Do you have a favorite? Not meant to, but mostly the unloved ones, the unvisited ones, the cases that get dusty and ignored.

All the broken and shunned creatures.

Someone's got to care for them.

Who shall it be if not us? Yes.

Yes. Welcome to Roon soup, a weekly podcast about magic, culture and the very best new and old ideas for living in this world, coming to you from

43 degrees south on a small farm in deepest Tasmania.

My name is Gordon and I shall be your host.

This week we welcome to the show Stephen Barber. Stephen is a novelist,

non-fiction author and professor of art and film at Kingston University. Stephen joined us today to talk about one of the most enigmatic figures in European theatre and the avant-garde

Antonin Arto. And he joins us to talk specifically about Helio Gabylus or the crowned anarchist,

a work by Arto, based on the notorious teenage emperor

whose two-year reign was apparently nothing but a chaotic orgy of sex and blood.

If you're unfamiliar with Arto, there is a brief video from PBS in the show notes describing his impact on the theatre that is actually a lot better than I expected.

But you don't need any background info for this, which is an excellent chat.

Oh, and one last thing, this was recorded before I found out the mic and software were capturing too much room sound,

which I think I mentioned last time.

So this episode still has

that minor inconvenience but the good news is it is solved moving forward let's do it

Stephen welcome aboard.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

All right, so we have a traditional first question for first-time guests on the show,

...