Episode 18 The Culture Show


Episode 18

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This week, the good ship Culture Show sets sail

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from the maritime museum here in Greenwich,

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One of my favourite places,

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and quite simply the world's greatest museum

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devoted to seafaring.

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All that, and they are about to open a new exhibition of photographs

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by the pioneering American photographer, Ansel Adams,

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all on the theme of water.

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More of that later.

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'Also on tonight's show,

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'Miranda Sawyer delves into the dark arts of trashy mags.'

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'Michael Smith stares death in the face...

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'..and I review three of the shortlisted books

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'in the running for the Samuel Johnson Prize.'

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First, it's smash hits cinema,

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and America's latest blockbuster movie is Argo.

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Ben Affleck joins the ranks of Hollywood's multi-taskers

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by both directing and performing in this action thriller.

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We sent our man Mark Kermode on a mission to find out more.

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In the West, the late '70s was a time of socially progressive values,

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of the economic independence of women,

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of environmentalism and of disco.

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But further afield,

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this era of self-determination was expressed rather differently.

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In Iran, after the Islamic Revolution,

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rising tensions with the US

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triggered the storming of the American Embassy,

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putting the CIA and the American Government on high alert

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as 52 Americans were taken hostage.

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Although those events are well rehearsed,

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Ben Affleck's new film Argo centres on a less well-known element

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of the story that sounds so absurd it just has to be true.

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-What happened?

-Six of the hostages went out a back exit.

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Where are they?

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The Canadian Ambassador's house.

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I got an idea. They are a Canadian film crew for a science-fiction movie.

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I fly into Tehran. We all fly out together as a film crew.

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I need you to help me make a fake movie.

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So you want to come to Hollywood and act like a big shot

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-without actually doing anything?

-Yeah.

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You'll fit right in.

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-Ben, welcome to the Culture Show.

-Thanks so much for having me.

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I'm old enough to remember the hostage crisis,

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but I didn't know the story of Argo,

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and the story was classified until about 10 years ago.

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'97, yeah.

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The CIA had some sort of 50th anniversary celebration thing,

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and they declassified reams of material,

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and the stuff sat on the shelf until somebody researched it.

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Eventually the script ended up in my hand,

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so it was a serpentine kind of journey,

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but one that I'm really glad ended up the way it did.

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What about the balancing of the thread?

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On one hand, you have a comedic strand, on the other hand

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there is a political story and there's a thriller.

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Did you ever find it hard to balance how many laughs can we get

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in a scene which is being played off against a hostage situation?

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I thought, when I read the script,

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that that was going to be most challenging thing,

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to synthesise these three tones which were quite different,

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and, you know, as you point out, the laughter can really upend

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the rest of the material, because people are having fun

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and not taking it seriously all of a sudden because, hey, it's a comedy.

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Ultimately, what really rescued me was that the acting,

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particularly in the comic part with John and Alan,

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was so real that it didn't seem to be different

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from the rest of the movie, oddly.

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How about The Horses Of Achilles?

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No good. Nobody does Westerns any more.

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It's ancient Troy.

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If it's got horses in it, it's a Western.

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Kenny, please.

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Yeah, it's John Chambers about the office space.

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It doesn't matter, it's a fake movie.

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If I'm doing a fake movie, it's going to be a fake hit.

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My assumption is that a good proportion of the audience

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won't know how it ended before they go in.

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Was that your feeling as well?

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My hope was that I would benefit from two things.

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One from the fact that it was a true story,

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so you tell the audience this is true and they invest a little more deeply

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because they think, "Well, if I see someone die,

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"I'll think that they really died."

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Two, it is not so true, and so well-known

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that you can't still surprise the audience.

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Almost!

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Every time.

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'Argo is a departure from Affleck's directorial home turf.

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'His first two films, Gone Baby Gone and The Town,

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'were both crime thrillers based in Boston.'

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'But for this film, with George Clooney producing,

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'he has broken those geographical and topical boundaries.'

