:00:11. > :00:16.Welcome to the Culture Show from Glasgow. This week we have
:00:16. > :00:20.outstanding opera, gorgeous Gothic and some wicked wit, so don't move!
:00:20. > :00:23.Coming up: An operatic controversy. Composer John Adams tells Clemency
:00:23. > :00:26.Burton-Hill about his infamous work, The Death of Klinghoffer.
:00:26. > :00:35.A tale of our times. John Lanchester tells Professor John
:00:35. > :00:40.Mullan about his new novel, Capital. And a dramatic life. I delve into
:00:40. > :00:43.the complex world of neo-Gothic architect Augustus Pugin.
:00:43. > :00:46.Mark Kermode on the best movies at the Viva Festival of Spanish and
:00:46. > :00:50.Latin American film. Lynn Barber talks to Sue Townsend
:00:50. > :01:00.about her new novel. And theatrical rebel Philip Ridley
:01:00. > :01:02.
:01:02. > :01:04.tells Miranda Sawyer about his latest play, Shivered.
:01:04. > :01:12.First tonight, you can't have failed to notice that this year
:01:12. > :01:15.Britain has been celebrating the bicentenary of Charles Dickens. But
:01:15. > :01:18.I'd like to draw your attention to the 200th birthday of another great
:01:18. > :01:25.Victorian. The architect and designer Augustus Pugin, who
:01:25. > :01:28.instigated the 19th century gothic revival. I've been to visit Pugin's
:01:28. > :01:35.home in Ramsgate to find out about this visionary man.
:01:35. > :01:40.As night fell on September 10th, 1852, Amman was bundled onto a
:01:40. > :01:45.train in Waterloo headed for Ramsgate in Kent. -- a man. Prone
:01:45. > :01:49.to violent six and psychotic visions, he had been heavily
:01:49. > :01:54.sedated with chloroform. He had just been sent to Bedlam by his
:01:54. > :02:00.wife, a pauper's Hospital for the insane. His wife decided this was
:02:00. > :02:04.no place for her husband to spend his last days. It was time to bring
:02:04. > :02:08.him home. That man was none other than Augustus Pugin, now regarded
:02:08. > :02:14.as one of the greatest architects of the Victorian age, but by the
:02:14. > :02:18.time of his death in 1852, not only was see quite insane, his work was
:02:18. > :02:25.also destined to become hopelessly unfashionable for more than a
:02:25. > :02:29.century. Pugin can be difficult, a typical of tub-thumping Victorian
:02:29. > :02:34.moralising evangelist, hard to get to know. I am hoping by visiting a
:02:34. > :02:44.house that he built for himself, I can get an insight into the more
:02:44. > :02:47.
:02:47. > :02:51.interesting aspect of his As a devout Catholic convert,
:02:51. > :02:55.Pugin's mission in life was to convert Britain back to a pre-
:02:55. > :03:04.Reformation, medieval haven, where Gothic architecture would be a
:03:04. > :03:09.moral force for good. And Ramsgate was home for many years, it was a
:03:09. > :03:14.place above all when he dreamed his neo- Gothic Dream. Within three
:03:14. > :03:17.days of being brought back to Ramsgate by Jane, Pugin was dead.
:03:17. > :03:22.He was just 40 years old and he left behind the young wife he
:03:22. > :03:28.adored, as well as eight children. Many believed to his death was
:03:28. > :03:31.caused by overwork in his short life. He designed no fewer than 86
:03:31. > :03:36.buildings. Others think it was caused by the Mercury that he took
:03:36. > :03:40.for his failing eyesight, possibly a symptom of syphilis, but Jane's
:03:40. > :03:46.heroic efforts of getting him out of the hell-hole that was bedlam
:03:46. > :03:50.were not entirely in vain. Thanks to her, he was able to die in peace,
:03:50. > :03:55.surrounded by his family, in a place that he loved most of all.
:03:56. > :04:02.This handsome family house, with a Catholic church attached, was built
:04:02. > :04:07.by Augustus Pugin in 1854 and was his pride and joy. All his
:04:07. > :04:12.architectural and spiritual ideals went into this one building. Until
:04:12. > :04:17.a few years ago, the Grange, like Pugin's reputation at the time of
:04:17. > :04:22.his death, was in a terrible state. In danger in fact of being boarded
:04:22. > :04:27.up. But thankfully, the Landmark Trust stepped in to restore it just
:04:27. > :04:32.in time. Caroline, why do you think this house was so were the a
:04:32. > :04:37.restoration? It is the seminal building from a seminal architect.
:04:37. > :04:41.Augustus Pugin sets the tone for the Gothic revival in Britain in
:04:41. > :04:47.the mid- 19th century. It is a house of incredible self-confidence.
:04:47. > :04:55.Imagine, you off 30 and yet to stamp your motto all over the walls.
:04:55. > :05:00.-- you are just 30. Forwards, forwards! It says! And yet at the
:05:00. > :05:05.same time, this is an incredibly modern house because at the time he
:05:05. > :05:09.was building in the early 1840s, this kind of entrance hall was very
:05:09. > :05:13.radical and almost a little bit risky. You have this gallery
:05:13. > :05:18.running around the top. A you can see into people's bedrooms!
:05:18. > :05:21.bedroom door is there. Do you think his contemporaries would have been
:05:21. > :05:27.shocked that you can look up and perhaps see the lady of the house
:05:27. > :05:31.stumbling out of bed in a dressing- gown? Yes. You can see who is
:05:31. > :05:34.coming and going, you can see children running backwards and
:05:34. > :05:39.forwards on the nursery. He is setting the tone for how we lived
:05:39. > :05:45.our lives today. He introduces anarchy into the restrained world
:05:45. > :05:51.of Georgian architecture. Yes, a willingness to be spontaneous. This
:05:51. > :05:57.would have been a family sitting room, so Pugin himself there, and
:05:57. > :06:02.then this is Jane, his third wife. He described her as the first great
:06:02. > :06:08.Gothic month. Terribly important to him, his soulmate -- first great
:06:08. > :06:13.Gothic woman. She has a twinkle in her eye. I think she was a special
:06:13. > :06:17.lady. Pugin needed a woman in his life. He was very attracted to
:06:17. > :06:23.women and he was highly sexed so do have a wife and a mother in his
:06:23. > :06:28.home was terribly important. He said without a woman he felt like a
:06:28. > :06:35.Marron at sea without a compass. The fireplace is blended. -- he
:06:35. > :06:39.felt like a man at sea without a compass. The fireplace is splendid.
:06:40. > :06:44.Lot of meaning in the House and the fireplace is no exception. The
:06:44. > :06:50.little lamb is for his daughter, Agnes. Then we have the letter C
:06:50. > :06:54.for Cuthbert, his son. Each of his children can say, that is me.
