Matthew Sweet reassesses the age of the great public information film as a new exhibition showcases 50 films made by Glasgow Corporation from the 1920s onwards, with titles such as Housewives of Tomorrow from 1951 and Give the Kids a Break from 1938. Matthew explores how the films reflect the nation's changing aspirations and attitudes.
Playlist
Matthew Sweet talks to journalist and film-maker Peter Godwin about his memoir When A Crocodile Eats the Sun on growing up with his English parents in Zimbabwe. The book is both a document of an increasingly difficult life in the country under President Robert Mugabe, and about identity, as the author leans more about his dying father's true roots. Matthew asks Godwin about the complex and often troubled relationship between expatriates and Zimbabwe, and Africa itself.
Matthew also re-examines the age of the great public information films. With Scottish actor Bill Paterson and academic Elizabeth Lebas, he discusses a new exhibition of 50 films made by the Glasgow Corporation from the 1920s onwards, with titles such as Housewives of Tomorrow from 1951 and Give Kids A Break from 1938. He explores with his guests how they reflect Scotland and Britain's changing aspirations and attitudes, and why these kinds of films came to an end.
Later in the programme Matthew engages with Etgar Keret, a cult figure in Israel - a writer whose short often surreal stories seem to his readers to explain what is like to be young in Israel now. He has been condemned in the Knesset and lauded on the streets. As a new volume of his stories is published here, Night Waves finds out why Etgar Keret is so often described as the spokesman of his generation.
Plus Matthew reflects on two exhibitions which provide unique perspectives on England's relationship with the New World with artist, Zarah Hussain and anthropologist, Kit Davis. They'll be discussing John White's watercolours at the British Museum, which gave the Elizabethans their first glimpse of America and contrasting this with the National Portrait Gallery's show - Between Worlds which concentrates on the images and impressions of New World travellers who came to Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth century.
And science writer Karl Sabbagh pens a letter for Night Waves on the demise of a US laboratory devoted to proving the existence of the paranormal. He asks if those who believe in extra-sensory perception have abandoned their attempts to find evidence for their beliefs.
'When A Crocodile Eats the Sun' is published by Picador
The exhibition 'Sadness and Gladness' runs at the Lighthouse in Glasgow until 7th May
'Missing Kissinger' by Etgar Keret is published by Chatto and Windus
'A New World' is on at the British Museum from Monday 12th March
'Between Worlds' is currently open at the National Portrait Gallery in London
