Programme Details

"How we treat people who are mentally ill will come to be seen as the ultimate test of the twenty-first century". So says Julia Neuberger in her new book The MoralState We're In. Here she describes the ways in which we treat the weak and vulnerable and what that treatment says about our society. She examines our attitudes to the elderly, the mentally ill, the young, to prisoners and asylum seekers. Have we become a nation of selfish egoists and have we lost ideals of kindness? Isabel Hilton discusses the moral state we're in with Julian Neuberger and the writer and prospective Conservative candidate Michael Gove on tonight's Night Waves.

John Virtue is the sixth National Gallery artist and the results of his two year stint are about to go on show, eleven new paintings that historian Simon Schama describes as "punk epics; gritty; brazen with tough truth". The paintings are all executed in black and white and are on a huge scale, depicting the London cityscape from various locations including the National Gallery itself. Isabel Hilton visits the gallery to talk to John Virtue about his monochrome vision of London and about working in the shadow of great painters of the European landscape tradition.

Also on the programme - the last in the Night Waves series on African objects, British Museum curator Chris Spring describes a particular chair from Zanzibar, the political significance of chairs and stools in African culture, and a modern day throne made from broken guns.

And the critic Jonathan Romney reviews Life is a Miracle, the latest film from one of Europe's most colourful directors, Emir Kusturica, a bizarre story about life in the Bosnian outback on the brink of war.

Night Waves with Isabel Hilton at 9.30pm on BBC Radio 3.




Presenter: Isabel Hilton
Producer: Anthony Denselow





Additional Information:

The Moral State We're In: A Manifesto for a 21st Century Society by Julia Neuberger is published by Harper Collins.

John Virtue: London Paintings 9 March - 5 June 2005 at the National Gallery, London.
www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/john_virtue/default.htm

Africa 05 is the biggest celebration of African culture ever organised in Britain, including visual arts, cinema, literature, history, music, craft, and performing arts.
For more details visit www.bbc.co.uk/bbcafrica/africa05/

Life Is A Miracle is on selected release certificate 15.