:06:54. > :06:59.a romantic version of medievalism. I sometimes thought of him as being
:06:59. > :07:05.dry but you get the other side of him, the intimacy, his love of
:07:05. > :07:08.having the children running about, his study is just there. He did all
:07:08. > :07:16.of his works separated only by a curtain and in his darker days, he
:07:16. > :07:23.thought this was a terrible mistake. He spoke about Perpetual screams,
:07:23. > :07:28.he said he may as well work in a pig market and to try to get work
:07:28. > :07:35.done! He could hardly complain when he designed his workspace that was
:07:35. > :07:38.meant to be invading! Exactly! On a daylight today come up with the
:07:38. > :07:43.sunlight streaming through and the colours of the stained-glass, you
:07:43. > :07:46.can imagine it would be an inspiring place to work, and he has
:07:47. > :07:51.dressed up with positive vibes to give him inspiration. He has got
:07:51. > :07:57.his famous, favourite saints and around the world, -- around the
:07:57. > :08:01.room, he has put the names of his favourite places and people.
:08:01. > :08:06.Strange. Very modern and yet he is possessed by the past as though he
:08:06. > :08:13.wants to resist the modern age, but the degree with which he resists it
:08:13. > :08:18.is in itself modern! Exactly! Pugin. His great medieval project
:08:18. > :08:24.was always doomed to fail, however hard he tried. He could never hold
:08:24. > :08:28.back the march of time. They say an English man's home is his castle. I
:08:28. > :08:35.don't think I have ever felt that more strongly than here. This
:08:35. > :08:39.little walled garden, little medieval house, and all around it,
:08:39. > :08:44.evidence of the modern age. I wonder if it wasn't a huge effort
:08:44. > :08:49.of holding modernity at bay, trying to live the dream of the Gothic,
:08:49. > :08:59.the medieval, I wonder if it wasn't the effort of that that in the end
:08:59. > :09:08.
:09:08. > :09:11.Few operas get people talking as much as The Death of Klinghoffer.
:09:11. > :09:14.Based on the true story of a Jewish American tourist who was killed
:09:14. > :09:24.when a cruise liner was hijacked by Palestinian militants, Klinghoffer
:09:24. > :09:24.
:09:24. > :09:28.whipped up a political storm when it was first performed in 1991. It
:09:28. > :09:33.continues to resonate in a world where many of the conflicts it
:09:33. > :09:36.considers remain unresolved. As the ENO presents its London stage
:09:36. > :09:46.premiere, Clemency Burton Hill's been talking to the shows director,
:09:46. > :09:53.
:09:53. > :09:57.Tom Morris, and its composer, John People often say that opera needs
:09:57. > :10:03.to be a bit more relevant, but what happens when someone writes one
:10:03. > :10:09.that is. The hijack of the Achille Lauro cruise liner has ended but
:10:09. > :10:16.not without bloodshed. The body of a man cost a short in Syria was
:10:16. > :10:20.identified this morning as that of Leon Klinghoffer. John Adams is
:10:20. > :10:24.America's most admired and frequently performed composer and
:10:24. > :10:28.when he collaborated with Alice Goodman on a new opera about the
:10:28. > :10:32.murder of Leon Klinghoffer, a Jewish-American tourist, they knew
:10:32. > :10:36.it would be controversial, but when it was first performed in New York,
:10:36. > :10:41.the Death of Klinghoffer proved a bit too relevant for its own good.
:10:41. > :10:46.By depicting the Palestinian militants as human beings, the
:10:46. > :10:50.opera was charged with sympathising or even romanticising terrorism.
:10:50. > :10:55.Given the highly charged subject matter, they create is expected it
:10:55. > :11:03.to have a big impact up the response was extreme, with
:11:04. > :11:08.accusations of prejudice and naivety flying from all sides. It
:11:08. > :11:14.is perhaps not surprising then that no London theatre has dared to
:11:14. > :11:18.stage the work, until now. I think the shift may be that you are
:11:18. > :11:25.filling in this human details around the songs, so the connection
:11:25. > :11:30.is becoming less academic and more human... For the last six weeks,
:11:30. > :11:35.the ENO had been rehearsing in the studio in east London under the
:11:35. > :11:40.watchful eye of directed Tom Morris, fresh from his hugely successful
:11:40. > :11:44.stage production of warhorse. This is his first full-blown opera. It
:11:44. > :11:49.is a very controversial peace and your production does not shy away
:11:49. > :11:53.from difficult questions. Tell us about your approach. I have no
:11:53. > :11:58.sympathy with people who think that we should deny the humanity of
:11:58. > :12:02.criminals. I don't think we learn or understand anything. The
:12:02. > :12:07.greatest works of fiction one can imagine, from Macbeth to crime and
:12:07. > :12:11.punishment, have earned their greatness by applying real, human
:12:11. > :12:21.understanding to what might be going on in the mind of the
:12:21. > :12:26.
:12:26. > :12:31.# Lebanon, Palestine #. My view is a more constructive
:12:31. > :12:35.approach, creatively and politically, is to say, yes, that
:12:35. > :12:39.was a political act, but what might have been behind it? If we
:12:39. > :12:43.understand it, we do not condone the Act but we put ourselves in a
:12:43. > :12:49.position where a dialogue might emerge where this is less likely to
:12:49. > :12:59.happen again. I got a sneak preview of the new production and a chance
:12:59. > :13:06.
:13:06. > :13:14.The before the story starts, the school transports us back to the
:13:14. > :13:24.roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict, setting a political
:13:24. > :13:31.
:13:31. > :13:36.What drew me to the story was the fact that it operated on two levels,
:13:36. > :13:43.historically. On the one hand, it really felt like a story that came
:13:43. > :13:48.out of the Old Testament, implacable, hatred I must be bought,
:13:48. > :13:52.misunderstanding, struggles over land -- hatred amongst people. On
:13:52. > :14:02.the other hand, it was painfully relevant. It was torn out of the
:14:02. > :14:10.
:14:10. > :14:14.headlines, and that offended a lot One of the most controversial
:14:14. > :14:18.aspects of the opera is its insistence on the equality of the
:14:18. > :14:28.two narratives. The Chorus of Exiled Palestinians is followed
:14:28. > :14:45.
:14:45. > :14:51.immediately by the Chorus of Exiled #...
:14:51. > :14:57.Since we parted #. We opened in 2004 at a London press
:14:57. > :15:07.conference looking back at the events. The central character is
:15:07. > :15:15.
:15:15. > :15:18.the captain, who is looking back on Almost as if he was restlessly
:15:18. > :15:21.examining his conscience and wondering whether he could have
:15:21. > :15:31.done anything different, whether he could have intervened earlier or in
:15:31. > :15:37.
