:00:17. > :00:27.the show tonight, we have got the glitter, we have the gloss, we have
:00:27. > :00:30.
:00:30. > :00:35.got glam! Anthony Hopkins as Hitchcock, with his inimical
:00:35. > :00:42.directing style. More anger. A new biography of Sylvia Plath, uncovers
:00:42. > :00:47.a hidden love of her life. Kevin Spacey builds a new house of
:00:47. > :00:52.cards, this time in Washington DC. The nature of promises, Linda, is
:00:52. > :00:57.they remain immune to changing circumstances.
:00:57. > :01:01.My glamorous guests tonight are the writer and critic, Paul Morley, the
:01:01. > :01:04.Guardian columnist, Hadley Freeman, and the literary editor of the
:01:04. > :01:09.Times, Erica Wagner. And don't forget, you can let us know your
:01:09. > :01:14.thoughts on Twitter. Hitchcock, famously enjoyed cameo roles in his
:01:14. > :01:18.films, perhaps he had enjoyed becoming the star. The latest movie
:01:18. > :01:26.portrayal, by Anthony Hopkins, is with Helen Mirren playing his wie.
:01:26. > :01:31.But the director no doubt span in his grave at a recent TV drama, far
:01:32. > :01:35.less flattering. Will the real Hitchcock stand up. 2012 was a
:01:35. > :01:40.bitter sweet year for Alfred Hitchcock fans, on the one hand,
:01:40. > :01:48.Vertonghen was voted the greatest film of -- Vertigo was voted the
:01:49. > :01:58.greatest film of all time in a drama poll. But The Girl, starring
:01:59. > :01:59.
:01:59. > :02:04.Toby Jones, showed him as less auture, more tormenter.
:02:04. > :02:08.But a new biopicure may depress the balance. Hitchcock could have been
:02:08. > :02:12.called Mrs Hitchcock, since it also tells the story of the most
:02:12. > :02:15.important person in the director's life, his wife, Alma. Playing by
:02:15. > :02:21.Helen Mirren, Alma Reville, who never took Hitchcock's name, always
:02:21. > :02:27.told it to him straight. Just think of the shock value, killing off
:02:28. > :02:36.your leading lady half way through? I mean you are intrigued, are you
:02:36. > :02:43.not, my dear. Come on, admit it. Admit it? Actually I think it is a
:02:43. > :02:50.huge mistake. You shouldn't wait until half way through, kill her
:02:50. > :02:57.off after 30 minutes! Well. film is set in 1959, when Hitchcock
:02:58. > :03:01.had to bank roll Psycho himself. The charms of matracide and cross
:03:01. > :03:04.dressing, having been lost on usual backers. Anthony Hopkins's
:03:04. > :03:08.performance, points to a more vulnerable side to the director.
:03:08. > :03:14.you remember the fun we had when we started out all those years ago. We
:03:14. > :03:21.didn't have any money then, we didn't have any time either, but we
:03:21. > :03:29.took risks, do you remember? I just want to feel that kind of freedom
:03:29. > :03:38.again. More, more anger, more anger. Does this latest portrayal cast any
:03:38. > :03:42.light on the dark figure of Hitchcock?
:03:42. > :03:45.Now everyone has their view of Hitchcock, partly because of the
:03:45. > :03:49.cameo appearances and the television shows. What version of
:03:50. > :03:54.Hitch do we get here? We get the more PR-friendly version than we
:03:54. > :03:58.got in The Girl, over the Christmas period. The problem with the film
:03:58. > :04:02.and the TV show, they are both so much less interesting than the
:04:02. > :04:07.films they are purportedly about. I spent most of the film wishing I
:04:07. > :04:11.was watching Psycho, this film felt twice as long as that. In both
:04:11. > :04:15.cases, because you get such widely diverging views of him, you think
:04:15. > :04:21.nobody knows the truth. The problem for Hitchcock is it ind, this is
:04:21. > :04:26.not much of a spoiler, it ends with the insinuation that Hitchcock has
:04:26. > :04:33.seen the error of his ways, he won't torment the blonde actresses
:04:33. > :04:38.and torment them any more. That is what he did in The Girl, with The
:04:38. > :04:42.Birds made after Psycho. It tells us the back story of Psycho, I
:04:42. > :04:47.wasn't aware of that? It does purport to do that. But I don't
:04:47. > :04:56.think it seems like a very reliable portrait. It is certainly not
:04:56. > :04:59.coming across as a documentary. I would agree with the comment that I
:04:59. > :05:03.thought, time to watch Psycho again. Did you feel the same? It is not a
:05:03. > :05:08.work of art about a work of art, that is for sure. In a sense, it
:05:08. > :05:13.might need nine or ten or 11 courses to get hold of Hitchcock,
:05:13. > :05:18.so far we have had the cheesey one, The Girl, the slightly cheesey one.