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Look, they are going to try and break you, OK?

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By trying to get you agitated.

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You have to know your resume back to front.

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You really believe your story is going to make a difference

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when there's a gun to our heads?

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I think my story's the only thing between you and a gun to your head.

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George Clooney, when he was over here in the UK some years ago,

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was talking about wanting to make movies that had political threads,

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but worked as dramas, and watching this, it seemed very much to me

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that I can see that vision of his.

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How was your relationship with him as a producer?

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You know, George is the smartest guy I've ever met about Hollywood.

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Obviously understands politics. Extremely winning, charming guy.

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And handsome!

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Very handsome, not that I noticed! But he is very handsome.

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As you say, this project lines up very neatly with that description

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of wanting to make a certain kind of movie,

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and George is smart enough to understand

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that you can't do something that's didactic, that's preachy,

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that says "We want you to believe this."

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You're an air traffic controller with the audience.

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But, you know, you can have some of this provocative,

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thought-provoking content in a movie.

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You're getting a visitor.

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-Have you gotten people out this way before?

-No.

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You are asking us to trust you with our lives.

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This is what I do, and I've never left anyone behind.

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In terms of the casting, you seem to have made a specific decision that,

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as far as hostages are concerned,

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it's not names that everyone would be familiar with.

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Was that a deliberate decision?

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Yeah. I felt that the movie doesn't work at all

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if you don't identify emotionally with these house guests.

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If people over the world watch the movie

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and don't feel like "That could be me."

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In order to identify that closely and empathise that much with somebody,

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I think it helps if they're not stars.

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With this movie, having anonymity really helps,

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because they just seem ordinary.

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How much, for you, is the hair and the clothes and the beard

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arrangement key to getting into the character?

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Or do you just look at those things and go, "I know where we are"?

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One thing I like about it, it is not me.

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I feel I can just sink into this other guy.

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It is all your hair.

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It is all my hair, although Philip Baker Hall,

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who played Admiral Turner, you know,

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the two guys who we have to pitch the idea to...

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You're telling me that there is a movie company in Hollywood right now

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that is funded by the CIA?

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Yes, sir.

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He didn't say anything to me when we were doing the movie,

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and we played the scene,

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and he was there for his couple of days and he left,

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and he ran into another actor three months later and was like,

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"I saw Ben. He still has the wig!"

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Ben, I really enjoyed the movie. Thanks very much.

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It's a pleasure. Nice interview, thank you.

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Next, Miranda Sawyer ventures into the murky depths

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of contemporary magazine culture.

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A provocative new play by Lucy Kirkwood, who has been described

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as Britain's brightest stage writer

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takes a wry look at the ethically-challenged world

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of men's and women's magazines.

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'In 1994, a magazine barged its way on to our newsstands

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'transforming not only the culture of men's magazines,

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'but popular culture itself.'

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'Loaded was the original lads' mag.'

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'Its motto, "For men who should know better."'

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Loaded, to give it its due,

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was a pretty good magazine in the early days,

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but it spawned a new generation of men's mags,

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whose attitude - more birds, less words - made their agenda explicit.

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'Glossy shots of semi-clad celebs were replaced by snaps

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'of ordinary girls posing semi-naked in their bedrooms.'

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'Pictures that wouldn't look out of place in a porn mag.'

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As bikini and bra tops were lowered, so too were the industry's ethics,

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and it's this thorny issue that lies at the heart of

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a new black comedy by Lucy Kirkwood called NSFW, here at the Royal Court.

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'The play takes its title from a social media term, Not Safe For Work,

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'meaning images that you wouldn't want your boss catching you browsing online.'

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'It's a play of two halves,

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'with the second act set in a glossy women's magazine, Electra,

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'and the first in the offices of lads' mag, Doghouse,

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'where they're chasing the ratings in a desperate bid not to go under.'

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Two of the publications in our demographic

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have gone under in the last three months,

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and this is an opportunity.

