Fiona Shaw

We have Irish acting royalty joining us this week – star of the stage, Killing Eve, Fleabag, Harry Potter, Star Wars, the list is endless – it's the incredible Fiona Shaw! Fiona is in the midst of promo for 2 films, Echo Valley and Hot Milk, and she found time to join us for a spot of brunch at Mum’s. We heard about life between London & New York (and Sri Lanka), her routine of a smoothie for breakfast every morning, working with the formidable Julianne Moore, her mum singing daily when she was growing up, and discovering and cooking Sri Lankan food with her wife. Fiona’s fantastic in both films – of course – don’t miss Echo Valley, which is out now on AppleTV+, and Hot Milk, which is released in cinemas on the 4th of July. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:35Jessie Ware?

  Hello and welcome to Table manners. I'm Jessie Ware and I am here with Lenny.

• 0:39Speaker 02

  Hi.

• 0:40Jessie Ware?

  Who is doing all the cooking. Thank you, Mum.

• 0:41Speaker 02

  I did prep yesterday. I did an otter lengi.

• 0:44Jessie Ware?

  I saw you at the weekend. Thank you for babysitting my children.

• 0:47Speaker 02

  It's fine. Can I just say, I saw Beyonce.

• 0:49Jessie Ware?

  Oh, yeah. Did you love it?

• 0:51Speaker 02

  Loved it.

• 0:52Jessie Ware?

  You were with my favourite peloton instructor.

• 0:54Speaker 02

  She said, I'm Leanne. Peloton. And I knew exactly who she was because you told me. She said, why don't you do it, Lenny? I said, I can't get the bloody shoes on.

• 1:06Speaker 02

  Anyway, Beyonce was.

• 1:09Jessie Ware?

  Fantastic.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Rhinestone cowboy, just gorgeous.

• 1:12Jessie Ware?

  Was it really good?

• 1:13Speaker 02

  It was fantastic.

• 1:14Jessie Ware?

  Good vibes.

• 1:15Speaker 02

  She goes round on a horseshoe, all round on a.

• 1:17Jessie Ware?

  Don't give it away. I'm going to see it on Thursday.

• 1:19Speaker 02

  You'll love it.

• 1:20Jessie Ware?

  I'm excited. Who have we got on today?

• 1:23Speaker 02

  Well, we've got a fantastic actress who is probably in everything you've ever loved.

• 1:29Jessie Ware?

  Killing Eve?

• 1:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31Jessie Ware?

  Bad Sisters? Harry Potter? Fleabag?

• 1:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:35Jessie Ware?

  She's won Olivier. She's been nominated for Tonys.

• 1:38Speaker 02

  She's just a proper, proper actress who is so wonderful. And I'm so excited that we've got Fiona Shaw here today.

• 1:48Jessie Ware?

  She's coming on to talk about Echo Valley, which is on Apple TV. It's with Julianne Moore and Sydney Sweeney. And she's brilliant in it. But also, she's also in Hot Milk, the adaptation of Deborah Levy's book. And she is also fantastic in that.

• 2:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:01Jessie Ware?

  She plays the mother. Every scene she's in. Feels like she steals it, do you know what I mean?

• 2:07Speaker 02

  She's wonderful.

• 2:08Jessie Ware?

  And she's coming on.

• 2:09Speaker 02

  She must be exhausted.

• 2:11Jessie Ware?

  I think she's been on radio this morning. What have you made, Mum?

• 2:14Speaker 02

  I've made something called strata, which is basically a savoury bread and butter pudding. And it's got different fillings in. So you put them in layers with bread and it's kind of, they call it a custard. So it's, I actually make bread and butter pudding like egg and milk and cream and.

• 2:31Jessie Ware?

  So what kind of bread do you use?

• 2:33Speaker 02

  Sour dough.

• 2:34Jessie Ware?

  Okay, what are the fillings?

• 2:36Speaker 02

  Mushroom and spinach, tomato, spring onion and Italian sausage.

• 2:41Jessie Ware?

  Ooh.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  With gruyere cheese on.

• 2:43Jessie Ware?

  Oh God, it's like everything but the kitchen sink.

• 2:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, everything, who knows what it is.

• 2:47Jessie Ware?

  Whose recipe is it?

• 2:48Speaker 02

  Tom Hunt in Feast.

• 2:50Jessie Ware?

  Oh, Tom Hunt's amazing.

• 2:51Speaker 02

  So it's his recipe.

• 2:52Jessie Ware?

  And he's all about no waste.

• 2:54Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, he wanted me to put Parmesan on him, but I didn't.

• 2:57Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, he's amazing, Tom Hunt. So what have you done for pudding?

• 3:01Speaker 02

  I've done roasted apricots, because apricots are around, with saffron, vermouth and honey.

• 3:10Jessie Ware?

  Wow.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  With some yoghurt and I can put some pistachios on top.

• 3:14Jessie Ware?

  Delicious.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:15Jessie Ware?

  That sounds great.

• 3:16Speaker 02

  It's just Greek yoghurt. Well, it always does sound great and then I'm never quite sure because I've not made it before. But I should think it's okay. The fillings are nice, so you can't go wrong really, can you?

• 3:27Jessie Ware?

  Fiona Shaw coming up on the table, Mum.

• 3:38Jessie Ware?

  Fiona, thank you for being here.

• 3:39Speaker 03

  Thank you for having me, Jessie.

• 3:40Jessie Ware?

  You look so glamorous.

• 3:42Speaker 03

  Do I?

• 3:42Jessie Ware?

  Juicy skin, just glorious.

• 3:45Speaker 03

  It's amazing what they can do. Because I've just come back from Ireland where I was at the Barless Literary Festival, which was great fun and I'm a bit hoarse because it's not from speaking great profundities. It's from chatting in between and we're all exhausted. Lovely though.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  So you were in Ireland yesterday.

• 4:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was there for about four days. I was visiting my mum, who's ninety nine.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  Crikey, O'Reilly.

• 4:09Speaker 03

  Ninety nine, it's good, isn't it?

• 4:10Speaker 02

  You're gonna make cold bones then Fiona.

• 4:12Speaker 03

  And she goes, I know, isn't it awful?

• 4:15Speaker 02

  No, it's not awful. The alternative is much worse.

• 4:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, vertical. If you're vertical, you're something.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  Where, where, where does she live?

• 4:23Speaker 03

  She lives in Cork and.

• 4:24Speaker 02

  I love Cork.

