大象传媒

THE FOLLOWING TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT.听 BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE 大象传媒 CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY.

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PRESENTER (TOM SUTCLIFFE)

You鈥檙e listening to Front Row with me, Tom Sutcliffe.

Hello. Nearly ten years ago in a Leicester car park a group of archaeologists uncovered a body violently killed, and with a severe curvature of the spine. They'd been looking for Richard the Third and it turned out they had found him. The story made headlines around the world, in part surely, because of the vivid, dark after life given to Richard the Third by William Shakespeare. A new RSC production of his play isn't quite such global news, they do them regularly after all. But for the first time that company has cast a disabled actor to play that title role. Arthur Hughes talks to us about it in just a minute. Also on tonight's programme, after Costa brings down the curtain on one of the big British book prizes, how much does it matter? The novelists Damian Barr and the critic Alex Clark talk about what competition does for books and what, if anything, should replace the Costa. And if you are in a museum and gallery this coming Saturday, brace yourself for something inexplicable.

CLIP OF 鈥楿R SONATA鈥�, nonsense words and sounds.

The artist Kurt Schwitters performing 鈥楿r Sonata鈥�, a sound poem influenced by the disruptive mischief making art movement, Dadaism, the spirit of which has been tapped for a series of interventions in UK galleries this weekend by deaf, disabled and neurodivergent artists. More on that later.

We begin with Richard the Third, opening soon at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford Upon Avon, in a new production, directed by Greg Doran. And in the lead role for the first time at the RSC is a disabled actor Arthur Hughes, who was born with radial dysplasia, which means that his right arm is much shorter than his left, and his right hand is bent inwards. He describes himself as 鈥榣imb different.鈥� Hughes has had notable roles before in the Netflix series 鈥楾he innocence鈥�, in Jack Thorne's drama 鈥楾hen Barbara met Alan鈥�, and Radio Four listeners may recognise the voice, too, because he plays Ruairi in the Archers. But Richard the Third is a facer for any actor. One of those roles in which it's easy to be haunted by the ghosts of famous predecessors. So had Hughes had to grapple with any canonical performances in making the part his own?

INTERVIEWEE (ARTHUR HUGHES)
You know, I have never seen it. And there was, once I'd got the part, I was tempted to watch some past performances but I actually resisted, and I thought this is something I just need to listen to the my actor's instinct in my gut, for what it tells me to be my Richard. But certainly the continuum of moving forward with, you know, Shakespeare and then when you look back at everyone else who鈥檚 played Richard, there are some big names.

TOM:
It's quite interesting that you don't have that feeling of being haunted by predecessors or by a particular way of delivering a speech or any of that.

ATHUR:
I guess it's to do with, you know, I'm a disabled actor playing Richard the Third. Richard the Third is a disabled man and historically has not been played by disabled people often. Certainly at the RSC it鈥檚 the first time. Not the first ever disabled actor to play Richard, but I think, um, it's a part I think I'd always ever since I knew Shakespeare was, who Richard the Third was, I was a identifying with this character who is shunned by society. Not that I'm shunned by society, but certainly I can be underestimated and overlooked and so is Richard and I think, especially for disabled actors, which parts are you going to play? This is the most famous disabled character, I had to have him.

TOM:
Yeah. And it's a great part too. I mean, it's one of the great Shakespearean roles and it's not like Hamlet. Hamlet gets a bit of time to warm up for his first soliloquy. Here, you are straight into it.

ARTHUR:
Yes. Greg Doran, obviously our director, we were talking about this. When Shakespeare wrote Richard for Richard Burbage, the star actor at the time. I think it was after Richard, he said 鈥淐an you write me something with a bit of a break in act five?鈥� Because Richard is just such a marathon. Every act is full, full. I think Burbage was a bit tired so actually after that you find in Hamlet and Macbeth. In Act five there is a bit of a break so Burbage could go put his feet up backstage.