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I don't think that's what we've fully grasped here yet.

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You don't look excited.

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This is exciting.

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ALL: Yay!

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I'm giving you licence to be bold, guys, be brave, yeah?

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There's always room for jokes and boobs. That's a given.

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What else is there room for?

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Rupert?

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Bums.

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Bums don't sell. What I am saying is,

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let's really live in the spaces between the boobs, yeah?

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'I asked two seasoned journalists,

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'Deborah Orr, who writes for the Guardian,

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'and James Brown, the creator of Loaded,

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'to tell me how well they thought the play had nailed the industry.'

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Doghouse is obviously based on a lads' mag.

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Did you recognise it from your years at Loaded?

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Some of it. I thought the name of the magazine was good,

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and the office decor looked right,

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but the bloke struggling with his sales

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and young girls sending pictures of breasts in,

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that's not what my world was like, editing those magazines.

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There is a couple of issues that they do raise that are quite interesting.

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One is the idea that, to a certain extent,

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young women want to exploit themselves,

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so they want to send pictures in of themselves with their tits out.

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This idea that the you're only going to become famous

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by getting your tits out is really short-sighted.

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I take those points, but that's not quite what they were saying.

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It isn't all about chicken and egg.

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Are women portrayed in the media, in the way they are

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because that's how women want to be portrayed, or are women lining up

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to be portrayed because that's the way the media want to portray women?

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I haven't actually told anybody this,

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but I am actually part of a group, a women's group,

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and I sort of lie to them about what I do,

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but the way things are right now,

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all my mates are on benefits and I don't want that, so if it means

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I'm working for money then, I can deal with a few tits here and there.

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-What about the idea that women somehow collude?

-Yes, they do.

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They say it is empowering if I do pole dancing to keep fit?

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Yeah. Load of crap. It's just women's own self-delusion.

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Women collude in topless pictures

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in the same way as dairy farmers collude in milk.

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That's a pretty awful metaphor, given the breasty-ness...

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Milk.

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So, you know, it is a supply and demand thing.

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If you offer people money

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for something that it is easy for them to do,

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especially if it's a lot of it, people will come along and say,

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"Yeah, I can do that."

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This one. Show me on this one.

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Show you what?

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Show me how you put a circle round the flaws on this woman's body and caption them.

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There's a moral centre to the play,

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which is a naive little fellow who comes along and works for Doghouse

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and then he tries to get a job at Electra.

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When Sam is asked to circle the imperfections in women,

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did you buy the editor Miranda's argument that if you are doing that,

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you're actually improving a lot of women?

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Oh, definitely. I recognise that philosophy that she's espousing.

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"That woman's too fat, that woman's too thin, that woman's too hairy."

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It's really destructive and nasty and awful,

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and any woman who stands around doing that job and saying

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she's empowering women by it is a total bitch and enemy of humanity.

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So have a little look at the screen and tell me where her flaws are.

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But she's perfect.

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No, I don't mean for normal women.

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For normal women, she's an unhealthy role model.

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Projecting, well, damaging standards of unnatural physical,

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you know, perfection.

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Sorry, luvvie, does this look like The Guardian?

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Sorry?

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She's not perfect.

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No, but, I mean, she's an actress.

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She's a film star. It's her job to be perfect.

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No, she's not perfect.

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Nobody's perfect. I'm not perfect. Our readers aren't perfect.

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I need you to point out the ways in which this woman is not perfect.

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Would you say the play, although it's not very accurate about the industry,

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does throw up issues that need to be talked about?

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The thing about the play is that the people who never buy

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Zoo or Nuts or Heat...

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Which there are none of in the audience.

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..will go along to see this and have their prejudices confirmed

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in a witty way that they will enjoy,

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and it's a great night out in that respect,

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but it's entertainment.

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The idea that it has something deeper to say

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about the real problems that society is grappling with

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is, for me, not at all true.

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Before I went in to watch it, I was reading the actual play.

