is "completely innocent".

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Want to say hi? We love hearing from you. Email us at ftweekendpodcast@ft.com. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap. 

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Links:

– Sam’s podcast, Talk Easy, is available to listen wherever you get your podcasts, and is on Instagram at Twitter @talkeasypod

– Sam and Lilah discuss conversations with Ke Huy Quan and Kara Swisher. Sam also recommends his conversations with Norman Lear and journalist Maria Ressa. Lilah recommends Sam's conversation with Lena Dunham: https://talkeasypod.com/lena-dunham/ 

– Professor Thom Brooks’ Ted Talk: ‘Should the British citizenship test be a barrier or a bridge?’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNHpyJPbXNI 

– A guide to passing the citizenship test, by the FT’s Federica Cocco: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn9k29PWmMU 

– The FT’s Alan Livsey on his experience of the test: ‘For Better or Worse, I’m British now’: https://on.ft.com/3JCRQtj 

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Our US edition of the FTWeekend Festival is back! Join Jamie Lee Curtis, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alice Waters, your favourite FT writers and more on May 20 in Washington, DC, and online. Register now and save $20 off using promo code weekendpodcast at ft.com/festival-us

Special offers for Weekend listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial are here: http://ft.com/weekendpodcast.

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Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco. Special shout out to producer Lulu Smyth.

Additional clips from Pushkin and the BBC’s Live at the Apollo.

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Audio changed to include an edit on 3/24/2023.

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, we host a writer and an editor in conversation. Booker-winning novelist and poet Ben Okri and outgoing FT Weekend editor Alec Russell meet in the studio on Alec’s last day in the role. They reflect on the political power of poetry, what fiction and non-fiction can teach each other, and the vital role of art. Then, we meet one of London’s most notorious and prolific graffiti writers. His name is 10 Foot, and his tag is famous, but he’s anonymous. Journalist Miles Ellingham spent months with him, and he and Lilah discuss graffiti’s role and the question of who owns a city.

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Want to say hi? We love hearing from you. Email us at ftweekendpodcast@ft.com. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap. 

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Links:

– Ben Okri’s piece, ‘The Famished Road and my quest for the imaginative richness of Africa’, from Alec’s final edition of FT Weekend: https://on.ft.com/3FqbpUr 

– Miles Ellingham’s profile of graffiti writer 10 Foot: https://on.ft.com/3FyP3Qz 

– Ben Okri’s poem for the FT, ‘Grenfell Tower, June 2017’: https://on.ft.com/40bFq2i 

– Alec is on Twitter at @AlecuRussell. Miles is on twitter @milesellingham

–The whole Africa special is here, and free-to-read

– Other stories by Ben Okri in the FT: https://www.ft.com/stream/f89dd99d-32d8-35de-95df-6e791313c63f

–Miles recommends the classic 1982 documentary, ‘Style Wars’: https://youtu.be/7DXD1HBaLX0

– He also recommends ‘Jisoe’ (2014), which has been described as “the best graffiti film ever made”: https://youtu.be/gp8ZNqaG-dE 

—-------------

Our U.S. edition of the FTWeekend Festival is back! Join Jamie Lee Curtis, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alice Waters, your favourite FT writers, and more on May 20 in Washington, D.C., and online. Register now and save $20 off using promo code weekendpodcast at ft.com/festival-us

Special offers for Weekend listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial are here: http://ft.com/weekendpodcast.

--------------

Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco. 

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Lilah speaks with author Elif Batuman about rethinking Russian literature given Russia’s war in Ukraine. Since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022, cultural institutions have grappled with what to do about Russian artists and works of art. Should they be banned if we want to support Ukraine? Elif talks us through the literary dimension of the debate. And she says go ahead, read the Russian classics. But learn about the history and culture of the time as you’re doing it. Then, FT music critic Arwa Haider comes on to talk Lilah through recent trends in music: from the resurgence of pop punk to the loss of the superstar.

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Want to say hi? We love hearing from you. Email us at ftweekendpodcast@ft.com. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap. 