:05:18. > :05:20.And I get the feeling that over time, maybe there will be more
:05:21. > :05:25.revelations about a Hitchcock that will start to piece together who
:05:25. > :05:30.and what he really of. It is like a minor DVD extra, Sunday afternoon,
:05:30. > :05:35.it is more Mid-summer Murders, there is a lot of nice things to
:05:35. > :05:40.look at with the art directing. It has the relaxation quality of a
:05:40. > :05:46.Mid-summer Murder, not a lot happens. Helen Mirren is too Jane
:05:46. > :05:51.Tennyson to pull off the wife. Imelda Staunton was better. The
:05:51. > :05:55.wife chose the actors and the actresses and put the music over
:05:55. > :05:58.the scene, she got rid of Janet Leigh after half an hour. And then
:05:58. > :06:05.it is what did Alfred Hitchcock actually do. It is going too far
:06:05. > :06:10.the other way. It is more ambition than the Midsummer Murders, we have
:06:10. > :06:15.the dialogues between Hitchcock and the mass murderer? The film is
:06:15. > :06:19.based on a 1990 book about the making of Psycho. It was a book
:06:19. > :06:25.strictly about the making of Psycho, and Sacha Gervasi and the screen
:06:25. > :06:30.writers had to put in some plot development. It was about Fox not
:06:31. > :06:37.wanting to make the movie and him bank rolling it. It was about
:06:37. > :06:47.Hitchcock talking to the dark side of his south. What was bad for me
:06:47. > :06:47.
:06:47. > :06:54.was the phoney plot between Helen Mirren, the wife, and a member of
:06:54. > :06:57.the crew, and it was a phoney plot to bring him to some kind of
:06:57. > :06:59.emotional realisation. There is lots of subtle references to
:06:59. > :07:02.Hitchcock's directing style, and doing sorts of things that are a
:07:02. > :07:05.homeage. You think if you are really that interested in Hitchcock,
:07:05. > :07:07.this is a statement of the bleeding obvious. If you are not that
:07:07. > :07:13.interested in Hitchcock, you won't want to come to a film about
:07:13. > :07:18.Hitchcock. I wish, in way, they would go further into the idea of
:07:18. > :07:21.doing something Lynch or Tim Burtonesque about Hitchcock, and
:07:21. > :07:28.fantasise a bit about him, rather than saying something literal. When
:07:28. > :07:31.I say Midsummer Murders, it isn't a criticism, it is frothy
:07:31. > :07:37.entertainment. There is such a weight of expectation on things it
:07:37. > :07:40.is crucified, it is very entertaining. It has an afternoon
:07:40. > :07:45.drama feeling to it, I thought. If I was feeling poorly, sitting up in
:07:45. > :07:48.bed, one afternoon, and came across this on the tele, I wouldn't have
:07:48. > :07:51.been sorry. I was distracted for a couple of hours. But I didn't think
:07:51. > :07:57.it was a great film. Interesting portrait of a marriage? Interesting
:07:57. > :08:04.portrait of a marriage. Whether it is a portrait of this marriage. You
:08:04. > :08:07.don't know. I did enjoy seeing two grown-up people having fairly
:08:07. > :08:11.grown-up conversations, that is not something you see in a lot of
:08:11. > :08:16.movies on the big screen. What do you make of the fact that we have
:08:16. > :08:19.had these two dramas so close to each other, Vertigo being voted
:08:19. > :08:24.Best Picture, Hitchcock has never really gone out of fashion, he's
:08:24. > :08:30.riding high at the moment? He does. There has been an interest around
:08:30. > :08:37.Hitchcock before, there was the terrible Gus Van Sant remake of
:08:37. > :08:42.Psycho, shot by shot remake. It seems we have mined his movies
:08:42. > :08:50.without showing his movies, let's look at his personal life, I think
:08:50. > :08:55.the Tippi Hedron novel has given the material for The * girl.
:08:55. > :08:59.guess it may bring a younger audience to Hitchcock films?
:08:59. > :09:04.way we process everybody as a celebrity, and he was a celebrity
:09:04. > :09:10.director, there is the way in to a film director. Effectively he was
:09:10. > :09:14.as iconic and as famous as any of his films and actors. We are
:09:14. > :09:19.getting a retrospective of someone who made such an impact as a famous
:09:19. > :09:22.person. It is interesting it is retrospective. It is interesting it
:09:22. > :09:25.ising back, it is interesting we are kind of -- it is interesting it
:09:25. > :09:30.is looking back. We are celebrating and putting into position the 20th
:09:30. > :09:33.sent treatment one of the things I thought was fascinate beg it was
:09:33. > :09:37.the implication that -- fascinating about it was the implication that
:09:37. > :09:41.he tidied up and glossed the original book, and the original
:09:41. > :09:47.events. If that kind of thing was done now, it would be more like Saw.
:09:47. > :09:51.The fact that he compressed it, turned it and polished it and
:09:51. > :09:55.burnished it into almost a poem is why he's a genius. You get a sense
:09:55. > :10:00.of what is going on without the grim event. It made me want to get
:10:00. > :10:05.out a DVD of Psycho and watch it all over again. Peter York once
:10:05. > :10:09.said that Brian Ferry led such an art-directed existence, he should
:10:09. > :10:14.be hanging on the wall of the Tate. Now he is, at least his sequined
:10:14. > :10:17.jacket and trousers are, in a new exhibition in Tate Liverpool. Glam!
:10:17. > :10:20.The Performance of Style glam casts a critical eye over the period,
:10:20. > :10:29.when art and popular culture collided, and popstars and artists
:10:29. > :10:33.turned themselves into living artists.
:10:33. > :10:38.Bringing together over 100 works from both sides of the Atlantic,
:10:38. > :10:42.Glam! The Performance of Style glam is an ecclectic and playful
:10:42. > :10:47.collection of culture from an extravagant era. Alongside the
:10:47. > :10:55.paintings and photographs, there are record sleeves, posters, movies,
:10:55. > :11:00.magazines and stage costumes, exploring the glam aesthetic in all
:11:01. > :11:04.its glory. The exhibition really explores how glam was like fine art
:11:04. > :11:10.ideas at the front face of popular culture. The glam narrative begins
:11:10. > :11:13.in the late 1960s, there was a real culture of convergence that was
:11:13. > :11:17.evidences in art school culture. This coming together of fashion
:11:17. > :11:22.designers, musician, artists. the heart of glam are definitions
:11:22. > :11:29.of gender and the notions of masquerade and transformation.
