Episodes
| Episode | Title | First Broadcast | Repeated | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | 20080902 | Poet Anne Stevenson explores the influence that TS Eliot's work has had on her. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond. | ||
| 01 | Jon Boden | 20110328 | 20120716 (R3) | Jon Boden is a folk musician who loves post-apocalyptic literature, works such as 'The Changes Trilogy' by Peter Dickinson, in which the people of England develop a dread of technology, Russell Hoban's 'Riddley Walker', set in the aftermath of such destruction that even the language has fragmented and Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road', in which a father and his son desperately push a cart with their few possessions, some tins of food and a pistol through a devastated land. He thought this was at odds with his work as a performer of traditional English song, music that sometimes celebrates a bucolic idyll. But, after becoming a father, he began to consider the implications of contemporary geo-politics. With the end of an oil dependent economy, would reality and the world depicted in the literature he enjoys coincide? Or might this lead to a world closer to that described in traditional song, and the kind of society that produced that music? Producer: Julian May. Jon Boden on the influence of apocalyptic science-fiction on him as a folk singer. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond. |
| 01 | Michael Symmons Roberts | 20081201 | 20090518 (R3) | Series in which contemporary poets discuss other writers whose work has influenced their own. Michael Symmons Roberts, a prolific award-winning poet, novelist and dramatist talks about the work of David Jones, author of In Parenthesis, a modernist epic of the First World War, and The Anathemata, hailed by WH Auden as the finest long poem of the 20th century. Author Michael Symmons Roberts describes the influence of poet David Jones on his work. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond. |
| 02 | Alison Brackenbury | 20081202 | 20090519 (R3) | Alison Brackenbury explores the impact the poet John Clare has had on her writing. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond. |
| 02 | Emma Rice | 20110329 | Emma Rice is associated with Kneehigh, the Cornish theatre company renowned for its epic outside productions, and tours of tiny village halls. Her vivid stagings of 'The Red Shoes' and 'The Wooden Frock' explore the violence, sexual undercurrents and power structures of traditional tales. She has re-imagined film and recreated it as live theatre. The physical theatricality of her shows have struck a chord with audiences, and taken her work from Bodmin to Broadway. In this essay she steps back from the stage and the rehearsal room to reflect on the influences that have shaped her work. Produer: Julian May. Emma Rice reveals the influences that stamp her work as a theatre director. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond. | |
| 03 | 20080903 | Anne-Marie Fyfe grew up in the 1960s in a small coastal town in North Antrim and writes poems about this and the cosmopolitan life of London. However, the writer who has influenced her most is Emily Dickinson. Fyfe explores what draws her to the poet who spent her reclusive life in Amherst, Massachusetts, in the mid 19th century writing nearly 1800 poems distinguished by strange sparky imagery and fractured punctuation. Anne-Marie Fyfe is influenced by Emily Dickinson, who lived as a recluse in Massachusetts. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond. | ||
| 03 | Shobana Jeyasingh | 20110330 | 20120717 (R3) | The choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh was born in India, is now based in Britain and makes work seen all over the world. Tonight she reflects on the influence of Indian and Western dance traditions, and the importance, sometimes, of escaping these. She considers, too, how reading freed her, and so how words have been vital to her entirely non-verbal art. Producer: Julian May. Shobana Jeyasingh on how different dance traditions inform her choreography. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond. |
| 03 | Wn Herbert | 20081203 | 20090520 (R3) | Series in which contemporary poets discuss writers whose work has influenced their own. WN Herbert explores the work of Edwin Morgan, still active at the age of 88 even after serious illness, and regarded as Scotland's national 'makar'. According to Herbert, Morgan is the poet who articulates most fully how variable Scottish poetry can be, and how distinct from English and Irish writing it is. With both Herbert and Morgan reading examples of their own work. WN Herbert explores the work of Edwin Morgan, regarded as Scotland's national 'makar'. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond. |
| 04 | Menna Elfyn | 20081204 | 20090521 (R3) | Series in which contemporary poets discuss writers whose work has influenced their own. Menna Elfyn, considered the foremost living poet writing in Welsh, talks about the influence of T Gwynn Jones. He wrote in the strict metres of Welsh poetry, but also looked beyond Wales for inspiration - and an audience. Menna illustrates her essay with examples of the poetry of T Gwynn Jones and her own, in both English and Welsh. Menna Elfyn discusses T Gwynn Jones, who wrote in the strict metres of Welsh poetry. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond. |
| 04 | Tom Hunter | 20110331 | Tom Hunter's most famous image is of a young woman by a window, reading a letter. An infant in a bright red pullover lies nearby. It is called 'Woman reading a Possession Order'. Anyone who who has seen Vermeer's 'A Girl Reading at an Open Window' will recognise the composition immediately. It shares something of Vermeer's stillness and light, too. Yet Hunter's picture is that rare thing, a work of art that has caused something to happen. Or, rather, caused something not to happen. The young woman was a neighbour living in a squat, who had received an eviction order. The response to Hunter's photograph was so strong that the eviction did not take place. In this essay Hunter considers how his art, influenced by the old master Vermeer, can focus on real people and the issues affecting their lives. Producer: Julian May. Photographer and artist Tom Hunter on the impact that Vermeer has had on his work. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond. | |
| 05 | Fred D'aguiar | 20081205 | 20090522 (R3) | Series in which contemporary poets discuss writers whose work has influenced their own. Fred D'Aguiar, a poet, playwright and novelist who was born in Britain and spent his childhood in Guyana before returning to the UK, talks about Wilson Harris, a Guyanese-born writer, who sets much of his work in that country. D'Aguiar illustrates his essay with excerpts from books by Harris as well as poetry of his own. Fred D'Aguiar talks about Wilson Harris, a Guyanese-born poet, essayist and novelist. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond. |
| 05 | Kei Miller | 20110401 | 20120720 (R3) | The poems of Kei Miller are rich and languorous. Their language reflects the speech of his native Jamaica, where he was born in 1978, and has a heightened, sometimes Biblical aspect. It sounds almost as if it were written for performance rather than to be read. Yet this is rigorous and literary work. In this essay, Miller reveals how the poetry of the American W. S. Merwin, who worked to communicate experience rather than express a meaning, has a profound effect on his own approach to composing poetry. Producer: Julian May. Indian-born choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh reflects on the influences shaping her dances. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond. |