Will Self
Thursday 25 May 2006 21:30-22:15 (Radio 3)
Will Self joins Paul Allen in the studio to discuss his latest novel, The Book of Dave - the story of an East End taxi driver who writes down his disgruntled rants about modern life - only for them to be dug up 500 years later and used as the sacred text of a new religion.
Mother and Child Foliage (yet to be named)
by Gary Hume
Part of the upcoming exhibition at White Cube, London, called 'Cave Paintings', by Gary Hume
Playlist
Will Self
Will Self's new novel is set in a future, flooded London which is religiously structured by a book written by a distraught taxi driver centuries earlier. Paul Allen talks to the author about revealed religion, satire and his relationship with cabbies.
Will Self's novel The Book of Dave is in the shops now published by Viking.
Dark architecture
How do we successfully accommodate buildings which have a dark past into a healthy future? Writers and historians often describe buildings and landscapes as mute witnesses to atrocities of the past.
In recent times the houses where murderers Fred West and Ian Huntley carried out their crimes were demolished after conviction and the vacant land landscaped as if to erase the past - but also to deter ghoulish visitors and tourists. But is this the best response?
Paul Allen, Ken Worpole and Professor John Lennon discuss our ambivalence towards the subject of dark architecture and ask whether we need to have a more systematic approach to it.
'Dark Tourism: The Attraction of Death and Disaster' by John Lennon and Malcolm Foley is published by Thomson Learning.
Ken Worpole's most recent book is 'Last Landscapes: the architecture of the cemetery in the west', published by Reaktion Books Ltd.
Gary Hume
Paul also talks to artist Gary Hume as a new exhibition of his work opens. Having made his name as one of the Young British Artists of the 90s by painting exact reproductions of hospital doors, he has since moved beyond his trademark gloss paint to work with marble, using techniques from the graveyard. However, his work is often characterised by a cheerful palette of colour and criticised for its decorative qualities. Paul uncovers the contradictions.
Gary Hume's exhibition 'Cave Paintings' is at White Cube in London until the 1st of July.
