Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Episode details

World Service,14 Oct 2009,28 mins

The Strand - Wednesday 14 October 2009

The Strand

Available for over a year

On today's programme: Audrey Niffenegger, Reggae Opera, Gregory Doran, Journalists and Hollywood. Audrey Niffenegger We talk to novelist Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife about her new book Her Fearful Symmetry, a gothic mix of ghosts, cemetries, and family secrets. Reggae Opera The biggest event in the Jamaican stage calendar is the performance of the country's first reggae opera. Staged in a stadium by - and in order to raise funds for - Missionaries of the Poor, a Catholic brotherhood based on the island that runs homes for the country's elderly and sick. The event draws crowds of thousands. We hear from Kingston about the build-up and the show itself. Why Shakespeare is a truly global playwright William Shakespeare may be the quintessential English playwright as well as the greatest but could he actually have been a sort of international news journalist? A new book by RSC Chief Director Gregory Doran - acclaimed as "one of the great Shakespeareans of his generation" reveals a Shakespeare heavily influenced by discoveries and events from around the world. Hollywood's obsession with journalists The newspaper industry is in turmoil thanks to a freefall in advertising revenue and stiff competition from the internet. But, help is at hand from an unlikely source: Hollywood. Three of the big films of 2009 - State of Play, The Soloist and Men Who Stare at Goats - centre around the work of journalists. Writer and critic Joe Queenan reflects on this recent trend and considers why Hollywood loves the newspaper hack.

Programme Website
More episodes