This Cultural Life Folgen

Lee Child created his tough guy protagonist Jack Reacher, a former military policeman who roams America fighting crime, in 1997. Writing a book a year since his debut Killing Floor, Lee Child established himself as one of the most acclaimed and popular novelists in his genre, and has now sold over 100 million copies worldwide. The Reacher books have been adapted for a film starring Tom Cruise and, more recently, an Amazon Prime television series. Lee Child’s latest publication, Safe Enough, is a collection of short stories. Talking to John Wilson, Child recalls his upbringing in Birmingham and how his childhood passion for reading was fuelled by frequent visits to the local library. For This Cultural Life, he chooses a Ladybird book which told the Biblical story of David and Goliath as an early inspiration, acknowledging that the giant figure of Goliath probably inspired the physique of 6’5” tall Reacher. He also remembers the impact of a book called My American Home which depicted an array of houses and apartments throughout America, the country in which Child would later live and set his novels. He also discusses how working for 18 years as a Granada television producer, overseeing the transmission of dramas including Brideshead Revisited, helped forge his understanding of storytelling. His work as a union shop steward, which brought him into conflict with management and eventually led to him being made redundant, was the catalyst for his new career as a crime novelist in the late 1990s. His debut Reacher novel, a violent tale of vengeance and rough justice was, he admits, written out of anger following his dismissal from Granada. Lee Child also chooses the 1990 movie Dances With Wolves, directed by and starring Kevin Costner, as another influence on the creation of his fictional hero Jack Reacher. Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used: Reading from Worth Dying For by Lee Child, The Knight Errant: Lee Child - A Culture Show Special, BBC2, 20 Dec 2012 Clip from Brideshead Revisited, Granada Television, ITV, 12 October 1981 Clip from Dances with Wolves, Kevin Costner, 1990 Clip from Jack Reacher, Christopher McQuarrie, 2012

The grandfather of British Pop Art, Sir Peter Blake is one of most influential and popular artists of his generation. A Royal Academician with work in the national collection, including Tate and the National Portrait Gallery, he is renowned for paintings and collages that borrow imagery from advertising, cinema and music. Having created The Beatles’ Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band sleeve in 1967 he became the go-to album designer for other musical artists including The Who, Paul Weller, Madness and Oasis. He was knighted for services to art in 2002.Sir Peter tells John Wilson how, after a working class upbringing in Dartford, Kent, he won a place at the Royal College of Art alongside fellow students Bridget Riley and Frank Auerbach. He recalls being influenced by early American pop artists including Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, and how he began making art inspired by everyday popular imagery. He chooses Dylan Thomas's 1954 radio play Under Milk Wood as a work which captivated his imagination and later inspired a series of his artworks based on the characters, and also cites Max Miller, the music hall artist known as 'the Cheeky Chappie'; as a creative influence. Sir Peter remembers how he made the iconic Sgt Pepper sleeve using waxwork dummies and life size cut-out figures depicting well-known people chosen by Peter and The Beatles themselves. Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used: Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas, performed by Richard Burton, BBC Third Programme, 25 Jan 1954 Max Miller, introduced by Wilfred Pickles at the Festival of Variety, BBC Light Programme, 6 May 1951 Max Miller archive from Celebration, The Cheeky Chappie, BBC Radio 4, 3 July 1974 Monitor: 89: Pop Goes The Easel, BBC1, 25 March 1962 Peter Blake: Work in Progress, BBC2, 21 February 1983 Newsnight, BBC2, 7 February 1983 Ian Dury, Peter the Painter

Director and actor Simon McBurney, one of the founders of the ground breaking theatre company Complicité, reveals his creative inspirations and influences. For over four decades McBurney has created innovative and experimental works, from immersive staging to the reinvention of classic texts. His works include A Disappearing Number, The Encounter and Mnemonic, a landmark production which has been recently revived at The National Theatre. Simon McBurney tells John Wilson about his childhood in Cambridge where his father, an archaeologist, helped foster an early fascination with time and memory. For This Cultural Life he chooses the 1969 Ken Loach film Kes as a formative influence, offering an insight to a childhood very different to his own middle class upbringing. He recalls seeing the band The Clash whilst at Cambridge University, an experience that had a profound impact on his own creativity and political engagement through the arts. He also chooses the writer and critic John Berger as an inspirational figure, and recalls collaborating with Berger on the immersive Artangel project The Vertical Line in 1999. Simon McBurney also describes how the experience of meeting indigenous Amazonian people inspired his 2016 Complicité show The Encounter. Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive clips from: Kes, Ken Loach, 1969 The Clash Live at Rock Against Racism, Victoria Park, 1978 The Dead Class, Tadeusz Kantor, 1976 Friday Night...Saturday Morning: Cambridge Footlights, BBC1, Nov 1979 Ways of Seeing, Episode 1, BBC2, Jan 1972 The Vertical Line, Complicité, BBC Radio 4, 1999 The Encounter, Complicité, Barbican Theatre, May 2018 Face to Face, BBC2, Oct 1995 Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Christopher McQuarrie, 2015