:15:37. > :15:41.a different way and saved Klinghoffer. It's 21 years since
:15:41. > :15:47.you wrote The Death of Klinghoffer. It's never been performed in London.
:15:47. > :15:51.Do we need to revisit it now? allows us to feel, and that's part
:15:51. > :15:56.of the problem of The Death of Klinghoffer for many people because
:15:56. > :16:03.they don't want to feel certain things. They've made their mind up
:16:03. > :16:13.who's bad, who's innocent, and if the music suggests that everyone
:16:13. > :16:17.has feelings, is human in one way or another, that troubles them.
:16:17. > :16:26.After all that's been said about Klinghoffer, maybe it's time to let
:16:26. > :16:29.And there are four more performances of The Death of
:16:29. > :16:37.Klinghoffer at the London Coliseum between now and the 9th of March.
:16:37. > :16:42.Now, it seems that the writer John Lanchester has found his favourite
:16:42. > :16:46.subject in the financials me the West is in. He's already given us a
:16:46. > :16:53.non-fiction account of it in Whoops! Why Everyone Owes Everyone,
:16:53. > :16:55.and now he's tackling the topic in fiction for his new novel, Capital.
:16:55. > :17:04.He tells Professor John Mullan all about it.
:17:04. > :17:09.London 2012 - Home to nearly eight million people
:17:09. > :17:15.and nearly 300 different languages, an old metropolis where new people
:17:15. > :17:25.are always arriving, a vibrant place and one of the most expensive
:17:25. > :17:26.
:17:26. > :17:34.cities in the world. London takes centre stage in John Lanchaster's
:17:34. > :17:41.new book Capital. It's a state-of- the-nation in the Victorian
:17:42. > :17:47.tradition. It looks how the restless inhabitants of the city
:17:47. > :17:50.are put together but brought apart by the power of money. It's a way
:17:50. > :17:56.to show how the economics are shaped by post-credit crunch
:17:56. > :18:00.Britain. The novel is set in a fictional
:18:00. > :18:03.Pepys Road, a typical South London street where ballooning property
:18:03. > :18:07.values have made for surprising neighbours - a banker and a
:18:07. > :18:12.Premiership footballer have moved in next to the local shopkeeper and
:18:12. > :18:16.a pensioner who has lived in the street for decades. One day
:18:16. > :18:20.everyone receives a mysterious postcard bearing the single
:18:20. > :18:25.sinister sentence, "We want what you have."
:18:25. > :18:30.A host of characters becomes entangled in this complex tale
:18:30. > :18:34.which spans the different classess, generations and nationalities of
:18:34. > :18:37.the capital city. John, you're not actually originally a Londoner. Why
:18:37. > :18:42.did you really want to write a novel about London now? It seemed
:18:42. > :18:47.really interesting, the condition of the city. It has energies and
:18:47. > :18:51.clomp lexties and global things taking place here, and I want to
:18:51. > :18:54.have London's themes taking place on this particular street with this
:18:54. > :18:59.great diversity of characters moving through it. Did the ambition
:18:59. > :19:03.of the novel come before the plot and the characters? Ambition is a
:19:03. > :19:06.complicated thing in relation to books because the highest ambition
:19:06. > :19:10.of all is not to suck. LAUGHTER
:19:10. > :19:15.And that's also the most important ambition. If you think of the
:19:15. > :19:19.parallel with Dickens, the odd thing - it often seems that he
:19:19. > :19:25.relished living in London and yet bequeathed a rather hellish
:19:25. > :19:30.representation of it. Were you aware of that when you were writing
:19:30. > :19:34.this novel about contemporary London? Places people are desperate
:19:34. > :19:39.to get away from and to get to. We're the second kind of place. A
:19:39. > :19:42.lot of the characters in the book have that sense of wanting to make
:19:42. > :19:46.their fortunes in London. It was important to have immigrant
:19:46. > :19:51.experience at the heart of the novel? Yes, people who come from
:19:51. > :19:58.other places also allow you to bring other ways of seeing other
:19:58. > :20:03.perspectives, bringing an unhas been it waited -- unhas been itated
:20:03. > :20:08.look at the city. Patrick Carver took to going for
:20:08. > :20:14.walks. The effect of his long solo walks around the city wasn't to
:20:14. > :20:17.make him suddenly love London, but he began to feel he understood it
:20:17. > :20:21.better, understood where things were, understood the rhythm of the
:20:21. > :20:25.city. He realised what was disconcerting for him was the
:20:25. > :20:29.impression of everybody being busy all the time. People always seemed
:20:29. > :20:32.to be doing things. Even when they weren't doing anything, they were
:20:32. > :20:37.walking dogs or going to betting shops or reading newspapers at bus
:20:37. > :20:41.stops or listening to music through headphones or skateboarding along
:20:41. > :20:48.the pavement or eating fast food as they walked along the street so
:20:48. > :20:52.even when they weren't doing things, they were doing things. The novel
:20:52. > :20:56.also takes on an obsession of many Londoners, which is the sort of
:20:56. > :21:00.ballooning property prices. I know, and it's one of the most boring
:21:00. > :21:02.things about it. I remember it from the '80s - there was a point you
:21:02. > :21:06.literally couldn't have a conversation without people
:21:06. > :21:09.starting to boast about property prices within seconds. Of all the
:21:09. > :21:15.diverse, amazing things that exist in the world, there is something
:21:15. > :21:18.dispiriting about the fact that people only want to talk about what
:21:18. > :21:23.their house is worth. Do you think a reader who seeing what this is
:21:23. > :21:28.about - wanting money, earning money, worrying about not having
:21:28. > :21:33.enough money - would that reader end up thinking money is the poison
:21:33. > :21:37.of London? It's easy to portray any material acquisition as a form of
:21:37. > :21:40.corruption or fallenness, which it manifestly isn't, and, you know,
:21:40. > :21:46.there are characters in the book who are poor and who need money
:21:47. > :21:50.just in the - the most basic way to have security. Yeah. You're - you
:21:50. > :21:54.do that perhaps the most difficult thing in contemporary fiction for a
:21:54. > :21:58.Londoner, which is you make a traffic warden a sympathetic
:21:58. > :22:01.character in her attempt to keep body and soul together. I have
:22:01. > :22:05.always been interested in traffic wardens because of that thing of
:22:05. > :22:10.their - they have a kind of strange dual status in that they're -
:22:10. > :22:19.they're invisible and everyone hates them.
