Kim Hill

It's proving to be an unlikely-sounding global hit. The six-part Netflix documentary series Cheer follows the US's best college cheer-leading squad, Navarro College from Texas, as they train for the… Video, Audio

Under the Twitter hashtag #CoReadingVirus, the nature and travel writer Robert Macfarlane is doing his bit to fight back against the boredom and increasing isolation many are experiencing as health… Audio

Dubbed a 'dreamlike masterpiece' and 'one of the defining British films of the decade' in a 5 star review by film critic Mark Kermode, you won't have seen many movies like Bait before. A story of… Audio

Consultant clinical virologist (and Naked Scientist) Dr Chris Smith returns with the latest on what we're discovering about COVID-19 and how it's spreading. This week, a team of Imperial College… Audio

Like other residents of Paris, journalist and science writer Laura Spinney is holed up in her home in the French capital: she's only able to venture out if she can produce an official certificate… Audio

Poet and writer Kate Camp returns for the latest instalment of Kate's Klassics. This week she reviews Maya Angelou's autographical work from 1969, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, a celebration of the… Video, Audio

The threat of Covid-19 invites us to think as communities rather than as individuals, says Irish poet and conflict mediator Pádraig Ó Tuama. Audio

Hilary Mantel has won two Man-Booker awards and is tipped for a third with the release of The Mirror & The Light, the final book in her "Wolf Hall" trilogy which follows the final chapters of Thomas… Audio

Professor Rewi Newnham (Ngapuhi) from Victoria University of Wellington studies ancient pollen for what it can tell us about our changing vegetation, and our changing climate. His early experiences… Audio

Dr Maysoon Salama is the manager of the An-Nur Early Childhood Centre in Wigram. Her husband was badly injured, and her son Atta Elayyan killed, in the attack on Christchurch's Al Noor Mosque on 15th… Audio

How will the ongoing global upheaval over the novel coronavirus outbreak shape our future lives? Bryan Walsh is TIME's former international editor and now the Future Correspondent for Axios, covering… Audio

Dr Chris Smith, consultant virologist at Cambridge University and one of BBC Radio 5 Live's Naked Scientists, is back, with the latest info on COVID-19, and practical advice to help us manage the… Audio

Actor, playwright and painter Carl Bland wrote and co-directed Mr Red Light, a comic story about a bank robbery that goes wrong (so badly wrong in fact that the would-be robber ends up taking hostages… Audio

Rajorshi (Raj) Chakraborti is an Indian-born novelist, essayist and short story writer. He has also lived and studied in Canada, England and Scotland, and now lives with his family in Wellington. Audio

Taking the conventional wedding rom com and giving it a First Nations twist, Australia's ILBIJERRI Theatre Company and New Zealand's Te Rehia Theatre Company bring cultures together in Black Ties. Audio

Irish director and choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan (aka Micháel MacAodhagáin-O'Dobhailen) was last seen at the festival in 2018 with a production of Swan Lake. He returns with the Teac Da sa… Video, Audio

Oscar-winning songwriter, and one half of world-conquering comedy folk duo Flight of the Conchords, Bret McKenzie is also one of this year's Festival of The Arts' curators. He's assembled an eclectic… Audio

American artist and musician Laurie Anderson is one of the curators of this year's NZ Festival of the Arts. Anderson tells Kim Hill she feels unchanged by the decades that've passed since she… Video, Audio