Programme Details

One of the greats of British cultural life, Jonathan Miller, recently announced that his production of Donizetti's comic masterpiece DonPasquale will be his last. As the production opens in London, Michael Kennedy and Michael Billington give their critical insight, and reflect on Jonathan Miller's contribution to opera in the UK.

From the Swiss railway watch to washing machines, Swiss design is synonymous with efficiency and precision. But is it as dull as a result? Too perfect? At times perhaps too quirky? Just think of the cuckoo clock. Design guru Stephen Bayley offers a radical hymn to Swiss design, and suggests that perhaps it is in fact the best in the world.

With controversy over the elections in the Ukraine, one person keeping a close eye on what's happening is the poet Carole Rumens. Carole is married to a Ukrainian, and has a long interest in Eastern Europe. She talks to Isabel Hilton about the troubled place of politics in poetry and the role of the poet in the 21st century.

The City of Angels - Los Angeles - is the most filmed city in the world. Yet it is also the most unattractive. Roman Polanski once said that the only way to look at the city was at night. The film critic Nigel Floyd and the political scientist Saskia Sassen, discuss why Los Angeles has such a hold on the global imagination. Is it simply down to Hollywood? And what are the real facts about this city which once used to be a string of villages?

The selected writings of the radical thinker Antonin Artaud have just been published in France. Now his work is accessible to the French people for the first time in a cheap and easily digested form. Why is the publication significant ? What does it say about French culture today? And why does he have the power to shock and repel so many years after his death? The French specialist Patrick ffrench (sic) reveals all.

Night Waves, live at 9.30pm on BBC Radio 3

Presenter: IsabelHilton
Producer: ArianeKoek


Additional Information
1) Collected Poems by Carol Rumens is published by Bloodaxe
2) Don Pasquale is at the Royal Opera House, London, from 27 November until 17 December
3) Los Angeles Plays Itself (cert tbc) is at the Institute Of Contemporary Arts in London from 10 December