One on One | All stories

Although she was born in Britain and has never lived in the Czech Republic, the actress and broadcaster, Veronica Hyks, is every bit as Czech as she is English. She speaks Czech without a hint of an accent, and gives every impression of being totally at home in Prague, even though it has never been more than her “virtual” home. Veronica Hyks tells David Vaughan how this came about in this week’s One on One.

New York native Gail Whitmore, a classically trained opera singer, “came to Prague for four days in 2001 and just never went home.” Since then she has involved herself in activities from singing (in which regard she’s known as the “Human Jukebox”), moderating and radio hosting, to her prime profession as a counsellor, dealing particularly with crisis prevention and street harassment. Most recently she was involved in the Prague Pride festival, where she manned both the stage and the crisis hotline. With quite a lot to talk about then, I started

Amir Bar-Lev first presented his documentary Fighter – a film that portrays the well-known Czech émigrés Jan Wiener and Arnošt Lustig – at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2008. This year, the American documentary filmmaker, whose second film My Kid Could Paint That got caught up in a media controversy, came back to the festival as president of the documentary competition jury. He speaks about what first sparked his interest film and documentaries, what his role as a jury president entails, and when he first visited the Czech

Czech singer Lucie Kostelecká fell for the charm of South African music during her stay in that country several years ago. Lucie even studied singing with South African teachers, and when she returned home after three years, she decided to bring the songs by the acclaimed singer and human rights activist Miriam Makeba to Czech audiences. On Saturday, she performed at the Africa Day held at Prague’s riverside Žluté Lázně. Unfortunately, it was a cold and drizzly day but when I sat down with Lucie, she told me it had been a great show despite the

Last week, some 600 Shakespeare scholars came to Prague for the 9th World Shakespeare Congress, an international academic events that has previously been held in such cities as Brisbane, Berlin or Los Angeles. Among the guests was the Australian scholar Peter Holbrook, a member of the International Shakespeare Association’s Congress Committee and author of a book titled “Shakespeare’s Individualism.” In this interview, he speaks about his central thesis, Shakespeare research in different countries and what his experience at the congress has been

Though 92 years of age, Jaromíra Kostlánová is still working as a tour guide, introducing the sights of Prague to visitors from around the world. If that were not remarkable enough, the good-humoured nonagenarian is also one of the oldest students in the Czech Republic.

On Saturday evening, the 46th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival wrapped up and this year’s winners were announced – among them the Israeli movie Restoration, directed by Joseph Madmony. As a member of this year’s main competition jury, seasoned Israeli journalist Edna Fainaru was one of those who picked the winning submission.We spoke to her in the west Bohemian spa town and asked her about her experiences at film festivals all over the world, her take on the Karlovy Vary festival and if she still finds time to visit the theater,

For the tenth year in a row, a small workshop in the Prague neighbourhood of Vršovice is hosting a group of students from the US, India, Australia and other countries who come to learn how to make traditional Czech marionettes. The man who runs the courses and who teaches his international students everything they need to know about puppets is Miroslav Trejtnar, our guest in this edition of One on One. When I visited his workshops, the course was halfway trough and the students had just begun carving their puppets, which as Mr Trejtnar says it’s

With mushroom season in full swing, our guest in this edition of One on One is Jan Borovička, a leading member of the Czech Mycological Society, who combines a very Czech hobby of mushroom picking with his profession of geochemist at the Czech Academy of Sciences. How has the internet changed mushroom picking? Why are mushrooms safe to eat even after Chernobyl and Fukushima? And, most importantly, where are the best spots to find them? These are some of issues we discussed with Jan Borovička, who says this year’s mushroom-picking season did not

Many readers of the daily Hospodářské noviny look forward to Petra Pospěchová’s weekly column in the paper’s weekend magazine, where she devotes a double page to a lovingly written article about a certain dish or ingredient, as well as provides a recipe and a gorgeous shot of the food. She is also known for her in-depth, critical pieces on the Czech food industry. Petra Pospěchová talks about the research process of such long-form articles, what first sparked her love for food and how she became a food writer.