:11:29. > :11:36.Nowhere is this more apparent than in Mick Rock's photograph of Andrew
:11:36. > :11:41.Logan, as an alternative Miss World, post-hostess. So many artists were
:11:41. > :11:45.playing with gender, attempting to be male and female, using self-
:11:46. > :11:49.staging masquerade. This is reflected in the exhibition.
:11:49. > :11:53.Despite the glamour and glitter hang more expected work, the name
:11:53. > :11:57.David Hockney is not the first one to spring to mind when appraising
:11:57. > :12:00.the art of the glam era. I think Hockney was important. He was
:12:01. > :12:10.somebody who was a graduate of the Royal College of Art. He was really
:12:10. > :12:14.part of a very glamorous millure, the painting included is a famous
:12:14. > :12:17.portrait of Celia Birtwell and Ossie Clark. These two together
:12:17. > :12:22.epitomised this culture of convergence. It was through pop
:12:22. > :12:26.music, and more crucially the rock star as the embodiment of all these
:12:26. > :12:32.elements, that glam cull canure was expressed most explicitly. There
:12:32. > :12:37.must be something in the air, in March the V & A is going glam, with
:12:37. > :12:46.their exhibition, David Bowie Is. Is it time to remake and remodel
:12:46. > :12:51.ourselves, and declare 2013 the year of the glam revival?
:12:51. > :12:56.Now Paul, I walked into the first room of this exhibition and it was
:12:56. > :13:02.like my bedroom! But that was my bedroom! What are you talking about.
:13:02. > :13:06.We didn't have the same bedroom. no, it was the same thing.
:13:07. > :13:10.Bowie albums, the Biba posters? don't know about you, a funny
:13:10. > :13:15.moment is what is our lived memory starts to transfer into recorded
:13:15. > :13:19.memory and history. Don't say that? We are witnessing it happening, it
:13:19. > :13:22.is pins and needles, very strange. I appreciated this one very much. I
:13:22. > :13:27.was always of the view that glam, because sometimes you think of glam
:13:27. > :13:30.and you think of the corny side. The Sweet? The bricky glam, the
:13:30. > :13:34.brickies that dressed up. And colour television came along, that
:13:34. > :13:37.was a huge reason why glam rock was so important. Suddenly things were
:13:37. > :13:42.in colour, we had never seen that before. Top Of The Pops was always
:13:42. > :13:46.black and white. I appreciated this exhibition because it was very much
:13:46. > :13:49.pursuing the intellectual side. Because glam was very much about
:13:49. > :13:52.pretension in the best possible sense. It was ambition, it was
:13:52. > :13:56.claiming something, inventing yourself, inventing something
:13:56. > :14:00.brilliant. I appreciated the idea that metaphorically it represented
:14:00. > :14:04.the idea that at the time those people making music, being fans of
:14:04. > :14:09.music, were putting together a lot of different things from outside
:14:09. > :14:13.music, theatre, poetry, film, art, anything to get together to create
:14:13. > :14:16.this wonderful collage. Even though it is a subjective and personal
:14:16. > :14:20.view, ultimately, as you go through the rooms and get further and
:14:20. > :14:24.further away from T Rex, Slade and bowy, and the idea that scenes were
:14:24. > :14:28.created. I did appreciate that it gave a reflection, not actually as
:14:28. > :14:31.it was, because observously it wasn't anything like this, but the
:14:31. > :14:35.idea there was no -- obviously it wasn't anything like this, but the
:14:35. > :14:41.idea that you could borrow and beg and choose anything to become
:14:41. > :14:47.absolutely glam in a grim post-war setting. Did you have the same
:14:47. > :14:54.nostalgic rush? No, in a sense, for me the exhibition was ill served by
:14:54. > :15:00.its opening. Which was difficult. Because you can't access someone
:15:00. > :15:07.else's nostalgia. I recognised that this was somebody's bedroom, but it
:15:07. > :15:11.wasn't mine. That was rebarbative at the beginning. When I got deeper
:15:11. > :15:15.into the exhibition I found it more interesting. I almost wish it had
:15:15. > :15:20.been reversed. Did it feel, clearly it is not of your generation, did
:15:20. > :15:24.it have enough depth for you? There is such an eclectic range of
:15:24. > :15:29.objects, was there a coherence underlying it, do you think? There
:15:29. > :15:38.was enormous he can clekism, I found that a -- he can collectism,
:15:38. > :15:41.I found that overwhelming. There was a vision with Warhol and
:15:42. > :15:48.someone fellating a banana. The ones I liked best was those that
:15:48. > :15:53.put in a political context. The photo of Adrian Sweet and his
:15:53. > :15:57.father, the coal miner. What glam was rebelling against in Britain,
:15:57. > :16:01.recession, how that affected it, the poverty, Margaret Thatcher
:16:01. > :16:07.being the Education Minister then. Glam was the bridge between
:16:07. > :16:13.psycadelic and punk, I never considered that either. We can see
:16:13. > :16:17.striking photographs of the os mond fans against the background of
:16:17. > :16:21.deriliction. When things become scholarly there is a net draped
:16:21. > :16:23.over events that were abitary to create a diversion of events. At
:16:23. > :16:28.the time it wasn't a direct response to what is deemed to be
:16:28. > :16:31.the direct response to a recession, a strike, a political climate, no
:16:31. > :16:36.way. They were just popstars on the television? It was a series of
:16:36. > :16:41.attitude and things, and local streets, there was a beautiful film
:16:41. > :16:45.from the Manchester polytechnic of some Roxy music fans, we hum
:16:45. > :16:48.knowingly at the backdrop of these young men in full make up with the
