Matthew Sweet explores the history of the South African play, Sizwe Banzi is Dead, on the eve of the arrival of a new production in Britain from Johannesburg.
Written at the height of Apartheid in the 1970s, it was created, against the odds, out of a collaboration between two black actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona and the white playwright Athol Fugard. What do its themes of identity and segregation have to say in today's very different political conditions?
Playlist
Matthew Sweet talks to one of America's leading public intellectuals Harvard-based sociologist Nathan Glazer about his new book which argues that architectural modernism failed the people of US and British cities by moving away from its social roots, and that it designed, wrongly, public buildings for an artistic elite rather than the people.
The entrepreneur has become a central role model in British culture, as reflected in the popularity of television programmes such as Dragon's Den and the forthcoming new series of The Apprentice. The idea of the entrepreneur has been promoted by both New Labour and previous Conservative governments as central to more efficient private and public sector but critics say it ends up putting the needs of markets before those of society. Night Waves asks if we should all be entrepreneurs now.
As a new TV drama comes out this week on the explosive friendship between painters Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, Matthew discusses with art critic Richard Cork our continuing fascination with the life of van Gogh, and the success or otherwise of films and plays about him. And Night Waves looks at the play Sizwe Banzi is Dead. It was first seen in South Africa in 1972, received international acclaim and became one of the country's most famous plays. Written by Athol Fugard in collaboration with the actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona it was a political protest against the treatment of black South Africans during the apartheid era. Matthew Sweet talks to the two actors, reunited in a new production at the National Theatre in London, about the significance of the play and its role in reminding us of South Africa's past. And there's a review of a new documentary which tells the story of how the independent films of the 1970s from Pink Flamingoes to Eraserhead changed the face of cinema.
'The Yellow House' goes out on Thursday 22nd March at 9.00pm on Channel 4
'Sizwe Banzi is Dead' opens at the National Theatre on Wednesday 21st March playing in rep at the Lyttelton Theatre until 4th April 2007
'From a Cause to a Style: Modernist Architecture's Encounter with the American City' is published by Princeton University Press