• 4:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, Cork is lovely. So she's lived there all her life.

• 4:28Speaker 02

  Is she well?

• 4:29Speaker 03

  She would not leave the house till luckily last summer she had a fall, which we've been waiting for because we need her to have a fall. So she finally left the house, so she's in her home now. But she, she stayed in the house till, you know, ninety eight and a half.

• 4:42Speaker 02

  Wow, good for her. And what's the home like? Is it good, nice?

• 4:46Speaker 03

  Where she's staying now, they're lovely people. They look after her so well. And funny enough, she lived in a very big old house, which I think is what kept her going, is that there's stairs, steps and a huge drive up to the top of the gate where you have to walk up this big path. And I think just walking has, you know, kept her going all that time. And she played the piano every night and sang. And I think singing and playing the piano is one of the best things. So you're in a very good profession.

• 5:11Speaker 02

  Okay, fine.

• 5:12Speaker 03

  Keep singing because I think your brain is on a routine of rhythm and rhyme.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 5:18Speaker 03

  And I think that really is what kept her going.

• 5:21Speaker 02

  What was some of the most memorable songs that she used to play or sing to you?

• 5:25Speaker 03

  Everything I know loathe. Actually, what's very funny is she thought she was getting very modern. She played mainly operatic, you know, tunes. You know, she'd be singing finiculey, finicula, when you're trying to do your homework, that was a nightmare. And, and then she'd also stop halfway through because you'd hear her playing, you'd hear finiculey, finicu- the phone would go and she'd stop and go, oh. And you think, in your head, you think, I've got to sing the last note, finicula. And she would go and answer, hello, hello. And then she'd go back to it again. But in, in later life, she got into modern things. She'd sing things like I start spreading the news. She thought she was being really modern. I'm leaving today, she'd play those. And and she would play, you know, anything we wanted her to play, she'd play.

• 6:09Speaker 03

  So at Christmas, we all played, my brother played the double bass and my younger brother used to play the flute and I used to play the cello.

• 6:15Speaker 02

  You're one of those families. You're that family.

• 6:18Speaker 03

  Not really, I mean, we did, we do, a lot of quarreling would go on, I'll get your elbow out of my way, you know, but we don't, we like.

• 6:23Jessie Ware?

  So can we talk about who was around the dinner table when you were growing up? And what, who was cooking?

• 6:29Speaker 03

  And where?

• 6:30Jessie Ware?

  And where?

• 6:30Speaker 03

  And where, so we lived in, we live in Cork, and in just outside Cork, up a hill, in a place called Montanati, which are these big old houses. With orchards and gardens and really wonderful houses, they're like country houses in the middle of the city. And my mother was very, very social, so she was always going out to something with my very reluctant father, who was exhausted. He was an eye surgeon, would have it done days where she'd say, but we agreed to go, and she was always making him go to things. So we were often left with, we had a house help called Chrissie, and Chrissie would cook for us often. So at lunch, Chrissie always did the potatoes, sometimes she'd leave the potatoes till the evening, and we'd have the potatoes that she'd cooked earlier in the day, in the evening.

• 7:14Speaker 03

  So my mother was a kind of random cook, very interested in cooking for guests, not so interested in cooking for her children.

• 7:23Speaker 03

  That was.

• 7:23Speaker 02

  What was your favourite meal?

• 7:26Speaker 03

  Definitely on a Sunday, just roast chicken, of which there were six of us, and somehow the roast chicken went around for six of us, you know, I got a wing.

• 7:32Speaker 02

  Funny, I think we always did, one chicken may do for a whole family, whereas now you buy two, wouldn't you?

• 7:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, and of course, they were proper chickens, they were running around in a, in a farm, you know, some week before. And also lamb, but my granny was very good at lamb chops, I used to love to stay with my granny, and she would do lamb chops, just delicious. And when, I very rarely taste lamb as good as that now, because you just don't get it, it had a kind of really farm, farm flavour.

• 8:01Jessie Ware?

  So you talked about your bro- you had a younger brother and.

• 8:04Speaker 03

  I had three brothers, um my elder brother John, um who plays a double bass. Um and my younger brother Mark, and we had a younger brother Peter, who sadly was killed in a car accident, um many years ago. Uh who was lovely, he was a rugby player, um I mean, he was a schoolboy, but he was about to play for the county. He was mad about rugby, but he was killed in a car accident, but that's many years ago. And actually, I think the good thing about my mother's age is that it soothed that pain now. I think it's so long ago and she is so old.

• 8:35Jessie Ware?

  How old was she when he died?

• 8:37Speaker 03

  She must have been about fifty something.

• 8:39Jessie Ware?

  How sad.

• 8:39Speaker 03

  It was terrible, yeah, terrible. It I I just moved to London and I was. I had been in London, sorry, I had been to drama school, but I'd just moved to the Royal Shakespeare Company. So it was my debut and it was a big deal for me, but my poor parents couldn't come, they were in a terrible state at that time. But that's a lo- that's a sad story, it's a long time ago.

• 8:58Jessie Ware?

  Um are you a good cook?

• 9:00Speaker 03

  I am quite a good cook, but I am married to a Sri Lankan, who's so I have a lot of Sri Lankan food, so I I've kind of given up on the on the cooking.

• 9:08Jessie Ware?

  What's the dish that she gives you?

• 9:10Speaker 03

  The best dish is cod cheek curry.

• 9:14Jessie Ware?

  Oh.

• 9:14Speaker 03

  Which is really delicious.

• 9:16Jessie Ware?

  Is it? Tell me it's slightly easy. Does she say it's quite easy to make? No?

• 9:19Speaker 03

  She says it takes, it just takes endless hours and of course in Sri Lanka, there are many people to help and here there aren't. But we live near Steve Hat, the fishmonger in Islington.

• 9:29Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 9:29Speaker 03

  And it's the most, you get the most delicious fish sent straight up from, um you know, from Cornwall or you get delicious. So the cod cheek, you you have to order it, just just literally a series of cod cheeks. You you make the curry all day, chopping and chopping and chopping in different angles, that's what they do. You chop the, whatever you're chopping, the garlic or the onion, at a different angle depending on the curry you're making. And then you only add the cod cheeks at the very end, because otherwise they fall apart, but it's utterly delicious.

• 9:57Jessie Ware?

  Is it coconutty?

• 9:59Speaker 03

  It's coconutty.

• 10:00Jessie Ware?

  Have you spent a lot of time in Sri Lanka?