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Links and mentions from the episode: 

–Elif Batuman’s essay on reading Russian literature in the shadow of the war in Ukraine: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/30/rereading-russian-classics-in-the-shadow-of-the-ukraine-war

–Elif wrote the bestselling novels The Idiot and Either/Or. Here’s our first conversation with her, about Either/Or: https://www.ft.com/content/703dcdbf-cf67-4c40-bd46-a97903a8d6c3

–Mary Elise Sarotte on Putin’s misuse of history: https://on.ft.com/3kVkfmd 

–An essay Elif recommends by Ukrainian writer Oksana Zabuzhko’s on the same topic: tls.co.uk/articles/russian-literature-bucha-massacre-essay-oksana-zabuzhko">https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/russian-literature-bucha-massacre-essay-oksana-zabuzhko

–You can find Arwa Haider’s FT music reviews here: https://www.ft.com/stream/d52c64d7-bc56-3cae-bfb9-65bb15f69b9d 

–Arwa is on Twitter at @ArwaHaider

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Special offers for Weekend listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial are here: http://ft.com/weekendpodcast.

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Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco. Copyright for additional music this week: Geffen-Interscope Records; Warner Music Group; Saddle Creek Records; Sony Music Entertainment; Rimas Entertainment

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Lilah goes to Savannah, Georgia, to visit chef Mashama Bailey. In 2022, Mashama won Outstanding Chef at the James Beard Awards. Since 2014, she has been chef and partner at The Grey, a restaurant located in a formerly segregated bus station. And she has been redefining American food by reclaiming its African-American roots. But because so much of this history hasn't been documented, how do you find and preserve it, and also expand on it? Mashama explains her creative process. We also speak with Stephen Satterfield, host of the Netflix docuseries High on the Hog. Stephen is the founder of Whetstone Media, which is dedicated to tracing food stories back to their roots of origin.

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Want to say hi? We love hearing from you. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap.

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Links and mentions from the episode: 

– Lilah’s written piece on Mashama in the FT Magazine: https://on.ft.com/3I8v4br 

– Mashama and her business partner John O Morisano’s memoir about The Grey is called Black, White, and the Grey

– Stephen is the founder of Whetstone Magazine and Whetstone Media. You can learn more at https://www.whetstonemagazine.com/

– Whetstone Radio Collective has a suite of podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/channel/whetstone-radio/id6442689915

– Stephen’s Peabody-winning Netflix docuseries is called High on the Hog

– Dr Jessica B Harris’s seminal book on African-American food history is called High on the Hog: a Culinary Journey from Africa to America

– Edna Lewis is considered the first lady of Southern cooking. Her groundbreaking cookbook, published in 1976, is called The Taste of Country Cooking

– Lilah also recommends Bryant Terry's 2021 cookbook Black Food, and the work of Michael W Twitty. Michael is on Instagram at @thecookinggene and has an excellent Masterclass session on tracing your roots through food

– Mashama is on Instagram at @mashamabailey. Stephen is at @isawstephen

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Special offers for Weekend listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial are here: http://ft.com/weekendpodcast.

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Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco. 

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week marks a year since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In this episode, Lilah speaks with Ukrainian director Nadia Parfan, whose documentary short 'I did not want to make a war film' is a first-person essay about how life has changed. Nadia was in Egypt when the war began, but a few weeks later, she chose to return to Ukraine because she feared isolation more than physical danger. She joins us from a coffee shop in Kyiv to talk about making the film, what life is like in Ukraine for civilians, and why making art can be a form of resistance.

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Want to say hi? We love hearing from you. Email us at ftweekendpodcast@ft.com. We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod, and Lilah is on Instagram and Twitter @lilahrap. 

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Links and mentions from the episode: 

– Nadia Parfan’s film ‘I Did Not Want To Make A War Film’ is available now. You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx9yrdjPKQ4 

– FT Magazine cover, ‘A 12 year journey into Ukraine’ by Christopher Miller: https://www.ft.com/content/f1983056-c34f-4646-946a-6328200d65e7 

– A year in review: ‘How Putin blundered into Ukraine – and doubled down:’ https://www.ft.com/content/80002564-33e8-48fb-b734-44810afb7a49 

– Mary Elise Sarotte on Putin’s misuse of history: https://www.ft.com/content/24f81b4d-420e-4217-b498-cf13c6e254f2

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Special offers for Weekend listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial are here: http://ft.com/weekendpodcast.

--------------

Original music by Metaphor Music. Mixing and sound design by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco. 

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.