24 May 2005
Tuesday 24 May 2005 21:30-22:15 (Radio 3)
Author of Wild Swans, Jung Chang, talks to Isabel Hilton about her ground breaking new biography, Mao: The Unknown Story - the culmination of a decade of original interviews and research in archives only just being opened up.
Programme Details
On Night Waves Isabel Hilton talks to author of the commercially and critically successful Wild Swans, Jung Chang, on the publication of her ground-breaking new biography of Mao. She tells Isabel about the truth behind the myths only just being smashed by the opening up of Russian archives and the decade of original research she did. And she offers her theory as to why the Chinese government let her interview the hundreds of people who knew Mao in order to be able to write the book.
Also on Night Waves, Isabel reviewsThe Big Life which sets the plot of Shakespeare's Love's Labours Lost on the Empire Windrush and examines the beginning of life in Britain for the symbolic founders of Britain's black communities. Does the first British black musical to hit the London's West End find a welcome there?
And does the thesis of the new Joshua Reynolds exhibition at Tate Britain hold water? With the subtitle The Creation of Celebrity, it examines the artist in the social, political and cultural context of a century that cultivated a very modern notion of fame, and suggests that his life and career were a conscious quest for celebrity.
Night Waves, at the slightly later time of 9.35pm, here on BBC Radio 3.
Presenter: Isabel Hilton
Producer: Kirsty Pope
Additional Information:
1) The Big Life is at the Apollo Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue, currently booking until November.
2) Jung Chang and Jon Halliday's Mao The Unknown Story is published by Jonathan Cape.
3) JoshuaReynolds: The Creation of Celebrity is at Tate Britain from Thursday until 18 September.
