大象传媒

In this new literature series, a trio of comedians explode and unravel their most cherished cult books, paying homage to the tone and style of the original text - and blurring and warping the lines between fact and fiction.

鈥淲e are what we pretend to be. So we must be careful about what we pretend to be.鈥�

So reads the warning at the beginning of the novel Mother Night, in an author鈥檚 introduction written by Kurt Vonnegut himself. Yet in this world of unreliable narrators, editor鈥檚 鈥渃orrections鈥� and weirdly omniscient first-person testimony, nothing is really what it seems.

Purportedly the 鈥渃onfessions of Howard J. Campbell Jr鈥�, an American expat-turned Nazi propagandist-turned Allied spy (allegedly), Vonnegut鈥檚 warped collection of bizarre characters and slippery narratives invite us to cast aside our black and white notions of morals and guilt and survey the gazillions of greys in between.

Comedian Daliso Chaponda considers the strange world of people playing versions of themselves in public - comedians, spies, politicians and, to an extent, all of us. How do you deal with people perceiving you differently to your "real" self? And, for that matter, how do you know who you "really" are?

Presenter: Daliso Chaponda
Producer: Steven Rajam
An Overcoat Media production for 大象传媒 Radio 4