22 September 2005
Thursday 22 September 2005 21:30-22:15 (Radio 3)
Playing with Fire - making a drama out of local government: playwright David Edgar explains how. And the influence of Jean Jacques Rousseau on garden design past and present.
Programme Details:
Is one of Britain 's leading playwrights, David Edgar, Playing with Fire - the title of his new play? It opened at the National Theatre on Wednesday night and is a drama about local government. Surely a contradiction in terms?
Set in the mythical Northern town of Wyverdale, the play is a corruscating examination of multicultural tensions, which begin when Whitehall starts interferring with local government. David Edgar confesses to Isabel Hilton how and why he hasn't lost faith in politics - even if his plays end up criticising it.
David Starkey and Simon Schama have popularised narrative history on our television screens as a way of adults learning about our past. Yet in schools, the teaching of history has become a political minefield and there is fierce debate on the merits of narrative history as opposed to modular history as a way for children to learn about the past. With the republication this week of the classic 100 year old history book Our Island Story by HE Marshall - a book which even the historian Lady Antonia Fraser admits she turns to regularly for inspiration - the children's historian Christina Hardyment and the historian Tristram Hunt discuss the appeal of this book, and the allure and perils of narrative history past and present.
It's been called the closest experience to an actual nightmare as anything ever seen on screen - by one New York film critic. The film 4 - Chetyre - by the award winning director Ilya Khrzhanovsky opens this week in Britain - yet it is banned in its native Russia and may never be shown there. Michael Brooke from the British film Institute unpeels the reasons for the films' banning and delivers his critical verdict as to its merits.
The philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau is well-known for his impact on the French Revolution. What's less known is his influence on French and English garden design. As a new exhibition opens at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, the distinguished landscape designer Charles Jencks and the architectural historian Jim Lawson take a philosophical walk around two gardens inspired by the philosopher of the social contract.
That's all on this evening's Night Waves at 9.30 here on BBC Radio 3 presented by Isabel Hilton
Presenter: Isabel Hilton
Producer: Ariane Koek
Further details:
The Philosopher's Garden opens at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh on Friday September 23rd and runs until Sunday 20th November.
Playing with Fire by David Edgar is showing at the Olivier at the Royal National Theatre in London until October 22nd .
This Island Story by HE Marshall is published by Civitas/Galore Park £19.99
A Little History of the World - by EH Gombrich £14.99 Yale University Press
'4' Chetyre directed by Ilya Khrzhanovsky, written by Vladimir Sorokin is released on 23 rd September and is being shown at the ICA in London.
