Summary
Anne McElvoy wraps up warm for an account of life in Antarctica through prose and poetry, how the idea of the North Pole has fired the human imagination for centuries and an artist's interpretation of the Arctic through sound. Also how the spectacular stage effects that thrill panto audiences have their roots in the 17th century and the court of James I and VI - New Generation Thinker Thomas Charlton looks at theatre history.
North Pole by Michael Bravo is published on 14th December.
Ice Diaries: An Antarctic Memoir by Jean McNeil is out now.
Kat Austen's concentration | The Matter of the Soul is available for purchase and download via Bandcamp. She was the 2017/18 Scott Polar Research Institute artist-in-residence.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod.
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? |
| 0:23.3 | It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream. |
| 0:28.8 | Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:33.3 | BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts. |
| 0:36.9 | Hello, I'm Anne McHellvoy, and this is BBC Radio 3's Arts and Ideas podcast, bringing together |
| 0:42.9 | leading artists, writers and thinkers in discussions which try to answer a range of questions, |
| 0:48.7 | from should we keep pets to what does it mean to belong, or what can Nietzsche teach us. So stay with us for one of those |
| 0:56.9 | conversations coming up right after this short message. Hello, I'm composer Michael Barclay |
| 1:02.6 | and I just want to let you know about my podcast, which I think you might enjoy. It's called |
| 1:07.7 | Private Passions. Every week a different guest chooses the classical music |
| 1:11.9 | they're passionate about. People like Alan Bennett, Jan Ravens, Grace and Perry. And what I love |
| 1:17.4 | about it is how much people reveal of themselves when they're talking about and listening to |
| 1:22.7 | the music which moves them. Just search for private passions in BBC Sounds. Download the free app now. |
| 1:31.4 | Hello, I hope you've wrapped up warm, because today we're travelling to the icy polar regions, |
| 1:37.0 | and there are many ways you can get there, even by submarine. |
| 1:40.3 | We surfaced at the North Pole at about 5.30 in the evening on the 3rd of March. |
| 1:45.0 | And we had been looking around for a suitable place to surface since 8 o'clock in the morning. |
| 1:52.0 | We remained on the surface for at least six hours, and we were able to give everybody the opportunity who wanted to go out and have a walk around. |
| 2:01.4 | We planted an ensign, but one didn't really want to spend longer than about half an hour on the ice, |
| 2:06.7 | simply because of the temperature. |
| 2:08.3 | We had a man with a rifle up on the bridge. |
| 2:10.8 | In case of polar bears, I was rather disappointed I never saw one. |
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