Saturday Live: Pam Ayers and Neil Sedaka's Inheritance Tracks

Editor's Note: Saturday Live is Radio 4's Saturday morning magazine show featuring extraordinary stories and remarkable people. You can listen to the show here. In this blog presenter Sian Williams gives us an insight into her week and looks ahead to the next show. - CM

It's that time of year when anxious parents sit on the edges of their small assembly chairs, willing their children to get through the nativity play without incident. My six year old son is about to perform the lead role of Little Beaver (no, we can't see any Christmas significance there, either). He doesn't need a script, he says, and if he forgets his lines, he'll just say blah, blah, blah and everyone will laugh.

My daughter, who is in the Christmas Story, albeit as a "Fairy" Shepherd, is learning her role and is insistent I'm getting it wrong when I run it through it with her and when it's her turn for the limelight, will probably mumble into her chest, if she speaks at all. What is it that makes some embrace the stage and others want to run away from it?

I was reminded of the intensity of performance on last week's Saturday Live, when Murray Lachlan Young read a poem in front of a handful of us in the studio and millions at home. Delivering something you've written and allowing others to judge whether they like it, must be terrifying, but it's bread and butter to him.

Nothing though, he said, could compare to the sort of stage performance experienced by our studio guest, this week. Pam Ayres, said Murray, is the only poet who can - and has - filled the Sydney Opera House. She'll be joining us to explain why a former civil service clerk decided to write verse for a living and become one of our most popular performers.

Also in the programme, an artist who says she developed an ability - even, a necessity - to paint, after trying to commit suicide by throwing herself under a train. A listener talks about why his blue RAF hat is so important and Benedict Allen explains the tourist's thrill of dangerous places.

There'll be Laughter in the Rain with Neil Sedaka's Inheritance Tracks and JP Devlin will put on his tartan knee length socks to Shang-a-Lang with Les McKeown from the Bay City Rollers.

I hope you can join us, Saturday Live, at 9.

Sian Williams presents Saturday Live on Radio 4.

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