John Goudie, Editor of Front Row, discusses the Radio 4 project - Cultural Exchange - in which 75 creative minds share their passion for an art-work of any kind. Cultural Exchange features during Front Row, weekdays from 7.15pm.
Tracey Emin, Adrian Lester, Tamara Rojo, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
"So what did they choose?" has become a regular question in the Front Row office.
It's aimed at the small team working on Cultural Exchange, the Radio 4 project in which 75 creative minds share their passion for an art-work of any kind.
One of the pleasures of working on the project is the moment when the guest reveals his or her choice – usually in an email a few days before the recording.
Some have offered their own particular take on a relatively well-known work - Tracey Emin chose a painting by Vermeer, while actor Adrian Lester spoke passionately about Bob Marley's Redemption Song. Others decide to shine a light on something usually found in the cultural shadows: Germaine Greer makes a strong case for The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson, an Australian novel published in 1910, which she describes as 'a masterpiece'.
Germaine Greer's Cultural Exchange
A second pleasure of the project is that each choice has its own webpage, featuring additional related audio clips, quarried from the BBC archives. Some archive hunts are relatively easy - it only took moments to find Chris Blackwell, head of Bob Marley's record label, recalling exactly how Marley recorded Redemption Song, on Front Row in 2009. Elsewhere the archive reveals unexpected treasure: so, for example, you can hear the Australian accent of Henry Handel Richardson, recorded for the BBC in 1944, two years before her death - Henry was a pseudonym used by Ethel Florence Richardson.
Henry Handel Richardson reading an extract The Fortunes of Richard Mahony vol II
One striking trend has emerged from the guests and their choices so far. Many have returned to something they first experienced in their formative years, which has shaped their view of the world or their entire choice of career. It's a trend which links guests as diverse as Meera Syal, Melvyn Bragg, Bernardo Bertolucci and Tamara Rojo.
The deep impression left by a teenage cultural encounter is something which affects our listeners too. A couple of weeks ago, listener Katy Limmer contacted us after hearing a Front Row interview with dramatist Howard Brenton. Katy recalled 'babysitting in the 1980s without parental control of the telly' – and coming across an atmospheric post-watershed drama with an:
'improbable central role played by a severed head in a container. I've thought about it often, wondered why it's never been repeated, tried to figure out how I could search for something with so little information to go on; I'd even begun to wonder if I had imagined or dreamed it. So you can imagine how delighted I was to learn... not only that it had existed, but that I can see it again.'
The drama was Howard Brenton's 1986 TV series Deadhead, now released on DVD after 27 years. We don't yet know whether Katy still finds the series so compelling that she would nominate it, if asked, for Cultural Exchange.
We do want your suggestions. We have space at the end of the series for some additional choices, so do make your case in the space below.What would you choose?
Explore the Cultural Exchange website, which features interviews, galleries, clips and a free download of the series.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites
