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Laurie Nunn on Sex Education, Mary Jean Chan, Podcast news

Laurie Nunn on creating the Netflix teen comedy-drama Sex Education; Costa Poetry Award winner Mary Jean Chan; news of the latest podcast trends

A teenage sex therapist on a high school campus is the premise of the hit Netflix series Sex Education. Starring Asa Butterfield and Gillian Anderson, its first season attracted 40m viewers in the first weeks of streaming and it鈥檚 back for a second series. Writer and creator Laurie Nunn discusses balancing serious sexual content with humour, why it鈥檚 hard to pin down the location and era of the series, and the debt it owes to the American high school movies of the '80s and '90s.

All this week Front Row is talking to the winners of the different categories of the Costa Book Awards. Tonight Samira hears from the poetry winner, Mary Jean Chan. Chan was a competitive fencer, representing Hong Kong, and her first collection takes its title, 贵濒猫肠丑别, from an offensive technique in the sport, but it also suggests the vulnerability of the body.

At the end of last year came news that podcasts will now be eligible for the Pulitzer Prize for Audio Reporting. What does this mean about the status and quality of podcasts and what are the trends in their consumption, whether streamed or downloaded via Apple, Spotify, 麻豆社 Sounds and others? Podcaster and critic Caroline Crampton joins us to discuss this along with Kate Hutchison, co-fouder of Lasso Audio, a new podcast talent agency based in New York.

Presenter Samira Ahmed
Producer Jerome Weatherald

Available now

28 minutes

Laurie Nunn on Sex Education

Laurie Nunn on Sex Education

Asa Butterfield
and聽Ncuti Gatwa
Photo credits L and Main: Netflix

Sex Education 2 streams on Netflix from 17 Jan聽

Main image: Tanya Reynolds and Patricia Allison

Costa Poetry Award - Mary Jean Chan

Costa Poetry Award - Mary Jean Chan
Mary Jean Chan

Her debut poetry collection:聽

Broadcast

  • Thu 9 Jan 2020 19:15

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