TOM:
You don't have to do what a lot of actors who have gone before you have had to do, which is to work out a disability. They pour very often an enormous amount of thinking into that you don't have to do any of that. But you do have to kind of work on the psychology of it. So how did you go about that side?

ARTHUR:
Asolutely. I think Richard is a disabled person, I鈥檓 a disabled person, we have the lived experience and quite frankly it should be a person that's going through it. And I think by the time you get to the second half of the play it's someone who feels that this world is not designed for them to progress through. They have to stop playing by their own rules.

TOM:
So you start with that sympathy for Richard and for his experience as a disabled person, but he鈥檚 murderous too. You somehow have to get in touch with that side of him as well.

ARTHUR:
The play is about conscience and a voice inside and it tells you what is good and what is bad. And if conscience is this collective set of morals that we all live by and if all our consciences are linked together and we said that is good and that is bad. If you are in a society where you do not fit into all this collective community as Richard does he decides I'm not part of that so why should I listen to that cos it's not going to get me any further, if I join in with this community. And the audacity of each of each kind of scheme that gets pulled off, be it wooing Lady Anne鈥�

TOM:
Yes, he dazzled by that moment, isn't he, that he's actually pulled it off.

ARTHUR:
Absolutely. I think we found a real moment of positive body affirmation in that moment. 鈥淚 do mistake my person all this while, Upon my life, ...鈥�

CLIP FROM RICHARD III
鈥淎nd will she yet abase her eyes on me, that made her widow to a woeful bed? On me, that halt and am unshapen thus? 听Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot, myself to be a marvellous proper man. I'll be at charges for a looking glass and will entertain a score or two of tailors to study fashions to adorn my body since I am crept in favour with myself. I will maintain it with some little cost. But first, I'll turn yon fellow in his grave and then return lamenting to my love. Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass that I may see my shadow as I pass.鈥�

TOM:
There's a very powerful moment that I think only you could have done us as an actor because you because you are disabled and you have a disabled arm, a much shorter arm on one side. And you get to that famous line where Richard is making an accusation of witchcraft and he says, 鈥淏ehold, mine arm is like a blasted sapling withered up.鈥� And you then hold out your long arm, not your short arm, and you present that to the court. And it's an extraordinary moment because you're asserting your power over them. I assume. Was that what you wanted to do?

ARTHUR:
Me and Greg were discussing this. I think it's Richard the Third is this is a political thriller and it's about manipulating and corralling support. This was a real emperor's new clothes moment of who will speak against it, and who will not say it and who will challenge the disabled person who is saying this thing is how it is. I just think it's a brilliant moment for people, to think everyone round the table as that happens is like, Huh? We want everyone in the audience to be going, Huh?. But Richard the Third is just such a brilliant subversive play constantly. It鈥檚 funny but it's incredibly dangerous. And it's scary. It's moments like these. We think it's one thing, but it's actually another. We wanted it to be just incredibly subversive and actually quite frightening. And who will dare speak out against it. And no one does.

TOM:
Was there any anxiety in the rehearsal room about doing that cos it's so it's a slightly shocking moment on stage. I mean it works very effectively. But it is a bit shocking to the audience.

ARTHUR:
Yeah, I think it should be shocking. I think there is more kind of affirmation of kind of who he is and the body he鈥檚 in. Greg and I discussed it. And he said 鈥榃hat if you offered your left arm instead of your smaller right?鈥� And I thought that was brilliant, cos it's not what we were expecting. And he鈥檚 always a few steps ahead and such an intelligent planner and manipulator of people, but I think we've got to shoc all the Lords from the table and shock the audience as well to go 鈥榃hat is he going to do now?鈥�

TOM:
Matt Fraser, who's disabled as well and has also played Richard the Third said this about the role. He said 鈥極ne of the ways in which disabled people can relate to Richard the Third is that they have been forced to adopt the 鈥榖y any means necessary鈥� attitude towards life.鈥� And he kind of went a bit further than that, he said that he himself was quite an adept manipulator of social situations because of the disability he鈥檇 grown up with. Do you recognise any of that?

