RTL Today - The Lisa Burke Show

About RTL Today - The Lisa Burke Show

A place for conversation that spans life in Luxembourg and beyond. Each week an international guest list will reflect on the week’s news, plus a whole host of other topics: politics to pollination; education to entrepreneurship; science to singing. Luxembourg sits in the beating heart of Europe and its diverse population provides a global perspective on a number of world issues.

Publisher

RTL - Lisa Burke

Category

society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

28 Jul 2020

Latest episode

7 Nov 2026

Latest episodes

258 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   7 Nov 2026

   Can a Tiny Country Teach the World How to Belong?, 07/11/2026

   From Wisconsin roots to Luxembourg’s multicultural present, Kevin Wester and Jérôme Rouquié explore identity, migration and human connection. What do we reach for when the structures around us feel less certain? For Kevin Wester, the answer begins with ancestry, memory and a connection carried across the Atlantic for generations. Wester grew up in Wisconsin in communities shaped by Luxembourg immigration, where surnames, food, stories and even old Luxembourgish survived long after families had left the Grand Duchy. Today, as founder and CEO of Luxembourg Legacy and founding executive director of the Luxembourg American Cultural Society, he helps descendants trace that history forward. He says the option of reclaiming Luxembourg nationality has sparked a new “renaissance” among Luxembourg Americans, especially younger generations who see citizenship as a bridge to study, work and life in Europe. The striking part of Wester’s story is the scale of a diaspora that Luxembourg itself rarely sees. In his briefing for the show, he says nearly 23,000 adult Americans of Luxembourg descent have reclaimed nationality since 2008, with many more potentially eligible. He sees them as far more than passport holders. They are “small-a ambassadors”, people who travel back, rediscover villages and family names, build societies, share Luxembourg online and carry a modern image of the country home with them. His deeper ambition is to connect this community to Luxembourg’s future too, including what he describes as an underused pool of talent in medicine, education, research, technology, finance, the arts and sport. Across the studio sat Jérôme Rouquié, a French-born entrepreneur who spent more than two decades travelling the world before choosing Luxembourg as home. His project, COME TO LUX, grew from a frustration with the way the country is often flattened into a stereotype of finance and institutions. Rouquié sees something richer: a place where an extraordinary range of languages, cultures and life stories coexist within a few streets. After years of crossing borders to meet the world, he found the world concentrated in one small country. His guiding idea is disarmingly simple: understand people before doing business. Listen first. Notice difference without fearing it. Find the human connection. That becomes especially powerful when the conversation turns to migration. Wester looks back at his own ancestors, who left Luxembourg in the nineteenth century because opportunity was limited, and sees an echo in families moving countries today. Leaving home, he argues, is usually an act of risk, hope and necessity, not rejection. His experience with young people in Luxembourg led him to ask a deceptively difficult question: what makes an immigrant feel welcomed, and what invisible obstacles do our own biases create? Rouquié arrives at the same destination from another route. Difference, he says, is not a reason to withdraw. It is a reason to adapt, stay curious and learn how another person sees the world. For Rouquié, the network also has to do something. His “3 S” for Luxembourg are stability, security and serenity, but a fourth word now matters just as much: solidarity. Through Lux Tour Solidarity, the community around COME TO LUX turns cars, gastronomy, experience and connection into fundraising for vulnerable children. The 2026 event brought together nearly 200 rally participants and more than 380 gala guests, while supporting the Fondation Sarah Grond. The point is not simply to build a network. It is to make the network useful. Rouquié’s own phrase captures it perfectly: “United by the road, brought together by the heart.” Both men often returned to the same word: human. In an age of geopolitical anxiety, polarisation, algorithms and increasingly hard borders in our heads, their work is deliberately analogue. Meet, listen, travel, learn the story. Keep the relationship alive. Luxembourg is not perfect, and neither guest pretends it is. But its scale, multilingualism and constant history of people arriving and leaving make it an unusual laboratory for belonging. Perhaps that is the bigger story here. A country does not need to be large to have reach. A diaspora does not need to live within its borders to contribute. And identity can be strongest when it becomes an invitation to connect rather than a reason to close the door. GUESTS & LINKS Kevin Wester / Luxembourg Legacy
 https://luxembourglegacy.com/ (https://luxembourglegacy.com/) Luxembourg American Cultural Society
 https://www.lacs.lu/ (https://www.lacs.lu/) Jérôme Rouquié / LinkedIn
 https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerome-rouquie/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerome-rouquie/) COME TO LUX
 https://www.cometolux.com/ (https://www.cometolux.com/) COME TO LUX Instagram
 https://www.instagram.com/cometolux/ (https://www.instagram.com/cometolux/) Lux Tour Solidarity / Lux Car Meeting Instagram
 https://www.instagram.com/luxcarmeeting/ (https://www.instagram.com/luxcarmeeting/) Fondation Sarah Grond
 https://www.fondationsarahgrond.lu/ (https://www.fondationsarahgrond.lu/)

