Free Thinking: Artes Mundi Prize. Harriet Walter. Amitav Ghosh. Edmund Richardson
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 20 October 2016
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Artes Mundi was established in 2003 as a biennial contemporary visual arts initiative - the poet, author and playwright Owen Sheers and Catherine Fletcher, historian and New Generation Thinker, report back on the exhibition opening in Cardiff this week with work by the chosen artists including Britain's John Akomfrah, Nástio Mosquito and Bedwyr Williams.
Amitav Ghosh argues that fiction writers need to be bolder in tackling the big themes of today's world and why thinking about Climate Change is proving a challenge.
Harriet Walter has played Brutus and the King in Phyllida Lloyd's all-female Shakespeare productions of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Henry IV; now she takes on Prospero in The Tempest. She talks to Anne McElvoy about giving herself permission to take on roles still normally given to men and the never-ending wonder of Shakespearian verse as the entire trilogy opens in London.
Plus - ahead of the American Presidential election, New Generation Thinker and historian, Ed Richardson pops up with the mesmerising story of how Hillary Clinton is very far from being the first ever female Presidential candidate.
Artes Mundi 7 runs at the National MuseumWales: Cardiff 21.10.16 – 26.02.17
The Shakespeare Trilogy: The Tempest, Henry IV and Julius Caesar are at the Donmar's King's Cross Theatre in London Sept 23rd - 17th December 2016
Harriet Walter’s book: 'Brutus and Other Heroines: Playing Shakespeare's Roles for Women'
Amitav Ghosh 'The Great Derangement: Climate Change and Thinking the Unthinkable'.
Producer: Jacqueline Smith
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right? |
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| 0:28.8 | Listen to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:32.1 | The hours now come. |
| 0:34.1 | The very minute bids the op-th ear, with a dramatic free-thinking tonight. |
| 0:39.2 | Harriet Walter talks to me as she plays Prospero in the Dunmars Tempest |
| 0:43.2 | and reflects on playing Shakespeare as girl, woman, boy and man. |
| 0:48.7 | Novelist Amitav Ghosh tells us why he's returned to non-fiction, |
| 0:52.7 | with a plea that writers get on with tackling the big issue of climate change, |
| 0:57.0 | lest we all, as Prospero says, tread the ooze of the salt deep. |
| 1:01.5 | And with the American election in full spate, new generation thinker Edmund Richardson reveals some titbits about the US's first ever female candidate, and it's not Hillary. |
| 1:12.7 | But first to Cardiff, home to the UK's biggest arts prize, |
| 1:16.7 | the Artist Monday, is making its biannual appearance. |
| 1:20.4 | The exhibition of its six chosen world artists opens tomorrow, |
| 1:24.2 | but there for us today, as our early eyes and ears, so to speak, are Owen Shears, the dramatist poet and novelist, and Catherine Fletcher, historian and author of the Black Prince of Florence. |
| 1:36.8 | So were they suitably impressed with the art of the world on offer? |
| 1:40.9 | From participants, John Acomfra, Neil Belufour, Amy Francescini, Lamier |
| 1:47.4 | Jurej, Nashdie O'Moshkite and Bedware Williams. So Catherine, does this exhibition match up to its |
| 1:53.9 | ambition? It's an exhibition which is like watching the art of the news. You take a contemporary |
| 1:59.8 | news broadcast. It has everything that is in this exhibition. |
| 2:03.6 | It's got refugees, populist politicians, |
| 2:06.6 | we've got stories about gentrification and development, |
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