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Front Row: Fun Home, Portrayal of lesbians in drama, Caryl Phillips, Tate St Ives

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29/06/2018

Fun Home, Portrayal of lesbians in drama, Caryl Phillips, Tate St Ives

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Fun Home, Portrayal of lesbians in drama, Caryl Phillips, Tate St Ives

We review the stage musical adaption of Alison Bechdel's memoir Fun Home.

News, reviews and interviews from the worlds of art, literature, film and music. A stage musical adaption of Alison Bechdel's autobiographical graphic novel, and Fun Home reviewed.

Winner of five Tony Awards, Fun Home is a ground-breaking new musical about a lesbian girl coming out, based on Alison Bechdel's autobiographical graphic novel. Briony Hanson reviews the UK premiere at London's Young Vic theatre.

Remarkably, Fun Home is the first Broadway musical with a lesbian protagonist. But are queer women underrepresented in drama in general? Briony is joined by theatre director Hannah Hauer-King to discuss the visibility and portrayal of lesbian characters in theatre, film and TV. 

The latest novel by the prolific Caryl Phillips, A View of the Empire at Sunset, is a fictional account of the life of Jean Rhys, author of The Wide Sargasso Sea, who came from the West Indies to London in 1906 at the age of sixteen. Caryl Phillips discusses his fascination with Rhys, and how writing her life in this way allows him to observe the decline of the Empire.

Ahead of the announcement next week of the winner of the £100,000 Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018, we'll be reporting from each of the five shortlisted museums. Today we hear from Tate St Ives, which originally opened in 1993, but which re-opened to the public last year after two-year architectural extension. 

Presenter: Kirsty Lang
Producer: Kate Bullivant.

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