• 10:01Speaker 03

  Yes, and where the food is, of course, very, very, you know, you get, what's very good is I lose weight in Sri Lanka, even though you're eating non-stop, because they really only have rice once a day. You think they eat rice all the time, now, some people may eat rice all the time, but mainly you have rice at lunch, and of course, very little rice, because you have a tiny little bit of whatever the dark, I mean, pork, dark pork curry is just delicious. These blackened, they're blackened meats, having been marinated in these spices. And then lots of tiny things, Kadju curry is lovely, which is cashews made into curries. So you have soft curries and then these very dark curries and very bright green curries of very, very cut things, delicious.

• 10:41Speaker 02

  Why did you meet this wonderful Sri Lankan woman?

• 10:43Speaker 03

  I met her in, um, in New York, more than ten years ago. I was doing Testament to Mary on Broadway and I met her. She's a fascinating person, because I'm now introduced to a whole world of Sri Lanka, which has really opened up my life at the very moment that I might have been closing down my life. It's been great.

• 11:01Jessie Ware?

  So you wouldn't, if we were coming around to yours, you'd get your wife to cook for us?

• 11:05Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 11:06Jessie Ware?

  And it would be the cod-cheek curry?

• 11:07Speaker 03

  That would be one of the many things that you could have. But you could also have, I mean, a roast chicken is never a roast chicken anymore, because it has lots of garlic and spices in it now. And of course, my palate has changed because of that. And so I, I find now the things I used to like rather bland.

• 11:24Jessie Ware?

  Is that because you've married a Sri Lankan woman who uses spices, so many spices?

• 11:28Speaker 03

  Yes, and I think we are naturally, I mean, England has changed, didn't it? It became absolutely obsessed with Indian food, because it's a richer, I mean, we, we, I think the thing that made British food very good or Irish food was the quality of the meat or the quality, but it, nothing much had to be done to it. But actually, it is delicious if somebody has spent ages making the thing, piquant with, with chili or curry.

• 11:53Jessie Ware?

  So you, you've come on to talk about Echo Valley?

• 11:57Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 11:58Jessie Ware?

  Which you haven't seen yet.

• 11:59Speaker 03

  I haven't seen it.

• 12:00Jessie Ware?

  Does this happen a lot when you make films?

• 12:02Speaker 03

  Well, I'm going to see it this evening.

• 12:03Jessie Ware?

  Oh, okay, fine.

• 12:04Speaker 03

  We're very near it, but I I did do A D R in it, which is the, you know, various voicings we had to do in it. So I've seen sections of it.

• 12:12Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 12:12Speaker 03

  But I'm glad, I don't really want to see it until I see it, because the plot is so fabulous and so full of turns and twists and surprises that I just want to absolutely take it all in as a finished thing.

• 12:26Jessie Ware?

  And I I don't think it's giving anything away by saying that you kind of join this the film.

• 12:33Speaker 03

  I played.

• 12:34Jessie Ware?

  Forty five minutes in.

• 12:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:35Jessie Ware?

  And then you're gone. I'm like, hang on, Fiona Shore hasn't taken a part where she's popping in as a maid, do you know what I mean? So you play an important role in the end, or is that giving away too much?

• 12:46Speaker 03

  No, it's not, but in in a very happy way, I was asked to play Julianne Moore's friend. And the friend really never has to carry the film, you know, she has to carry the film. And I was really happy to do it because I just made another film, actually, in New York, where I played a leading part in a film called Park Avenue. So I was very, very happy to go down and do this job. But it was so much more than that because she's a delightful person. So we spent every day on this farm. I played her friend who helps with the problem of which there are many. And and I it was a very good exercise to play the friend. Because I didn't have to elbow anything into the film that would be a colour that would damage the film.

• 13:31Speaker 03

  The part she gets in the film is very, very well written. So I just had to play exactly the thing that they needed, which is the friend.

• 13:36Jessie Ware?

  And you were really brilliant in it.

• 13:37Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 13:38Jessie Ware?

  And it's it's a real page turner of a of a film, you know.

• 13:42Speaker 03

  Who wrote the book?

• 13:43Jessie Ware?

  I don't know.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  No, I'm.

• 13:45Jessie Ware?

  Was it a book?

• 13:46Speaker 03

  No, it's written by, did you see The Mayor of Easton?

• 13:48Jessie Ware?

  Yes.

• 13:49Speaker 03

  Well, it's the same writer.

• 13:50Jessie Ware?

  Ah, okay.

• 13:51Speaker 03

  Who is very good at plots. And so so I I was thrilled and like you, and when I read it, I thought, well, it's just a friend. And then I thought, no, not just a friend. But it's very nice now I have to play a weirdo or anybody who is kind of odd or mad or, you know, like in Bad Sisters where I have to sort of.

• 14:07Jessie Ware?

  Oh, you are.

• 14:08Speaker 03

  Be so big. Be ambiguous, you know, it was just what it is. And and to play with somebody who's just a master of the camera, she really is.

• 14:18Jessie Ware?

  She is, yeah, we were talking just off ca- um off camera, off mic. Julianne Moore, I could, I mean.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  She's so beautiful.

• 14:25Speaker 03

  She's so beautiful.

• 14:25Speaker 02

  And she's aged beautifully.

• 14:27Speaker 03

  She has.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, she she was always beautiful and she's got just as, yeah.

• 14:33Speaker 03

  She has what Isabelle Huppert has. They're both tiny people. She's tiny.

• 14:38Jessie Ware?

  Oh, is she?

• 14:38Speaker 03

  Um. She said this morning to me, she said, I didn't, I forgot you were so tall. I'm exactly the same. I'm exactly the same tall as I always was.

• 14:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, but you you I don't think of you as tall in films. And then you came in and I thought, she's really tall.

• 14:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, but you don't think of, you know, Julianne Moore as small either, because the camera's always meeting you.

• 14:56Speaker 02

  Oh, is that what it is?

• 14:57Speaker 03

  And I think people, you know, Isabelle Huppert is very small. I think people who are small, their features are nearer. And somehow the camera likes that.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  Oh, God, this is where we've gone wrong.

• 15:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, we've gone wrong. We've all got a string, but it's.

• 15:11Jessie Ware?

  I think the camera likes you there too.

• 15:13Speaker 03

  I think as I've got older.

• 15:14Jessie Ware?

  Your theory doesn't work, Fiona.