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I was almost embarrassed by how much I was laughing.

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The first couple of pages, the way the editor was behaving.

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That was spot on.

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If it had carried on like that, just sending the whole thing up,

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it would have worked for me,

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and if they just kept layering it on, it would have made them look more and more stupid,

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they would have made a much stronger case

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and got the points across a little more subtlely.

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And NSFW is on at the Royal Court Theatre until 24th November.

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Next, the Wellcome Collection which is known for exploring the links

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between art, medicine and life, often with rather macabre results.

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This winter, they've gone downright morbid

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with an exhibition about death.

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Quaking in his boots, our very own Michael Smith went along

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to find out just what happens

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when you make that final appointment with the Grim Reaper.

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'How do we begin to talk about death?'

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'Death doesn't answer back.'

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'The Grim Reaper's not big on conversation.'

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Death, after all, is a guess, the great unknown.

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The one blank canvas that awaits us all.

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How do we imagine the unimaginable?

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'I've never seen a dead body before,

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'and maybe that's one reason I feel quite removed

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'from death's blunt realities.'

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'But John Harris's family has been putting London's East End

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'six feet under for five generations.'

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'It turns out that commemorating death

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'can be more expensive than living.'

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I can see that around the office,

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you've got quite a collection on the subject.

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Well, it comes back, really,

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to this study of various cultures and religions.

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I find it fascinating, and if you went back in time,

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especially if you were a wealthy person,

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a lot would be expected of you.

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For example, you know, there was some beautiful mourning jewellery.

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Now, you imagine rings like these.

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If you were a person of some status and you had your funeral,

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not only would you entertain people with food and drink,

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but important people, you would give them a present.

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So a family might strike about 30 of these rings, say, for example.

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So on top of your normal funeral costs, by today's standards

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you would have another £25,000 in jewellery you're giving out.

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-So, it'd be more expensive than a wedding?

-Oh, yes.

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So, probably the biggest expense in anyone's life was their actual death.

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Death's a subject I've always tried to avoid, really.

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French philosopher Blaise Pascal

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said it was easier to die without thinking about it,

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and to contemplate death as some far-off event.

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Or as Woody Allen put it, "I am not afraid of death."

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"I just don't want to be there when it happens."

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'But a new exhibition at the Wellcome Collection

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'tries to look death square in the face.'

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'It's a uniquely morbid cabinet of curiosities,

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'charting humanity's eternal attempt to make peace with death.'

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'And I'm getting a sneak preview of some of the objects.'

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So this is just one of the treasures

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that you will find in our exhibition.

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It's a portrait of a rather robust looking, well-fed gentleman.

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But if you flip him around, you'll see that there is a radical device

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-on the other side.

-Before and after?

-Exactly.

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So do you think the fact that there is a skull in it,

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does that it give it a moral dimension,

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this picture, do you think?

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I certainly think that it would have encouraged the person

0:17:290:17:31

who'd commissioned this portrait to reflect upon whether or not

0:17:310:17:35

they were living a good life.

0:17:350:17:38

So this is a really interesting sculpture.

0:17:380:17:42

It's Death, carrying a bow and arrow in triumph,

0:17:420:17:44

and you get a lot of images of the triumphant skeleton in the genre

0:17:440:17:50

known as the dance of death which is an illustration that emerges

0:17:500:17:54

in the Middle Ages around the time of the Black Death.

0:17:540:17:58

There's something incredibly gory and full-on

0:17:580:18:00

about this little sculpture,

0:18:000:18:02

but I guess, you know, at that time, when everyone around you

0:18:020:18:06

would be dropping like flies, you know,

0:18:060:18:08

you'd be a lot more familiar with death.

0:18:080:18:10

I guess that culture had a different relationship with death than we do.

0:18:100:18:14

'What has persisted, though,

0:18:140:18:16

'is our need to ritualise death, to window-dress it.'

0:18:160:18:21

'To give it some kind of shape.'

