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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music

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Steven Knight

Anna Maerker

Alice Oswald

Samira Ahmed

Rebecca Armstrong

Front Row: Steven Knight - writer of Taboo, CGI resurrections, the Bard's medical knowledge, Alice Oswald

Steven Wright - writer of Taboo, Alice Oswald, CGI resurrections

05/01/2017

Steven Knight - writer of Taboo, CGI resurrections, the Bard's medical knowledge, Alice Oswald

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Steven Knight - writer of Taboo, CGI resurrections, the Bard's medical knowledge, Alice Oswald

Resurrecting actors using CGI, the writer of new BBC1 drama Taboo, poet Alice Oswald.

Should film resurrect actors using CGI? Steven Knight on his new BBC1 drama, Taboo; Shakespeare's knowedge of nature's medicines; Alice Oswald, winner of the Costa Poetry category.

Peter Cushing died in 1994 yet curiously he reprises his famous role of Grand Moff Tarkin in the new recently-released Star Wars film Rogue One. A lawyer, an actor and a film critic consider Hollywood's increasing use of CGI in giving film actors a screen life well beyond the grave, from the early days of Peter Sellers in Trail of the Pink Panther and Oliver Reed in Gladiator. 

The hero of Taboo, the new Saturday night BBC1 block buster, is an arresting amalgam of Bill Sykes, Sherlock Holmes, Hannibal Lecter and Heathcliff! Screen writer Steven Knight describes how he worked with star Tom Hardy and his dad Chips to work their initial idea into a gripping eight part historical drama.

Today scientists announced a breakthrough in the medical use of spider silk. But it's clear from A Midsummer Night's Dream that Shakespeare already knew about the healing properties of cobwebs. Historian of Medicine Anna Maerker looks at other examples of the Bard's surprising medical knowledge.

Alice Oswald's latest collection of poems, Falling Awake, has won this year's Costa Poetry Award. With its classical themes and exploration of the natural world, she discusses why carving rather than writing might be a better verb for describing her approach to creating new work.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed 
Producer: Rebecca Armstrong.

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