:22:19. > :22:23.Catina had never known a subject in which people had become irrational
:22:23. > :22:26.as completely as parking in this absurdly rich country. When you
:22:26. > :22:31.gave people a ticket, they were angry, always, inevitably. There
:22:31. > :22:35.were times when she wanted to say, "Get down on your knees. Be
:22:35. > :22:39.grateful. A billion people living on a dollar a day, as many who
:22:39. > :22:42.can't find clean drinking water. You live in a country where there
:22:42. > :22:46.is the promise to feed, clothe, shelter and doctor you from the
:22:46. > :22:52.moment of your birth to the moment of your death for free, where the
:22:52. > :22:54.state won't come and beat, imprison or conscript you, where the life
:22:54. > :22:59.expectancy is one of the longest in the world, where the Government
:22:59. > :23:03.doesn't lie to you about aids and the music isn't bad and the only
:23:03. > :23:08.bad thing is the climate, and you find it in yourself to complain
:23:09. > :23:16.about parking - Whoa, Whoa!" You take characters who are quite
:23:16. > :23:21.remote from you and probably most of the readers, a Zimmer and ref --
:23:21. > :23:25.Zimbabwean refugee who is a traffic warden, a Polish builder, and you
:23:25. > :23:30.tell us what they're thinking and what they're like. Did you hesitate
:23:30. > :23:34.in your ability to do that? There is something audacious and
:23:34. > :23:39.presumptuous about making things up anyway. I didn't really because
:23:39. > :23:45.it's my made-up world. It's my train set. I am allowed to run my
:23:45. > :23:48.trains in any way I like, and I have never felt a problem with that.
:23:48. > :23:56.Capital was published this week by Faber and Faber, and you can see
:23:56. > :24:01.what they make of it on the Review Show tonight at 11.00pm on BBC Two.
:24:01. > :24:05.Next tonight, Welsh artist Osi Rhys Osmond is embedded in a love of his
:24:05. > :24:08.country's landscape. He was brought up in the Rhondda Valley and his
:24:08. > :24:18.latest pictures are inspired by the rise and the Klein of the region's
:24:18. > :24:24.
:24:24. > :24:28.coal mining industry. Here's If we're honest, the art world can
:24:28. > :24:34.sometimes feel a little bit self- involved with its gaze firmly stuck
:24:34. > :24:38.on its own naval. You have trendy collectors who like to buy art in
:24:38. > :24:43.trendy London gallery, but I think art shouldn't just be the preserve
:24:43. > :24:48.of highfalutin, metropolitan elite. Any artist worth him or her salt
:24:48. > :24:54.should be able to summon art out of the most unlikely, humdrum
:24:54. > :24:57.surroundings. Art should be able to make us consider afresh what people
:24:57. > :25:07.generally overlook. That is what the work of Welsh artist Osi Rhys
:25:07. > :25:09.
:25:09. > :25:12.Osmond is all about. Here we are in Wales in Wattsville.
:25:12. > :25:16.I'm sorry. Let me be honest. I hadn't heard of this town. Not many
:25:16. > :25:21.have heard of Wattsville. There are people who live here who haven't
:25:21. > :25:25.heard of Wattsville. You come from Wattsville. I do. My business is to
:25:25. > :25:30.put it on thema. It's a village that was built to house miners. It
:25:30. > :25:33.didn't exist before the coal mines. We're walking on the back streets.
:25:33. > :25:36.This is where I was brought up. What are these houses? I was
:25:36. > :25:40.brought up in that house there where my mother lived until this
:25:40. > :25:45.time last year. Really? Let's have a look. This is the shed - the
:25:45. > :25:52.beautiful shed my father built. This one, with the corrugated iron
:25:52. > :25:59.roof? Yes. He was a miner? Yes, as was his father. He worked in the
:25:59. > :26:03.colliery before it finished. Living in a narrow lane, it does give you
:26:03. > :26:09.a perspective... What's going on here? Somebody has cast aside a
:26:09. > :26:13.broken doll placed in the middle of the road. Almost looks like a Welsh
:26:13. > :26:23.costume. That's macabre. Where's the head? Around us I should
:26:23. > :26:26.
:26:26. > :26:32.In a way... Is that a metaphor for... Maybe, but she's nicely
:26:32. > :26:36.dressed. As well as being an artist, you're a thinker. You're a Welsh
:26:36. > :26:41.sage. Thank you very much. strikes me your work - one context
:26:42. > :26:47.to view it in is that whole trend of psycho-geography, which is
:26:47. > :26:51.actually associated more readily with writers, people like Ian
:26:51. > :26:55.Sinclair, McFarland recently... Yeah. These are people interested
:26:55. > :27:00.in interrogating the identity of a particular area. Yes. I make big
:27:00. > :27:05.maps and drawings which include writing and history and layers and
:27:05. > :27:15.dates and contours, so I am trying to do two-dimensionly something as
:27:15. > :27:36.
:27:36. > :27:40.complex as time. What I call drive through here and not pay it
:27:40. > :27:44.that much attention. Most people drive the world without paying it
:27:44. > :27:47.too much attention. Everywhere is worthy of attention. I should like
:27:47. > :27:51.to know you know your own square mile as well as you possibly can
:27:51. > :27:56.before you step into the next square mile. What about people who
:27:56. > :28:00.don't come from this square mile? Every scare mile in a sense is
:28:00. > :28:04.representative of every other square mile. Each one of these
:28:04. > :28:06.people who passes through this place - if they pause through a
:28:06. > :28:10.moment consider themselves and the space they're in and the time
:28:10. > :28:15.they're in, their lives and their eternity would mean much more to
:28:15. > :28:18.them. You feel the man who is tired of Wattsville is tired of life?
:28:18. > :28:28.Absolutely. I felt the man who was tired of London has suddenly grown
:28:28. > :28:38.