• 15:16Speaker 03

  I think when I was younger, I was too animated and I was too expressive. But as I've older, I'm tireder and somehow the face hangs and but with Julianne Moore, you know, I saw her this morning. She just looks as fresh as a daisy and somehow the evenness of her features, they've done tests on that. If you have very even features, your eye and your mouth are triangle.

• 15:38Speaker 02

  Beauty, isn't it?

• 15:39Speaker 03

  It's beauty.

• 15:40Jessie Ware?

  That's interesting that you say that you were too animated when you were younger.

• 15:43Speaker 03

  I I think it was in theatre too, and I don't mean that theatre is all animated. It isn't actually. Often it's very, very focused. But something about the need in the theatre to um hold the moral value of the evening, to hold the audience, who is often a thousand people. And to hold the thought, because it's important they hold that thought, a bit like music. That they must know the first phrases of music in order to appreciate the end of the music, you know, and people who lose their memory, they can't follow symphonies because it's amazing how it's a it's a time and motion study, listening to music. You think you're just listening to that bit, but actually it's the first bit that informs the last bit. And in the theatre, you are holding the audience with this.

• 16:28Speaker 03

  With this language that is going to get you from the beginning to the premise to the end. In film, you just have none of that responsibility. You just have to play literally the moment and they will either use it as part of the beat of the film or they won't.

• 16:43Speaker 02

  Do you, when was the last time you did theatre?

• 16:47Speaker 03

  Not for ten years now.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  Do you miss it?

• 16:49Speaker 03

  I do, I'm going to do a play next year, I think I'll do a play next year.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  You tell us.

• 16:52Speaker 03

  No, I'm going to, I'm just going to pour one, I'm going to find one.

• 16:56Speaker 02

  I should think people are banging the door down.

• 16:58Speaker 03

  They, well, people ask me to do a lot of classical work, but my interest in the eighties and nineties was doing those classical plays, but turning them on their heads. And I'm not sure that's where the theatre is now, you know, there's very interesting things happening in the theatre now, which is people often, the audience are being included in the play. I saw um Rhinoceros at the Almeida recently, where there's a weird sound of the rhinoceros, but it's the audience had to make the sound of the rhinoceros. I think there's a much more interactive thing because film and television has become the theatre, the old fashioned theatre in a way. So I think the theatre is having to find a much more on the hoof way and I was really interested in text and turning things upside down.

• 17:40Speaker 02

  Are you ready to eat?

• 17:40Jessie Ware?

  Yes, please.

• 17:41Speaker 03

  What are we having? Is this, what meal are we having? Is it, would you call it a brunch?

• 17:45Speaker 02

  Brunch, yeah.

• 17:46Jessie Ware?

  Yeah. Mum, what what's this called?

• 17:49Speaker 02

  Strata.

• 17:50Jessie Ware?

  It's a bread, a savoury bread and butter pudding.

• 17:53Speaker 03

  But this looks incredible.

• 17:55Jessie Ware?

  It does look really, it does look good mum.

• 17:58Speaker 03

  So how did you get the sponge thing to work so well?

• 18:01Speaker 02

  It's bread.

• 18:02Speaker 03

  You use bread?

• 18:05Speaker 03

  Look at this, I had no idea I was in for such a treat. This is great.

• 18:09Jessie Ware?

  Would you like some salad?

• 18:10Speaker 03

  I'd have a little bit of salad, why not?

• 18:12Jessie Ware?

  Where do, you have a place in um in New York, don't you?

• 18:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:15Jessie Ware?

  Where do you eat for, because brunch is big in New York, right?

• 18:18Speaker 03

  It really is and we eat in all the, you know, whatever the wonderful restaurants are that open at any moment. I wish I'd brought you a list of restaurants, I I eat in wonderful places, but I often like, I love a smoothie for breakfast.

• 18:32Jessie Ware?

  Oh, do you?

• 18:33Speaker 03

  So I love, make a smoothie with nuts and granola and that really does me, and I have a lovely balcony in New York that looks out over the river and so it's wonderful to have that, so I don't go out to brunch that much now. Also, if you are going out to dinner, I am of an age where I cannot eat all day or else I will be the size of a. House, which I nearly have, but so I try not to have, I try to miss one meal.

• 18:58Jessie Ware?

  Okay, so you intermittent fast, kind of.

• 19:00Speaker 03

  Well, I wish I felt like fasting, it doesn't, I'm always full. But I try not to have lunch if I'm going out to dinner.

• 19:06Jessie Ware?

  And that smoothie will do you?

• 19:08Speaker 03

  It will do me, yeah, I mean, it will, I might have some, some tiny thing. But then, the meals in New York, as you know, they kind of, they, they describe them so brilliantly and then something arrives. Because of course, in New York, it's a bit like being on a ship, every single item has had to be brought into the city. It's just like a ship, you know, everything, so when they say, and we've got almonds on the, you know, everything has had to come in in a truck, so they're very proud of everything. But I've just been in Santa Fe, where I've had the best cooking ever.

• 19:40Jessie Ware?

  Really?

• 19:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, and the name of the restaurant is Paloma.

• 19:45Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 19:45Speaker 03

  And it's New Mexican, now, you can, Mexican food is delicious, but when you're there for a long time making a film, as I was, I was making a cowboy film. You can get a bit sick of, you know, if you see another avocado, you're going to die, and, or guacamole. But this was sort of short rib and a sort of bits of, cooked so beautifully in this restaurant. That I had to go back and have the same thing twice, you know when that happens?

• 20:12Jessie Ware?

  Oh.

• 20:13Speaker 03

  Because they're very keen on meat there, and if you're not a meat eater, you would probably be having a less good time. But I'm not a big meat eater, but this was so, so good. And, and some of those restaurants are delightful. And there, of course, the stuff is more local, you don't feel it's been flown in from miles. Let me taste this.

• 20:31Jessie Ware?

  It's really, it's like comfort, yeah, it's really nice.

• 20:34Speaker 02

  I think the sausage helps.

• 20:36Jessie Ware?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:36Speaker 02

  It's Italian sausage.

• 20:38Jessie Ware?

  This is a great brunch one, because you can just bung it in the oven, right?

• 20:42Speaker 03

  And is it a sort of new recipe? They're new to you.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  Um, it's new to me. I saw it in The Guardian.