ARTHUR:
听Absolutely, yeah. I think most disabled people have been there. Like if you can't get somewhere or cannot get something because you are physically stopped from doing it, I think, why should you have to sit there and take it? A lot of disabled people, you get to a point where you鈥檙e like I'm just not going to sit here and take it anymore. It's why the Direct Action Network in the nineties threw themselves in front of buses because they couldn't get on the bus. So it was, we're actually going to change the situation. There is absolutely an association that when you go 鈥業 need to pull the strings of this world because no one else is going to pull it for me.鈥�

TOM:
You played one of those activists didn鈥檛 you, in the Jack Thorne play recently, 鈥楾hen Barbara met Alan.鈥� You played Alan Holdsworth in that.

ARTHUR:
That's right, yes. These guys were the ones who said, Enough is enough. We're going to do something about and did. We stand on their shoulders now, disabled people, for the rights that they won for us, then. Yeah. That was a real formative experience for me and kind of accepting myself fully as a disabled person and understand the history and understanding where we're going. When the world is physically not built for you and not just physically, but society's ills which, how they treat disabled people. You look back at Richard the Third and it's different today. But the mutations of how society is divided between disabled and non disabled people, you can see why disabled people have to go through all sorts of different means to try and fight for any kind of equity or justice or right or anything.

TOM:
As you say things are changing slowly but they are changing and we live in a very different world. What was it like to say those very self hating lines that Richard the Third has? 鈥淒eformed, unfinished, sent before my time into this breathing world, scarce half made up.鈥� The things that are said about him, the bottled spider line. There is a sort of hate fondness in the play towards disability. What was it like dealing with that?

ARTHUR:
We approach that, in that soliloquy, it鈥檚 a list and the way it's delivered should be a list, each one getting more. And any names that I've been called when I was growing up about my arm. I remember hearing them and almost rating them being like, Is that all you've got? I think with that soliloquy, for instance, Richard listing them as here are some of the things I've been called. Maybe you might have called people those things. I think with that relationship with the audience, it's very much like 鈥楲ook at me鈥�. I think this is the great thing about having a disabled Richard, as you have a disabled body on stage. I'm going to list all the things I've been called make you feel really uncomfortable by it. And as I say them I'm gonna get angrier and angrier and more bitter and more tense and I think that makes for great theatre. But yes to go through it and be the one receiving. We had to speak about it in the room, about the language of the play and the language we use and making sure that there's a barrier between them.

TOM:
We're talking to you from Radio Four. I have to ask you about Ruairi before he go. I was going to say that he is a less complex character than Richard. But things are getting quite complicated for Ruairi, aren't they?

ARTHUR:
Yes, Ruairi's another absolutely fantastic character to play and I feel really lucky to be part of The Archers family.

CLIP FROM THE ARCHERS:
WOMAN: Now I do have a little problem I'm hoping you can help me with. What are you up to this evening? It鈥檚 just I'm attending a charity auction at the clinic and the colleague I was meant to be going with us had to drop out. I know it's not part of our arrangement. But would you be my plus one?
MAN: Ah the thing is. I'm not actually in London, I鈥檓 back home in Borsetshire.
WOMAN: Well, that's even better the auctions in Birmingham. You wouldn't have far to travel at all. Then I promise I'll make sure tonight's fun. Lots of free corporate champagne and canapes. Plus, since its supplementary to our agreements, there would of course, be a bonus in it for you, too. How does that sound?
MAN: It sounds good!
WOMAN: Excellent, I鈥檒l ping you the details.

ARTHUR:
It's nice to kind of be growing up with him and when I first started, I think in the first episode was driving a four by four with Ben Archer round a field and frightening old birds. To now being an escort in London is, yeah, that's some progress indeed!

TOM:
听Arthur Hughes, who, as well as playing in The Archers has the little task of opening as Richard the Third in the Royal Shakespeare Company's new production of the play which opens in Stratford upon Avon this Thursday and runs until the eighth of October.

