Film director Julien Temple on Elizabethan bad boy Christopher Marlowe

Great Lives

BBC

History, Documentary, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.2 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 19 August 2024

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

Julien Temple, director of The Great Rock n Roll Swindle, Glastonbury and Absolute Beginners, chooses Christopher Marlowe, writer of brilliant plays including Doctor Faustus and Tamburlaine the Great. "I'm excited to talk about him," he says, "because I've known him for more than 50 years."

The link? An attempt as a student to summon up Marlowe in his old college cellar room.

Christopher Marlowe was born in 1564 - the same year as Shakespeare. He was a spy, a writer, a counterfeiter .. and he famously died in a bar room brawl in Deptford in 1593. Was it an accident, or was he killed deliberately? Helping us negotiate the mythic moments of Marlowe's life is Professor of Shakespeare studies Emma Smith.

Julien Temple's film credits include The Filth and the Fury, Pandaemonium, Earth Girls are Easy and Joe Strummer: The Futureis Unwritten

The presenter is Matthew Parris, the producer in Bristol for BBC Studios is Miles Warde

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Rory Stewart and I want to talk about ignorance. I will die without having read
0:08.2	everything that was written in classical Latin. Because ignorance isn't simply the opposite of knowledge.
0:14.7	It's part of what it means to be human.
0:17.5	Just about every game I can think of involves ignorance.
0:22.1	There's no adventure without ignorance. There's no there's no narrative.
0:25.0	The long history of ignorance from Confucius to Kianan
0:29.0	with me Rory Stewart,
0:31.0	listen on BBC Sounds.
0:35.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:38.8	Today's guest is a film and documentary maker
0:42.0	who first shot to prominence with The Great Rock and Roll Swindle in 1980.
0:47.0	That starred the Sex Pistols and also their manager at previous subject on this show. Other films include absolute beginners, Earth Girls
0:55.9	are Easy, The Filth and The Fury, Ibitha, The Silent Movie, a brilliant documentary about
1:02.1	Glastonbury, plus music videos for artists such as
1:05.8	Janet Jackson, Neil Young and Duran, and so the credits roll.
1:10.3	But enough, Julian Temple, I think I've set you up sufficiently
1:15.8	magnificently thanks for coming to talk to us today who have you picked and why?
1:19.5	Well I've picked Christopher Marlow and I'm excited to talk about him because I've known him for more than 50 years and feel that he is a man that we know so tantalizing little, we know just enough to project ourselves onto him and enjoy joining in the dots.
1:35.8	He was born in 1564.
1:38.9	Same year as Shakespeare.
1:40.9	So you've known him for 50 years.
1:43.0	Well, I know what you mean.
	...

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