:16:48. > :16:52.chimneys behind them. At the time that wasn't the statement. The
:16:52. > :16:56.statement was elsewhere. I thought that video was fascinating, because
:16:56. > :17:00.it celebrated or showed the way that dressing-up had become a form
:17:00. > :17:04.of artwork in itself, what these art students were doing? Yes, and
:17:04. > :17:13.it was, as was said, it was a reaction against a post-war world
:17:13. > :17:20.of three-day weeks and terrible strikes. That comes into relief
:17:20. > :17:24.when you see the exhibition. Also an exploration of sexuality, and
:17:24. > :17:30.transgressiveness, and people in drag, and camp, all sorts of
:17:30. > :17:34.playing around with gender? decadence, the 1920s decadence and
:17:34. > :17:37.carried over into experimentation of gender. The yolking together of
:17:37. > :17:40.two element of glam in the east village in New York, and what
:17:41. > :17:44.seemed to be mainly in west London, from the photos, is very
:17:44. > :17:51.interesting, they were two schools I never put together either out of
:17:52. > :17:55.my own ignorance. The best photos are things like Bowie and Mick
:17:55. > :18:01.Ronson on the train eating lunch. Why are we so interested in this
:18:01. > :18:05.era now, the V & A has a big Bowie exhibition? It is the moment it
:18:05. > :18:07.becomes history, it is the moment that one thing is ending and
:18:07. > :18:10.something else is beginning. Everyone is a critic and can
:18:10. > :18:14.comment and wants to discuss things. It is also, these are important
:18:14. > :18:16.moments now, they are becoming history. They are becoming less
:18:16. > :18:22.frivolous. It is interesting the separation you talk about between
:18:22. > :18:25.high and low art. For me, much of this, the Eno, the Bowie, the Roxy
:18:25. > :18:30.music, is as much fine art as anything else. This was a period
:18:30. > :18:34.when a lot of artists decided not to use paint or materials to make
:18:34. > :18:37.their art, but music, sound and image. It is as much deserving of a
:18:37. > :18:43.position in those places as anything else. Of course Brian
:18:43. > :18:49.Ferry was an art student himself? And Eno was an artist, but made the
:18:49. > :18:52.sculptures out of sound. And David Bowie was an artist and made
:18:52. > :18:56.sculptures out of himself. Now the battle goes on about what history
:18:56. > :19:01.is to be told. That is the battle that is beginning now, I think.
:19:02. > :19:05.If you would like to seat history of Paul and my bedroom, the
:19:05. > :19:08.exhibition continues at Tate Liverpool until the 12th of May. It
:19:08. > :19:12.is 50 years since Sylvia Plath committed suicide. But the
:19:12. > :19:18.fascination with her life and work shows no sign of abating. It is
:19:18. > :19:23.also 50 years since her novel The Bell Jar was published. Despite the
:19:23. > :19:30.plethora of Plath biographies, a new book is the first to focus
:19:30. > :19:35.solely on her life before she married Ted Hughes. Mad Girl's Love
:19:35. > :19:39.Song, by Beau Willimon, delves deep into Plath -- Andrew Wilson defls
:19:39. > :19:43.deep into her life to look at her mental health problems. Wilson
:19:43. > :19:47.travelled to America to speak to Plath's family and friends. But
:19:47. > :19:50.more significantly studied the writings of early boyfriends and
:19:50. > :19:58.lovers. It is a fascinating point about memory, and how much people
:19:58. > :20:02.can tell you about the past, and whether they can be trusted. As a
:20:02. > :20:07.biographer you go on a case-by-case basis, you can sense whether
:20:07. > :20:12.somebody is telling the truth. You can compare it with letters. Plath
:20:12. > :20:16.was an extraordinarily detailed diary writer. She recorded almost
:20:16. > :20:20.every heart beat. We can check people's accounts with Plath's
:20:20. > :20:24.diaries, her letters, other people's accounts. The biography
:20:24. > :20:27.doesn't shy away from analysing Plath's tumultuous relationship
:20:27. > :20:35.with her mother, and the great loss she felt at the death of her father,
:20:35. > :20:40.when she was eight years old. 1947 Sylvia composed a poem called
:20:40. > :20:45."Bereft", the people, unpublished, takes the form of a lament of an
:20:45. > :20:50.unknown person, who takes the people to the sea and says goodbye
:20:50. > :20:59.forever. Plath says she associated her father with the ocean, and
:20:59. > :21:05.later would look at him as a sea God. Wilson's greatest fine was
:21:05. > :21:11.Plath's ex-boyfriend, Richard Sassoon, she was his great love,
:21:11. > :21:15.and had she stayed with him, things may have been different. She had
:21:15. > :21:21.this boyfriend before Ted Hughes, Sylvia slept with him in London,
:21:21. > :21:27.but she went back to Paris to track Sassoon down, but he had fled to
:21:27. > :21:30.Spain, and he rejected her, that rejection led her back to Ted
:21:30. > :21:35.Hughes's arms. That is a fascinating insight. I close the
:21:35. > :21:41.book with this kind of poignant letter that Richard Sassoon writes
:21:41. > :21:46.to Plath, in 1956, when he realises that Ted Hughes and Plath are going
:21:46. > :21:50.to get married. "There is no reason for me to believe that you are
:21:50. > :21:55.happier now than you were or ever could have been with me except your
:21:55. > :22:00.letter to me was not a letter of a happy woman, long before I was
:22:00. > :22:04.yours I was something else to you, I was always some what more than a
:22:04. > :22:12.paramour. You tell me I am to know I am doing what is best for you. If
:22:12. > :22:15.it is so you believe it Sylvia, if it is so, then it is." You have
:22:15. > :22:19.entered this very difficult territory yourself, haven't you.
