大象传媒

In spite of the fact that so many of us live, and choose to live, in Suburbia, it's still described as, at best a cultural backwater, and at worst a cultural desert. Indeed the cultural output of suburbia is often songs and novels and films that describe a striving to escape from this land between the city and the country, or in cultural terms between rural Idyll and Bohemia. Ian Hislop has long been fascinated by this cultural snobbery, and in three programmes he talks to leading cultural figures who either come from or celebrate Suburbia and Suburban life.

Hanif Kureishi, author of 'The Buddha of Suburbia' is a not so proud son of Bromley, comedian Lee Mack is star and writer of the suburban comedy 'Not Going Out' which is now the longest running sitcom on British television and still uses the familiar tropes of suburban aspiration, gentle class conflict and stability to garner laughs, and JC Carroll of The Members is the composer whose punk anthem 'The Sound of the Suburbs' made the tedium of car washing and noisy neighbours a badge of honour. All of them discuss their mixed feelings about suburbia, if and how it's changing, and why it remains a place where so many people aspire to live.

In this second programme in the series Ian talks to Darren Evans, the suburban artist and JC Carroll tells him how The Sound of the Suburbs came to be written.