Helena Merriman | |
---|---|
Nationality | British |
Occupation | Journalist |
Employer | BBC |
Notable work | Tunnel 29 |
Children | 2 |
Website | helenamerriman |
Helena Merriman is a journalist and broadcaster. She is the creator of the award-winning BBC Radio 4 podcast Tunnel 29 and author of the book of the same title.
Tunnel 29 was a 10-part podcast series, launched by the BBC in October 2019, revealing how a group of young men tunnelled under the Berlin Wall in the early 1960s to smuggle people out of East Berlin. [1] The podcast had over 3 million listeners. [2] It won the Best Radio Podcast and Best Moment awards at the British Podcast Awards 2020: "A beautifully crafted and well-timed podcast that tunnelled right into our hearts. The series gathered TV and press coverage across the world, and helped bring the medium – and an incredible story – to a brand new audience. Brilliant work." [3]
The book Tunnel 29: The True Story of an Extraordinary Escape Beneath the Berlin Wall was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2021 to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall. [4] It was named one of The Economist's best books of 2021. [5] Writing in The Guardian , Philip Oltermann described the book as a "thrilling page-turner". [4]
The television rights were acquired by Sister. Other bidders included See-Saw, Temple Hill and Endeavor [6]
Merriman is married with two children. She lives in London. [7]
In 2018, Merriman was diagnosed with otosclerosis, a genetic condition that causes loss of hearing. The condition, affecting the hearing in her right ear, was brought on after the birth of her second child. After an operation to restore her hearing, she is able to hear again but suffers with extreme tinnitus. The problem was the genesis of an idea for Room 5, a podcast. [8]
Helena Bonham Carter is an English actress. Known for her roles in blockbusters and independent films, particularly period dramas, she has received various accolades, including a British Academy Film Award and three Screen Actors Guild Awards, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards, four British Academy Television Awards, nine Golden Globe Awards, and five Primetime Emmy Awards.
Sandra Birgitte Toksvig is a British-Danish writer, comedian, broadcaster, actor, podcaster, TV presenter and producer on British radio, stage, and television. She is also a political activist, having co-founded the Women's Equality Party in 2015. She has written plays, novels, and books for children. In 1994, she came out as a lesbian.
Julia Charlotte L. Davis is an English actress, comedian, director and writer. She is known for writing and starring in the BBC Three comedy Nighty Night (2004–2005) and the comedies Hunderby (2012–2015) and Camping (2016), which she also directed. Davis has been noted by critics for creating boundary-pushing black comedy that centres female anti-hero characters.
Fiona Susannah Grace "Fi" Glover is a British BBC journalist and presenter who currently presents the Fortunately podcast, The Listening Project for BBC Radio 4 and My Perfect Country for the BBC World Service.
Natalie Louise Haynes is an English writer, broadcaster, classicist, and comedian.
Josie Isabel Long is a British comedian. She started performing as a stand-up at the age of 14 and won the BBC New Comedy Awards at 17.
Dame Harriet Mary Walter is a British actress. Her film appearances include Sense and Sensibility (1995), The Governess (1998), Villa des Roses (2002), Atonement (2007), The Young Victoria (2009), A Royal Affair (2012), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), Denial (2016), The Sense of an Ending (2017), Rocketman (2019) and Ridley Scott's The Last Duel (2021). On television she starred as Natalie Chandler in the ITV drama series Law & Order: UK (2009–14), as Lady Prudence Shackleton in four episodes of Downton Abbey (2013–15), in the miniseries London Spy (2015), as Clementine Churchill in The Crown (2016), in Patrick Melrose (2018), as Lady Caroline Collingwood in Succession (2018–2021) and in the third season of Killing Eve (2020). She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2011 for services to drama.