:22:19. > :22:23.You explored the real lives behind the poetry in The Birthday Letters.
:22:23. > :22:33.Do you think there is a virtue in looking at the early years of
:22:33. > :22:35.
:22:35. > :22:37.Sylvia Plath's life in this way? There is some virttu. I think --
:22:37. > :22:43.virtue. It is hard not to think of the territory of the struggles with
:22:43. > :22:51.her mother, her sorrow at the death of her father, hasn't been explored
:22:51. > :22:56.enough. Finally, as we were saying about Hitchcock, you can't explain
:22:56. > :23:03.art. I would say that about this book, I would say it about my own
:23:03. > :23:08.book. Anything biographical, finally, doesn't ever get to the
:23:08. > :23:14.bottom of a real work of art. is something inherent in the buy
:23:14. > :23:18.oingfee. But looking at this particular -- biography, looking at
:23:18. > :23:23.this particular book, diligent research? Very diligent. Andrew
:23:23. > :23:28.Wilson was talking about memory, you have to ask yourself finally
:23:28. > :23:34.how valuable it is to go and talk to people about encounters they had
:23:34. > :23:37.60 years ago. We know how fallible our own memories are, even when we
:23:37. > :23:43.have written records. Even when we have letters. Memory is something
:23:43. > :23:48.that we create, it is an invention. It is never the truth. What picture
:23:48. > :23:51.did you get of Sylvia Plath from this? To be honest I found the book
:23:51. > :23:56.infuriating. I studied Plath a lot at university. I was an American at
:23:56. > :24:00.a British university, obviously I related to her in that way, that an
:24:00. > :24:06.18-year-old girl can. The introduction just set it up right
:24:06. > :24:13.away why I found it infuriating. First of all there is the Ince he
:24:13. > :24:17.have table dig at Ted Hughes, as if there was an act of censorship,
:24:17. > :24:20.about where Hughes burned her diaries. Then comes up with this
:24:20. > :24:25.completely reasonable claim that Andrew Wilson wants to rescue Plath
:24:25. > :24:28.from the shadow of Hughes, that is good. But immediately brings up
:24:28. > :24:33.these boyfriends that she had that nobody knew about that, and the
:24:33. > :24:36.importance of that her life. And once again she's defined again in
:24:36. > :24:42.relation to various men. And speaking as a former 18-year-old
:24:42. > :24:46.girl who has boyfriends and dates, they are not that important to your
:24:46. > :24:50.future life. And your adult maturation. Someone going out there
:24:50. > :24:55.in my future life, and finding boys I went out with on three dates when
:24:56. > :25:00.I was 18 years old and finding notes I sent to them, it is not
:25:00. > :25:03.that important. It is someone trying to find new ground in a well
:25:03. > :25:07.trodden life, the most important thing about Plath is her work.
:25:07. > :25:11.There is no work here, just her life. He seems to take a strange
:25:11. > :25:17.attitude towards her boyfriend, he describes her almost as oversexed?
:25:17. > :25:21.It is terrible. One of the phrases I particularly hated was "dated
:25:21. > :25:25.hundreds of boys". Sylvia Plath, her work, herself is the one and
:25:25. > :25:30.thing that will rescue her from Ted Hughes's shadow, and continues to
:25:30. > :25:34.do so and always will. You can also on the one hand can see why Ted
:25:34. > :25:38.Hughes was protective in a way of the possibility that this kind of
:25:38. > :25:43.book could only be extracted in OK! Magazine. It is very strange, in a
:25:43. > :25:47.way. I feel if you need to know this period of Sylvia Plath's life
:25:47. > :25:50.you have The Bell Jar. To an extent, as much as that is one person's
:25:50. > :25:53.memory of a particular life, everything that is inbetween, the
:25:53. > :25:57.gaps in that book, this didn't really fill in veryle with. It got
:25:57. > :26:01.more and more distorted and distressed. What is particularly
:26:01. > :26:05.annoying in the end is the potential for objectivity that is
:26:05. > :26:10.falling apart in your hands. The way to make a work of art in
:26:10. > :26:14.response to a work of art, like Janet Malcolm did, with the book of
:26:14. > :26:18.Sylvia Plath done as an original piece of writing about writing.
:26:18. > :26:24.Aren't there genuine revelations in this, Richard Sassoon, her lover,
:26:24. > :26:28.the fact that you knew? I don't think so. You knew about him?
:26:28. > :26:31.certainly knew of his existence. But the letters, that's a new
:26:31. > :26:35.thing? Yes, but honesty I don't think they add. The question is
:26:35. > :26:39.whether they add to our understanding of Sylvia Plath as an
:26:39. > :26:45.artist? Whether they are necessary to our understanding of her, as an
:26:45. > :26:49.artist. Is there any understanding about what it was like to be a
:26:49. > :26:54.young, intelligent woman in that period in American life, with the
:26:54. > :26:58.stifling nature of society around her? That was the best bit about it.