CLIP MONTAGE:
鈥淭he winner of the 2022 International Booker Prize is 鈥楾omb of Sand鈥欌�︹�︹�︹�︹�︹�︹�︹��.. The British Book Awards Author of the Year 2022 is Marian Keyes鈥︹��..Ladies and a few gentlemen, the winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction 2022 is 鈥楾he Book of Form and Emptiness鈥欌��... The winner of the Costa Book of the Year 2021 is 鈥楾he Kids鈥�.

TOM:
听The latest Costa Book Of The Year Award. Ending a montage of triumphant literary moments there. And as it turned out the very last Costa Book Of The Year award announcement because this month Costa announced that he was going to be pulling its support for the prize. When it broke this news caused an understandable consternation among writers and booksellers and agents, both from those who'd been beneficiaries of the price in past years and from those who hope that this career changing moment might still lie ahead of them. Costa haven't explained why they pulled out and to date nobody has stepped forward to ill the gap. But now that the dust has settled a little. We thought we might consider whether in a literary calendar already pretty crowded with prizes and awards that gap really has to be filled. Joining me down the line to address that question are the critic Alex Clark and the novelist Damian Barr., both of whom have served on Book Of The Year juries. Damian, you have the honour of being one of the last ever Costa Book judges cos there's no more will follow you. You were on this year.

INTERVIEWEE (DAMIAN BARR):
I know, and I felt slightly guilty about that, I sort of thought, Oh, what did we do, did we break it? You know all the judges immediately started talking amongst themselves about it. There was no inkling at all., while we were doing it, that this was going to be the last year whatsoever. I mean it wouldn't have changed the result. I have to say, but, you know it's very sad that these prizes that you've been a part of the landscape for me as a reader and as a writer have just disappeared. And with without that much explanation.

TOM:
So have you had any hints of a reason, since you haven't heard anything on the literary grapevine?

DAMIAN:
No, I mean, you know, there were there were plenty of snacks on the day. It didn't seem like they are running out of money. They certainly weren't short of coffee. So you know, I have not heard. I know that the other judges have asked. Costa is a big company. They're owned by an even bigger company, Coca Cola. It cannot be a shortage of money. They said this is a difficult decision. But there has been no, you know, we've had no explanation whatsoever at all. And I do think we're owed explanations. Actually, when you are such a big part of that landscape and publishing. I've not won those prizes, but I'm a beneficiary of those prizes because those prizes support independent bookshops and they support the literary press, and then nurture and support readers. So you know 听I do think we're owed an explanation. And I wish they鈥檇 hurry up and give one.

TOM:
Alex. I don't know whether you've heard anything but listeners to this programme will know the Costa Book Awards were notable because they had separate categories. Which then came together for a grand final and those separate categories - First Novel, Novel, Biography, Poetry, Children's books - were very different. How important was that element of this particular prize because it was unique to this.

INTERVIEWEE (ALEX CLARKE):
Well, I should say first I haven't heard anything but my first thought when I heard it was that coming out of a pandemic into an era when people were working from home much more, going into a cost of living crisis, probably a cup of coffee did become a sort of almost totemic luxurious extra that you could do without so I wondered whether they were cutting their cloth, and also whether they were assessing what the prize did for them. You're absolutely right to say that it did a lot for the literary landscape and it was absolutely to do with that spread of prizes with this slightly incongruous idea at the end, but categories that appeared to have nothing whatsoever to do with one another. You know. Big biographies, going head to head with children's fables, for example. It was incongruous, but it kind of worked and it did give an uplift to all the category winners and to of course, the book that eventually became a twice over winner.

TOM:
There was always that sense of slight excitement when a book from lower down the probabilities won, I mean this year Hannah Lowe's book 鈥楾he kids鈥�. It was great that a poetry book came through because there were big books it was going against and it did give a sense of a sort of equivalence across the literary landscape. Damian. It was openly more popular, this award. Readability was a big part of it. Did you find that as you were judging? Were you directed in that direction?