• 20:48Speaker 03

  Oh, very good. You know, my recipes and houses and upbringing. I'm thinking about, my mother always had these wonderful dinner parties. And they were always doing things to, and we couldn't, this is way before your time, but in the seventies. Where there'd be things like a lime souffle was the thing to have, you know, there was a period. I remember avocados coming in. I remember any fruits from, you know, New Zealand, uh, kiwi fruits. They were not known. And so suddenly every pudding was built with those things.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  I don't think I ever tasted broccoli till I was about eighteen.

• 21:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:21Speaker 02

  You just didn't have broccoli. We always called it avocado pear. You never.

• 21:26Speaker 03

  Yes, you always said avocado pear.

• 21:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, they don't do that now, do they?

• 21:30Speaker 03

  Crushed avocado or whatever it is or squashed them. Yeah, and I remember we used to pick raspberries at a friend's house. And this woman who owned it, she used to say, three p a punnet, three p a punnet. Now that means it was a thousand years ago. You could just pick your own punnet, but they were only in the summer. We only had those fruits when you had them. We had piles of apples, so we always had a lot of apples, apple things.

• 21:51Jessie Ware?

  Did you, you used to get to lick the bowl of the lime souffle?

• 21:55Speaker 03

  Love that. I licked the bowl and I also loved, um. Mum used to get this really small pot of cream that then was whipped up. And I never seemed to get much of the cream. And I used to think I want with pudding, I always wanted a little pudding with my cream. So, and I thought, I used to say, when I grow up, I'll have as much cream as I like, cause I don't at all. No, I'm never going to eat cream, cause it's too dangerous.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  I love cream. Do you want a bit more?

• 22:20Speaker 03

  I don't, I'm gonna go and count myself. I was staying in, um, the Balmoral Hotel, making a series for a long time in Edinburgh. And I had scrambled eggs a lot. And the chef would never tell me why they were so good, of course. On the last day, I said, why are they so good? He said, I'll tell you my secret cream. I said, I've been eating all that cream all day. But it makes scrambled eggs unbelievably good to you.

• 22:41Jessie Ware?

  I'm right in thinking, the bit that you have chocolate cake on your face. On, is it for weddings?

• 22:48Speaker 03

  Three men and a lady.

• 22:49Jessie Ware?

  Three men, was it three men and a baby?

• 22:51Speaker 03

  And a lady.

• 22:52Jessie Ware?

  And a little lady.

• 22:54Speaker 03

  Um.

• 22:54Jessie Ware?

  It still gives me fear that I get food on my face and somebody's not gonna, it was that bit, it was chocolate cake, wasn't it?

• 23:00Speaker 03

  It was a tiny.

• 23:01Jessie Ware?

  Oh, it was on your nose and you thought they were flirting? Yes, it was such a good scene.

• 23:06Speaker 03

  That film has lasted, I'm amazed. People do still talk about it, I mean, it's thirty years ago.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, I've also watched Hot Milk.

• 23:13Jessie Ware?

  Oh, yes.

• 23:14Speaker 02

  It was pretty amazing. You played.

• 23:17Jessie Ware?

  Ro- is it Rose?

• 23:18Speaker 03

  Rose.

• 23:19Speaker 02

  Hmm. Cantankerous, difficult woman.

• 23:21Speaker 03

  Yes, an adaptation of Deborah Levi's novel and it, I mean, Rebecca Langovitz is of course a wonderful writer as well as now a director. And so she was very good at adjusting the novel to film, I think. I mean, in that way she she understood, and she's written a lot of films, I think, so she understood, because the novel is a novel, novels are novels, but it's very good if they can.

• 23:46Jessie Ware?

  Where, where did you shoot that?

• 23:47Speaker 03

  We shot it, it's set in the south of Spain, so these two, this mother and daughter sort of sell up or or borrow a lot of money in the back of their little apartment and they go to help the mother who can't walk, but she can walk. She says she can't walk.

• 24:03Speaker 02

  Why did she say that?

• 24:04Speaker 03

  Well, it is a condition where you think you can't walk.

• 24:07Jessie Ware?

  Yes.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  And she really can't walk and she's of course holding up her daughter's life because the daughter has to look after her. And we shot it in Greece.

• 24:15Jessie Ware?

  Thank you, ma'am.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  Oh, it's in Greece, not Spain.

• 24:18Speaker 03

  But it's set in Spain, so I hope you didn't notice it was Greece.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  No, I didn't.

• 24:21Speaker 03

  Well, that's very good.

• 24:22Jessie Ware?

  Whereabouts in Greece?

• 24:23Speaker 03

  You know, Greece, we were in Marathonos, you know, just outside Athens.

• 24:28Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 24:28Speaker 03

  Well, as in the marathon, I mean, that much further out. So we were in various places around there, around that. So we were very much near the, not so far from the city, but we, we lived out in, we lived out there. And it was just, it's wonderful to make a film where you're put somewhere wonderful to make it, you know, I've just loved that Santa Fe or Edinburgh, I've just made a film in Edinburgh. And then, you know, to be in somewhere like Greece, because I love Greece. I went for many, many years on holidays there, but just to be working there was, and the people.

• 24:57Jessie Ware?

  Oh, the people.

• 24:57Speaker 03

  The people and the, you know, there's all the people working on the film, unlike here where we've all got professions, they've all got other professions. One was a cartoonist, you know, one was, you know, mathematician, one was, they all do other things as well as work on films. And it makes them very rounded people. So it's gorgeous being one of them.

• 25:14Jessie Ware?

  Where did you used to holiday?

• 25:16Speaker 03

  I used to holiday um on Idr.

• 25:19Jessie Ware?

  Oh, okay.

• 25:20Speaker 03

  Uh, a lot.

• 25:22Jessie Ware?

  Was that because you were a big Leonard Cohen fan?

• 25:24Speaker 03

  No, but I knew people who knew Leonard Cohen.

• 25:27Jessie Ware?

  Really?

• 25:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, I knew Mary Ann, Solon, Mary Ann. And I used to holiday, I've done a lot, I, when I did the Greek tragedies. I used to sometimes walk them off. I did Elektra and I'd walk, walked it off by going up to the Peloponnese. In wintertime, doing one of those huge walks over the mountains. So I've seen Greece in many, many different.

• 25:46Jessie Ware?

  I love that, so like to get over, to get over, uh, no, she's, she's, she's.

• 25:51Speaker 03

  No, no, no.

• 25:52Jessie Ware?

  What is that?

• 25:53Speaker 02

  Apricots cooked with sweet vermouth, saffron and honey.

• 25:59Jessie Ware?

  They look so, the colours.

• 26:00Speaker 03

  How long, did you put them in the oven?

