Museum Culture
Monday 7 January 2008 21:45-22:30 (Radio 3)
Matthew Sweet takes a tour behind the scenes at the Natural History Museum where the eminent curator, palaeontologist and writer Richard Fortey has worked for almost his whole career. He explains how museum culture has been revolutionised in recent decades. Plus, as Liverpool begins its year as European Capital of Culture, Night Waves draws on the successes and failures of previous holders of the title to assess whether expectations within the city can be met.
Playlist
The Natural History Museum
On the first edition of Night Waves of the new year, Matthew Sweet is taken on a magical mystery tour of the backstage areas of the Natural History Museum by one of its leading lights, the writer and paleontologist Richard Fortey, who has spent decades among its maze of specimen-lined corridors.
Matthew pauses at Giraffe Corner, discovers the signature of the Piltdown Man hoaxer embroidered on a table cloth - and finds out why the pungent whale room has been superseded by a molecular biology lab.
Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum by Richard Fortey is published by Harper Press.
More information on the Natural History Museum can be found here.
Capital of Culture
As Liverpool becomes the European Union's designated Capital of Culture we look at what the city is trying to achieve this year, and how it might measure up to previous holders of the title.
More information on Liverpool as Capital of Culture can be found here.
Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days
There's a review of the film that won last year's Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days - a bleak thriller set in Ceaucescu's Romania.
Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days is on general release from Friday 11th.
Robert Oppenhiemer
On the publication of a landmark study of Robert Oppenhiemer we talk to its author Martin J Sherwin about the man who made the bomb, what made him what he was, and what his achievements still mean for the rest of us.
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J Robert Oppenheimer byMartin Sherwin is published by Atlantic.