DAMIAN:
I mean, it's definitely different from other prizes that are judged, it had a clear sense that this was a book that was to be enjoyable and accessible and you definitely felt鈥� I mean, I loved reading all of the books. For the prize and each of the each of the books that we judged had been judged to be a category winner, so you know, I did pick up books that I wouldn't otherwise have read. I probably wouldn't have read that Robert Maxwell biography that actually read like a novel and was thrilling, and I probably wouldn't have read Crossing, which was a young adults booking in verse which was about immigration. That's absolutely terrific. And so, it put books into my hands I might not otherwise have read so I鈥檓 sure it鈥檚 done that for other readers. Accessibility and enjoyability was a part of it.

TOM:
You鈥檝e pinned something which people always call in when we're talking about literary prizes. And what they do is they do alert people. They alert readers to books they might not otherwise have seen. But Alex, there are a lot of prizes and awards. That montage we heard, it was just a small selection of one year's prizes, are there not enough already?

ALEX:
Well, you're right. It was the absolute tip of the iceberg. And of course, what they do is sort of range from the big ones that was get the coverage, The Booker, the Nobel, the Pulitzer, to much, much smaller prizes that I think played their own part because they effectively operate as sort of bursaries. They may recognise Society of Authors prizes for example, they鈥檒l recognise a wide range. I think that sometimes publishers will absolutely say you know a novel, particularly of what is still called literary fiction, will really be boosted by prize winner sticker. But I think we should also look to the fact that there are more prizes to try to award things that have not been given enough space, so far, so for example, the Jhalak prize that was founded in 2017 that recognises books by writers of colour, The Barbellian prize which is a couple of years in the in the running that recognises books by writers with a disability. These are perhaps even more important that the real kind of marquee name prize.

TOM:
Do you think the nature of prizes has changed slightly and they evolved in that sense that they are now used as a tool for making corrections within the literary culture, for coming along to it and sort of saying 鈥榃ell, there's not enough writers of colour, so we are going to find a way to solve that.鈥� Damian, that's part of what these prizes are attempting to do, isn't it?

DAMIAN:
I think there's no doubt and Alex is right to point those prizes out, and there are lots of them and they are a corrective in a way, to that lack of discoverability. You have writers from overlooked communities or communities that have been discriminated against or still being discriminated against a platform. And they life people up and I think that is a fantastic function of all for those prizes. They are also always awarding excellence, let's just be clear about that. They鈥檙e not just about who you are but what you鈥檝e done.

TOM:
Can I raise the heretical possibility that there can't be that much excellence in the world? Are the prizes not going to outrun the excellence, eventually.

ALEX:
I mean, I think Damian's right. It's to do with, actually, what do we judge to be excellent, and what has been excluded from that, and how to then, as you said Damian, make a corrective course. I think you see that happening in the much more high profile prizes, too, but only in the last few years, really.

/sounds/play/m0018nvf

TOM:
Damian, you wrote a piece about this and you suggested that we should have a national prize. We shouldn't leave it to companies who want a commercial advantage from a prize to fund this. Other countries have national prizes. What was what was your thinking there?

ARTHUR:
Well, I was thinking of the National Book Awards in America. I was thinking of the Dublin prize. I was thinking of the prizes given out in Nigeria, South Africa and New Zealand, Australia. We are actually an exception among countries in not having a prize which is funded by the state but not given by the state and which, you know, which is long running and which isn't subject to the whims of sponsors. You don't have to all be drinking a particular drink or whatever. We're actually seeing books and stories are important to our country, language is important to our country and we want to celebrate that. And I do find that astonishing that we have a government that particularly professes, indeed our prime minister professes to be a writer, that we do not have such a prize and it really would be a tiny drop in the ocean. Publishing鈥檚 worth six billion pounds to this country. We can find 拢100,000 down the back of our couch to fund a literary prize on behalf on the nation.

