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Night Waves: Posh/City of Life and Death/The Prisoner

Posh/City of Life and Death/The Prisoner

15/04/2010

BBC Radio 3 - Night Waves, Posh/City of Life and Death/The Prisoner

Rana Mitter reviews Posh, a play about an elite dining society like the Bullingdon Club.

Rana Mitter reviews Posh, a new play about an elite dining society like the Bullingdon Club. Plus a new film about the Nanking Massacre and a remake of the TV series The Prisoner.

Rana Mitter reviews Posh, a new play at the Royal Court from Laura Wade. Identified in Night Waves' New Voices series earlier this year, Laura Wade's play is set in a fictional Bullingdon club. In an oak-panelled room in Oxford, ten young bloods with cut-glass vowels and deep pockets are meeting, intent on restoring their right to rule. Members of an elite student dining society, the boys are hunkering down for a wild night of debauchery, decadence and bloody good wine. But this isn't the last huzzah: they're planning a takeover. Susannah Clapp and Rana Mitter see how much punch this nakedly political play packs in an election period. 
Posh opens at the Royal Court on 9th April. 

The Nanking massacre of Chinese citizens by Japanese troops in 1937 is still controversial in both countries. This week a Chinese film about the massacre is being released in the UK. It's called City of Life and Death by director Lu Chuan but has also been called Nanking! Nanking! It has sparked considerable argument in its China because it attempts to understand the humanity of both sides in the conflict. Rana Mitter discusses the version of events portrayed in the film and how that fits into a picture of historical argument, recrimination and differing official accounts over events 73 years ago. Rana is joined by Chinese film maker Sun Shuyun and Historian of modern Japan Dr. Christopher Gerteis to discuss war and historical memory in East Asia. 
City of Life and Death is released on 16th April.

Rana also reviews the remake of the classic 60's tv series The Prisoner starring Sir Ian McKellen. Can a series associated with cold war paranoia live up to its billing as a thrilling take on the surveillance society?

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