James Wood, Michael Grigsby, Pompeii and Herculaneum, In the House

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On Night Waves tonight, Matthew Sweet talks to the literary critic, novelist and essayist James Wood, who discusses cherishing the ability to be honest in literary reviews and the connection between a certain kind of sentence structure and Keith Moon's drumming. In 79 AD, the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were buried in ash following a cataclysmic eruption of the volcano Vesuvius, killing thousands but keeping the towns in a nearly perfect state of preservation. Now the British Museum is holding one of the most comprehensive exhibitions of finds from Pompeii and Herculaneum ever staged. Matthew visited the Museum with Classicist Margaret Mountford and curator Paul Roberts to see what insights he could gain into urban life in the Roman world. Michael Grigsby began directing films as a schoolboy in the 1950s. He went on to make series of films documenting working life, the impacts of the Vietnam War, and life on the economic edges of Thatcher's Britain, amongst many other things. Uncompromising in his insistence on giving his subjects the time and space to tell their stories, our own Matthew Sweet has written about Grigsby's "passionate commitment to the poetry of everyday life". Grigsby died suddenly earlier this month, just as his latest film 'We Were Soldiers' was released. Matthew is joined by Grigsby's producer and collaborator Rebekah Tolley and the critic Ian Christie. And, Is it a middle class satire, a coming of age tale or a post-modern deconstruction of the act of writing and film making? Film critic Ginette Vincendeau reviews the latest offering by one of France's most prolific film directors Francois Ozon, In the House, with Kristin Scott Thomas. Producer: Luke Mulhall.