TOM:
Yes, they're not in the larger view hugely expensive things to do, Alex. I wonder whether you feel that a national prize would open up another can of worms, which is that you'd be opening another front line on the culture wars that the government would find itself handing a prize over and that might be a problem in time.

ALEX:
I mean, I agree with Damian entirely. When you look at other countries you'd want there to be something. But I think we have a government that's the most charitable view is that it鈥檚 indifferent to the literary world and the less charitable and perhaps more realistic one is it is actively hostile.

TOM:
I'm sure they'd disagree.

ALEX:
Yeah. Sure I'm sure they would, but the evidence kind of speaks for itself. And I think that, you know, I wouldn't really want to put it in their hands as it were. I think there is a widespread mistrust of the literary establishments such as it is now. I wonder whether that would indeed open a can of worms. But I agree with Damian completely.

TOM:
And literary culture used to exist without prizes at all. It used to be a matter of reviews, disagreement between reviewers. I mean we've had prizes for a long time. But there used to be a very different literary culture which was less disposed to what Julian Barnes once called 鈥楶osh Bingo鈥�. The posh bingo of the Booker Prize. Do you think we do better under sort of reality television competition than that old model of reviewing ?

ALEX:
听So she should be Jonathan Franzen once said winning a literary prize was a consolation for the fact that nobody cared about about literature, the culture didn't care about literature and there's something in that. I think he鈥檚 slightly modified that more recently, but I do think that our prizes should not be a substitute for a thriving literary culture, but I also think, you know, we didn't always have them, but we didn't always have women being able to publish under their own names and not pretend to be guys. So you know there's something.

TOM:
You think they represent a social advance on the same level as women being allowed to publish under their own names do you, Alex?

ALEX:
Well, I didn't exactly, what I mean is that sunlight is the best disinfectant as they say.

TOM:
I'm going to convene you. You've both been jury members before. I'm going to convene a very tiny two person jury now and finish by asking you, if you were awarding a prize for the best literary prize over the last three decades. What would you suggest. Cos I'm moving towards thinning them down. I wanted you to suggest the best one possible.

DAMIAN:
I would I would probably go for the Lambda鈥檚 in America which awards LGBTQ+ writers and have been going for about thirty years and have led me to find all kinds of poets actually that I would not otherwise have picked up. So I think the Lambdas are very, very good. And also leads the way for those awards.

ALEX:
I would go for the Goldsmith's prize. I do hope Jonathan Coe is listening and fans of his will know why I say that. But I think the Goldsmith's prize, which awards innovation and invention is my pick.

TOM:
That's a good unique selling point. I think innovation. Thank you very much Alex Clark and Damian Barr. And don't worry if your Jonesing for a hit of literary prize speculation, because it's not too long before the Booker Prize is back. The longlist for this year's Booker is announced in a month's time on July 26th. Finally tonight, our art belongs to Dada.

CLIP:
I write this manifesto to show that people can perform contrary actions together while taking one fresh gulp of air. I am against action for continuous contradiction, for affirmation to. I'm neither for nor against and I do not explain, because I hate common sense. Dada means nothing.

CLIP:
[sound art]

TOM:
Tristan Tzara's Dadaist manifesto and following that, Hugo Ball an early and committed Dadaist performing at the famous Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich in 1916 dressed in a giant cone of paper with a Sorcerer's hat on his head and cardboard lobster claws on his hands. Cabaret Voltaire performances were chaotic and that was the point. It was a response to what the Dadaists saw as the dead conventions of romanticism and the absurdities, and tragedies of the First World War. And that spirit of anarchy has inspired the organisers of 鈥榃e Are Invisible We Are Visible鈥�, a day of artworks and performances by 31 deaf, disabled and neurodivergent artists which will take place this coming Saturday in 30 UK galleries. To help explain what a relatively short lived Swiss art movement can bring to contemporary cultural politics I'm joined now by the event's organiser and the artistic director of Dash. Mike Layward. Mike, why Dada, why was that the inspiration?