:26:58. > :27:03.Her frustration at not having the freedoms that men Z in that sense
:27:03. > :27:11.that is one great favour it does to Plath, there is so many insinnation,
:27:11. > :27:15.allegations, -- insinuations, since she has died, that Hughes killed
:27:15. > :27:20.her, and this books shows she suffered mental health and
:27:20. > :27:24.depression before. This exonerates Hughes from doing so. As Paul says,
:27:24. > :27:27.we can read The Bell Jar. I was mystified by the biographer's claim
:27:27. > :27:31.that we didn't know about her boyfriends before. She writes about
:27:31. > :27:36.her boyfriends in The Bell Jar. The famous meeting between her and
:27:36. > :27:39.Hughes at Cambridge, written so many times, when she bites his
:27:39. > :27:47.cheek, that is not the act of an innocent young virgin, anyone with
:27:47. > :27:51.a mind would know she had boyfriends before. The great act of
:27:51. > :27:55.mystery refreshs the mystery and life, these books always want to
:27:56. > :27:58.reduce and ruin the mystery and reduce it to mere facts and details
:27:58. > :28:03.and possibility. I don't understand why there is such a love for the
:28:03. > :28:07.subject that you then want to go and kill it and destroy it and make
:28:07. > :28:12.it orderry I would rather a book written about Plath done in the
:28:12. > :28:15.early days that was more novelistic and a celebration about what she
:28:16. > :28:19.was trying to do, which is create something special in the world
:28:19. > :28:26.rather than bog it down in the details. That sense of oppression
:28:26. > :28:33.of being a woman in 1950s America, does diligently explain that. But
:28:33. > :28:39.if you go back and read the sections of the The Bell Jar when
:28:39. > :28:42.she was at Mademoiselle magazine, it breathes at you. With the The
:28:42. > :28:47.Bell Jar it is exploding with possibility more than any lines in
:28:47. > :28:55.this book. Go and read the The Bell Jar, reissued with the appalling
:28:55. > :29:00.cover. But Mad Girl's Love Song is on Radio 4 on Monday. And the film
:29:00. > :29:04.Lady Lazereth, featuring Plath herself can be seen digitally, on a
:29:04. > :29:09.link on website. You might very well think I couldn't possibly
:29:09. > :29:14.comment, that phrase issued by the fictional Urquhart u, became a
:29:14. > :29:18.Westminster stalwart. Now Jim Dobbin's creation, House of Cards,
:29:18. > :29:23.has been transposed to the American Congress, and the Machiavellian
:29:23. > :29:27.politician is played by Kevin Spacey. Costing a reputed $100
:29:27. > :29:34.million, it is the first drama by Netflix, it allows on-line viewers
:29:34. > :29:39.to gorge on the entire series in just one sitting.
:29:39. > :29:45.Andrew Davies adaptation of Jim Dobbin's novel, House of Cards, was
:29:45. > :29:53.a big hit for the BBC in the 190s, the thriller set at the heart of
:29:53. > :30:00.the Westminster machine, featured a memorable performance as the
:30:00. > :30:05.Machiavellian MP Francis Urquhart. Now David Fincher, the director of
:30:05. > :30:07.Fight Club Seven, has moved to Washington, with Kevin Spacey, the
:30:07. > :30:12.majority whip in the house of representatives, whose lust for
:30:12. > :30:18.power is undimmed in the face of adversity. I would like to borrow
:30:18. > :30:21.from Regan, I would like to coin the phrase, "trickle down
:30:21. > :30:26.diplomacy". I want to stop you there, we are not nominating you
:30:26. > :30:30.for Secretary of State, he made you a promise, but circumstances have
:30:30. > :30:36.changed. The nature of promises mean they remain immune from
:30:36. > :30:39.changing circumstances. Together with his amoral life, played by
:30:39. > :30:43.Claire Wright, they form a partnership to be reckoned with.
:30:43. > :30:46.knew you shouldn't have trusted that woman. I didn't trust her.
:30:46. > :30:51.could you not see this coming. never thought they were capable.
:30:51. > :30:58.You don't usually underestimate Francis. Francis forms an alliance
:30:58. > :31:05.with the simply ambitious journalist, Zoe Barnes, played by
:31:05. > :31:09.Kate o. Mara. You would have made a great Secretary of State. How can I
:31:09. > :31:13.help you. The company behind the series is Netflix, the world's
:31:13. > :31:18.biggest on-line broadcaster, which released all 13 episodes of the
:31:18. > :31:23.series to subscribers on the same day. We lift the veil. Two decades
:31:23. > :31:27.on from the original, how does this landmark series from 1990s Britain,
:31:27. > :31:37.translate to contemporary America. Does the release of an entire
:31:37. > :31:37.
:31:37. > :31:41.series at once reshuffle the cards in the traditional TV market place.
:31:41. > :31:43.The original BBC version casts a long shadow, I know you have done
:31:43. > :31:48.your homework, how do you think the two compare? They are completely
:31:48. > :31:52.different. The original one was Shakespearian, really, it felt
:31:52. > :31:58.medieval like you were looking into Henry VII the court, it feels like
:31:58. > :32:05.West Wing, meeting Seven, it is appropriate with David Fincher
:32:05. > :32:11.produce it, he brings out the menace of Kevin Spacey. They not
:32:11. > :32:16.only keep the catchphrase, but keep Spacey from the South, that can
:32:16. > :32:21.have the camp menace like the British accent. It is a bigger
:32:21. > :32:27.budget and glitzy, the way American remakes of British TV shows are.