:28:38. > :28:45.The phrase graphic-a psychic geography has a wonderful ring to
:28:45. > :28:48.it. When I first did the drawings, I did it where I lived, looking at
:28:48. > :28:53.the sea and the estuary and the military planes and the ancient
:28:53. > :28:57.historic sites, and there is a density in what you see, so if you
:28:57. > :29:02.examine each of them one by one and place them within the landscape, I
:29:02. > :29:08.was writing a graphic essay, so when I thought of combining it with
:29:08. > :29:15.mapping, it took the term graphics are good geography for me, I was
:29:15. > :29:20.claiming back my landscape, defining it and making it mind --
:29:20. > :29:24.graphic striker Jo geography. You won't see the things I am a seven
:29:24. > :29:29.to but I know they are there and once you see the drawings and look
:29:29. > :29:34.at the landscape, you will know they are there as well. Do you ever
:29:34. > :29:39.worry that you are too much in thrall to the past? We are what the
:29:39. > :29:43.past is, without the past we are nothing. We exist on top of the
:29:43. > :29:50.past we have. My father had Alzheimer's and when he had that,
:29:50. > :29:54.he was not the man he had been. He became distressed. Be removed the
:29:54. > :29:59.colliery pits and made it more tidy in the village. The physically
:29:59. > :30:03.removed his memory and his memory was demolished. Alzheimer's was a
:30:03. > :30:09.part of it but I think it was hastened by the clearing away of
:30:09. > :30:16.the colliery Picts, it was such a prominent part of life. Amid the
:30:16. > :30:21.drawings I make to explain to me -- I make. In my firmament, there is a
:30:21. > :30:26.hole in the roof of my life so I have to make something to fill the
:30:26. > :30:33.hole. Usually when I make it, another hole appears. And what is
:30:33. > :30:36.the whole? It is a gap in my understanding. Land and Inheritance
:30:36. > :30:43.opens tomorrow at the Rhondda Heritage Park and runs until the
:30:43. > :30:46.22nd of April. Still to come: Mark Kermode on the highlights of the
:30:46. > :30:50.Viva Spanish and Latin American Film festival but first, the news.
:30:50. > :31:00.Dolphins reject human status. Drought could make Mancunians take
:31:00. > :31:01.
:31:01. > :31:11.off anoraks. And paparazzi found in Sienna Miller's womb. Those are
:31:11. > :31:16.
:31:16. > :31:18.just read recent straw -- strong -- story lines from dailymash.co.uk. A
:31:18. > :31:21.British satirical website that mixes the biting and the laugh-out-
:31:21. > :31:24.loud funny and has become a big success. Tim Samuels went to meet
:31:24. > :31:27.Neil Rafferty, the man whose wit lurks behind those wicked headlines.
:31:27. > :31:33.The one thing we do have, apart from a couple of violence somewhere
:31:33. > :31:37.in the Argentina, is our superior sense of satire. No one does satire
:31:38. > :31:43.quite like the British, apart from Americans who seemed quite good now,
:31:43. > :31:50.and there was an Italian who was pretty funny about Berlusconi, but
:31:50. > :31:55.satire is a heart of the British soul. And the biggest wielders of
:31:55. > :32:05.that British sort of climate is the Daily Mash and I have come to
:32:05. > :32:18.
:32:18. > :32:22.This is the editorial headquarters of the Daily Mash. Basically that
:32:23. > :32:28.desk is where it all happens, that is what makes the Daily Mash every
:32:28. > :32:32.day. It is an amazing thing we can make the website with no office.
:32:32. > :32:39.When you write satire, you need to be fuelled by anger and vitriol
:32:39. > :32:46.about the system and you a SAT... Looking up the window. -- and you
:32:46. > :32:50.are sat there. Because I am such an angry person, it doesn't really
:32:50. > :32:55.matter what my surroundings are like. If the French countryside was
:32:55. > :32:59.not out there with the beautiful sunshine, I don't know what the
:32:59. > :33:04.Daily Mash would be like, it would be a massive screen! I need to come
:33:05. > :33:09.out here and just feel normal and then I go back in there and the
:33:09. > :33:17.anger comes out, the desire to hurt people is given free rein, to make
:33:17. > :33:22.them cry! That is not a bad way to make a living. Independent Scotland
:33:22. > :33:27.could be exactly the same, or warn experts. As Alex Salmond set out
:33:27. > :33:30.his timetable for an independence referendum, he was dealt a blow
:33:30. > :33:35.after research showed separation from the UK would make absolutely
:33:35. > :33:41.no difference whatsoever. Professor Henry from Institute of Studies
:33:41. > :33:46.said it would still be damp and windy. He added, the rest of the UK
:33:46. > :33:55.will also remain exactly the same, only more so. When we started, we
:33:55. > :34:01.did not know what it was going to do. You know... But it grew quite
:34:01. > :34:08.quickly and before we knew it, it was a full-time job. Founded in
:34:08. > :34:13.2007, the Daily Mash is the UK's most successful satirical website.
:34:13. > :34:17.It has spawned a number of hard copy books, a radio pilot and gets
:34:17. > :34:24.1.5 million hits a month, from people in offices who like to waste
:34:24. > :34:28.time. Some people have got the idea that the Daily Mash is a bit right
:34:28. > :34:32.wing and I think that is because satire is generally left wing, so
:34:32. > :34:36.if you get satirical content that does not belong in that Strand, the
:34:37. > :34:42.automatic assumption is that you must be opposed to the left wing.
:34:42. > :34:51.We are not. We have an equal level of contempt for every strand of the
:34:51. > :34:57.political spectrum. The Daily Mash is against all politics. It is
:34:57. > :35:03.obvious that it is an incredibly cynical exercise. Nick Clegg's mum
:35:03. > :35:08.writes an angry letter to David Cameron's mum, demanding an end to
:35:08. > :35:12.the taunting of her son. She said Nick keeps bursting into tears and
:35:12. > :35:16.refused to go to the House of Commons, claiming he had a sore
:35:16. > :35:21.stomach. She wrote, while our children are running the country, I
:35:21. > :35:26.would ask that your son it is nice to my son and lets him join in with
:35:26. > :35:33.European summits. A source close to Mrs Cameron said she did not take
:35:33. > :35:37.kindly to being lectured by a Dutch cow and put the letter in the bin.
:35:37. > :35:40.The new Labour under any apprehension that what you do might
:35:40. > :35:46.make a small bit of difference? couldn't care less about making a
:35:46. > :35:52.difference. I am not so confident in my abilities as a writer at the
:35:53. > :35:59.Daily Mash, of its cultural impact, to think it makes a difference.
:35:59. > :36:04.This is what we think, it is funny, there it is. Read it, don't read it.
:36:04. > :36:07.Our job is to make people laugh about the news. As we plunged
:36:07. > :36:17.deeper into economic despair, perhaps Weemaes satire now more
:36:17. > :36:18.
:36:18. > :36:22.than ever. -- perhaps we need satire. Back to you, Andrew.
:36:22. > :36:27.It has been 13 years since Sue Townsend introduced the world to
:36:27. > :36:34.the spotty, respectable Adrian Mole. She says he was largely based on
:36:34. > :36:44.herself. Her new book, A Woman Who Went To Bed For A Year, is also
:36:44. > :36:47.
:36:47. > :36:53.semi biographical. Sue Townsend has been meeting our reporter. In 1982,
:36:53. > :36:58.while the sounds of Madness was ringing over Britain, Leicester
:36:58. > :37:02.were celebrating its own it chopped topping resident. Sue Townsend was
:37:02. > :37:07.living in the suburbs when she created her greatest character.
