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The Working Class in Culture Feb 01, 2018

Show notes

Writer Bea Campbell, artist Scottee, historian Emma Griffin, journalist Simon Jenkins & economist Guy Standing join Philip Dodd to consider the working class in culture.

The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class by Guy Standing is available now Scottee's Working Class Dinner Party is at Camden People's Theatre on 28 April as part of the Common People Festival from 17 to 28 April and his show Bravado continues to tour in April End of Equality by Beatrix Campbell is available now Emma Griffin's Liberty's Dawn: A People's History of the Industrial Revolution is out now

Producer: Debbie Kilbride

Landmark: Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries Jan 30, 2018

Show notes

Matthew Sweet discusses Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries with the writer Colm Toibin, the film critic Larushka Ivan-Zadeh and the Swedish Cultural Attaché Ellen Wettmark.

Released in 1957 and inspired by Bergman's own memories of childhood holidays in a summerhouse in the north of Sweden, Wild Strawberries tells the story of elderly professor Isak Borg, who travels from his home in Stockholm to receive an honorary doctorate. On the way, he's visited by childhood memories. The film stars veteran actor and director Victor Sjostrom, Bibi Andersson and Ingrid Thulin.

With additional contributions from the film historian Kevin Brownlow and Jan Holmberg from the Ingmar Bergman Foundation, which administers Bergman's archives.

The BFI in London is running a season of Ingmar Bergman films until March 1st 2018 as part of the global celebrations of the centenary of world-renowned Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (1918 – 2007).

A Matter of Life and Death: the Films of Ingmar Bergman has been republished with a new introduction by Geoff Andrew of the BFI.

Wild Strawberries is being screened on 26 Feb, Newlyn Filmhouse; 8 March, Borderlines Film Festival; 11 March, Chapter Arts Centre.

This programme was originally recorded in December 2015.

Producer: Laura Thomas

Burns the Radical; Exploration Jan 25, 2018

Show notes

From Ecuador to the Scottish borders: Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough meets Maren Meinhardt and Graham Robb who explore the land on their doorsteps and also follow in the footsteps of others from Humboldt the naturalist and explorer to the forgotten territory of the Debatable Land. They'll be joined by novelist Natasha Pulley whose fascination with Victorian exploration and empire building is reflected in her latest novel The Bedlam Stacks which took her to Peru.

Another Burns night and Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough discusses the new radical ways in which Scotlands artists and writers are approaching and getting inspired by the man who almost invented the term National Bard. Burns Unbroke is a festival designed to showcase how Robert Burns speaks to Scotland's creators today and two of the featured artists are David Mach, sculptor, installation artist and poet, and Kevin Williamson of Neu! Reekie! Williamson has been exploring how Robert Burns might have performed his own poetry while David Mach reflects on why he's still in two minds about a poet who was also a tax collector who still speaks powerfully to a Scottish present.

Graham Robb's book The Debatable Land is out in February. Maren Meinhardt's book A Longing For Wide and Unknown Things: The Life of Alexander Humboldt is published in January. Natasha Pulley The Bedlam Stacks is out now.

Burns Unbroke CONTEMPORARY ARTS INSPIRED BY ROBERT BURNS 25 JANUARY - 10 MARCH 2018 @ SUMMERHALL, EDINBURGH

Kevin Williamson Independent Minds: New Poetry from HMP Kilmarnock;

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Royalty, art and patronage. Jan 24, 2018

Show notes

Craig Brown, Afua Hirsch, Robert Jobson, A. N. Wilson and New Generation Thinker Joe Moshenska discuss the monarchy as the Royal Academy and the Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace stage exhibitions exploring the painting collections of Charles I and II. How has patronage changed and, in this year of another Royal Wedding, what impact are depictions in TV dramas such as The Crown and biographies including Craig Brown's Ma'am Darling having on our view of royalty? Philip Dodd presents.

Charles I King and Collector runs at the Royal Academy, London from January 27th until April 15th

Charles II: Art & Power is running at the Queen's Gallery Buckingham Palace until May 13th

Ma'am Darling 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret by Craig Brown is out now

BRIT(ish) by Afua Hirsch is out this week

Dr Joe Moshenska is the author of A Stain in the Blood: The Remarkable Voyage of Sir Kenelm Digby

A. N. Wilson's Victoria: A Life is available now

Diana: Closely Guarded Secret by Robert Jobson is out now

Radio 3's Early Music Show on Sun 11th Feb at 1400. Lucie Skeaping presents a concert recorded at Windsor Castle with flautist Ashley Solomon, double-bass player ChiChi Nwanoku and harpsichordist Julian Perkins.Repertoire including Handel, Telemann, Dragonetti, and Barsanti, played on instruments from the Royal Collection. The instruments are a porcelain flute probably owned by George III, a chamber bass bequeathed to Prince Albert by Dragonetti and a harpsichord owned by Frederick Prince of Wales.

