Angela Carter: Of Wolves and Women

Original version

Simulcast of network BBC Two in high definition.

BBC Two HD

BBC Four

BBC Two Scotland

BBC Two Northern Ireland

Until 03/01/2009 BBC Two Wales (analogue) was known simply as BBC Two Wales. BBC Two Wales (digital) was BBC 2W. From 03/01/2009 BBC Two Wales schedules on both analogue and digital became identical

BBC Two Wales

BBC Two England

England

Simulcast of BBC Two Wales in high definition

BBC Two Wales HD

Simulcast of BBC Two Northern Ireland in high definition

BBC Two Northern Ireland HD

BBC Four HD

Maureen Lipman

Kelly Macdonald

Laura Fraser

Richard Bright

Jude Ho

Hattie Morahan

undefined Peepshow Collective

Documentaries

Factual: Life Stories

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

Angela Carter: Of Wolves & Women

04/08/2018

BBC Two - Angela Carter: Of Wolves and Women

A dark and delicious foray into Angela Carter's extraordinary life.

A dark and delicious foray into novelist Angela Carter's extraordinary life, narrated by Sally Phillips.

Angela Carter's surreal imagination produced some of the most dazzling fiction of the last century. Pioneering her own distinctive brand of 'magic realism,' works like The Magic Toyshop and Nights at the Circus cracked open the middle-class conventions of the postwar novel and influenced a new generation of writers.

Yet in her lifetime, Carter's fierce politics, frank exploration of gender and fondness for the supernatural unnerved the macho literary establishment. She never won the Booker Prize or received the staggering advances of her male contemporaries - and regularly struggled to pay the bills, despite creating the acclaimed film The Company of Wolves. Four decades on, Carter's powerful tales of desire, fearless women and monstrous sexual predators have never felt more relevant. As Jeanette Winterson says in the film: 'Every woman writing now has a debt to Angela Carter whether or not they have read her. She was ahead of her time. And that's why we're so interested in her now because she's coming into her time almost prophetically.'

Narrated by Sally Phillips, this film is a dark and delicious foray into Angela Carter's extraordinary life. While Carter's early work drew on her creepily claustrophobic childhood and miserable early marriage, it was her experience of living in Japan in the 1970s that liberated both her writing and her sexuality. And she continued to live out of kilter with polite society - horrifying critics with expletive laden put-downs, falling in love with a teenage builder in her 30s, becoming a mother at 43 and, tragically, winning the reviews of her career for Wise Children, the week after her death at the age of 51.

Made by the team behind The Secret Life of Sue Townsend (Aged 68 3/4), with animation by Emmy Award-winning Peepshow Collective, this film is a visual treat inspired by the surreal imagery of Carter's fiction. Hattie Morahan plays the young Angela (with extracts from unpublished letters and diaries), while Maureen Lipman, Kelly MacDonald and Laura Fraser read from Carter's fiction. Including rare archive and family photos, with contributions from Angela's friends, family, students and admirers - including Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Jeanette Winterson and Anne Enright.

BBC Two

Knowledge, drama, comedy and the arts for a broad adult audience.

BBC Two is a lively channel of depth and substance, carrying a range of knowledge-building programming complemented by great drama, comedy and arts.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Angela Carter: Of Wolves and Women

Contributors

Genres

Formats

BBC Two HD

About BBC Two