EXCLUSIVE: The broadcaster is rightly well-known for her forensic interviews however is protecting of her Radio 4 ‘household’
Emma Barnett and Amol Rajan current Radio 4’s Right now programme (Picture: BBC)
The anchor of the Radio 4 Right now programme, Emma Barnett, and I are discussing colors. Nail colors, to be exact. “I do like your brilliant scarlet manicure,” she says to me as we sit breakfasting side-by-side in a reception room on the Nationwide Theatre on London’s South Financial institution. “I’ve gone for sky blue.”
“It’s beautiful,” I reply. “However I’m not almost so adventurous as you. I all the time find yourself going for old-school pink.” It feels barely surreal chatting about girlie stuff with the formidable broadcaster finest recognized for grilling politicians and public figures. It’s a task she performs in her trademark model – sharp, assertive and relentless – firing off probing questions with a conversational ease that blends metal with flashes of empathy.
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However there are a lot of sides to this Manchester-born 41-year-old, who graduated from Nottingham College in 2006 with a level in Historical past and Politics earlier than finishing a postgraduate diploma in journalism at Cardiff. Emma lower her tooth writing theatre critiques for The Stage, moved to Media Week in 2007 and joined The Each day Telegraph two years later. A change to broadcasting quickly adopted – beginning at LBC earlier than transferring to BBC Radio 5 Dwell, then Girl’s Hour, and in the end touchdown one of the crucial high-profile roles in radio on the Right now programme. She’s additionally an writer, Substack author, podcast host and, in a extra sudden twist, co-creator of the Color Your Streets colouring books along with her husband – extra of which later.
Emma Barnett has created a variety of bespoke colouring books with husband Jeremy Weil (Picture: Zara Jayant )
Learn extra: BBC Radio 4 in chaos as main presenter ‘feud’ threatens greatest present
Firstly, although, I need to ask Emma in regards to the BBC. The Right now programme, lengthy thought to be the jewel within the company’s crown, has confronted mounting scrutiny in latest months. There have been rumblings behind the scenes, with some describing the present as being in “turmoil”, taken without any consideration and more and more sidelined inside BBC Information.
Considerations have additionally been raised about workers cuts and stretched sources, with references to “skeleton staffing” at sure occasions. Presenter Amol Rajan’s announcement that he intends to go away the present later this yr has solely added to the sense of uncertainty, fuelling questions on its future course at a time when it’s faces rising competitors from podcasts and the ever-expanding digital information panorama.
Whereas it was reported earlier this yr that Emma is eyeing up her subsequent transfer with BBC executives, it’s one thing that she stays extraordinarily tight-lipped about at this time. “We’re a contented ship on the Right now programme,” Emma insists. “We’re an especially hard-working crew. Let me let you know one thing in all seriousness. Subsequent week is my two-year anniversary of being on the programme and I’ve by no means labored that very early shift earlier than.
“I have been a 10am lady – 10am girl I ought to say – for 12 years. When individuals stand up actually early within the morning at 3am they usually work collectively, you truly get to know one another in a very deep means. The crew has a household facet to it since you see one another at hours you usually solely see your loved ones while you’ve booked an early flight. So, it’s a very tight ship.
“I’ve simply come from there this morning, truly. We have clearly been protecting the state go to of King Charles to the US. I used to be presenting with Justin Webb this morning. I believe I am presenting with Anna Foster on Saturday. You by no means know what is going on to occur as a result of you need to be so updated. The very totally different and distinctive factor for me is the actual fact all of us are available so early and also you form of tread very kindly round one another.”
We’re talking on Wednesday shortly earlier than information breaks of two Jewish males being stabbed in Golders Inexperienced, north London. Police later declared the assaults on the 2 males, Nachman Moshe ben Chaya Sarah, 76, and Moshe Ben Baila 34, as a terrorist incident. The double stabbing has triggered worry and outrage within the Jewish neighborhood, already on edge following a spate of arson assaults on Jewish ambulances and property in latest weeks.
Emma, an Orthodox Jew, wrote a bit about her shock after two Jewish worshippers, Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby, had been fatally stabbed at Heaton Park synagogue in Crumpsall, Manchester on the morning of Yom Kippur final October.
“I cry for the neighborhood. I cry for the individuals who have been killed and their households. I cry out of worry and for what such hate can do,” she wrote. “However I additionally cry out of sheer rage, indignation and horror,” she stated.
Following our interview, I attain out to Emma however I’m instructed she has no remark to make on this week’s assault. It’s comprehensible – maybe being too early and too uncooked to course of.
Again to the current and it’s clear she is guarded in regards to the subjects she’s going to focus on. After defending the Right now programme, she flashes me a large smile that clearly says, “Time to maneuver on”.
However I push my luck anyway, urgent her on the present’s future because it battles the rise of podcasts and an ever-expanding digital information panorama.
Emma although, is unequivocal. “Radio nonetheless occupies a novel house,” she says. “There’s one thing extremely direct and intimate about it – you’re with the listener in a means different platforms simply can’t replicate. I usually prescribe the medium of radio to a lot youthful individuals who do not all the time know speech radio exists.
“I imply, why would they essentially? I largely grew up with music radio however after I then found speech radio a bit afterward, I used to be thrilled. It is like having a pal on a regular basis within the nook if you’d like it.”
