On St George's Day Andrew Marr discusses national identity and belonging. The playwright David Hare has written a companion piece to a Terrence Rattigan play, set in an English public school. George Benjamin is celebrated as one of England's leading composers, but how far is his work shaped by the French musical tradition? The Scottish writer Iain Banks discusses his novel, Stonemouth, set in a town north of Aberdeen and vividly evoking a sense of place and identity. And Rachel Seiffert examines what happens when an Ulster girl marries a Glaswegian boy, in her latest short story, Hands Across the Water.Producer: Katy Hickman.
Kultur & Gesellschaft
Start the Week Folgen
Weekly discussion programme, setting the cultural agenda every Monday
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629 Folgen
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Folge vom 20.04.2012Iain Banks and David Hare
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Folge vom 16.04.2012ChinaAndrew Marr discusses the state of China with the authors Jonathan Fenby and Martin Jacques. Fenby attempts to draw together the whole of the China story to explore its global significance, but also its inner complexity and complexes. Martin Jacques has updated his bestseller, When China Rules the World, to argue that the country's impact will be as much political and cultural, as economic. But while China's finances make all the headlines, what of its literature? Ou Ning edits China's version of Granta magazine, showcasing the work of contemporary Chinese authors, but must tread a careful path to keep the right side of the censors. And the academic and translator Julia Lovell argues that to understand the new spirit of China, it's vital to read its often contrarian short fiction. Producer: Katy Hickman.
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Folge vom 09.04.2012Peter Carey on Start the WeekAndrew Marr talks to the prize-winning novelist, Peter Carey about his latest work, The Chemistry of Tears. At its heart is a small clockwork puzzle and Carey muses on how the industrial revolution has changed what it means to be human. The science writer Philip Ball goes back another century to the world of Galileo and Newton, to study the changes in thinking and knowledge embodied by the scientifically curious. And the historian Rebecca Stott rediscovers the first evolutionists, and the collective daring of Darwin's scientific forebears who had the imagination to speculate on the natural world. Producer: Katy Hickman.
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Folge vom 02.04.2012The 'death of socialism'?On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks back at the political and cultural landscape of the last 20 years with the author Alwyn Turner. In 1992 Margaret Thatcher proclaimed 'the death of socialism' after the Conservative election victory, and Turner argues this moment led to a generation turning away from politics, putting their energy into culture. But Janet Daley believes that it wasn't John Major's victory but the fall of communism that demoralised and destabilised the left, and the lessons of 1989 are still to be learnt. In its defence, the Labour MP Tristram Hunt points to the long history of socialism and believes its death has been much exaggerated. And the political cartoonist Martin Rowson lampoons both left and right. In his latest book he updates Swift's Gulliver's Travels to the late 1990s, targeting the government of Tony Blair, media moguls and Europe.Producer: Katy Hickman.