17 September 2005
Saturday 17 September 2005 21:50-22:35 (Radio 3)
Ian McMillan returns with a new series of the weekly cabaret of new writing, poetry and performance. Ian and guests explores how storms, tempests and floods have dominated the literary imagination; travel writer Alexander Frater contemplates the darker side of the monsoon in a special commission; plus, an elegy in song for the city of New Orleans, specially written and performed for The Verb by Barb Jungr.
Programme Details
Ian McMillan returns this week with another hi-octane series of The Verb, showcasing the best of new writing, poetry, prose and performance. Following the summer of extreme weather, Ian kicks off the new series by exploring how storms, tempests and floods have dominated the literary imagination. He's joined by the critic Valentine Cunningham and the acclaimed novelist Maggie Gee, whose books include The Flood and The Ice People, a dystopia set in an imaginary ice age. Travel writer Alexander Frater also joins the discussion and reads a specially commissioned piece about the monsoon in India, another recent catastrophic weather event, but one which didn't quite capture public attention in the same way as Hurricane Katrina.
Also on the programme, Ian pokes his snout into the porcine world of writer Kitty Fitzgerald's new novel, Pigtopia. It's a dark and forbidding tale about pig loving Jack Plum, a young man with severe physical and mental disabilities who yearns for human contact. Ian talks to Kitty about the book, and how she crafted the `pig-speak' which goes in inside Jack 's head.
Plus, a hauntingly beautiful elegy in song for the city of New Orleans, specially written and performed for The Verb by chanteuse Barb Jungr.
That's all on The Verb with Ian McMillan at the slightly later time of 9.50pm on Radio 3.
Producer: Aasiya Lodhi
Additional Information:
1) Pigtopia by Kitty Fitzgerald is published by Faber and Faber
2) Chasing The Monsoon by Alexander Frater is published by Picador
3) The Flood by Maggie Gee is published by Saqi Books
4) The Ice People by Maggie Gee is published by Metro Books
