From Samuel Palmer's Garden of Eden to Carlos Reygadas' Garden of Earthly Delights.... Night Waves with Isabel Hilton.
Programme details
Think of the English landscape and its hard not to think of Samuel Palmer. He gave his pictures of the countryside around Shoreham in Kent a spiritual intensity which none but his mentor, William Blake, could rival. Whether in tingling colour or sepia the images have a vitality which draws as much from the mind of the artist as it does from the nature it observes. In the largest exhibition of Palmer's work for more than fifty years the British Museum has gathered together many of these pictures as well as his beautiful later etchings on classical themes and this evening in Night Waves Isabel Hilton is joined by the writer and broadcaster, Patrick Wright, as well as the internationally renowned artist Brian Clarke, who works often in glass, to discuss their luminous power and Palmer's legacy.
The Mexican film director, Carlos Reygadas, will be another of Isabel's guests. His new film, Battle in Heaven, has divided critical opinion with its sexually explicit, existential account of Mexico City while re-igniting talk of a renaissance in Mexican cinema. How far is this hype or historical fact?
There'll also be the exclusive first night Night Waves review of Heroes, an adaptation of Gerlad Sibelyras's Le Vent des Peupliers by Tom Stoppard. Straight from the starry West End opening of this show which stars John Hurt, Richard Griffiths and Ken Stott. Susannah Clapp will deliver her verdict; and the writer and critic, Adam Mars Jones will later in the programme be explaining why the sound of more than three thousand people crunching apples is the protest music of the future.
That's all in Night Waves with Isabel Hilton here on BBC Radio 3 at the usual time of nine thirty .
Presenter: Isabel Hilton
Producer: Zahid Warley /Ariane Koek
Additional information:
1) Samuel Palmer: Vision and Landscape is at the British Museum from Friday 21 st October until 22 nd January 2006
2) Carlos Reygadas' Battle in Heaven is a certificate 18 film. It goes on release at selected cinemas from 28 th October.
3) Heroes by Gerard Sibleyras is at Wyndham's Theatre in London .
4) Matthew Herbert's CD - Plat du Jour - is on Accidental Records.