0:18:210:18:23

Sometimes it seems like the easiest way to deal with a subject

0:18:230:18:26

as uncomfortable and difficult as death is to make fun of it,

0:18:260:18:31

and in this picture, it's almost like Death's the punchline

0:18:310:18:34

of some cruel joke.

0:18:340:18:35

It's a piece by George Grosz,

0:18:350:18:38

and he made it in the last year of his life, which was the late '50s,

0:18:380:18:41

and the rise of advertising and mass consumerism.

0:18:410:18:46

Now, in that world, we're insulated from the stark reality of death,

0:18:460:18:51

but here, death pokes through that veneer.

0:18:510:18:53

You see these skulls coming through in adverts for shoes

0:18:550:18:59

or adverts for products, and it's just a reminder

0:18:590:19:02

that we're going to die in the most cynical and sarcastic way.

0:19:020:19:06

'In many of these images,

0:19:090:19:11

'the opposite of death isn't life, but sex.'

0:19:110:19:14

'The urge to procreate is the only counterweight

0:19:150:19:18

'to Death's inevitable blackhole gravity.'

0:19:180:19:21

We've got a series of postcards here from the early 1900s

0:19:210:19:24

that explore the theme of sex and death.

0:19:240:19:28

It's as if sex and death are locked in a strange kind of tango,

0:19:280:19:32

two sides of the same coin.

0:19:320:19:34

This one, particularly, is a kind of lover's embrace

0:19:340:19:38

that you can also read as a skull.

0:19:380:19:41

I just find the postcards really bizarre and I can't imagine

0:19:410:19:44

sending loved one a reminder of their own death in the post.

0:19:440:19:48

'However you try and understand death,

0:19:530:19:55

'there is no way to prevent the inevitable.'

0:19:550:19:58

'As the Roman poet Horace said,

0:19:580:20:01

"You flourish in wealth and the honour which men pay you,

0:20:010:20:05

"consider yourself that you are mortal, that you are earth,

0:20:050:20:09

"and into the earth you shall go."'

0:20:090:20:11

'Death's the great leveller.'

0:20:130:20:15

'Whether you are buried in silk sheets or a cardboard box,

0:20:150:20:19

'it is the one great democratic experience that comes to us all.'

0:20:190:20:23

For my part, I don't really want a fancy headstone or a memorial,

0:20:250:20:29

I'd like to have my ashes scattered into the Thames.

0:20:290:20:32

It's this vast, eternal thing that runs through the city I love

0:20:320:20:35

and belong to, and when I die, I'd like to become part of that.

0:20:350:20:39

And you can see that collection for yourself from 15th November.

0:20:450:20:49

Now we turn to the prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize

0:20:490:20:52

for non-fiction.

0:20:520:20:53

Last week, Miranda Sawyer took her pick of three books

0:20:530:20:55

from the shortlist.

0:20:550:20:57

This week, I've got to grips with the rest.

0:20:570:20:59

'Last week's books touched on the horrors of war,

0:21:000:21:03

'but also on human redemption. My books are quite different.'

0:21:030:21:07

The three books I'll be looking at all deal with journeying,

0:21:070:21:10

travelling the world beyond our shores.

0:21:100:21:13

Pushing boundaries, whether real or imagined.

0:21:130:21:16

'The great American playwright Arthur Miller described

0:21:160:21:19

'August Strindberg as the mad father of modern theatre.'

0:21:190:21:22

'In this first major English biography for 30 years,

0:21:220:21:25

'writer Sue Prideaux shines a dazzling light

0:21:250:21:28

'on the mercurial writer straddling the old world and the new.'

0:21:280:21:32

The second half of the 19th century was a crucible of innovation,

0:21:320:21:37

a period of tumult and revolution.

0:21:370:21:39

The new pushing out the old at every turn.

0:21:390:21:42

Think of Marx, Nietzsche, Darwin, Cezanne.

0:21:420:21:45

Well, August Strindberg was as incendiary as any of them.

