# Mark Cousins on his 16-hour epic documentary Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/front-row-944015/mark-cousins-on-his-16-hour-epic-documentary Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/front-row-944015/mark-cousins-on-his-16-hour-epic-documentary.md Podcast: [Front Row](https://stenobird.com/podcast/front-row-944015) Published: 2026-05-13T19:17:00+00:00 Episode link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002w5z2 Audio file: http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/6/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download-rss/proto/http/vpid/p0nl1yt9.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/front-row-944015/episodes/mark-cousins-on-his-16-hour-epic-documentary Duration seconds: 2529 ## Resource From landmark releases to hidden treasures, director Mark Cousins on his 16-hour epic The Story of Documentary Film, which is screening at the Cannes Film Festival this week. A hundred years since Virginia Woolf published her essay On Being Ill, writer Darcey Steinke is presenting a newly commissioned work in response at the Charleston Festival this week. She joins us alongside poet Jade Cuttle to discuss the challenges of writing about pain and sickness and about the most visceral examples in literature. And with a raft of stage musical productions inspired by films opening around the country, Tony and Olivier Award-winning director John Tiffany, whose production Once is at Pitlochry Festival Theatre later this month and critic David Benedict discuss why certain scripts are deserving of multiple incarnations. Presenter: Kirsty Wark Producer: Mark Crossan ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/front-row-944015/episodes/mark-cousins-on-his-16-hour-epic-documentary/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/front-row-944015/mark-cousins-on-his-16-hour-epic-documentary.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.