Producer: Debbie Kilbride

Oscar Contenders, Movie Moguls and Silent Film Stars Jan 23, 2018

Show notes

Matthew Sweet is joined by critics Ryan Gilbey and Ellen E Jones to look at the films nominated for this year's Academy Awards and the tradition of films with a campaigning message. Film historian Vanda Krefft charts the complicated life of William Fox, the man who founded the Fox Film Corporation. Comedian Lucy Porter and author Steve Massa celebrate the women of the silent era who starred alongside the likes of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin.

The Man Who Made the Movies: The Meteoric Rise and Tragic Fall of William Fox is by Vanda Krefft.

Slapstick Divas: The Women of Silent Comedy is by Steve Massa.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

Frankenstein and AI now. Jan 18, 2018

Show notes

Fiona Sampson, Daisy Hay, Christopher Frayling and David H. Guston join Matthew Sweet to discuss Mary Shelley's story in film, fiction and the view of AI scientists now.

In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein by the poet and writer Fiona Sampson is out now.

Christopher Frayling has published Frankenstein: The First Two Hundred Years

Dr Daisy Hay is Senior Lecturer, English Literature and Archival Studies at the University of Exeter and a BBC Radio 3 and AHRC New Generation Thinker who will be publishing later this year a book on The Making of Frankenstein.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Annotated for scientists, engineers and creators of all kinds edited by David H. Guston, Ed Finn and Jason Scott Robert

Late Junction tonight is looking at music and AI, asking can we create a digital version of the ideal Late Junction collaborator using computer code alone?

The Radio 3 Sunday feature Select, Edit, Paste presented by Clemency Burton-Hill has been exploring new technologies and the arts.

Producer: Zahid Warley

French writing and politics Jan 17, 2018

Show notes

Leïla Slimani, President Macron's champion of French culture and language, is interviewed by presenter Shahidha Bari about her new role and her novel Lullaby which won the 2016 Prix Goncourt Plus Emile Chabal from the University of Edinburgh discusses Savages: The Wedding by Sabri Louatah - a novel imagining the first Arab candidate for President is shot. The TV rights for the quartet of books have been sold and the first book is winning prizes and comparisons with the Neopolitan novels of Elena Ferrante. Fleur Darkin of Scottish Dance Theatre talks about her stage adaptation of L'Amant by Marguerite Duras, while Julia Waters from the University of Reading explains how the French colonial experience in Indochina informed the work of Duras and other writers.

Lullaby by Leïla Slimani is now published in English in a translation by Sam Taylor. Savages The Saint-Étienne Quartet Volume 1: The Wedding is written by Sabri Louatah and translated into English by Gavin Bowd. The Lover, adapted and directed by Fleur Darkin and Jemima Levick, is at the Lyceum, Edinburgh from 20th January to 3rd February.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Australian novelist Peter Carey. Jan 16, 2018

Show notes

A car race around Australia is fictionalised in Peter Carey's latest novel. He talks to Rana Mitter about depicting race and racing. Josephine Quinn questions whether the Phoenicians existed as she looks at the way ancient texts and artworks helped construct an identity for the ancient civilization on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, stretching through what is now Syria, Lebanon and northern Israel. Classicist and novelist Natalie Haynes discusses Ovid's tales and Rana Mitter speaks to this year's TS Eliot Prize winner Ocean Vuong.

Peter Carey's latest novel is called A Long Way Home.

Josephine Quinn has published In Search of the Phoenicians.

Natalie Haynes most recent novel is called The Children of Jocasta. Radio 3's The Essay this week consists of five retellings of Ovid.

Ocean Vuong's Night Sky with Exit Wounds is out now.

Producer: Debbie Kilbride

Counterculture and Protest Jan 11, 2018

Show notes

Matthew Sweet discusses protests like the 1968 uprising at Columbia University, 1985's Battle of the Beanfield and the acid house movement with guests Paul Hartnoll of Orbital, novelist Tony White, editor Paul Cronin and writer Tessa DeCarlo.

The Fountain in the Forest by Tony White is available now

A Time To Stir: Columbia '68 edited by Paul Cronin is out now

Producer: Debbie Kilbride

The In Between Jan 10, 2018

Show notes

Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough explores the uncanny possibilities of the In Between with the neuroscientist Dean Burnett, award-winning poet Vahni Capildeo, artist Alexandra Carr, writer and walker of London and other wastelands, Iain Sinclair, and the philosopher, Emily Thomas. How do our brains and bodies react in the In Between spaces of the airport lounge or the station platform where we're waiting to move on but temporarily in stasis and why have so many artists, writers and poets used these places to explore the uncanny, the strange and ourselves?

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