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Episode details

Radio 4,25 Mar 2017,45 mins

RSC's Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, The Eyes of my Mother, David Vann, BBC's Decline and Fall

Saturday Review

Available for over a year

The RSC is staging Shakepeare's Roman plays, beginning with Julius Caesar and Antony & Cleopatra - how have they made them chime for today's audiences? The debut film from American director Nicolas Pesce The Eyes of my Mother is a black and white gothic tale of murder, home-invasion incest, necrophilia, abduction, imprisonment, involuntary surgery..I could go on, but I think you've probably got the idea by now. Is it any good? David Vann's new novel is Bright Air Black, a poetic prose retelling of the Medea story. BBC TV had adapted Evelyn Waugh's Decline & Fall as a 3 part series starring Jack Whitehall - do our reviewers think a good job has been done with a classic novel? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Christopher Frayling, Kathryn Hughes and Alice Jones. The producer is Oliver Jones.

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