INTERVIEWEE (Mike Layward):
Thanks, Tom. I did want to say it was great hearing Arthur and it feels like it's disability arts night on Front Row tonight. Why Dada? It feels like as a strong parallel between display art and the Dada movement. They're both born out of a political situation of inequality and oppression. And if you look at the time that we've been living in particularly over the last ten years, disabled people have been in the forefront of the impacts of so called austerity. So I'm not trying to compare the situation that we're in to the First World War, but I think I would use the idea of what would the Dada movement have done if it had formed in 2020 in lockdown.

TOM:
Dada was very often subversively funny and anti-respectable. Is that part of the draw for you?

MIKE:
Definitely, definitely. I love that absurdism. The surrealism. I think Dada has really influenced and continues to influence, so many artists. Even though I can see the way Dada has been bought up and cut up and made commercialised, but underneath it all its influence carries on really strongly. I say Monty Python, without Dada, I don't know Monty Python would have existed.

TOM:
Now, these interventions are taking place in thirty one art galleries across the country. That word intervention, it is very familiar art world term. But it won't be familiar to all of our listeners. What do you mean by it?

MIKE:
It's interesting when we put the call out for people to apply for interventions, we got so many emails and phone calls saying what do you mean by the intervention? The more we try to explain it the less it made any sense. And I've come up with a definition of an intervention is something that alters reality. Even if you don't know. It has happened with. So that's just confusing as not knowing what it is. That's what I love about the altering of reality. But you might not know that it actually altered.

TOM:
That's right. Some of these are going to be slightly subtle, aren't they. And you won't be immediately aware that that something is taking place in the gallery. How did you choose the thirty one artists in the end?

MIKE:
We get a call out and we didn't want a very complicated application process wants to keep it really simple. We just wanted people's ideas. We had a list of galleries then and so we wanted to know where people would like to perform, cos some people want to use the sea, so that was gonna limit where they went. And then what we whittled that down to 61 yeses and 40 maybes and Then we just went through very quickly. At the selection panel was made up of a really brilliant mix of artists and curators and selected the 31. We had to do it very quickly.

TOM:
I'd like to bring in two of the artists you did select for taking part in Saturday's events. On the line now we have the artist Aaron Williamson and the curator and printmaker Mianam Yasmin Bashir Canvin to discuss their Dadaist offerings. Aaron Williamson, if I can start with you. And Aaron is his deaf and is on a zoom line with subtitles. You will be performing a piece at the Icon Gallery in Birmingham called 鈥楬iding in 3D.鈥� Can you describe it for us?

INTERVIEWEE (Aaron Williamson):
Yeah, I'll have a go doing that. First of all, Mark was saying the call out to troublemakers and intervention artists, you know, I would say there鈥檚 been about 30 years disruption with our care. And on this occasion, it was a red rag to a bull. Coming in with the idea of working with Dada form with First World War perspective in my influences work well. He painted ships in dazzle camo which is an intersectionist graphic design to make ships invisible. And so I was working with the theme of invisibility, we鈥檝e made a room that is full of camouflage, World War I camouflage, can float and then swing. And with the invisibility theme I decided to paint that design in 3D to pick me out of the background.

TOM:
听I've seen a picture of it and the dazzle camouflage. If people don't know it, it鈥檚 violently geometrical patterns, isn't it, which break up the outlines on ships. It is in red and blue and you鈥檙e also giving people, those 3d glasses with red and blue lenses. So, will you be playing with people's sense of depth here and their ability to see you?

AARON:
That's correct, yeah. To the naked eye I will probably blend into the background because of the dazzle camo which is all red and blue. And then you put the specs on and as soon as And Wichita and blue and then we put the specs on. And so for the audiences, 听they are invited to pick me out of the background. So I become visible against the invisibility.

TOM:
What are you hoping they'll take away from that particular experience, in terms of their attitudes to disability?

