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Episode details

Radio 3,04 Oct 2011,45 mins

Midnight in Paris, Fiona Shaw, Madness, St Paul's Cathedral

Night Waves

Available for over a year

Juliet Gardiner interviews Woody Allen about his latest comedy 'Midnight in Paris,' which has proved to be his most commercially successful film ever. She also hears from director Fiona Shaw about her controversial staging of The Marriage Of Figaro at the ENO. Juliet is joined by psychoanalyst Darian Leader and Niall Boyce of The Lancet, who will be discussing madness in society. From the popular press to TV soaps and films, the depiction of madness always borders on the extreme. But should we be turning our attention to discreet madness, shared by average citizens who will never come to psychiatric attention ? Three hundred years ago this winter Parliament finally signed off as completed the new St Paul's Cathedral. The first Sunday service in the building had in fact been held six years earlier in 1705 when Queen Anne attended a service of thanksgiving for the Battle of Blenheim but it was 1711 before Christopher Wren was paid and the contract completed. The Rev Giles Fraser is today's Chancellor of St Paul's and reflects on what Christopher Wren had in mind as the function of the building. He created an architectural rejection of the fiery religion that had led thousands of men to butcher each other on the bloody battlefields of the English Civil War throughout his childhood.

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