Programme Details

Mark Rothko has become one of the world's most famous artists. His floating rectangular forms and large abstract canvases are instantly recognisable. However in the early 1940's the then little known Rothko was struggling to find a distinctive style and to sell his work. The great transformation into abstraction had yet to occur and he was dabbling with surrealist images and philosophy. Rothko published a number of essays during his life but never a book. His son, Christopher Rothko, has now discovered and published a book by his father, The Artist's Reality. The book was probably written in the early 40's and lays out a series of philosophical opinions on art and the role of the artist. However, as Christopher Rothko explains to Mary Allen, the book refuses to comment on Rothko's own work directly or to offer any direct meaning about his own art.

People love discussing diseases and comparing symptoms. The wonderfully entitled new book -
The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases - goes a step further. It presents over 50 new diseases which have been completely imagined by a string of writers from Britain and America. Dr Michael O'Donnell and Dr Liz Williams discuss the book and explore the strange (and often hilarious) relationship between disease and language.

Also on the programme, the first British review of the Mel Brooks musical, The Producers - a Broadway hit which has arrived in Drury Lane with Nathan Lane and Lee Evans. And the legacy of Orwell's 1984 - is it becoming more of a reality in Bush's America?

Night Waves, live at 9.30 on BBC Radio 3.



Presenter: MaryAllen
Producer: AnthonyDenselow




Additional Information
1) Orwell Rolls In His Grave (15), directed by Robert Kane Pappas, opens at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London on November 19th
2) The Reconstruction of Nations by Timothy Snyder is published by Yale University Press
3) The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide To Eccentric & Discredited Diseases is published by Macmillan
4) The Artist's Reality by Mark Rothko is published by Yale University Press