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American Pyscho, Roosevelt, Medieval Christmas, British Architects

Anne McElvoy presents. With a review of the American Psycho musical, Doris Kearns Goodwin on progressive politics, discussing British architecture and Christmas in medieval times.

Anne McElvoy is joined by Susannah Clapp and Cleo Van Velsen with a first night review of a new musical adaptation of "American Psycho", Brett Easton Ellis's 1991 novel, graphically violent in its indictment of consumerism. Matt Smith, who has been seen on TV screens as "Dr Who", stars as Patrick Bateman, the serial killer Manhattan businessman.

Doris Kearns Goodwin's last book Team Of Rivals was praised by Barack Obama and made into a film by Steven Spielberg. Her latest book The Bully Pulpit recreates the turbulent politics of reforming President Theodore Roosevelt. She joins Anne to discuss the birth of Progressive Politics and the lessons of history for US politics today.

Did British architects consolidate the idea of the tropics? The royal institute of British Architecture has launched a season celebrating the Brits who built the world with an exhibition at London's Victoria and Albert Museum of drawings and plans sent to and from the UK by practitioners around the Empire. Anne McElvoy talks to Riba's picture curator Charles Hind, art historian Gavin Stamp and to architect and urbanist, Tania Sengupta, about some surprising links and continuities between the Georgian and Victorian buildings with which British architects festooned large parts of the world and the subsequent global success of British modernism.

All this and Christmas in the medieval period with New Generation Thinker Sarah Peverley.

Image: Matt Smith as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho at the Almeida Theatre. Photographer Manuel Harlan.

Available now

45 minutes

Chapters

  • Doris Kearns Goodwin

    Doris Kearns Goodwin discusses the turbulent politics of US President Theodore Roosevelt

    Duration: 13:10

  • American Psycho

    Susannah Clapp and Cleo Van Velsen review the musical stage adaption of American Psycho

    Duration: 10:57

  • A Medieval Christmas

    Sarah Peverley outlines Christmas traditions of the Medieval period

    Duration: 06:08

  • Empire Builders

    Charles Hind, Gavin Stamp and Tanya Sengupta discuss Britain鈥檚 colonial architecture

    Duration: 13:58

Theodore Roosevelt

The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism written by 听is published by Thorndike Press.

American Psycho

American Psycho

is on at the Almeida Theatre, London from Friday 13 January 2013 until Saturday 1 February 2014.

Image: Hugh Skinner (Luis Carruthers) and Matt Smith (Patrick Bateman) in American Psycho at the Almeida Theatre

Photographer: Manuel Harlan

Empire Builders

Empire Builders

Part of the Brits Who Built the Modern World season is on at the Victoria & Albert museum, London until Sunday 15 June 2014.

Image: Design for Gillander House, Calcutta, India, 1908 by Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel

漏 RIBA Library

Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Anne McElvoy
Interviewed Guest Susannah Clapp
Interviewed Guest Cleo Van Velsen
Interviewed Guest Doris Kearns Goodwin
Interviewed Guest Charles Hind
Interviewed Guest Gavin Stamp
Interviewed Guest Tania Sengupta
Interviewed Guest Sarah Peverley

Broadcast

  • Thu 12 Dec 2013 22:00

Free Thinking

Free Thinking

Radio 3鈥檚 new home for arts and ideas.