"Who Gave A Mermaid Her Voice"

 Above is this week's Ships, Sea and the Stars which I think will be the last for a spell. It's about mermaids, presumably organised to coincide with the beginning of Pride month, but given a little extra pang of relevance yesterday by J.K. Rowling. I don't sing on this one but I get to do a little reading of Oscar Wilde, and the guests are as superb as ever. Watching it, I kept being reminded of the brilliant video essay below about Howard Ashman's work on The Little Mermaid. I'd no idea how big a part his vision played in it, nor that Ashman and Menken's first ever musical was an adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut, which I obviously found exciting. (I also never knew until today that when the cartoon was first dubbed into German, Ariel was voiced by Ute Lemper.)