Vile Bodies- When the Party Stopped

Many people hold Evelyn Waugh among the best British writers of the 20th Century -Russell Kane is one of them. To mark the 60th anniversary of his death, Russell delves into seven of Waugh’s most important works.

While Waugh has been unfashionable for some time, Kane believes it’s high time to turn back to him. He says he was way ahead of his time and, in his books, he reveals ourselves to ourselves and uncovers clues for how we should live our lives today.

Over seven episodes, Waugh tells us everything we need to know about the cluttered corridors of English culture - its class system, media, cult of masculinity, colonial hang-ups: everything it’s made of, good and bad. Not only does Waugh show our society for what it is, but he demonstrates how it can be hacked - infiltrated by savvy interlopers like himself. And Russell sees a kindred spirit.

Waugh may be a divisive figure, with the public reputation of a pantomime villain. Some say Waugh’s vitriolic streak, cultural insensitivity and idolisation of the upper classes should condemn him to the male, pale and stale literary past - but Russell believes he is prescient, not reactionary, that he was ahead of his time. Waugh holds the least flattering of mirrors up to us - and actually, it’s not Waugh but what we see that we don’t like.

In episode 2, we leaf through the pages of Vile Bodies (1930) – a book about the Bright Young Things. Waugh was not one. The core of the novel is the tension between overindulgence and abstinence - we Brits can’t do moderation. Russell found his own confidence through partying in Ibiza in his 20s, but soon came to realise that, just as in Vile Bodies, the idealism of a unity overcoming racial and social division was just illusion.

Producer: Dom Byrne & Freya Hellier
Executive Producer: Rosamund Jones
Editor: Kirsten Lass
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke
Sound Mix: Jon Calver

A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4