• 26:02Speaker 02

  Roasted them.

• 26:04Speaker 03

  For how long?

• 26:05Speaker 02

  Um, uh, twenty five minutes.

• 26:07Speaker 03

  Oh, that's hot, so you just give them a blast?

• 26:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:09Jessie Ware?

  This could work with one of your wife's curries, I reckon. Because with the saffron, but also like it's a bit of a palate cleanser after.

• 26:18Speaker 02

  It's just a little bit of something to have when it's brunch time.

• 26:22Jessie Ware?

  Are you a sweets person?

• 26:23Speaker 03

  I'm very happy to eat this because it's so pure and so.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  Yes, it looks nice, doesn't it? It was just that apricots are in at the moment, so I got fresh apricots from your little greengrocer.

• 26:32Jessie Ware?

  You sound like you're on a winter, they're really in at the moment. Help yourself.

• 26:36Speaker 03

  Thank you, well.

• 26:37Jessie Ware?

  But I love the idea of you walking off, uh, character, just to kind of get them out of your system.

• 26:42Speaker 03

  Some juice.

• 26:43Jessie Ware?

  But also to kind of bid them farewell as well.

• 26:45Speaker 03

  I bid them farewell, yeah, I did, and you know.

• 26:47Jessie Ware?

  In quite an epic way.

• 26:48Speaker 03

  And in hot milk, I was in a wheelchair for most of it.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  I know.

• 26:52Speaker 03

  I would be in a wheelchair all day because I felt it was good for the crew that I was, otherwise. You can't be hopping down, up and down, so I would stay, also it was just better imaginatively. So, um, I would just sit there and get my poor daughter to come and, uh, wheel me on to the cassette. And, and then we would play the thing all day because the crew also have to adjust to the fact that the person's in which. And the ground was very rough, so there was a lot of heaving and pulling and you. And, and that was very, very good, but also I played someone with a kind of a twitch. And I spent ages trying to get this twitch working. Yeah, it's very hard to do because you can do it when you think about it, but of course.

• 27:27Speaker 02

  Oh my god, how could, I couldn't do that.

• 27:29Speaker 03

  You mustn't think about it, so I kind of trained myself into it. It was very hard to get rid of.

• 27:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh really.

• 27:35Speaker 03

  I I do sometimes have to debrief a bit from these films, but going, walking in Greece is the nicest thing to possibly do ever. I was also, I played Happy Days in Epidavros in in the Peloponnese, you know, the the the, you know, the big amphitheatre. And I think it was the first non Greek play to be there, but Beckett is so like the Greek tragedies. So I played it buried up to my neck, no, no microphone, seven thousand people in the audience and a bird singing. I'll never forget this bird just going woo during the evening and I played it. And of course they had it in translation on on various screens and people laughed and they and they just loved it. Buried up my neck and did the play and it was amazing being there.

• 28:20Speaker 03

  And I looked at the audience and I remember having this sort of psychic fusion, thinking I could see them all in togas in my mind's eye. You could see them, you know, two thousand years ago being in togas. This this place had been buried by um an earthquake and then there was another earthquake which revealed it again, which is why they've rediscovered it.

• 28:41Speaker 02

  There's always a few little earthquakes. The loo in my downstairs had to be replaced because it had a crack from an earthquake.

• 28:48Speaker 03

  Where where where were you?

• 28:49Speaker 02

  I'm on a little island called Scoplos. Do you do you want some?

• 28:52Jessie Ware?

  Yes, please.

• 28:53Speaker 02

  Here.

• 28:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:55Jessie Ware?

  Who's been the the the character that's been the hardest to let go of that you've played?

• 28:59Speaker 03

  Funny enough, it's not that I, it's not a method thing because usually at the end of a day, you're quite glad to shed the thing. And in the theatre, of course, you really want to shed it because you've been holding it for three hours, you know. But in my life, many years later, I don't know why, but Hedegabler stays. Because Hedegabler, I mean, I I played it in the Abbey and then on the West End. And then we made a television of it with lovely now gone Dora McCann and Stephen Ray played Alad Lovebug. And it's a long time ago, but there's something about Hedegabler that she's not a heroine, she's a sort of disaster. She she marries this man she doesn't want to marry called Tesman because.

• 29:45Speaker 03

  She has to marry someone. She actually says to the judge, I danced myself to a standstill judge. And something about the way in which people are not heroes or heroines, but are, they are their own tragedy, has stayed with me. I don't think I'm like her at all, but there's something about the middle world of just being in a house where things take ages to unfold. In fact, it's the last twenty four hours of her life because she kills herself, but I just think of Hedda Gabbah often. It's like Ed O'Brien who said, not an hour goes by when I don't think of Chekhov. Well, it's not an hour goes by when I don't think of Ibsen, but I, you know, Chekhov was able to get that too, which is that

• 30:29Speaker 03

  ordinary life, if you can mine it, you find that each one of us has a sort of hidden tragedy and hidden joys, of course. And there was a lovely line in that um Colin Tobe play I did ten years ago where he said it, your sorrows like your dreams belong to yourself. And it's so true, where if you have a great sorrow, a person can condole with you or soothe you, but they can't feel your sorrow because it's your sorrow. And the same, and there's something about Hedda Gabbah that she, she was never, never going to get out of that marriage alive. And I suppose it's a bit like,

• 31:12Speaker 03

  I don't know, T S Eliot saying, you know, people can't stand too much reality, or we all live lives of quiet desperation. I don't know if we do, but a lot of people live lives of quiet desperation. And it's worth remembering when you feel cross with somebody, actually.

• 31:27Speaker 02

  Fiona, what are you reading at the moment?

• 31:30Speaker 03

  So I've just read a book called A Minor Detail by Donna Shibley, who is a Palestinian writer who's written the most narrow book. It's tiny. And it's about an incident in nineteen forty eight in the desert. And then it's about this woman now who investigates that incident. And honestly, I was absolutely gripped by it. Absolutely brilliant, brilliant, brilliant book.

• 32:06Speaker 00

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• 32:42Jessie Ware?

  Last supper, Fiona.

• 32:44Speaker 03

  Last supper.

• 32:45Jessie Ware?

  Can we start with a starter?

• 32:47Speaker 03

  I recently, I think I even put it in my, in my diary. You know, I thought, must put that down. And I just can't think of what it was. I'm trying to think now, what would I like for starters? I would like, just don't think what, what, in what country would I like the food to be from?

• 33:01Jessie Ware?

