13 December 2005
Tuesday 13 December 2005 21:30-22:15 (Radio 3)
Plays, playing with disaster and disaster movies in Night Waves
Programme details
As plumes of black smoke still hover over Hemel Hempstead, Night Waves plays with disaster - or rather explores how playing with imaginary disasters can help cope with real ones. Sociologist Lee Clarke of Rutgers University talks about his book "Worst Cases".
Writer David Eldridge won awards for his stage adaptation of the Dogme film "Festen". Now he has taken on Henrik Ibsen's "The Wild Duck". His new version, directed by Michael Grandage, opens at the Donmar Warehouse in London tonight. Night Waves theatre critic Susannah Clapp gives her assessment of the production.
And English born American based film critic David Thomson looks at how Hollywood looks at Britain - are we just a convenient back drop for anyone from Austin Powers to Woody Allen?
All that and more with Isabel Hilton in Night Waves tonight at half past nine, here on BBC Radio 3.
Additional information:
1) Worst Cases: Terror and Catastrophe in the Popular Imagination by Lee Clarke is published by University of Chicago Press
2) The Wild Duck runs at the Donmar Warehouse, Earlham Street , London until 18th February 2006
