17 November 2005
Thursday 17 November 2005 21:30-22:15 (Radio 3)
One of the world's leading intellectuals and novelists, Umberto Eco, gets to grip with truth; Bollywood launches its most expensive film to date - Taj Mahal; and why the naked body is necessary for political and social change.
Programme details
Umberto Eco was voted this year to be one of the world's leading intellectuals. When he published The Name of the Rose in 1980, its run away success meant that he combined his academic career which was dedicated to explaining how elusive truth can be in words, with writing novels in which he endlessly seeks the truth. Gabriel Gbadamosi asks Umberto Eco, how he can reconcile these two seemingly opposite tasks, when he talks to him about his latest novel - The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana.
The naked body in Western Art even today is considered provocative, dangerous and often unwelcome in public. The art historian Alyce Mahon argues, that because of this, it has been the way boundaries have been broken and advances have been made in society and politics. She talks to Gabriel Gbadmosi about her theory, in the company of the writer and broadcaster Jameela Siddiqui, who coming from an Eastern tradition, has a very different perspective.
Jameela Siddiqui will be also joining Gabriel to discuss the most expensive Bollywood film yet made - Taj Mahal. Jointly released in Britain and India this Friday, the film is being heralded as a breakthrough Bollywood film, showing how east and west now share film as culture. But is this so? And is this film really going to have the blockbuster appeal of Gladiator?
And Richard Bean - named by critics as a hotshot playwright, talks to Gabriel about the moment he decided in his 40s to become a playwright - and turn his back on a career as a psychologist. Now being feted with a major theatre award nomination for his play Harvest, about pig farmers, he talks also about the challenges and appeal of adapting Moliere's great classic Hypochondriac, for the stage.
Additional Information:
Taj Mahal - opens this Friday nationwide and in India.
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco is published by Secker and Warburg.
Eroticism and Art is published by Oxford University Press.
The Hypochondriac in a new translation and adaptation by Richard Bean is at the Almeida Theatre London and runs until 7 January 2006.
