Original version

BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

BBC Radio 4

Radio 4

Radio 4 (FM)

Front Row

Magazines & Reviews

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

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

BBC Radio 4 LW

Samira Ahmed

Eve Ensler

Sam Marlowe

Phoebe Eclair-Powell

Adrian Wootton

Dymphna Flynn

Front Row: The Vagina Monologues 20 years on, French crime drama Spiral

The Vagina Monologues 20 years on, French crime drama Spiral

09/01/2018

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, The Vagina Monologues 20 years on, French crime drama Spiral

The Vagina Monologues 20 years on and feminist theatre today, French TV crime drama Spiral

The Vagina Monologues writer on adding episodes 20 years after the original publication and feminist play writing today. Also, a guide to Paris-based French cop show Spiral.

The 1996 radical feminist theatre piece, The Vagina Monologues, made a huge impact in America and around the world as well as inspiring V-Day, an organisation working to stop violence against girls and women. As the writer Eve Ensler updates it with some contemporary voices, we ask about the original production and why now is the right time to revisit it.

We also look at feminist theatre in Britain today. In an age where so many people describe themselves as feminist, what defines a play as such? Which issues are being explored, and are dramatic techniques, such as shocking language and violence, employed in the same way as in the past? Theatre critic Sam Marlowe and playwright Phoebe Éclair-Powell discuss. 

With the return of French tv crime drama Spiral to BBC Four, critic Adrian Wootton gives us a guide to this cult series, and explains why it's worthy of a bigger audience in the UK. 

Presenter : Samira Ahmed
Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Front Row

The Vagina Monologues 20 years on, French crime drama Spiral

Contributors

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC Radio 4 FM

About BBC Radio 4