25/09/2009

Available for over a year

On the programme today: Richard Flanagan, Liberia's Miss Manners, Grotowski, Krzysztof Wodiczko Richard Flanagan The multiple award winning Australian novelist Richard Flanagan -- author of such international bestsellers as Gould's Book of Fish -- has a new novel out. 'Wanting.' It stretches from the colonial hell of Van Diemen's Land, now known as Tasmania, through Dickensian London to the frozen bodies of Arctic Explorers who resorted to cannibalism before dying anyway. How did Flanagan come up for the idea for this work of thwarted desire Simple Manners and Courtesy In Liberia a former beauty queen has started her own TV show preaching good manners and etiquette to citizens of a country torn apart by civil war. The Strand meets her and hears why Simple Manners and Courtesy has become one of the country's most popular TV programmes. Jerzy Grotowski and his theatre legacy To mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Laboratory Theatre and the 10th since the death of the world-renowned theatre director Jerzy Grotowski, UNESCO has designated 2009 as "The Year of Grotowski." Harriett will be discussing the importance of the 'Poor Theatre' he devised and what has been it's legacy to both his native Polish theatre and stages around the world. http://www.nt-online.org/50358/exhibitions/dust-grotowskis-last-performance.html http://www.barbican.org.uk/theatre/event-detail.asp?ID=9462 http://www.barbican.org.uk/theatre/event-detail.asp?ID=9471 Krzysztof Wodiczko Krzysztof Wodiczko is one of the most prominent Polish artists renowned internationally for his socially engaged and politically charged work employing large scale slide and video projections.