Peter Nichols, Darian Leader, Politics in Architecture

Available for over a year

Rana Mitter talks to the playwright Peter Nichols as his 1981 Passion Play opens again in the West End with Zoe Wanamaker as the betrayed wife Eleanor and Samantha Bond as her alter ego Nell. The author of Privates on Parade, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg and The National Health among many others talks about a life in writing for theatre and television, National Service in Malaya and India, and a new play in progress. Rates of diagnosis of bipolar disorder have increased by dramatically in the last decade, along with prescriptions for the 'mood stabilising' drugs used to treat it. How should we understand this rise? In his latest book Strictly Bipolar, psychoanalyst Darian Leader looks at the cultural setting for bipolar disorder, and suggests a new way of making sense of the condition. And the architect Sunand Prasad and critic Rowan Moore discuss meaning in architecture and the role of the audience, or as we call them when discussing buildings rather than plays the public, in creating that meaning. That's Night Waves this evening with Rana Mitter.