Cover of Garlic & Pearls

Garlic & Pearls

Garlic & Pearls

By: Muriel Zagha and Suzanne Raine
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Suzanne and Muriel examine a series of very different things – from a film to a kitchen utensil, a model train to a bar of soap – that define British or French attitudes, each explaining her cultural background to the other and trying to get to the essence of what makes the British British and the French French.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Garlic & Pearls Media Ltd Social Sciences
Episodes
  • The boudoir: sulking room, private retreat, haven of frolics?

    The boudoir: sulking room, private retreat, haven of frolics?
    23 Oct 2026

    Things get rather raffish and French as Muriel entices Suzanne into that most Gallic of spaces - the boudoir - and tells her everything she ever wanted to know about it but was afraid to ask.

    What actually happens in that room? What is it for? We open the door on the dazzling boudoirs of the 18th-century elite, filled with art and chinoiserie, on exquisite women’s retreats and on men’s delirious dens of debauchery. The Marquis de Sade, Balzac, Baudelaire and John Malkovich put in a appearance.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    54 min
  • The Scarlet Pimpernel: The very first and quintessentially British masked superhero.

    The Scarlet Pimpernel: The very first and quintessentially British masked superhero.
    16 Oct 2026
    They seek him here; they seek him there... Suzanne gives Muriel a riveting rendering of The Scarlet Pimpernel, Hungarian émigrée Baroness Orczy's colourful and melodramatic 1905 historical novel set during the French Revolution, in which a gallant mild-mannered fop and his associates stick it to Madame Guillotine by rescuing French aristocrats on the run from bloodthirsty sans culottes and the dastardly Citoyen Chauvelin. And why do these British heroes do this? For the sport of pulling 'the hare from the teeth of the hound', of course! This is a highly romantic rendering of the French Revolution seen from the British side of the Channel, but was there in fact a real-life Scarlet Pimpernel? And what happened to French emigrés in Britain? Isambard Kingdom Brunel guest stars.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    59 min
  • Toile de Jouy: A Tale of Printed Fabric, Savoir-Faire and Storytelling

    Toile de Jouy: A Tale of Printed Fabric, Savoir-Faire and Storytelling
    9 Oct 2026
    Muriel tells Suzanne the story of the printed cotton or linen known as toile de Jouy, generally printed in a single colour on a neutral background and created in the late 18th century by an enterprising German émigré, the engraving and colour specialist Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf, at his thriving manufacture of Jouy-en-Josas. Patterns of exquisite refinement were beloved of the powerful, from Queen Marie-Antoinette to the Revolutionaries and Napoleon. They also harnessed the talent of great artists and, with their pastoral scenes, Enlightenment themes and celebration of important historical events, gained long-lasting hold of the French collective imagination, feeding into how much the French enjoy telling themselves stories about being French.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    54 min
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