4 November 2005
Friday 4 November 2005 21:55-22:25 (Radio 3)
Paul Allen talks to South African writer Nadine Gordimer about Get a Life, her latest novel in which a scientist treated for thyroid cancer becomes a radioactive danger to his nearest and dearest.
Programme details
The South African novelist Nadine Gordimer, winner of both the Booker and the Nobel Prize, was first published at 15. At 82, she's still writing and on tonight's Night Waves she joins Paul Allen to discuss her new novel, Get A Life, and the importance of the land of her native country in her work, from her early short stories to her latest work. She also explains why she thinks age does not necessarily bring wisdom...
Next week, BBC television begins broadcasting a series of four 'retellings' of Shakespeare plays. Much Ado About Nothing is relocated to a regional news programme. Macbeth is a rising young chef in a top restaurant. The shrew in The Taming of the Shrew is an opposition MP who is told she needs a husband to become more electable. A Midsummer Night's Dream takes place in a holiday camp.
But whereas relocating the plays is a common approach, particularly in the theatre, these programmes also take a much more radical step. Each play's characters and basic narrative are retained, but the script is 'retold' from scratch. This has been done occasionally in theatre, cinema and novels - even once on television - by Andrew Davies, for ITV, in 2001. But the BBC has never take the plunge before. So tonight on Paul is joined by TV critic Chris Dunkley and Shakespeare scholar Michael Dobson to compare the first in the series, Much Ado About Nothing, with the way BBC television approached the same play, in a 1984 production starring Robert Lindsay. Is what is gained in clarity lost in beauty - and is it worth the sacrifice?
Plus, the implications of the new deal between Microsoft and the British Library to put 25 million pages of out-of-copyright books online. How will the increasing availability of the world's knowledge affect the academy, and the world outside?
That's all on Night Waves with Paul Allen tonight on Radio 3, at the later time of 9.55pm.
Further Information:
Get A Life by Nadine Gordimer is published by Bloomsbury.
Click here for more information on BBC's ShakespeaRE-Told season across the BBC.
