Gabriel Gbadamosi looks at the new wave of cultural activity emerging from France's North African community. Despite having a presence in French life for over 50 years, it is only with the popular success of recent films, for example about the French Arabic contribution to the Second World War, that its artists are finding a wider audience.
The Secret of the Grain
The Secret of the Grain received the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival earlier this year. Have the new wave of French North African filmmakers finally broken into the mainstream of the French film industry?
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Marcus Chown
Is it really possible to fit in the entire human race into the volume of a sugar cube?
Do you age faster at the top of a building than at the bottom?
And just how can an atom be in several different places at once?
The answers to all these questions and many more will be provided on Night Waves, when Gabriel Gbadamosi hears from the physicist Marcus Chown. Chown's latest book, Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You, aims to unveil the secrets of a system which some argue is science's most successful, and yet also problematic, theory.
Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You is being published by Faber and Faber on 1 November 2007.
Walter Sickert
Also the darker aspects of Edwardian life in London revealed in a new exhibition of Walter Sickert's famous set of paintings entitled The Camden Town Nudes.
In a seminal essay written in 1910, Sickert argued that the naked body had become far too idealised on canvas.
His portraits of London prostitutes came to symbolise his uncompromisingly realist approach to the nude as a way to address the social concerns of the early 20th century.
The art critic Bill Feaver joins Gabriel to give the Night Waves verdict on the exhibition, and to assess the continuing legacy of Sickert's de-glamourised depiction of the body.
The Camden Town Nudes is on at The Courtauld Gallery between 25 October 2007 to 20 January 2008. For further information, visit the gallery website by clicking on this link.
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The Secret Of The Grain
There'll also be an exploration of French North African cinema, with a look at the critically acclaimed family drama The Secret of the Grain.
Free Thinking People's Choice
Plus, another pitch for the People's Choice debate at next month's Radio 3 Free Thinking Festival - a chance to hear from Mike Stubbs, director of Liverpool's Foundation for Art and Creative Technology.
Further information on Free Thinking and the People's Choice debate.
