Falstaff, Ideology, Even the Rain, Diego Marani

Available for over a year

Tonight on Night Waves with Matthew Sweet, a first night review of a new production of Falstaff live from the Royal Opera House in London. In the last few weeks alone, David Cameron has declared he's 'sceptical' of 'loud ideology', and Ed Miliband and Ed Balls have accused the Government of being too ideologically driven. So why are our politicians suspicious of ideology? And is it a recent development? Journalist Peter Oborne and writer Eliane Glaser join Matthew to debate political ideology. Scottish human rights lawyer and screenwriter Paul Laverty talks to Matthew about his new political film Even The Rain, which sets modern globalisation and the Bolivian water wars against a backdrop of European imperialism and Columbus's conquest of the New World in 1492. Diego Marani is a linguist at the European Union who writes a column for a Swiss newspaper in the made up language of Europanto. He talks to Matthew about his new novel The Last of the Vostyachs, which explores the boundaries between language, ethnicity and national identity.