:32:27. > :32:33.The view of politics is very different from the Rosie-tinted
:32:33. > :32:38.glasses? It is an anti-West Wing, where everyone is the opposite of
:32:38. > :32:44.do-gooding idealists, it is very entertaining for it. How did you
:32:44. > :32:48.find Kevin Spacey taking over from Richardson? Not much by a miles,
:32:48. > :32:53.his southern accent is appalling, how many I have binged on, it is
:32:53. > :32:57.all over the shop, he started sounding like Noddy Holder by the
:32:57. > :33:01.end. I think of it more that we are talking about Netflix, the idea of
:33:01. > :33:05.it appearing all at once. The fact it is about something happening in
:33:05. > :33:09.an innovative context, but retrospective is fascinating. It is
:33:09. > :33:12.about the idea that it is all released at once. For me this is
:33:13. > :33:16.fascinating in terms of the world being filled with critics now. What
:33:16. > :33:18.happens really is what they are interested in mostly is getting
:33:19. > :33:23.reviews. Because they want reviews and comments on the people that are
:33:24. > :33:26.getting it immediately, so they get more subscribers to Netflix. We are
:33:26. > :33:31.watching something in itself that is something I would almost want to
:33:31. > :33:36.see the film about by David Fincher, what is going on really. It doesn't
:33:36. > :33:45.matter about the thing itself as long as it is done moderately well.
:33:45. > :33:52.Funcher is used as a bling to draw you in, later it is Joel Schumacker
:33:52. > :33:57.is drawn in. Netflix, it reflecting how we consume a lot these days. It
:33:57. > :34:01.is like sitting down with the box set. We are greedy viewers, we want
:34:01. > :34:06.it instantly? I'm surprised, to be honest, that Netflix has jumped
:34:06. > :34:10.ahead of HBO on this. A lot of people watch HBO shows like this,
:34:10. > :34:16.they buy the box set and watch it during a hole I da. Netflix has
:34:16. > :34:22.gone in there and trying to over-- holidays. Netflix has gone there to
:34:22. > :34:28.try to overtake HBO, and it is to breakthrough in Britain, all of my
:34:28. > :34:33.friends in America have it but none here. They don't have TVs, just
:34:33. > :34:39.iPad and Netflix. We are being watched, everything we do, I notice
:34:39. > :34:42.with my watching patterns, they know where I am when I have done it,
:34:42. > :34:49.they are starting to show recommendations, everything you
:34:49. > :34:53.want to avoid is machines dictating your tastes. But you like it you go
:34:53. > :34:57.back in. Netflix is the organisation that Kevin Spacey is
:34:58. > :35:04.fronting. Do you think that writers will treat this in a different way,
:35:04. > :35:08.because they don't have to write it in such an episodeic way. They
:35:08. > :35:11.don't have to have recaps or flashback, because it will be
:35:11. > :35:16.spread over a period of time. But people will be watching it in a
:35:16. > :35:20.continuous form? What I liked reading, Netflix don't like the
:35:20. > :35:24.term "bingeing", they prefer "marathoning", that is a very
:35:24. > :35:29.interesting antithesis of the idea of fitness to watch something. The
:35:29. > :35:34.absence of recaps, you get your box set of the Wire or the Killing,
:35:34. > :35:38.they are your recaps to remind you in case you haven't seen the past
:35:38. > :35:42.series. This assumes that you are following right the way through.
:35:42. > :35:45.Just going back to the actual content. I think there were
:35:45. > :35:51.interesting update, weren't there, what about the young reporter
:35:51. > :35:55.figure, in the original she was a woman in a man's world. This is a
:35:55. > :36:01.young woman who is of the internet age, battling against the dinosaurs
:36:02. > :36:07.of the print? I felt that Kate Mara has much more blood to give to the
:36:07. > :36:12.character than Susannah Harcourt was allowed to, you weren't
:36:12. > :36:16.entirely sure in the original why Susan that Harker was ambitious,
:36:16. > :36:20.trying to make it in a man's world. This is a young journalist battling
:36:20. > :36:27.against the old dinosaurs in her office, trying to get a blog and
:36:27. > :36:32.showing the value of putting things straight away, and trying to get on
:36:33. > :36:36.NBS C. She's very hard, they are all cynical and hard? She will do
:36:36. > :36:42.anything to get her story there, selling out her colleagues and
:36:42. > :36:46.subject. Ever day life in the newsroom the I thought -- Every day
:36:46. > :36:51.life in the newsroom? I thought she was overdone. What about his wife?
:36:51. > :36:55.I loved his wife. But again, it is interesting how we are having this
:36:55. > :37:00.discussion. Because how much of each of us watched? That is
:37:00. > :37:05.interesting n my office, in Radio 4, Eddie Maier is watching it, he's
:37:05. > :37:12.way ahead of me, I want to talk to him about it, I can't because he as
:37:12. > :37:16.several episodes ahead? Typically macho, it is fascinating in a world
:37:16. > :37:21.where we are told attention spans are getting shorter and shorter,
:37:21. > :37:26.they have given us a 12-hour movie. But if it was sold as that we would
:37:26. > :37:30.have gone no way. Without water cooler moments, we can't talk about
:37:30. > :37:35.it at one moment because we are watching it in different places?
:37:35. > :37:38.Cutting across things like that is traditional, in the future we will
:37:38. > :37:46.be in our own spaces having the discussion, possibly with ourselves.
:37:46. > :37:52.I will move on with that. I don't know quite what you are saying.