Emma has her fingers in so many pies – and ‘twas ever thus. In school her nickname was “Dedication Carol” as she was perpetually dashing off to golf equipment and after-school actions, whereas at Nottingham College she was referred to as “Societies Barnett” as a result of her propensity to join every thing. Has she all the time been this fashion?
Emma Barnett’s colouring books have been a success with individuals of all ages (Picture: Equipped)
“In a phrase, sure,” she smiles. “I wouldn’t precisely say I get bored simply however I really like doing numerous various things and love a problem. You might have seen the multi-job factor appears to be a development. Rising up as an solely baby, I’m good at occupying myself. I’ve lived in Manchester, Nottingham, Cardiff and London. I’m an actual metropolis lady and attempt to juice a metropolis for all it has. I am the infinite vacationer and I drive my household mad. I am the one who finds the cemetery in Nunhead – the one which my husband, who’s grown up in south London, has by no means seen earlier than – as a result of it is obtained an amazing view of St Paul’s.”
I can see precisely what Emma’s achieved right here. Very deftly steered me into asking about Color Your Streets and, extra particularly, the very just lately revealed Nationwide Theatre Colouring Guide. It’s the newest title in a group of greater than 250 colouring books mapping cities, cities, neighbourhoods and cultural landmarks throughout the UK, created by Emma and her husband, Jeremy Wiel. Their firm – named appropriately sufficient Color Your Streets – has simply been named Finest New Writer on the Unbiased Publishing Awards 2026 they usually’re now getting ready to launch within the US.
“We began simply two-and-a-half years in the past,” says Emma proudly. “We had been impressed by our son who was 5 on the time. We’d be strolling across the space the place we reside in south London and declaring native landmarks to him, and we puzzled if there have been any colouring books of Brixton and Herne Hill, our neighbourhood. We seemed regionally and on-line however there weren’t any so we determined to create one ourselves for him and his buddies.
“Then just a few associates began asking us to do one for his or her kids. That is how one of the crucial shocking adventures of our working lives started. We launched our books with kids in thoughts however now over 70% of them are purchased by adults.”
Emma says one of the crucial satisfying features of publishing these books is the enjoyment colouring them in can deliver to older individuals – and, specifically, these affected by dementia.
“Now we have donated fairly just a few copies to care properties up and down the nation. It seems that individuals who have dementia can out of the blue keep in mind sure features of their lives once more as soon as they’re colouring in outlines of locations that had been as soon as so acquainted to them,” she says. “So, while you’re visiting an aged relative – whether or not they have dementia or not – colouring in collectively means you begin sharing reminiscences and listening to outdated tales or getting new insights and listening to new tales.
“I’m enthusiastic about spreading info and sharing tales, and I can let you know that the best way we transmit these elements of our lives has a complete added flavour when you begin including color to a web page. There’s not that a lot house in trendy life to sit back, color in, lose your self in an exercise, take pleasure in, keep in mind and create – particularly not multi function go.”
Emma Barnett selected the Royal Nationwide Theatre as the topic of her new colouring e-book (Picture: Getty Photos)
The broadcaster says it is satisfying to see the enjoyment colouring in brings to dementia sufferers (Picture: Zara Jayant )
Being an avid theatregoer and one-time president of the Nottingham College Theatre, the Nationwide Theatre holds a particular place in Emma’s coronary heart. “It’s one among my favorite areas in London,” she enthuses. “After I was reviewing theatre for The Stage, it was like my second dwelling due to the cheaper tickets for the under-25s.”
Additional cultural collaborations are deliberate and so profitable has the corporate grow to be that Jeremy, a former economist, now works for Color Your Streets full-time. It’s stated that working with a partner can both make or break a wedding. However Emma and Jeremy – or Jez, as she affectionately calls him – I’d say it’s the previous for them.
“Weirdly, I like to recommend working along with your associate,” she smiles. “Maybe it’s simply our personalities however there’s one thing to be stated for having a joint artistic undertaking – one thing we are able to work in the direction of. We met at college and have been collectively since we had been 21.”
Along with being dad and mom to their son, Emma and Jeremy additionally welcomed a daughter in 2023. Turning into dad and mom is difficult sufficient for any couple, however for the Barnett/Weils it has been notably so. Emma suffers from endometriosis, a power situation through which tissue just like the womb lining grows elsewhere within the physique, inflicting irritation and infrequently extreme ache. It will possibly have an effect on fertility and each day life, and stays extensively underdiagnosed regardless of impacting tens of millions of girls.
Having suffered for years, Emma was formally recognized aged 31. It took two and a half years to have their son by way of IVF in 2018 and an extra six makes an attempt to conceive their daughter.
“Endometriosis isn’t a quiet illness,” she says. “It’s destroying ladies from the within out. We have to deal with it like a world emergency.” Right now, she’s having fun with the contentment and challenges that motherhood brings.
Being a mum or dad teaches you how one can not be the principle character in your individual life, to play a distinct position in your individual existence,” she says. “Once you’re compelled to be taught that, you’re additionally compelled to relearn what made your life fulfilling earlier than and how one can entry that.”
Because the UK’s most trendy Renaissance girl, if anybody is able to doing this, it’s Emma.
Nationwide Theatre Colouring Guide by Emma Barnett and Jeremy Weil, £19.99, is in the stores from store.nationaltheatre.org.uk
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