Zola Previews

My radio series, Emile Zola: Blood, Sex & Money, airs in just over a week and the publicity machine is cranking up.

One of the biggest coups was getting Glenda Jackson in to play Adelaïde Fouque, the matriarch of the Rougon and Macquart families, and our narrator. And, happily, this is getting a lot of coverage for the series. There was a flurry of coverage when the autumn season was announced and I listed some of it here. But I'll populate this page with coverage as it appears.

Glenda was interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Front Row on 9 November about the series and her career as actor and politician and you can listen to that below:

Start the Week on Monday 16 November was recorded in Paris, looking at the legacy of Zola in modern France. Andrew Marr was interviewing Agnès Desarthe, Robert Gildea, and Karim Miské. It was recorded before the horrific events of Friday 13 November, but its discussion of France's identity and its threats are unnervingly apposite. You can listen to that below:

Glenda Jackson presented a documentary, recorded in Paris, exploring Zola's work, interviewing the great Zola scholar Henri Mitterand, Zola's great-granddaughter and more, visiting Paris, Médan, and Aix-en-Provence. It was first broadcast on Monday 16 November and then repeated twice on Tuesday 24 November. You can listen to that below:

There are some audio clips that the BBC have put together:

• Glenda Jackson as Aunt Didi welcomes you to the story
• Writers Olly Emanuel, Martin Jameson and me discuss adapting the books
• David Tobin talks about the music he and his fellow composers have written for the series

There's a long interview with Glenda Jackson in the Radio Times (21-27 November, pp. 120-121, 123), the season is the top pick of the week and episode 1 is a choice of the day, with a very appreciative write-up by Jane Anderson. We're pick of the day in the Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, Independent, Independent on Sunday, i, Daily Mail, Times and probably more...

I've written a couple of short things for the BBC website.

• A short piece looking at seven of his political, artistic and literary battles, from Manet to 'J'Accuse...!'
• A prose version for people who are less excited by Buzzfeed-type lists.

I did a substantial interview with Thomas Oléron Evans for the Little Written podcast series. 

There are lots of great-sounding clips from the episodes here and a very nicely designed family tree here.

And there's a really nice trailer doing the rounds too. This is it from Today on 19 November 2015.

There's an interesting article by Sue Roberts (overall series producer) and Sophie Zurawski (composer) about commissioning and writing the music for the series, with links to the isolated music tracks.

Gillian Reynolds and Pete Naughton previewed season 2 very favourably in their podcast for the Telegraph.

There's a nice interview with Glenda Jackson in The Telegraph, in which she admits that on the first day she was nervous. Well I was there and I can tell you the room was in awe...