2. 

   31 Oct 2026

   From a Mini Stroke to 30 Parliaments: A Father and Daughter on Democracy, 31/10/2026

   After a mini stroke changed his life, Nicholas Elliott set out to visit the world's parliaments. With daughter Julia, he asks why the young feel unheard. Three years ago, London teacher Nicholas Elliott sat down at home and suddenly couldn't speak. He felt dizzy, his left arm went limp and one side of his face froze. His daughter Julia, who was in the room, called an ambulance. It was a transient ischaemic attack (TIA), often called a mini stroke, and Nicholas says it made him a better person. He decided to see and do everything he could, from daytime game shows to something far more unusual: visiting parliaments. Since then he has independently toured more than 30 parliaments and legislatures across Europe, North America and the Caribbean, and this week he and Julia flew into Luxembourg to join me on The Lisa Burke Show. Why parliaments? For Nicholas, each one is a doorway into a country's politics, history and culture. He has a ritual too: the moment he lands, he jumps in a taxi and asks the driver about the country. Luxembourg gave him a lesson of its own. He paid 40 euros for a cab into the city, only to discover on the next bus that public transport here is free. "The taxi drivers always tell you about the country... and they don't hold back." Nicholas Elliott Over time, his travels have turned into a mission focused on young people. Nicholas remembers a school trip to Westminster at about 15 that felt like a museum visit, and he wants young people to learn, participate, get involved and, crucially, feed back. The standout so far is the Northern Ireland Assembly, which runs its own youth parliament rather than leaving it to an outside body. His next project looks to the Caribbean, where legislatures built on the Westminster model are trying fresh ideas, such as Trinidad and Tobago bringing young people from both islands together to discuss the national budget. Trinidad and Tobago, Belize and Montserrat have agreed in principle to take part in his research, and Nicholas wants to show what the Caribbean can teach the UK in return. "They're not the future, they are the now." Nicholas Elliott on young people Julia, who studies Politics and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham, brought the view from her generation. She asked friends studying engineering and maths how they take in politics, and the answer was almost always short-form social media, clipped, algorithm-driven and prone to echo chambers. To understand views she didn't share, she spent time watching right-wing American commentators and noticed her own feed drifting further and further in one direction. Many of her friends, she says, simply don't know who to vote for, because the parties seem to have drifted from their ideological roots. "I almost saw it happening to me." Julia Kubianka-Elliott on the pull of the algorithm Both believe the problem is fatigue rather than apathy. Nicholas misses "kitchen table politics", when families argued about the news together, while Julia argues that in the UK political education comes far too late, only for those who choose it at A-level. She would like it built into everyday life studies at school, so that politics stops feeling like a subject for the privileged. Luxembourg's parliament open day gave Nicholas hope: children wandering the building and deputies wearing "Ask Me" badges, chatting freely with visitors. "You've cracked it here." Nicholas Elliott on the Chamber of Deputies open day Their parting messages were simple. Nicholas urged parents to sit down with their children tonight and talk, and encouraged anyone feeling isolated to look beyond the phone for information, to clubs, teachers and community groups. Julia's advice was to listen with an open mind and turn everyday conversations, gently, towards the things that shape our lives. You can follow Nicholas's journey as The Parliament Guy on Instagram and on LinkedIn. And if you or someone near you shows sudden signs of a stroke or TIA, such as a drooping face, a weak arm or slurred speech, call 112 in Luxembourg straight away. As always, I'd love your thoughts: how empowered do you feel as a voter, and what do you make of youth parliaments? "Everyone is a political person." Julia Kubianka-Elliott Links Nicholas Elliott, The Parliament Guy on Instagram: https://instagram.com/the_parliament_guy (https://instagram.com/the_parliament_guy) Nicholas Elliott on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-e-925677 (https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-e-925677) About TIA (mini stroke) and its symptoms: https://nidirect.gov.uk/conditions/transient-ischaemic-attack-tia (https://nidirect.gov.uk/conditions/transient-ischaemic-attack-tia)

