Outlook Mixtape: A necklace, three family histories, and digging for dinosaurs
The necklace made by the mother of sitcom; three friends visit the countries of their forefathers; and a palaeontologist finds one of the oldest dinosaurs of its kind.
Astrid King's mother Peg Lynch was a pioneer of the US sitcom. She was the first woman to write, star in, and hold the rights for her own show, Ethel and Albert – one of America's best-known comedy couples on radio and TV from the 1940s until the 60s. But when the show ended, it disappeared from public view and Peg's career faded. Astrid's relationship with her mother – which in her childhood was 'magical' – became more strained. Peg died in 2014 and left behind a weighty legacy; there were hundreds of hours of tape and thousands of pages of script for Astrid to sort through. But when Astrid came across a curious necklace nestled in her mother's belongings, it unlocked a childhood memory that would help her understand Peg and their complicated dynamic. Today, Astrid has taken on the task of unearthing and preserving Peg Lynch's archive and bringing her work back into the light.
Londoner Abu Finiin was studying at Oxford University when he began pitching a documentary series he thought could be the next big thing. But when no production companies took it on, he decided to go it alone with his best friends Zak Hajjaj and Kayum Miah. The three friends, who call themselves Kids of the Colony, travelled to Bangladesh, Morocco and the self-declared republic of Somaliland to learn about their cultural heritage and showcase their experiences on their YouTube channel – racking up millions of views on social media.
In 1973, a bone was spotted in a rock on a beach in north-west Scotland. A palaeontologist drew a quick sketch in his notebook and did nothing more about it – thinking it was too difficult to remove. Fast-forward 45 years and that same bone was rediscovered. But this time, Scottish PhD student Elsa Panciroli couldn't get the possibility of what this bone might be out of her mind. She overcame the scepticism of her colleagues and seemingly impossible logistics to extract it from a treacherous shoreline, and discovered one of the oldest dinosaur fossils of its kind.
Presenter: Saskia Collette
Producer: Anna Lacey
Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com or WhatsApp +44 330 678 2707
(Photo: Cassette tape. Credit: Getty Images)
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