The Quest for Mary Magdalene Interviews on BBC Radio

Old Broadcasting House this morning.

I was interviewed this morning on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour programme about my new book, The Quest for Mary Magdalene.  I had not told anyone that I would be on.  But immediately afterwards I received a number of emails and texts from friends and acquaintances saying that they 'just happened' to catch me on the radio.  Most of these were men.

Jenni Murray

The interview was live and face to face with Jenni Murray.

You can listen to the broadcast here; my bit about Mary Magdalene begins at 21.45 into the programme.

I also did a recorded interview for the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme to be broadcast tomorrow, Saturday.  This interview involved sitting in an empty room looking at a red light and a microphone and hearing somebody at the other end of my earphones with whom I had a conversation.  I take it on trust that something really happened.

The whole experience was eerie, both interviews. The BBC's Old Broadcasting House is comprised of the original Art Deco building to which has been added a modern glass and steel structure.  Altogether the place is huge inside, a warren of rooms with heavy soundproof doors and corridors that confusingly go round and round corners as though designed to ensure you can never get out and that boiling oil can be dropped on your head while you are inside.

Anybody there?

Suddenly I was smoothly and silently led into a room and placed opposite Jenni Murray; it reminded me of a hospital operating room and I wondered if I was about to have my tonsils taken out.

The Scottish interview was in a building round the corner and as you can see from the photograph there was nobody there. I might as well have been talking to a Martian.  In fact what passed through my mind was Mary Magdalene finding herself in the empty tomb.

The BBC Scotland interview can be heard here at 1 hour 34 minutes and 40 seconds into the programme.