:37:52. > :37:56.is sinister. What is that compared to the BBC. BBC is best, we all
:37:56. > :38:01.know that. Episodes 1-13 of House of Cards is available on Netflix,
:38:01. > :38:05.as is the original BBC series. Revolver, Dark Side of the Moon,
:38:05. > :38:13.Hunky Dory, London Calling, you all have your own favourite album of
:38:13. > :38:17.call time. This time -- all time, this week marks the start of a
:38:17. > :38:20.programme in BBC Two and BBC Four, slipping vinyl from sleeve and
:38:21. > :38:25.celebrating the golden age of the family. The season gaj with Danny
:38:25. > :38:28.Baker and guests discussing some of the best albums in different genre,
:38:28. > :38:32.and followed tonight by a documentary, which traced the rise
:38:32. > :38:38.of the album from the 60s, through to the near demise in the 1980s.
:38:38. > :38:43.Next week a starry line-up, including Joss Stone and the
:38:43. > :38:49.Stereophonics, will attempt to emulate the Beatles years on, by
:38:49. > :38:55.reregarding their first album, Please please Me n a 12-hour
:38:55. > :39:02.session in Abbey Road. With the advent of multitrack recording in
:39:02. > :39:08.the 1960s, the album changed from one of singles, but a way of having
:39:08. > :39:16.creative freedom. The record collection became an expression of
:39:16. > :39:19.musical taste and status. The album and CD boosted sales of old and new
:39:19. > :39:26.music. But album sales have been declining for the last eight years.
:39:26. > :39:30.Downloading and streaming has made it easy for fans to pick and choose
:39:30. > :39:34.from multiple tracks on-line last year. Single sales reached an all-
:39:34. > :39:41.time high last year of 190 million. Is the album, so beloved by music
:39:41. > :39:46.fans of a certain age, doomed to suffer death by download.
:39:46. > :39:49.What do you think led to the demise of the album? Greed, a weird
:39:49. > :39:52.technological series of advancements kept things moving,
:39:52. > :39:58.when there should have been someone pausing and saying the vinyl way of
:39:58. > :40:02.delivering music is the best it could be. Once it travelled further,
:40:02. > :40:05.even though people essentially delivered two-sided albums and CDs,
:40:05. > :40:09.and delivered singles even though there wasn't a single to do it,
:40:09. > :40:14.that is what they were doing. We are talking about the vinyl era and
:40:14. > :40:19.the magical property of that. is a vinyl revival going on? When I
:40:19. > :40:24.was at university the cool boys had their vinyl albums and record
:40:24. > :40:26.players. That holds true. I have started listening to albums on my
:40:26. > :40:31.iPod. I have found myself downloading and listening straight
:40:31. > :40:38.through, it feels warm and familiar like when I was a child. On the way
:40:38. > :40:42.to Liverpool I was listening to Abbey Road and Hunky Dory, getting
:40:42. > :40:48.myself in the mood for glam. There is the physical art on the album?
:40:48. > :40:53.remember all my albums and gate fold sleeves, and lyric, and CDs
:40:53. > :40:58.are extremely unsatisfying objects, and downloads don't exist as
:40:58. > :41:01.objects as all. They were the canvasses and work of arts that he
:41:01. > :41:08.dictated the length of the songs and the length of the experience
:41:08. > :41:11.you had, the two sides, 20-minutes a side. In terms of futuristic and
:41:11. > :41:15.disappearing straight into machines, musicians are still faithful to the
:41:15. > :41:18.structure. The same with the House of Cards, Netflix and the idea that
:41:18. > :41:24.what will lap now when writers think they can write for a 12-hour
:41:24. > :41:27.length, that are change things. So too it will change things now
:41:27. > :41:31.because music doesn't come on these canvasses, we are going in the echo
:41:31. > :41:36.of the last few years of people being faithful to that. What comes
:41:36. > :41:40.next, we mustn't get too nostalgic about dropping the needle on the
:41:40. > :41:43.record. But on the other hand, it was a wonderful period, a wonderful
:41:43. > :41:49.series of remarkable works of art, but it is leading to something he
:41:49. > :41:53.will. If we can just get away from the horrible retro pecs, we will
:41:53. > :41:57.see what it will be. What is your favourite album? It has as much to
:41:57. > :42:01.do with the time as the album. It was the second album I bought, it
:42:01. > :42:09.has to be Like A Prayer like Madonna. They have a special place
:42:09. > :42:17.the early albums. I will go right out there, Heart, the Village
:42:17. > :42:22.Weight, Stelie Spam. A wrote a book about how I wouldn't do that, and
:42:22. > :42:28.gave 842 versions of my favourite. But the one I played almost every
:42:28. > :42:34.day, was Blood on the Tracks by Bob Dylan.
:42:34. > :42:36.You have already mentioned Hunky Dory, that was mine. My thanks to
:42:37. > :42:41.Hadley Freeman, Erica Wagner and Paul Morley as well. Do visit our
:42:42. > :42:45.website for more details about tonight's items and the rest of the
:42:45. > :42:55.golden age album season. Next week Kirsty will be here to discuss the
:42:55. > :43:00.film adaptation of Cloud At last, and a controversial new biography
:43:00. > :43:06.of Benjamin Britain. Another opening at the national portrait
:43:06. > :43:16.gallery, Manre portraits, it suggests he may have been one of
:43:16. > :43:24.
:43:24. > :43:28.the Godfather of glam. This is just # Lady
:43:28. > :43:33.# If you want a lover # Look into further