3. 

   24 Oct 2026

   Dagoberto Rodríguez in Luxembourg: art, satellites, the battle for our attention, 24/10/2026

   Cuban artist Dagoberto Rodríguez and Violeta Frank explore information, technology, memory and why our minds still need training. “I am a Cold War product.” Dagoberto Rodríguez Information used to be scarce. Now we are drowning in it. That contrast sits at the heart of my conversation with Cuban artist Dagoberto Rodríguez and Violeta Frank, founder of Luxembourg-based VF Art Projects, ahead of Rodríguez’s first solo exhibition in Luxembourg, Broadcasting the Unknown. Rodríguez grew up in Caibarién, Cuba, in the 1970s. His father was an active member of the Communist Party, yet at night listened to the Spanish-language broadcasts of Voice of America. For the young Rodríguez, information felt precious. “At that time, information was really, really important for us,” he told me. “It’s not like now, that we are confused about the amount of information that we have.” That childhood tension between what we see, what we are told and what might exist beyond our field of vision has stayed with him ever since. From three toys a year to Los Carpinteros Rodríguez also grew up in a world where objects were frequently made rather than bought. He remembers Cuban children being allocated just three toys a year, one important toy and two cheaper ones. For much of the rest of the year, children made things themselves. Growing up beside the sea, surrounded by workshops repairing large wooden ships, he turned scraps of wood and cork into miniature boats. That physical relationship with materials later became central to his art. “That relation with my hands, as an adult, as an artist, provided me the security to do things with my own hands.” Dagoberto Rodríguez At art school, Rodríguez and Alexander Arrechea began making work from wood. People started calling them Los Carpinteros, “The Carpenters”. At first, Rodríguez admits, they wanted a grander name. Eventually they realised that the accidental name was almost perfect. It positioned them somewhere between craftspeople and artists, observers who could enter the art world from an unexpected direction. The collective would go on to work together from the early 1990s until 2018 and become internationally renowned. Rodríguez believes the restrictions they experienced in Cuba helped shape their creative language. “Sometimes censorship and limitation make you better,” he said, because artists are forced to experiment, search for different materials and find less direct ways of expressing difficult ideas. For Rodríguez, art requires something deeper than technique. “You need to have an obsession. You need to have a problem.” Dagoberto Rodríguez A lawyer jumps into the art world Violeta Frank arrived through a very different door. Born in Argentina, she studied law because she originally envisaged a diplomatic career. Once immersed in the subject, she discovered that she genuinely loved it. But by her thirties another world was beginning to pull. Friends working in major productions gave her a glimpse behind the scenes. Others introduced her more deeply to contemporary art. Slowly, the certainty of a legal career gave way to the possibility of something more creative. “I didn’t see myself forever being a lawyer,” she told me. Together with another lawyer, she founded the Melian Foundation for Latin American Art and Culture. Her description of that decision is one many career changers will recognise. “Let’s jump into the pool, even if we don’t know if there’s water there.” Violeta Frank Yet the lawyer never really disappeared. Negotiation, organisation, communication and the ability to hold her ground all became useful tools in producing increasingly ambitious art projects. Frank eventually moved to Europe, founded VF Art Projects in Luxembourg and began creating a bridge between Ibero-American artists and European audiences, while also taking Luxembourgish artists abroad. And how did she first approach Rodríguez? Instagram. He initially thought the message looked suspicious. From an Instagram message during the pandemic came studio visits, conversations about Jorge Luis Borges, friendship and eventually Broadcasting the Unknown. Satellites made from clay The Luxembourg exhibition seems almost uncannily suited to Rodríguez. Frank can see the historic RTL antennas at Junglinster from her gallery. Around 12 minutes away lies Betzdorf, home to one of the world’s great centres of satellite communications. One