0:21:450:21:49

'His most famous play is Miss Julie,

0:21:490:21:52

'still hugely popular in theatres today.'

0:21:520:21:54

'In its time, though,

0:21:540:21:56

'its powerful sexual and class politics shocked audiences.'

0:21:560:21:59

'It was banned for 18 years in his own country.'

0:21:590:22:02

'But Strindberg wasn't the only Scandinavian

0:22:020:22:04

'ruffling a few feathers.'

0:22:040:22:06

I was fascinated to read about Munch the painter's relationship

0:22:060:22:11

with Strindberg.

0:22:110:22:13

Am I right in thinking that that's actually wear your book began?

0:22:130:22:16

Absolutely.

0:22:160:22:18

Strindberg had just written Miss Julie and he arrived in Berlin.

0:22:180:22:21

Munch was having a show, and there they were.

0:22:210:22:25

It was 30 years after Darwin,

0:22:250:22:27

Nietzsche had just said God was dead,

0:22:270:22:30

and everyone was interested in what is it to be human?

0:22:300:22:33

What's going on in the human mind?

0:22:330:22:35

In a sense, aren't they rebelling against Darwin?

0:22:350:22:38

-Yes.

-The idea that this man can explain everything about humanity,

0:22:380:22:41

that The Origin Of The Species has told us where we fit.

0:22:410:22:44

They're looking to put that mystery back.

0:22:440:22:47

Yeah, because the mystery, obviously, is there,

0:22:470:22:49

and so they're looking to find it.

0:22:490:22:51

That year, that summer, Munch painted The Scream.

0:22:510:22:56

He was interested in portraying extreme psychological states

0:22:560:22:59

like despair and anxiety,

0:22:590:23:01

and Strindberg was interested in doing the same, and so he was

0:23:010:23:06

turning inside himself to express this metaphysical, if you like.

0:23:060:23:14

Generally speaking, I think biographers fall into two camps.

0:23:140:23:16

There are those who, once they've finished their book,

0:23:160:23:19

never, ever, ever want to think about the subject ever again,

0:23:190:23:22

and there are those who fall in love with the subject.

0:23:220:23:25

Where would you put yourself?

0:23:250:23:27

Neither category, actually, but I could think about Strindberg,

0:23:270:23:31

I will think about Strindberg until the day I die.

0:23:310:23:34

'From the wintry world of 19th-century Sweden to modern-day Mumbai.'

0:23:390:23:42

'My next book's journey couldn't be more different.'

0:23:420:23:46

'In 2009, Slumdog Millionaire burst onto the screen,

0:23:490:23:53

'perhaps misleadingly called "The feel-good film of the year."'

0:23:530:23:57

'After the glitzy Mumbai premiere,

0:23:570:23:59

'the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Katherine Boo

0:23:590:24:02

'wrote a piece in the New Yorker reflecting the real city she knew.'

0:24:020:24:06

'The slums of Mumbai, that she'd been researching for four years.'

0:24:060:24:10

Katherine Boo's Behind The Beautiful Forevers is a remarkable debut.

0:24:100:24:14

With an absorbing cast of characters,

0:24:140:24:16

it's written in the manner of a novel,

0:24:160:24:18

though everything in it is based on real interviews with real people.

0:24:180:24:23

There's no neat beginning, no middle, and certainly no Bollywood ending.

0:24:230:24:27

At the heart of it all

0:24:270:24:28

lies the author's passion to make us, the readers, truly feel

0:24:280:24:31

what it is really like to be one of the poorest people on earth.

0:24:310:24:33

'In the early years, Abdul had sat in a classroom

0:24:350:24:39

'where nothing much happened. Then there had been only work.'

0:24:390:24:43

'Work that churned so much filth into the air it turned his snot black.'

0:24:430:24:47

'Work more boring than dirty.'

0:24:470:24:50

'Work he expected to be doing for the rest of his life.'

