Matthew Sweet is joined by Elaine Showalter and David Lodge to explore how the academic novel has charted the changes taking place in universities since 1950.
Programme Details:
Its thirty five years since the first performance of The Philanthropist - the comedy which established Christopher Hampton as one of the most exciting playwrights of his generation. In Night Waves this evening he talks to Matthew Sweet about the latest revival of his play at the Donmar Theatre in London and about his life as a writer.
Matthew will also be talking to one of Christopher Hampton's famous contemporaries, the novelist, David Lodge and the two of them will be joined by the feminist critic, Elaine Showalter for a discussion about her new book, Faculty Towers - an anatomy of that ever popular form the academic novel.
There'll also be a review of Four Brothers, the latest film by the director of Boyz N the Hood - John Singleton. It's a story of revenge and redemption in Detroit though the setting could just as well have been Rome or Athens given the film's elemental power.
To round things off Matthew and the art critic, Tim Marlow, will be meditating on the magic of bronze as a material for sculpture - a theme which the Henry Moore Foundation has chosen for its current exhibition in Leeds .
That's Night Waves with Matthew Sweet here on BBC Radio 3 9.30pm.
Presenter: MATTHEW SWEET
Producer: ZAHID WARLEY
Additional Information:
1) Faculty Towers – The Academic Novel and its Discontents by Elaine Showalter is published by Oxford University Press, ISBN: 019928332X
2) The Philanthropist by Christopher Hampton is at the Donmar Theatre in London until 15th October 2005.
3) Four Brothers by John Singleton is on cinemas from 30th September. It is a certificate 15.
4) Bronze: The power of life and Death is at the main galleries at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds from 15th September until 7th January 2006.
http://www.henry-moore-fdn.co.uk/