Dame Hilary Mary Mantel, is a British writer whose work includes historical fiction, personal memoirs and short stories. Mantel has twice been awarded the Booker Prize, the first time for the 2009 novel Wolf Hall, a fictional account of Thomas Cromwell's rise to power in the court of Henry VIII, and secondly for the 2012 novel Bring Up the Bodies, the second instalment of the Cromwell trilogy. Mantel was the first woman and fourth person to receive the award twice, following in the footsteps of J. M. Coetzee, Peter Carey and J. G. Farrell. The third instalment of the trilogy, The Mirror & the Light, was released on 5 March 2020 in the UK and the following July was longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize.
Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo,, is a British author and academic. Evaristo is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London, one of fewer than 30 black female professors in the UK out of around 20,000 professors overall. She is also President-elect of the Royal Society of Literature (2022-2026), the first person of colour to assume the role since its inception in 1820. Her eighth book, the novel, Girl, Woman, Other, won the Booker Prize in 2019, making her the first black woman and the first black British person to win it. In 2020 she won the British Book Awards: Fiction Book of the Year and Author of the Year, as well as the Indie Book Award for Fiction as well as many other awards. The novel was one of Barack Obama's 19 Favourite Books of 2019 and Roxane Gay's Favourite Book of 2019.
Bridget Louise Christie is an English stand-up comedian, actress and writer. She has written and performed 12 Edinburgh Festival Fringe shows and several comedy tours, in addition to radio and television work. She has received British and international comedy awards and is also an award-winning newspaper columnist and author.
Sara Patricia Pascoe is an English comedian and writer. She has appeared on TV programmes including 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown for Channel 4, QI for BBC and Taskmaster for the digital channel Dave.
Susan Grace Calman is a Scottish comedian, television presenter, writer and panellist on a number of BBC Radio 4 shows including The News Quiz and I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
Helen Zaltzman is an English podcaster, broadcaster and writer. She produces the linguistics podcast The Allusionist, the entertainment podcast Answer Me This!, and the Veronica Mars recap podcast Veronica Mars Investigations.
Katie Cariad Lloyd is a British comedian, actor, writer, and podcaster who has been performing since 2007. She was nominated in 2011 for Best Newcomer at the Fosters Edinburgh Comedy Awards for her debut solo show, Lady Cariad's Characters. She also won the Edtwinge award for most positively tweeted-about show during the Fringe. She is a member of the improvisational comedy group Austentatious and teaches improv.
Noo Saro-Wiwa is a British-Nigerian author, noted for her travel writing. She is the daughter of Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa.
My Dad Wrote a Porno is a British podcast hosted by Jamie Morton, James Cooper, and Alice Levine. Each episode features Morton reading a new chapter of an amateur erotic novel, titled Belinda Blinked, written by his father under the pen name Rocky Flintstone. Morton, Cooper, and Levine react to the material and provide running commentary. Cooper and Levine are hearing the chapter for the first time, whereas Morton usually reads the chapter before recording the episode. As of 2021, the series has had over 280 million downloads. On 11 May 2019, HBO aired a comedy special of the show which features a "lost chapter" from one of the books. The special was filmed over two nights in front of a live audience at the Roundhouse theatre in London.
Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ is a Nigerian writer. Her 2017 debut novel, Stay With Me, won the 9mobile Prize for Literature and the Prix Les Afriques. She was awarded the Future Awards Africa Prize for Arts and Culture in 2017.
Mary Colwell is an environmentalist and freelance producer and author. She previously worked for the BBC Natural History Unit, with her husband, Julian Hector.
The British Podcast Awards were established in 2017 to reward and reflect the burgeoning podcast productions in Great Britain. The awards combine selections by an industry panel with public vote awards such as the Listeners Choice award. In 2021, readers of the weekly Great British Podcasts email will create the shortlist for the new Best International podcast.
Mary Paulson-Ellis is a Scottish writer and novelist. She writes across the genres of literary, crime and historical fiction. Her work has appeared in the Guardian and been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her books have received a number of awards. Paulson-Ellis’ first novel, The Other Mrs Walker (2016) became a Times bestseller and was named Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year in 2017.