BBC Radio 4 LW

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Lives in a Landscape

Factual: Life Stories

Documentary series telling original stories about real lives in Britain today

Lives in a Landscape: Series 7

Lives in a Landscape: Series 7: Episode 1: Passion at Glasgow Cross

Episode 1

Episode 1: Passion at Glasgow Cross

Series 7

Passion at Glasgow Cross

BBC Radio 4 - Lives in a Landscape, Series 7, Passion at Glasgow Cross

Alan Dein unearths a Crucifixion in a historic Glasgow chippie.

Why is there a Crucifixion scene hanging above a Glasgow fish and chip shop? Alan Dein uncovers a tale of family duty and thwarted dreams in the Passion at Glasgow Cross.

On the wall above the Val D'Oro, one of the oldest fish and chip shops in Glasgow hangs a painting of the Crucifixion, painted to commemorate the residents of one of the poorest areas of the city. 

Completed in 2010 David Adam's stark image of a crucified Christ in a street scene at Glasgow Cross places Christ in the midst of the city. At the foot of the cross where Christ's grieving mother Mary traditionally stands, is another Mary, Mary Paterson, a valued customer and local character, now in her nineties, huddled over the basket in which she carried her dog Sheba. 

To the left of the cross, Luigi Corvi, owner of the shop, stands poised to sing, bearing a plate of fish and chips. In his innocence, a small boy offers up the remains of his Irn Bru to Jesus while a woman to his right attempts to pick the pocket of a passer-by and a man nearby injects heroin into his thigh. 

But as Alan Dein discovers in the first of the new series of Lives in a Landscape, exploring offbeat aspects of contemporary Britain, the Passion at Glasgow Cross also describes Luigi's long suppressed dream: he serves fish and chips by day but dreams of life singing opera at La Scala...

Producer David Stenhouse

Coming up in this series: Alan is in deepest Northamptonshire at midnight on a Sunday in December to hear the mind-bending racket of the village of Broughton's "Tin Can Band". Unshackled from the dense silence that pervades this corner of rural England, the villagers, armed with pots, pans and anything that rattles, unleash as much noise as they process through the freezing lanes...

In Liverpool, Alan finds himself exploring violence and relationships and... theatre; while there's a nod to the royal celebrations at the end of April as he joins a couple of Iraq veterans in Gloucestershire who've turned from military imaging to wedding snaps... And will north London teenage hopeful JJ make it through his troubled family past to win a part in a big stage show?

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Episode 1: Passion at Glasgow Cross

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