21 June 2005
Tuesday 21 June 2005 21:30-22:15 (Radio 3)
Paul Allen with another edition of the arts and ideas programme.
Programme Details
It was promoted as a place of paradise, where the sun shone and the surf was plentiful. Then came the railroads, the settlers, and the investment. But it is the California of the last decade or so that has attracted two American writers - the California historian Kevin Starr and novelist and film-maker Gary Indiana - who have separately chosen to explore the State of contradictions. From the Los Angeles riots to the dot.com bubble and the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor, in tonight's Night Waves Paul Allen explores the anomalies and global might of California - the world's sixth largest economy.
Night Waves continues its celebration of the British landscape in its series of commissioned pieces for A Picture of Britain. This evening the Fiji-born, Welsh-raised poet Owen Sheers will be reflecting on the part of Britain that has had an influence on his writing.
Also, a first-night review of Shakespeare's cross-dressing classic, As You Like It. Helen McCrory takes the lead as Rosalind, in a cast which features Sienna Miller, Sean Hughes, Dominic West and Clive Row. Susannah Clapp will arrive hotfoot from the theatre to give her verdict.
Robert Hanks will be talking to the novelist Leila Abuleila, who was born in Cairo and grew up in Sudan. Her new novel Minaret tells the story of Najwa, an upper class westernised Sudanese woman whose family is forced into political exile in London.
And on the longest day of the year, a very particular art project is taking place in London. Israeli artist Ohad Fishof is embarking on an international project, kicking off in the UK. At 8am on Tuesday he will start a 'very slow walk' across London Bridge and back. It will take him several hours. But what's it all about? A question Paul Allen will be putting to him during his well-earned lunch break...
That's all in Night Waves with Paul Allen at half past nine this evening.
Presenter: Paul Allen
Producer: Jerome Weatherald
Further details:
As You Like It is a Wyndham's Theatre, London, until 5th September
Coast of Dreams: A History of Contemporary California by Kevin Starr is published by Penguin
Schwarzenegger Syndrome: Politics and Celebrity in the Age of Contempt by Gary Indiana is published by The New Press on 7th July
For details of the 'very slow walk' by Ohad Fishof and Longplayer, visit www.slowwalk.org and http://longplayer.org/
Minaret by Leila Aboulela is published by Bloomsbury
For details on Owen Sheers visit http://www.owensheers.co.uk/