:37:07. > :37:11.Adrian Mole would become be Harry Potter of its day and make Sue
:37:11. > :37:15.Townsend the best selling author of the decade. When I last visited Sue
:37:15. > :37:20.Townsend at home, complications with her diabetes meant she was
:37:20. > :37:29.starting to lose her sight. Two years later, she would be
:37:29. > :37:34.registered blind and her life as a writer would become very different.
:37:34. > :37:39.Her condition also means she has trouble walking but she is anything
:37:39. > :37:43.but downbeat. This is an author who can be relied on to find humour in
:37:43. > :37:50.almost any situation. Her latest novel is no exception. The book
:37:50. > :37:55.follows glamourous 50-year-old Eva, who won the day had teenage twins
:37:55. > :37:59.leafy university, decides she has had enough of being a dutiful wife
:37:59. > :38:04.and mother. She climbs into bed fully clothed and decides to the
:38:05. > :38:08.irritation of a family that it is her turn to be waited on. Eva sat
:38:08. > :38:11.up straight, she wanted to get out of bed and put an end to the
:38:12. > :38:15.trouble she was causing but when it came to swinging her legs round,
:38:15. > :38:25.the floor didn't look solid. She felt that if she stood, she would
:38:25. > :38:27.
:38:27. > :38:31.sink through the floorboards as though they were made of jelly.
:38:31. > :38:37.love A Woman Who Went To Bed For A Year. It is your sort of thing that
:38:37. > :38:40.it is very funny but it is also really sad in places. But I
:38:40. > :38:44.remember that when I interviewed you 11 or 12 years ago, you said
:38:44. > :38:50.you were going to write one more comic novel called A Lump In The
:38:50. > :38:56.Bed. That's right! Was that a germ of this? It was. And I forgot to
:38:56. > :39:03.call it A Lump In The Bed! Have you ever had these fantasies about
:39:03. > :39:08.going to bed, signing off as it I had three children under five
:39:08. > :39:13.when I was 23. A large part of that was on my own as well so I had
:39:13. > :39:23.three part-time jobs, one for each child! So it was a fantasy of mine
:39:23. > :39:23.
:39:23. > :39:27.to be sent to prison! Right! Not to bed! Not to bed! I was sent to
:39:27. > :39:37.prison and I could read all day on my bunk bed, reading was the most
:39:37. > :39:45.
:39:45. > :39:49.important thing, apart from people. In Sue Townsend's latest novel, the
:39:49. > :39:53.protagonist's refusal to leave her bed is her way of taking a stand
:39:53. > :39:58.against the mundane routine of motherhood and her failing marriage.
:39:58. > :40:04.She is exhausted, she is tired. She has been living a licence she
:40:04. > :40:09.married a man she didn't really loves, and she has been a bit
:40:09. > :40:19.cowardly -- living a lie. She couldn't bear to lease. Once she
:40:19. > :40:20.
:40:20. > :40:28.goes to bed, she really wants to think, and slowly turn herself back,
:40:28. > :40:32.and then start again. Eva's self- imposed isolation makes her
:40:32. > :40:37.increasingly dependent on those around her, a situation echoed in
:40:37. > :40:42.the author's own life in recent years. In at 2009, having battled
:40:42. > :40:47.kidney disease of five years, Sue Townsend's health reached a
:40:47. > :40:53.critical stage and she was at risk of kidney failure when she received
:40:53. > :40:57.a life-saving transplant from her oldest son. There was a phase in
:40:57. > :41:02.your life we suddenly became a lot more dependent on other people, and
:41:02. > :41:07.that is what is happening to Eva. Is there a connection that the
:41:07. > :41:12.novel is based on your own feelings? There is but it is only
:41:12. > :41:17.through talking to you that I have realised that actually. I am always
:41:17. > :41:26.in a wheelchair when I go out. We are both dependent on the people
:41:26. > :41:31.around us. Suet explores the funny side of dependence through Eva, who
:41:31. > :41:36.asks her mother-in-law to assist with a personal matter. She said, I
:41:36. > :41:40.was wondering if you would help me to get rid of my waist. Her mother-
:41:40. > :41:49.in-law paused, and then gave a shops smile and said, are you
:41:49. > :41:53.asking me, Eva Beaver, to dispose of your wee-wee and who? Who gets
:41:53. > :42:00.through a joint bottle of domestics a-week and is as tedious about
:42:00. > :42:06.these things? -- a joint bottle of bleach. Eva said, OK, I asked and
:42:06. > :42:10.you said no. Her strength in the face of illness is remarkable but I
:42:10. > :42:16.know there is still one thing that she longs for. To pick up a book
:42:16. > :42:21.and read. Is that the worst thing about being blind? Yeah. I have not
:42:21. > :42:28.been able to even talk about it because it is so painful. The books
:42:28. > :42:35.I have already red and remember... I want to re-reads them. But it
:42:35. > :42:39.might mean you have to write more! It might be good for your readers!
:42:39. > :42:45.Once you change in such a big way, you can only look for the good in
:42:45. > :42:52.life. That is the way to survive. It is a very, very moving book, I
:42:52. > :42:56.thought. Thank you. They rethought provoking. Thank you, thank you
:42:56. > :42:59.very much. -- very thought- provoking.
:42:59. > :43:09.The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year was published by Penguin
:43:09. > :43:10.
:43:10. > :43:14.yesterday. Now, back in the '90s, as Britpop
:43:14. > :43:16.began to shake our charts and Britart began to shake our walls, a
:43:16. > :43:19.new generation of British playwrights were giving the theatre
:43:19. > :43:21.a serious shake up, too. One of the best was Philip Ridley, whose
:43:21. > :43:24.breakthrough play, The Pitchfork Disney, is currently being revived
:43:24. > :43:27.at London's Arcola, while Ridley's latest play, Shivered, premieres in
:43:27. > :43:35.the city's Southwark Playhouse next week. Miranda Sawyer went to take a
:43:35. > :43:42.look at the rehearsals and meet the Philip Ridley writes about what he
:43:42. > :43:48.knows. The East End of London where he was born and where he still
:43:48. > :43:53.lives. It's a landscape that informs all his work.
:43:53. > :43:57.Philip Ridley is a film-maker, a photographer, a painter, an author,
:43:57. > :44:01.a playwright. He's a proper artist whose vision is absolutely
:44:01. > :44:07.unaffected by whatever is deemed to be fashionable, and I am a real fan.
