RNZ: Saturday Morning

A selection of feedback from Saturday Morning with Kim Hill.

Auckland's Pop-up Globe, the world's first temporary working replica of Shakespeare's theatre, popped up for the first time in February 2016 with a twice-extended debut season that sold over 100,000 tickets. Now, it's 'popped up' again for a season that will run until May 14th. The dimensions of the theatre, which reproduce the audience structure of a Jacobean playhouse exactly, were based on groundbreaking research by Sydney University Professor Tim Fitzpatrick and his collaborator Russell Emerson. The pair studied archeological data and contemporary sources describing the second Globe Theatre, which was built in 1614 as a conjectural reconstruction of the first Globe Theatre (London, 1599 - 1613). Their research informed the current Pop-up Globe, which matches the dimensions put forward by Professor Fitzpatrick to within six inches.

Furniture designer Martino Gamper says, "There is no perfect chair." Ten years ago, the London-based, Italian-born designer initiated his project 100 Chairs in 100 Days, making a new chair a day for 100 days by collaging together bits of chairs that he found discarded on the street or in friends' homes. The resulting project has been shown in England, Italy, the US, Japan, France and Australia, and is now on show at the City Gallery Wellington. Gamper's 100th chair has been made in New Zealand especially for this exhibition. Gamper also creates collaborative exhibitions with jeweller Karl Fritsch and New Zealand ex-pat artist Francis Upritchard - his wife - under the name Gesamtkunshandwerk. In 2014, he curated Design is a State of Mind for London's Serpentine Sackler Gallery.

RNZ senior reporter Kim Griggs has been up very early this morning to witness the Treaty of Waitangi, the Declaration of Independence of the United Tribes of New Zealand and the Women's Suffrage Petition trucked 200 metres from the National Archives to the National Library. A hugely complex operation with extremely tight security, Kim tells Kim Hill that luckily, the documents' bespoke 'raincoats' did not need to be used on a very still Wellington morning.

Sir Venkatraman 'Venki' Ramakrishnan is a Nobel Prize-winning biologist who has contributed to our understanding of the atomic structure of the ribosome - the site within living cells where genetic information is read to synthesise proteins from amino acids.

Virginia Hanlon Grohl is the mother of Foo Fighters frontman and former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl. She interviewed the mothers of 18 famous musicians for her book From Cradle to Stage.

Canadian author Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel The Handmaid's Tale is enjoying a resurgence, with many fearing the dystopian totalitarian world it depicts could be reflected in Trump's America.

One of New Zealand wealthiest – and most outspoken – businessmen, Alan Gibbs is also a life-long car enthusiast. He talks to Kim Hill about his life and love of motor cars.

Professor Catherine Donelly compiled and edited the first-ever Oxford Companion to Cheese. Besides being a cheese fanatic, Donnelly is a 'cheese politics' pundit.

Margaret Mahy's young adult novel The Changeover is being made into a movie starring expat NZ actresses Melanie Lynskey and Lucy Lawless and the British actor Timothy Spall, to be released in late 2017. Charlotte talks to Margaret's daughter Bridget and Miranda Harcourt, who co-directed the film with her husband Stuart McKenzie.

Scottish comedian Susan Calman is a regular guest on the BBC Radio 4 News Quiz and QI and the author of a memoir Cheer Up Love: Adventures in Depression with the Crab of Hate.

As a three-year-old in China, Quin Tang's mother was shot in front of her and her father taken away. After moving to Christchurch 25 years ago, she walked out of an abusive marriage with two young children, no money and speaking little English. Tang then attended Canterbury University, teaching herself to read English from the text books there. She attained four degrees with an A+ average, and began working as a psychiatrist and counsellor. Quin was working in the CTV building when it collapsed. She took two weeks off work to recover, then came back and began counselling other victims of the Christchurch earthquakes. She has written and self-published the story of her life, called Half a Walnut Tree.

Ian Rankin is an award-winning Scottish author and TV writer best known for his best-selling Rebus series, which have been translated into 22 languages.

30-year-old programmer Dan Schultz has created the website 'Internet Noise', which auto-opens tabs based on random Google searches and makes it impossible for IPs to accurately profile internet users.

Christy Godfuss is the vice president for energy and environment policy at the progressive policy institute, the Center for American Progress (CAP). She has taken part in conversations with NZ's Pew Charitable Trust about how to go about creating ocean sanctuaries and using other instruments of marine protection.