Inside the Brain of Gerald Scarfe
Seriously...
BBC
4.1 • 885 Ratings
🗓️ 30 January 2018
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The brain - the final frontier. Radio 4 is setting out on an exploration of the creative mind.
Gerald Scarfe's drawings have intrigued and alarmed for more than fifty years but where do his ideas come from? Professor Vincent Walsh of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience has a theory he wants to pursue. Vincent is an expert in the workings of the visual brain; he thinks that two specific areas may be talking to each other in an unexpected way, resulting in recognisable faces being mixed up with recognisable objects, hence Mrs Thatcher as an axe, a handbag, and even a shark.
Now, cartoonist and neuroscientist are going to meet. "I for one would be fascinated to know what's going on in my brain - please pursue this," says Gerald Scarfe.
The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box. |
| 0:05.0 | The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from. |
| 0:09.0 | And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.0 | The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.5 | The IRA inmates who found a way. |
| 0:14.5 | I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path |
| 0:19.5 | through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history. |
| 0:25.0 | The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them. |
| 0:28.5 | Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:34.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:40.0 | Hi, I'm Riana Dylan and welcome to Seriously the podcast where as we like to say we bring you seriously |
| 0:47.2 | interesting stories told a little sideways. Today we're going inside an incredibly creative mind, the mind of Gerald Scarf. |
| 0:58.0 | He's a satirical cartoonist and illustrator for the likes of the Sunday Times and the New Yorker. |
| 1:04.6 | And you know the video for Pink Floyd's The Wall with the gangly cartoon teacher and the |
| 1:09.2 | Mince Meat Machine School? |
| 1:11.0 | Well, he designed and directed the animation sequence. |
| 1:15.0 | Professor Vincent Walsh is our guide to Gerald's brain. |
| 1:20.0 | One of the things I wonder is whether the stories are fully formed when you're |
| 1:26.4 | drawing them or you sometimes think post hoc, oh that looks like something and I didn't realize it was going to come out like that. |
| 1:36.4 | Vincent's a neuroscientist, and this, well... |
| 1:39.7 | This is the voice of Gerald Scaff. |
| 1:43.2 | Yeah, these are some of my drawings. |
... |
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