:44:07. > :44:10.It's been over 20 years since his first typically dark play,
:44:11. > :44:14.Pitchfork Disney, was premiered. Claustrophobic and eerie, it tells
:44:14. > :44:19.the tale of twins who lock themselves up in their dead
:44:19. > :44:24.parents' house and tell each other stories about the horrors of the
:44:24. > :44:29.outside world. A lot of what makes it work, if indeed it does work for
:44:29. > :44:35.people is what it does is it takes what for me was personal - all my
:44:35. > :44:43.personal childhood fears or fierce I had going into my teen years and
:44:43. > :44:47.growing up and like when you put liquid in a petri dish and put a
:44:47. > :44:51.Bunsen burner under it, all of these personal things get smaller
:44:51. > :44:58.and smaller until they're a bubble in the bottom of the dish, and at
:44:58. > :45:03.that point it becomes universal. Sometimes you're so - forget it.
:45:03. > :45:11.What? Selfish. Don't call me that. It's not fair after what you did.
:45:11. > :45:16.What did I do? You didn't go to get the shopping. It was your turn.
:45:16. > :45:21.wasn't. Was. Wasn't. When they aren't arguing, they pass
:45:21. > :45:25.the time spinning tales and telling stories, a legacy from Philip
:45:25. > :45:30.Ridley's own childhood. I guess that's what I have done as far back
:45:30. > :45:33.as I can remember, really. I told stories. I was very sick as a child.
:45:33. > :45:36.I suffered from asthma. I was alone for most of the time because of
:45:36. > :45:41.that. I suppose like any child that's in that position, you try
:45:41. > :45:46.and make sense of the world around you by kind of having a very strong
:45:46. > :45:51.internal sort of life. I used to go up on to the roof of the block of
:45:51. > :45:56.flats where I lived, and I would spend hours up there looking at the
:45:56. > :46:00.chimneys and drawing the chimneys and writing stories about the
:46:00. > :46:05.chimneys. But the chimney head drawings were the main things I
:46:05. > :46:10.drew that got me into St Marten's School of Art, so they carried on
:46:10. > :46:14.to my teens. During the '80s when he was an art student, the first of
:46:14. > :46:18.his many children's books was published. Writing for theatre and
:46:18. > :46:23.films followed, but it was his screenplay on the life of the
:46:23. > :46:28.notorious East End gangsters the Crays that established his
:46:28. > :46:32.screenwriting credentials. You make me feel proud - the both of you.
:46:33. > :46:36.You make it all mean something. was a subject that was very close.
:46:36. > :46:41.I grew up with those stories. I grew up with neighbours talking
:46:41. > :46:44.about what the Crays were up to, so you lived with that, and looking
:46:45. > :46:48.back, you kind of think, how ironic that that story should have so many
:46:48. > :46:52.of the things that was going to appear in the rest of the work. You
:46:52. > :47:02.know, you've got twins, East London - all of those things were there,
:47:02. > :47:03.
:47:03. > :47:07.Shivered is his latest play. I joined him in rehearsals before
:47:07. > :47:11.next week's premier. So that's a hundred, yeah, a hundred chances to
:47:11. > :47:15.win first prize, yeah? Shivered started with a feeling of what
:47:15. > :47:20.would happen if I followed a family moving to a new town in Essex full
:47:20. > :47:25.of hope and dreams, and then that kind of grew? It's a scam, all
:47:25. > :47:29.right? Nobody wins. I was going to play around with an
:47:29. > :47:34.extra line. You know when it's - "It's a scam. It's a scam -" that
:47:34. > :47:40.kind of thing, whether you should punctuate the end of that - "Nobody
:47:40. > :47:43.wins." "Oh, you do surprise me." It's the
:47:44. > :47:46.line across the page... What it feels like to me when you're
:47:46. > :47:50.getting this process of getting something together - it feels like
:47:50. > :47:54.a kind of explosion in reverse when you have what looks like just a
:47:54. > :47:59.complete jumble with bits all over the place, then you reverse it, and
:47:59. > :48:01.all of these bits come together, and you go, oh, it's a house!
:48:01. > :48:05.LAUGHTER And that's - the process of writing
:48:05. > :48:09.feels a lot like that to me. For ages I am walking around thinking,
:48:09. > :48:12.I have this bit of a character I am living with, and I have this bit of
:48:12. > :48:15.dialogue I am living with, then gradually all of these come
:48:15. > :48:19.together, so I don't know until that final moment what it is I am
:48:19. > :48:23.doing. I just write and write and write.
:48:23. > :48:28.Shivered marked a new direction for Ridley. His language is as
:48:28. > :48:33.beautiful and barbaric as ever, but the quick hit of the internet and
:48:33. > :48:36.easy access to graphic YouTube clips has influenced not only the
:48:36. > :48:40.content, but the actual struckture of the play. Once I started to
:48:40. > :48:43.explore this little segmented, broken-up structure of the way
:48:43. > :48:47.people are looking at things, that started to feed into the way I
:48:47. > :48:51.wanted to structure the play. Because the play is out of order.
:48:51. > :48:55.Absolutely. It's out of chronology, and it's done in 17 scenes, which
:48:55. > :48:58.if anyone knows my work knows that's a huge amount of scenes for
:48:58. > :49:02.me! Usually they have one scene, that's it. It came out of the
:49:02. > :49:05.nature of what it was - I was dealing with one of the children
:49:05. > :49:09.obsessed with one of these little clips that it started to affect the
:49:09. > :49:14.structure and the language of the play as I wanted to express the
:49:14. > :49:20.story. There must be something worth having a ride on. Mysteries
:49:20. > :49:26.and wonders. Eh? You see that train there painted gold? Yeah. See what
:49:26. > :49:31.it says on the side? Just tell him. "Dare you enter mysteries and
:49:31. > :49:36.wonders." What mysteries and wonders? Roll up. Roll up. Gasp at
:49:36. > :49:41.the 50 rats killed by getting their tails tangled together. If you
:49:41. > :49:44.think back to Pitchfork Disney and think about now when you have
:49:44. > :49:48.written Shivered, do you think you could have written Shivered that
:49:48. > :49:52.time ago? I hope not. The one thing I have always tried to do as much
:49:52. > :49:57.as I can, which is part of the training I got when I was at St
:49:57. > :50:00.Martin's I guess, which is to keep on pushing the envelope and scaring
:50:00. > :50:04.myself really with the next thing - everything should be, for me, like
:50:04. > :50:08.jumping off the edge of a cliff, really, unsure whether you're going
:50:08. > :50:13.to fly or whether you're not going to fly, and you just hope that the
:50:13. > :50:19.leap is enough to give you wings. And where I have landed with this
:50:19. > :50:23.one is Shivered, but I wouldn't have landed there 20 years ago,
:50:23. > :50:27.probably won't next year, but this year I have landed there, and who
:50:27. > :50:30.knows. The Pitchfork Disney is at the
:50:30. > :50:34.Arcola Theatre until the 17th of March, and Shivered is at the
:50:34. > :50:39.Southwark Playhouse from the 7th of March to the 14th of April. Now, a
:50:39. > :50:43.small corner of Manchester is going all ole! Tonight - the Cornerhouse,
:50:43. > :50:53.to be precise, where the 18th Viva! Festival of Spanish and Latin
:50:53. > :50:57.