landscape contains the history and future of broadcasting. Rodríguez’s terracotta satellites sit directly inside that story. Clay, he points out, carries some of humanity’s earliest written messages. Now he uses that ancient material to recreate one of the defining technological objects of the modern world. His fascination with space also stretches back to childhood. Born in 1969, the year humans first walked on the Moon, Rodríguez grew up following the Soviet space programme from Cuba. Today his questions are less about conquest and more about dependence. Satellites shape banking, navigation, communication, surveillance and much of our daily lives, often invisibly. “We don’t have a real idea of the impact of these devices in our everyday life.” Dagoberto Rodríguez His landscapes similarly challenge the old idea of simply standing before a view and painting what the eye sees. We now see Earth through satellites, thermal cameras, digital sensors and machines orbiting hundreds of kilometres above us. Technology has acquired its own eyes. What book does your mind need? Then comes my favourite idea in the exhibition: The Gymnasium of Thought. Inside the former church at Al Kierch in Roodt-sur-Syre stands something resembling a gym or temple devoted to physical exercise. Rodríguez developed the idea after reading philosopher Byung-Chul Han and thinking about a society increasingly focused on the exterior body. We can calculate our calories. We measure our sleep. We know which supplements or exercises might build muscle. But what builds the mind? Rodríguez put it beautifully: “You know perfectly the amount of calories you need for living... but people don’t know what book you need to grow, to develop your mind.” His answer to becoming intellectually fitter is disarmingly simple. Read. His mother, a nurse who collected books in the hope of eventually finding time to read them, introduced him to Dostoevsky. Years later, her influence remains present in an installation encouraging others to rediscover literature. Rodríguez half-jokingly describes the work as “marketing for books”, a nostalgic defence of a world of knowledge increasingly pushed aside by screens. Art beyond the capital The exhibition also raises another important cultural question for Luxembourg: why should ambitious art remain concentrated in capital cities and conventional museums? Broadcasting the Unknown stretches across two unusual locations, the former church at Al Kierch in Roodt-sur-Syre and the Annexes of Château de Bourglinster. Frank deliberately champions projects in non-traditional spaces. “They have such a magic that you cannot find in a contemporary building,” she said. Rodríguez agrees. Artists, he argues, cannot spend their lives waiting to be discovered by museums. “We have a short life,” he said. “We cannot be waiting for a museum to discover us.” Perhaps that is the deeper message running through this conversation. Make things. Question things. Find another route. Read. Think. Collaborate. Look again. For Frank, art has become essential precisely because the world feels increasingly difficult. “Art brings us beauty, brings us light, brings us reflection. We talk about reality in a different way.” Violeta Frank And after leaving law for this uncertain new world? “I cannot conceive my life without art right now.” Broadcasting the Unknown Dagoberto Rodríguez 24 October to 29 November 2026 Locations: Al Kierch, Roodt-sur-Syre Annexes of Château de Bourglinster Opening hours: Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, 11am to 7pm Guests and links VF Art Projects https://www.vfprojects.com Instagram: @vf.art.projects LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vf-art-projects/ Violeta Frank Instagram: @violetaafrank LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/violeta-frank-00050223/ Dagoberto Rodríguez Instagram: @dago_rodriguez_carpintero LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dagoberto-rodriguez-9381933a/ VF Art Projects videos https://www.youtube.com/@vfartprojects1242/videos

Who has been a guest on RTL Today - The Lisa Burke Show

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Clara Moraru
• Ivan Leal Martins
• Vicki Hansen
• Geoff Thompson
• Dr Anna Schleimer

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

4 ratings

Spotify

4.9 / 5

22 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 41 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

46

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

90