  You can, you can.

• 33:02Speaker 03

  Anywhere. You can have a whole day of food if you like. What do I love? Those short, those short ribs sounded delicious. They sounded delicious. It may have been that very thing. As your main or your starter? As my main. Now, a starter is a tormenting thing, isn't it? Give me a few, give me, give me a menu.

• 33:20Jessie Ware?

  Oh my God.

• 33:20Speaker 03

  Do you have starters in Sri Lankan food? What would you start with?

• 33:24Jessie Ware?

  No, you can't just have everything, don't you?

• 33:26Speaker 03

  Everything all at the same time. What would I have? Um.

• 33:28Jessie Ware?

  Something from your childhood, something your mum made. We're really feeding you.

• 33:33Speaker 03

  I mean, I'd probably go into the pudding easier. That's probably.

• 33:35Jessie Ware?

  Okay, let's do the pudding or start with the pudding.

• 33:36Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, I think the pudding probably would be something like apple pie and cream or, or raspberries and cream. You know, very basic raspberries and cream.

• 33:45Jessie Ware?

  Oh, there isn't. The three P palate.

• 33:47Speaker 03

  I mean, I can't do, I can't say three P of palate. I, I think maybe that's about memory, isn't it? Memory and food. But I've eaten such delicious things. I think, yes, my main course would be those short rib. And on the side, a sort of mashed something, wouldn't it? It would have to have.

• 34:01Jessie Ware?

  Potato?

• 34:02Speaker 03

  A potato, but it isn't just a potato. Maybe it's got, I'll say avocado in it, but something like that.

• 34:07Jessie Ware?

  Like gratin potatoes, yes.

• 34:09Speaker 03

  Wouldn't that be delicious? And then some delicious, I don't know. It has to be something like spinach or something very, very good green to go with that.

• 34:17Speaker 02

  See, I like cabbage.

• 34:18Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 34:19Speaker 02

  I thought you're Irish, Fiona, can I remind you?

• 34:21Speaker 03

  Well, probably with that in mind, my starter, because I'm hoping that my stomach would be able to expand.

• 34:26Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, it will.

• 34:27Speaker 03

  I think I would love something like a delicious lobster bisque or.

• 34:31Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 34:32Speaker 03

  I'd love that to start, or a fish chowder or something, but of course then you wouldn't have any room for the mains.

• 34:37Jessie Ware?

  No, you're thinking to you literally.

• 34:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, or scallop, something.

• 34:41Speaker 02

  And what do you drink?

• 34:43Speaker 03

  I would drink.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  You like nice wine?

• 34:45Speaker 03

  I would love, yeah, I try not to drink with wine because this really is bad for your skin.

• 34:50Speaker 02

  Is it?

• 34:50Speaker 03

  So I have, normally have a gin and tonic, one gin and tonic in the evening, that's it, because if I'm working.

• 34:56Speaker 02

  What's your gin?

• 34:58Speaker 03

  Concealed gin, which is slightly aromatic and delicious. There's also a phenomenal gin from Scotland. Um, in a blue bottle, uh, which has got kelp in it.

• 35:10Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 35:10Speaker 03

  And it's called Isle of Harris gin. It's very expensive and very delicious.

• 35:16Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 35:16Speaker 03

  That's very.

• 35:17Speaker 02

  Which tonic?

• 35:18Speaker 03

  Um, fever tree tonic.

• 35:20Speaker 02

  Fever tree, yeah.

• 35:21Speaker 03

  And I love that. And then I don't drink much wine. But if I were drinking wine, I would like, um. I think probably a Barolo, but it has to be very good one, because they're not always delicious. But I had worked with a composer once who brought a bottle of Barolo and he did this thing of decanting it twice.

• 35:43Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 35:43Speaker 03

  So he did it like this into, you know, poured, poured, poured it, all the air through it into a jug. And then decanted it into a other jug or a decanter. And you have to have it correct. And then it tastes like multiple, multiple things.

• 35:59Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 35:59Jessie Ware?

  Where were you?

• 36:00Speaker 03

  I was in London, but he was doing the music for a show I was in and he was an Italian composer. But there's also lovely wines, anything from the north of Italy, I pretty well like, the Obelos or any of those. But there's also, if you go over to Slovenia, which is just over the. Um, the, over the mountain, there is a white wine that is called Crasno. That is not particularly expensive, but because it's in the same mountain top. As produces those northern Italy wines, it's got a kind of stony taste, flinty taste. Uh, also, some of the wines from the, um, from Sicily have that, don't they? They have a volcanic.

• 36:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:38Speaker 03

  So they're not fizzy wines, but there's a hint of something, something fizzy and they're dry, dry, dry.

• 36:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:46Jessie Ware?

  I really enjoyed, and I don't know why they're like this, because it's very quite lush where we were, but. In Portugal, I was having those of Vino Verde, and that's got a little like mineral fizz to it too. And I don't know.

• 36:57Speaker 03

  Slightly. Mm, Portuguese wines are delicious.

• 37:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, Matthias Rose, you don't remember that?

• 37:03Jessie Ware?

  I do.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  The flat bottle.

• 37:04Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  And everyone had candles in it, yeah, in. Bistro.

• 37:09Jessie Ware?

  Bistro.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  It was always a bistro, no bistros left, are there? And you had, the candles sat there and it was very dark and that was the only light. And the more wax that went down it, the better the bistro.

• 37:24Speaker 03

  But there's also, Hungarian wines are very good, but we don't know, we don't have them enough. But when I was in Hungary, I was in Budapest doing, um, a, a series. The driver there said, this is the best one, it had a blue label and I can't remember the name, but, but. It was really delicious wine and you can't, I don't, I can't get it.

• 37:40Speaker 02

  I, I have, have friends who've just been in the Balkans on holiday and they said the Albanian wine was amazing. But I was sitting in our cafe in Greece International. And I said, oh, Yanni, what's the red wine like? He said, this is good, but it's going to be better next week. And I said, oh, why? He said, the new wine is coming from Bulgaria.

• 38:00Jessie Ware?

  Oh, wow, that's bad.

• 38:02Speaker 02

  Because Greek wines are great now.

• 38:04Speaker 03

  Delicious, because there's, but also if you're in Greece, I felt the same about your Albanian stories, that if you're Albania. There's a sort of way in which the sun, the heat, the air is affecting the way you're, and of course, there's nothing in the wines except grapes.

• 38:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:18Speaker 03

  And you can drink pilot.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  And they're barely, and they're barely alcoholic, I think.

