Artists at Work

Josie Long interviews one of the masters of modern horror, Paul Tremblay. He answers your questions on on of his best loved novels 'A Head Full of Ghosts'.
The story centres on the Barretts, a typical New England suburban family, torn apart when their eldest daughter, fourteen-year-old Marjorie, begins to display signs of acute mental illness.
When doctors are seemingly unable to offer any relief, and financial troubles compound the horror of being unable to help their child, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. But the Priest offers more than prayers, he knows of a production company that is eager to document the their plight, and pay a pretty penny for access. With mounting medical bills, the family agrees to be filmed, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of a hit reality television show - The Possession. When events in the Barrett household spiral into tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend.
Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie's younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long ago events that took place when she was just eight years old memories blur with the edited version presented to the world, and the terrible truth of what happened to the Barrett’s is finally brought to light. Though at the end, readers will still be asking if the events were purely medical, or if there really was a supernatural evil lurking beneath it all.
One of Paul’s most beloved works.
Paul answers your questions about the timeless appeal of horror, the power of ambiguity in storytelling, and how demonic possession is perhaps the lesser of all the evils revealed in this story.

Nikki Bedi speaks to American poet, author, and artist Rachel Eliza Griffiths about the extraordinary new documentary film Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie and discusses this week’s cultural highlights with critic William Lee Adams:
American Irish actor Saoirse Ronan on her cultural hero, Barbra Streisand
French creator and writer Fanny Herrero on her new feature length film, Call My Agent
Chinese American literary star Rebecca F Kuang on her new novel, Taipei Story
Director Dave Green on his Looney Toons film, Coyote vs Acme
And we hear music from Argentinian cellist Sol Gabetta

Prix Goncourt-winning writer Leïla Slimani this year completed a trilogy of novels; an era-spanning epic family saga set in Morocco, which concludes with the semi-autobiographical I'll Take The Fire. Never one to stay in her comfort zone and compelled to write, she has now embarked on her very first play. She discusses the challenges of adapting Leo Tolstoy’s moralising final novel Resurrection for stage, and the surprising connections with her previous, diverse, body of work. Ahead of the play's world premiere in Lorient next week, theatre director Simon Delétang also joins from his rehearsals with Comédie-Française to discuss collaborating with Slimani on the project.

Nikki Bedi speaks to visionary Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn about his latest movie, Her Private Hell, and discusses this week’s cultural highlights with critic Zing Tsjeng:
Plus, we hear from Oscar-winning French actor Juliette Binoche on her morally complex new film, Queen at Sea
British author Candice Carty-Williams on bringing back her much-loved character, Queenie for her new novel
American actor Bill Pullman on playing groovy jazz legend Bill Evans’ father in a new biopice
And man of the moment, Welsh actor Matthew Rhys on Widow’s Bay and The Beast in Me, which have just earned him a record-breaking scoop at the Emmy Awards

An edition of In The Studio on the subject that became the dominant story across the world in the summer of 2026. In December 2024, the Scottish poet Leonie Charlton’s house burned to the ground. From that moment, Leonie was obsessed with fire. She saw it everywhere, writing about and mulling over the acute experience of watching everything she and her family had ever owned go up in flames. In early summer this year, Leonie set off through the ruggedly wild and beautiful landscape of the West Coast of Scotland to write a new poem about fire for her forthcoming collection Deerlands. But, within days, the thousands of wildfires across the world began to take hold, reaching into Scotland too. This is a programme about a poet responding to a personal calamity just at the moment it becomes a global calamity. Presented by Antonia Quirke.