0:24:500:24:53

'Most days, that prospect weighed on Abdul like a sentence.'

0:24:530:24:57

'Tonight, hiding from the police, it felt like a hope.'

0:24:570:24:59

The book is based in Annawadi,

0:24:590:25:01

described as "a sumpy plug of slum bordering a sewage lake."

0:25:010:25:05

"3,000 people packed into, or on top of, 335 huts."

0:25:060:25:11

The book's strength lies in its relentless focus

0:25:130:25:16

on the grim human realities of poverty,

0:25:160:25:18

the almost insurmountable obstacles faced by the people of Annawadi

0:25:180:25:23

as they struggle day-to-day through life.

0:25:230:25:26

All this isn't laid on thick, it's simply laid bare.

0:25:260:25:30

'The hectic, restless world of the slum seems like a million miles away

0:25:370:25:40

'from the next book.'

0:25:400:25:41

Robert MacFarlane's book is the third volume

0:25:430:25:45

in a kind of psycho-geographical trilogy.

0:25:450:25:48

A heartfelt exploration not just of how we shape the landscape,

0:25:480:25:51

but of how it shapes us.

0:25:510:25:55

The old ways or walks that he travels are human constructions,

0:25:550:25:59

charting both our history and our humanity.

0:25:590:26:01

It is anything but pedestrian.

0:26:010:26:04

'Robert MacFarlane was made a Cambridge don

0:26:040:26:07

'at the grand old age of 25.

0:26:070:26:09

'His first book won three prestigious awards

0:26:090:26:11

'and set the tone that would make him

0:26:110:26:14

'the golden boy of travel writing.'

0:26:140:26:16

-Why do you walk?

-It's a very good question. I always have walked.

0:26:160:26:21

I walk to commemorate, to remember, but also to discover, as well,

0:26:210:26:26

and walking is a very powerful way of giving shape to our thoughts,

0:26:260:26:30

but also to our memories.

0:26:300:26:31

'MacFarlane said he wanted to be a poet then a novelist

0:26:310:26:35

'before he settled on his own unique style of writing, and it shows.'

0:26:350:26:39

'There's an undeniable mystical, spiritual side to his work.'

0:26:390:26:43

It's bright line curved away from us.

0:26:440:26:47

An OG whose origin we could not explain,

0:26:470:26:49

and whose invitation to follow we could not disobey.

0:26:490:26:52

So we walked it northwards, along that glowing track

0:26:520:26:56

made neither of water nor of land

0:26:560:26:59

which led us further and still further out to sea.

0:26:590:27:02

'In fact, one of the most memorable paths he takes is not on land,

0:27:030:27:07

'but out at sea.'

0:27:070:27:10

I remember, it was such a luminous night.

0:27:100:27:13

There was Jupiter, there was a wonderful moon.

0:27:130:27:15

We left a phosphorescent wake behind us,

0:27:150:27:18

and I suddenly realised we were leaving our own trail briefly visible

0:27:180:27:22

as this kind of sea road in the green and gold phosphorescence

0:27:220:27:25

beneath our boat.

0:27:250:27:27

It was unforgettable.

0:27:270:27:28

Well, it's been a great pleasure.

0:27:280:27:30

-We should take a walk!

-Yes, absolutely. Let's leave.

0:27:300:27:34

And the winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize

0:27:380:27:40

will be announced on 12th November.

0:27:400:27:42

That's pretty much it for tonight's show,

0:27:420:27:44

but we leave you with a visual treat.

0:27:440:27:46

The legendary photographer Ansel Adams documented the raw beauty

0:27:460:27:51

of the wild American landscape,

0:27:510:27:53

and now a new exhibition here at the National Maritime Museum

0:27:530:27:57

contains some of his most stunning images,

0:27:570:27:59

including three monumental photographic murals

0:27:590:28:03

never previously exhibited.

0:28:030:28:04

The show opens on the 9th November. Good night.

0:28:040:28:08

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0:29:070:29:10

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