91Èȱ¬

Most of Jane Horrocks’ roles have been coloured with the joys, pains and daftness of youth: her role as Nicola, the petulant teenager in Life is Sweet; Bubble, the vacuous PA in Absolutely Fabulous; and Prunella Scales' grown-up, yet bossed around daughter in the Tesco ads. Then she played the singing prodigy in Little Voice, a part that won her Olivier, Bafta and Golden Globe nominations. Now back on stage for the first time in five years as Ella Khan in East is East, she joins Jenni to talk about the part and why the stage remains such an anchor for her.

We’ve been exploring how the household chores are divided up in Chore Wars, but how did they do it in the past – and are we better off now?  We talk to members of the same family about how the jobs are divvied out, and social historian Dr Helen McCarthy tells us how social changes influenced the division of labour.

It’s the final day of the  Liberal Democrat Party Conference and Nick Clegg will be speaking later this afternoon in Glasgow. Over the last few weeks we’ve been hearing about the concerns that women of different ages want to see the main political parties address, from those with small children to those caring for elderly parents. Today, it’s the turn of young women. Fewer than four in ten of them voted at the General Election in 2010 – so what is it that the political parties need to do to win them over? Next May, there will be 3.3 million first time voters and ten thousand of them will be members of Girlguiding. Some of their members have been thinking hard about what they want the next government to do for women and girls. They’ve held fringe meetings over the last three weeks, speaking  to leading politicians from the three main parties about exactly what they want them to do. Woman’s Hour went along to their late-night fringe in the bustling conference hotel.