AARON:
Well, having the political background to this whole project will be the visibility of disabled artists in galleries, which, historically, has been pretty much invisible. And so we all are being invited into mainstream galleries to present something for the public to perhaps give them more of an absurdist perspective. I mean, disabled people have a sense of humour and all the rest of it. So this might be news to a mainstream audience that we can have a good laugh.

TOM:
How long are you going to be on on Saturday?

AARON:
I will be doing this for five hours throughout. And so the audiences are invited to just walk in and walk out and take what they want from it. They're invited to wear the specs, pcik me out and then possibly take a photo if they can find me.

TOM:
Mianam, you are a curator yourself. I think as well as a print maker, but your piece 鈥楾his is not a pipe鈥� sounds a bit like a curator's nightmare. You've jumbled up and made interventions in the labels in an exhibition at the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield. Why did you want to do that?

INTERVIEWEE (Mianam Yasmin Bashir Canvin):
That's right. So it's a collaboration with Emma Powell and we wanted to celebrate and at the same time critique the language that is used to make contemporary art accessible and we're adapting the Hepworth labels as if they are our ready made鈥�.As you say I've worked as a curator for many years and I've seen how difficult it is to use written language to interpret visual language and so many times galleries get it completely wrong and end up putting up barriers I think and preventing people from spending time looking at their work. At the Venice Biennale in 2013 they removed the labels altogether, which led to a very confusing exhibition. And conversely, there's a discussion now around simplying the language to the lowest common denominator and, sadly, the average reading age in the UK population is only nine years old, as your previous guests I'm sure would attest to. And yet beautifully written labels can actually show carefully composed language and present us with new concepts and new ideas to think about.

TOM:
So just give us some sense of how you're disrupting these labels and breaking up because the Dadaists loved playing with typefaces, didn't they, changing typefaces, breaking them up, using collaged headlines. Are you doing something similar?

MIANAM:
Absolutely. So we sort of ransacked the letter press that is available at Leicester print workshop and mixed a whole range of different typefaces from very strange names like Venus, Rockwell, Plantain. As well as the more usually known Gill Sans, and we have cut up the Hepworth labels in effect, extracting some of the language that they use and printing the words, but breaking the words up themselves. So that we hope people will appreciate them phonetically before they even give meaning to those words.

TOM:
Can you give me an example of a particular word you've used to do that.

MIANAM:
Yeah, some lovely words like monumental or juxtaposition, intervention of course. Experimental, collaborative, some words that you can really roll around your tongue.

TOM:
Very familiar words in an art gallery too. Do you like the fact that this is slightly a stealth art? There will be some people who come in and not know that it's happening to them.

MIANAM:
Oh, absolutely. But I did start working front of house at Icon Gallery and really love chatting to visitors and so Emma Powell and I will be there on the day talking to people. Anyone who shows an interest, we鈥檒l sort go up and engage them in conversation.

TOM:
And anybody who shows a sign of confusion, you will perhaps go and help out, really. Thank you very much Mianam Yasmin Bashir Canvin. Aaron Williamson and Mike Layward. We Are Invisible We Are Visible is happening across the country this Saturday. Aaron will perform 鈥楬iding in 3D鈥� at the Icon Gallery in Birmingham and Mianam鈥檚 prints 鈥楾his is not a pipe鈥� can be seen at the Hepworth Wakefield gallery. That's it for tonight unless the studio is rushed by someone wearing cardboard lobster claws. On tomorrow's Front Row there's live music from the Syrian musician, Maya Youssef, who will perform on the qanun, a sort of Middle Eastern zither. We will be looking at In The Black Fantastic, a major exhibition dedicated to fantastical work by black artists. And from Northern Ireland, we will be hearing about a retrospective of the work of the painter and portraitists Colin Davidson, whose subjects include Seamus Heaney, Bill Clinton and the Queen. Do join Elle Osili-Wood for all of that at 7.15pm.Goodnight.

听