• 38:22Speaker 03

  That's the big thing.

• 38:23Speaker 02

  Is there a part that you've not yet played that you would like to play?

• 38:27Speaker 03

  Many, but.

• 38:29Speaker 02

  But one that's kind of slightly eluded you because you've never been in the right place at the right time. But it's something you'd really love to do.

• 38:36Speaker 03

  Well, there are two parts I probably have been offered, but I didn't play. And one is Cleopatra. And because the language at the end of Cleopatra is so magnificent. But I never felt, I think when I was asked to do it, it was the wrong moment. I was doing something else. And the other one is, of course, I never played Lady Macbeth because I always thought the part wasn't good enough. But when I see it now, because I often play smaller parts. You don't need, you know, I've played Mother Courage, you know, those ones that carry the whole evening and are very long. And so you get spoilt and feel that you have to be holding most of the scenes. In fact, probably I should have done that. But I don't think of film parts in that way at all, not at all.

• 39:17Speaker 03

  In fact, what I'm looking for is the new, new directors, young directors. Who are looking at something at another angle, seriously at another angle, not just, you know. But holding the integrity of the thing. That's what, that's what, all older directors who do it, you want people who have got a vision.

• 39:37Speaker 02

  You, this may be, you may have already answered this with the raspberries, but can you give us a nostalgic taste that can transport you back somewhere?

• 39:45Speaker 03

  A lot of tastes. I mean, the, I suppose, actually, if I had a lime souffle, that would take me back.

• 39:53Speaker 02

  The lime souffle.

• 39:53Speaker 03

  A lime souffle.

• 39:54Speaker 02

  Would that be a happy?

• 39:55Speaker 03

  Or be, oh no, a lot, a lot would be very happy. I mean, roast chicken can pretty well take you back, can't it? Because.

• 40:01Speaker 02

  The smell of roast chicken, I love it, yeah.

• 40:04Speaker 03

  Just the seeping things. Yeah, I mean plum pudding, Christmas cake. Because my mom and the lady who used to help, they always made all the plum puddings. They'd make them in October and they'd keep them.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  What's a plum pudding?

• 40:16Speaker 03

  Christmas pudding.

• 40:17Speaker 02

  Christmas pudding. Well, does Christmas pudding have plums in? Well, they can.

• 40:21Speaker 03

  They're meant to be, there used to be plum pudding, it can, whatever fruit you have, but they're called, they used to be called plum pudding.

• 40:25Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 40:26Speaker 03

  In the 19th century where I was brought up. And then Christmas cake. So Christmas cake, even though, again, you know, these things we can't eat much of now. But the smell of Christmas cake can make a whole world. And because I went away. To, you know, I went to university in Ireland and then I went to drama school. I would go back, of course, pretty well every Christmas and there's a lot of Christmases, not all of them, because I sometimes was working in London, but mainly went back. Is that that thing of going back and the airlink's hostess saying, be very careful on the steps, they're a bit slippy, getting off, you know, because it was freezing cold when you arrive.

• 40:58Speaker 02

  It's always raining.

• 40:59Speaker 03

  Is such a, and earlier when I used to go back on the boat when I was seasick and I'd get back home and from drama school, you know, I'd come back on the ferry to Cork and my dad would pick me up and I'd be so seasick. And but the smell of Christmas cake would just suddenly make everything, but it's safety as much.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  The spices, the cloves and everything.

• 41:17Speaker 03

  Everything. And they're feeding it with whiskey or whatever it is, so that it's marinated and almost soggy. Absolutely delicious.

• 41:25Jessie Ware?

  So, yeah, theatre next year.

• 41:28Speaker 03

  I would do theatre, I'm going to do a few films more, but films are gorgeous things because they're whole worlds, but they are shorter. A play is a marvelous commitment if you can bear to make it.

• 41:38Jessie Ware?

  West End or Broadway?

• 41:40Speaker 03

  West End and Broadway maybe.

• 41:41Jessie Ware?

  Sure, let's transfer.

• 41:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:44Jessie Ware?

  Um, thank you so much.

• 41:45Speaker 03

  Thank you both very much. I am full stop.

• 41:48Jessie Ware?

  I'm so sorry.

• 41:49Speaker 03

  With delicious conversation and delicious food.

• 41:51Speaker 02

  Good, good, good.

• 41:52Jessie Ware?

  Good luck with Echo Valley.

• 41:53Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 41:54Jessie Ware?

  And um.

• 41:54Speaker 02

  Hot Milk.

• 41:55Speaker 03

  Thank you so much.

• 42:10Jessie Ware?

  Fiona Shaw on Table manners is just the most delightful morning of my year, I think. I love her so much.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  I could sit and talk to her forever about theatre and books.

• 42:22Jessie Ware?

  I think there should be a University of Fiona Shaw.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, she was lovely.

• 42:26Jessie Ware?

  I would enroll straight away.

• 42:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:28Jessie Ware?

  Um, I hope to see Fiona Shaw on stage next year.

• 42:33Speaker 02

  Such a lovely, warm person.

• 42:34Jessie Ware?

  Just gorgeous.

• 42:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:36Jessie Ware?

  And so generous about everybody.

• 42:37Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 42:38Jessie Ware?

  Echo Valley is out now, it's really, really good and um Hot Milk is out in July. Emma Mackie is fantastic in it. Also loved seeing Patsy Ferran as a Spanish nurse, love her. It's out and um you should watch both of them. Fiona is unbelievable in both. The food was so good, Mum.

• 42:58Speaker 02

  Did you like it?

• 42:59Jessie Ware?

  I will make that for a brunch. It was, it seemed like it was really, not easy, it wasn't that, but it just seemed really kind of.

• 43:07Speaker 02

  They said you can make it the night before in one of the American books. So that, and I thought, shall I make it last night? But I'd cooked the mushrooms, I'd done the spinach. And I did the sausage yesterday. And then all I did this morning was the tomato and spring onion, which I couldn't really taste. But you make a kind of, he calls it a custard. So you heat the milk with cheese in and then add eggs.

• 43:32Jessie Ware?

  It was really tasty. Thank you, Tom Hunt.

• 43:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:35Jessie Ware?

  And I feel like the apricots went down very well.

• 43:38Speaker 02

  Do you think I forgot to put my pistachios on it?

• 43:40Jessie Ware?

  Never mind. It was delicious. And we'll see you next week. Thanks so much for listening.

• 44:07Speaker 00

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