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Arts & Ideas

Free Thinking - Mike Bartlett

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2598 Ratings

🗓️ 8 January 2015

⏱️ 46 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Mike Bartlett talks to Anne McElvoy about his play Bull which takes to the stage at the Young Vic this month and Game which opens at the Almeida in February. Also Dr. Andy Martin evaluates Soumission, the new Michel Houellebecq novel creating controversy in France; Cleo Van Velsen discusses Hans Fallada's 1944 prison diary A Stranger in My Own Country; and the artists Nick Crowe and Ian Rawlinson reveal Song for Coal, their new work about energy which goes on display at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

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, it's 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 at some level of genius. It also helps

0:21.2

that it's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream

0:26.1

van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.

0:32.1

Hello, on a somber day in Paris after yesterday's attack on the satirical Shiley Hebdo magazine and a separate

0:38.7

fatal shooting today, we consider the new novel by Michel Wehlbeck, whose image was on the cover

0:44.4

of the publication's current edition. Playwright Mike Bartlett turns his dramatic gaze from

0:50.1

palace intrigue in King Charles III to workplace bullying in his new drama.

0:55.5

The prison diaries of Hans Farlada shared new light on the life of one of German literature's

1:00.3

quirkyest opponents of the Third Reich.

1:02.7

And if Cole had its own song, might it sound like this?

1:05.7

The most civilized nations of the world.

1:14.1

Are those consuming the most call?

1:21.3

A clip from Song for Coal there, and I'll be talking to the two authors of the project a little later.

1:27.2

As Paris mourns the ten men and a woman killed in yesterday's attack on the headquarters

1:32.0

of the satirical magazine Shiley Hebdo and a further fatal shooting of a policewoman today,

1:37.7

a hotly weighted literary event has taken on particular significance.

1:42.3

The latest novel from the provocative writer Michel Welbeck,

1:45.4

Submission, Submission, is published this week.

1:48.7

Mr. Wellbeck rarely publishes writing that doesn't offend some sensitivity,

1:53.2

whether it's about sex, religion, culture, or all three.

1:56.4

He has an especially tense relationship with Islam,

2:00.3

which led to him fighting and finally winning a court case about hate speech.

...

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