6 October 2005
Thursday 6 October 2005 21:30-22:00 (Radio 3)
Matthew Sweet and guests discuss Ingmar Bergman's film Saraband, possibly the last film the great Swedish director will ever make - a sequel to his 1973 classic Scenes from a Marriage.
Programme details
Mary Midgley, one of Britain 's leading moral philosophers, is tonight's guest on Night Waves. Her new book, The Owl of Minerva, is an account of her early life, her introduction to philosophy and a survey of some of her many philosophical battles. She talks to Matthew Sweet about her academic and family journey, from Oxford to Newcastle , about the philosophical climate of the 1950's when she studied with the likes of Iris Murdoch and Mary Warnock, and charts the highs and lows of British philosophy over the past fifty years.
Ingmar Bergman, the great Swedish director, has said that his latest film, Saraband, shall be his last. It stars Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson, as the same two characters from Bergman's film "Scenes from A Marriage", an estranged married couple who meet up after thirty years. Muriel Zagha reviews the film on tonight's Night Waves.
A new production by the Royal Ballet with a Scandinavian theme opens tonight in London. The Lesson, a ballet version of lonesco's play, La Leçon, by Danish dancer and choreographer Flemming Fleindt, is performed alongside Bournonville's Romantic ballet La Sylphide. The Lesson's subject matter is unusually dark, featuring a homicidal ballet teacher who abuses his pupil before murdering her. Consequently it's evening performances only for this event! Dance critic Jenny Gilbert has been along to see it, and gives her assessment of the first night.
And it's National Poetry Day today - the theme this year is The Future. Poet John Stammers joins us in the studio to mark the occasion with some live readings.
That's all in Night Waves, with Matthew Sweet, live at 9.30 here on BBC Radio 3.
Owl of Minerva by Mary Midgley is published by Routledge.
Saraband will be shown at selected cinemas across the UK from tomorrow onwards.
The Royal Ballet's The Lesson/La Sylphide opens 6 October and runs until 9 November.
