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The Eye: A Natural History by Simon Ings, Michael Apted's Amazing Grace

Tom Sutcliffe and guests review the week's cultural highlights, including Maggie Smith's return to the London stage in Edward Albee's rarely performed play The Lady From Dubuque.

Amazing Grace
The Victorian reformer William Wilberforce is portrayed by Ioan Gruffudd in this film about the long parliamentary fight to end the slave trade. Directed by Michael Apted.

The Lady From Dubuque
Maggie Smith plays a mysterious stranger in Edward Albee’s 1980 play, who arrives at the end of a difficult dinner party hosted by a young woman, Jo, who is dying. But who is the strange ‘lady from Dubuque’ and can she bring Jo the comfort she craves?

Guest Choice
Anne Enright explains why she likes to write to the accompaniment of Steve Reich’s composition Tehillim.

Tehillim by Steve Reich is available on the ECM label.

Camouflage
This exhibition at The Imperial War museum traces the development of military camouflage from the First World War and explores its links with French and British artists of the period and how it was influenced by Cubism.

The Eye: A Natural History
This book by Simon Ings details the discovery of how exactly the eye sees – and, how the brain constructs what it can’t actually see. We may believe that our gaze is steady and our vision 20:20 but in fact that’s only an illusion.

45 minutes

Broadcast

  • Sat 24 Mar 2007 19:15

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