Episodes
| Episode | First Broadcast | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | 20210218 | Stripping away old myths, this series provides a vibrant new portrait of John Keats as a doctor and poet, 200 years after his death and in view of all we have learned in the Covid era. With readings from the poems and letters by Thomas Brodie-Sangster John Keats's death at the age of just 25 and the cult that immediately grew up around his memory often suggest he was a delicate flower. Sasha Dugdale, an award-winning poet herself, looks beyond this image to reveal an energetic young man, living life to the full both as a poet and doctor, until the endemic illness of his day, TB - which had already stolen his mother and brother - overwhelmed him. In the first programme, Sasha's focus is Keats' final productive year, 1819 - in which he wrote five of the greatest odes in the English language, including Ode to a Nightingale and To Autumn. By then, Keats was no longer practising as a doctor, but Sasha reveals how, far from abandoning medicine for poetry, the two were deeply intertwined. This vivid new radio portrait of Keats, very much created in the era of Covid, sheds new light on the great poet of mortality and immortality. With contributions from Sir Bob Geldof - Keats-Shelley200 ambassador of the Keats-Shelley House in Rome, Professor Sir Jonathan Bate of Arizona State University; Dr Mina Gorji from Pembroke College, Cambridge; Druin Burch, a doctor of acute medicine at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford; Keats's biographer Lucasta Miller; Giuseppe Albano curator of the Keats-Shelley House in Rome. With the off-air aid of Hrileena Ghosh, editor of a new edition of Keats's medical notebook, published by Liverpool University Press. Producer: Beaty Rubens A vibrant new portrait of John Keats 200 years after his death and in the era of Covid. |
| 02 | 20210225 | Stripping away old myths, this series on the life and after-life of one of our greatest poets provides a vibrant new portrait of John Keats as both physician and poet, two hundred years after his death and in an era when there are still battles over entry to the literary world. With extensive readings from the poems and letters by Thomas Brodie-Sangster (Sam in Love Actually, Samuel in Bright Star, and - most recently - Benny in Queen's Gambit). John Keats' death at the age of just 25 and the cult that immediately grew up around his memory often suggest he was a delicate flower. Sasha Dugdale, an award-winning poet herself, looks beyond this image to reveal an energetic young man, living life to the full both as a poet and doctor, until the endemic illness of his day, tuberculosis, overwhelmed him. In the second of two programmes, Sasha's focus is on Keats' death in Rome and the myths which began to develop immediately afterwards. Talking with a range of eminent guests, she attempts to paint a more authentic portrait of the great poet of mortality and immortality, now, in the 21st Century. With contributions from Sir Bob Geldof - Keats-Shelley200 Ambassador of the Keats-Shelley House in Rome, English scholar Professor Sir Jonathan Bate; Dr Mina Gorji from Pembroke College, Cambridge; Druin Burch, a doctor of Acute Medicine at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford; Keats' biographer Lucasta Miller; Giuseppe Albano curator of the Keats-Shelley House in Rome and others. Producer: Beaty Rubens A vibrant new portrait of John Keats 200 years after his death. A vibrant new portrait of John Keats 200 years after his death and in the era of Covid. |