:50:57. > :51:01.American Film is kicking off. Mark Know in its 18th year, the Viva!
:51:01. > :51:07.Festival is an annual fiesta of top-quality independent Spanish and
:51:07. > :51:11.Latin American films held each year in Manchester's Cornerhouse.
:51:11. > :51:15.Although Spanish may be the third most spoken language on the planet,
:51:15. > :51:18.Viva! Still affords a valuable opportunity to catch some of world
:51:18. > :51:28.cinema's most vibrant films which UK audiences might not otherwise
:51:28. > :51:32.
:51:32. > :51:35.Now, you could argue that casting the next one is rather like lumping
:51:35. > :51:40.films from Germany and other countries. At least this guarantees
:51:40. > :51:44.diversity. This year sees everything from Colombian
:51:44. > :51:54.animations to Venezuelan exploitation movies, Spanish films
:51:54. > :52:02.
:52:02. > :52:05.about unemployed 30-something's and A glance at the movies on offer
:52:06. > :52:09.from Spain this year tells us the Spanish civil war continues to
:52:09. > :52:15.preoccupy the country's filmmakers. It's a theme which is addressed in
:52:15. > :52:25.the opening gala, Paperbirds, in the Catalan movie Black Bread and
:52:25. > :52:49.
:52:49. > :52:56.Carmen, you're a lekturerer at Manchester Metropolitan University.
:52:56. > :53:01.You have casted some of these films like the Circus. Tell me about this.
:53:01. > :53:07.It deals with fantasy in a different way. The film really is
:53:07. > :53:10.around 1973, which is what we can call the transition to the
:53:10. > :53:20.beginning of democracy in Spain. There are very important historical
:53:20. > :53:33.
:53:33. > :53:37.There's a Spanish word used to describe the particular kind of
:53:37. > :53:42.grotesque, surreal film making. Can you describe what it means for us?
:53:42. > :53:47.It is that kind of way of looking to the world - we can find it in
:53:47. > :53:50.Goya in the black painters, for example. I think one of the best
:53:51. > :54:00.examples of this kind of grotesque black humour - the formation of
:54:01. > :54:08.
:54:08. > :54:13.One highlight this year is the excellent Even the Rain directed by
:54:13. > :54:17.Paul Laverty. It tells the the real of a historical film about the
:54:17. > :54:27.cruelty of the conquistadors in which life begins to imitate art a
:54:27. > :54:42.
:54:42. > :54:47.Latin American cinema has exploded on to the world stage in the past
:54:48. > :54:52.decade thanks to Motorcycle Diaries and other movies. Perhaps most
:54:52. > :54:58.interesting at this year's festival are those from two countries from
:54:58. > :55:08.this part of the world not known for their cinematic output, Cuba
:55:08. > :55:12.
:55:12. > :55:15.You were at the world premier of Juan of the Dead. How did it go
:55:15. > :55:19.down? I think it was one of the most fabulous experiences I have
:55:19. > :55:23.had in the cinema. Why? It was a big event for Cubans. They might be
:55:23. > :55:28.completely skint, but somehow they manage to get to the cinema, and on
:55:28. > :55:33.- for this premier, it was in the Chaplain Cinema. I think it holds
:55:33. > :55:38.400 people. When we got there, I think it was at least a thousand -
:55:38. > :55:43.hysterical. It was like carnival outside. What's different about it
:55:43. > :55:47.to any other zombie flick. We have seen American, even Swedish zombie
:55:47. > :55:51.flicks recently. What's different about Juan of the Dead? It's the
:55:51. > :55:54.fact it's in Havana. You know how zombie movies have a strong social
:55:54. > :55:59.context. For example, in the beginning the zombies are regarded
:56:00. > :56:05.as dissidents funded by the US, and there's constant talk about whether
:56:05. > :56:10.or not to flee the zombies by jumping on a boat to Miami. So I
:56:11. > :56:20.think it's kind of poking fun but also being quite patriotic because
:56:21. > :56:21.
:56:21. > :56:25.the hero refuses to jump ship. Now, some time ago, you wrote a
:56:25. > :56:28.book in which you predicted the next part of the wave that was
:56:28. > :56:32.going to break was Venezuela. On the evidence of the films that are
:56:32. > :56:36.at Venezuela this year, do you see that blossoming happening now?
:56:36. > :56:41.There is a bit more finesse, but also a bit more savvyness about
:56:41. > :56:45.them. They're actually kind of understanding - there is a film
:56:45. > :56:55.called Zero Hour, which recognised the value of using genre to
:56:55. > :56:56.
:56:56. > :57:01.That's about a gang that takes over a private hospital on the day of a
:57:01. > :57:04.strike in the public hospitals, and as the girlfriend of the gang
:57:04. > :57:07.leader is heavily pregnant and has been shot, so they can't take her
:57:07. > :57:12.to a public hospital. They just invade this private one and kind of
:57:12. > :57:22.have a Robin Hood day inside the hospital where they're opening the
:57:22. > :57:26.
:57:26. > :57:32.doors for the poor people that He's talking a little bit about a
:57:32. > :57:36.society, but it's a kind of shoot- them-up. It's an exploitation film.
:57:36. > :57:40.Once again, this demonstrates genre is a really good way of getting all
:57:40. > :57:50.of those stories out to the rest of the world? I think so. It's a very
:57:50. > :57:54.
:57:54. > :57:57.good bridge. It's a good cultural And Viva! Runs at Cornerhouse in
:57:57. > :58:00.Manchester until Sunday the 18th of March. Next week we'll be taking a
:58:00. > :58:03.look at the latest exhibition by Gilbert and George and I'll be
:58:03. > :58:06.talking to Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine about the
:58:06. > :58:10.influence of Renaissance Art on her music. We leave you tonight with
:58:10. > :58:13.music from The Choir With No Name. This inspiring group of singers
:58:13. > :58:15.who've all been affected by homelessness will be performing at
:58:15. > :58:25.the Roundhouse tomorrow night as part of The Cultural Olympiad. We
:58:25. > :58:30.
:58:30. > :58:34.caught up with them in rehearsal. # One nation under a groove.
:58:34. > :58:38.# Gettin' down just for the funk of # One nation and we're on the move.
:58:38. > :58:42.# Nothin' can stop us now. # Please don't stop me now.
:58:42. > :58:47.# One nation and we're on the move. # Gettin' down just for the funk of
:58:47. > :58:52.# One nation we're on the move. # Nothin' can stop us now.