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Last broadcast on Tue, 9 Dec 2008, 21:15 on BBC Radio 3.
Synopsis
As part of BBC Radio 3's season marking the 400th anniversary of John Milton's birth in 2008, Philip Dodd discussions his classic text Samson Agonistes. There has been much scholarly debate over whether Milton's dramatic poem, condones or criticises Samson's suicidal and genocidal attack on the Philistines. Since 9/11, that debate has taken on a topical urgency. Some scholars have questioned whether the work should be taught in schools, while others have regarded the notion of a terrorist act at the centre of Western Christian and literary history as a positive corrective to prevailing stereotypes.
GREGORY DORAN
When the lines opened for telephone bookings of ‘Hamlet’ at the RSC in Stratford earlier this year the tickets sold out within seconds – the RSC was told that there was enough interest to run the play for two years.
The key attraction of course was David Tennant, the current Dr Who, in the role of the Danish prince. Now, as the plays opens in its London transfer, Philip Dodd talks to its director Gregory Doran.
ANNIVERSARY OF MILTON'S BIRTH
On the 400th anniversary of Milton’s birth, Philip and guests Faisel Mohamed and Neil Forsyth look at his last great dramatic poem ‘Samson Agonistes’ and discuss how it should be interpreted in an age of religious ferment post 9/11.
John Milton: A Biography by Neil Forsyth is published by Lion Publishing.
NORTH FACE
Night Waves also reviews North Face, a new German film which tells the true story of a failed attempt in 1936 to scale the North Face of the Eiger for the first time.
It was the year of the Berlin Olympics and so the climb was made under the gaze of the Nazi party who saw the attempt as evidence of the superiority of the Aryan race.
Phillip Stoelzl’s new film has been seen by some to reclaim a genre – the mountain film – from its Nazi past.
Karen Leeder joins Philip in the studio to discuss why the figure of Leni Riefenstahl cast such a long shadow over German film.
Broadcast
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Tue 9 Dec 200821:15
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