Commonwealth Poetry Podcast to feature HRH The Duchess of Cornwall

On Sunday 12 June 2022, HRH The Duchess of Cornwall and Dame Joanna Lumley are set to launch a brand-new podcast that over 54 episodes will explore the poetry, the heritage and the people of each of the 54 countries of the Commonwealth.

Hosted by award-winning podcaster Gyles Brandreth and his daughter, Aphra Brandreth, in fortnightly thirty-minute episodes over the next two years, with different guests for every episode, the Commonwealth Poetry Podcast will celebrate the poetry of the Commonwealth with people from across the Commonwealth.

In the first episode, recorded in the Garden Room at Clarence House in London ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting starting in Rwanda on 20 June, the Duchess of Cornwall, Vice-Patron of the Royal Commonwealth Society, talks about her travels across the Commonwealth and her favourite British poets, including Robert Burns, Ted Hughes and John Betjeman (who she knew) – and she and Joanna Lumley and Gyles and Aphra Brandreth read poems together (alternating verses) encouraging people to meet up for informal poetry slams over tea and coffee with friends and neighbours.

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Giles Brandreth:

“This is literary tourism – a chance to explore 54 countries across six continents.   We are thrilled to have the Duchess of Cornwall and Joanna Lumley as our first guests talking about the British poetry that matters to them.  In our next episode we’re visiting Rwanda, a beautiful country with a troubled past, and meeting a Rwandan Poet who confronts both its beauty and its pain.  Then it’s St Kitts and Nevis, Cameroon, Solomon Islands, Australia, Cyprus.  In 54 episodes, we’re going around the Commonwealth – home to two and a half billion people – using poetry as our guide.  In some episodes there is singing and dancing, too.”

The Commonwealth Poetry Podcast is produced by the University of Chester which currently has students and staff from 28 different Commonwealth countries.