Sir Richard Eyre Five of the Best Books
Theatre and film director Sir Richard Eyre talks to Mariella Frostrup about his five favourite books and how they shaped his life. Dr Sarah Dillon close reads Brave New World.
Sir Richard Eyre's distinguished career as a director encompasses both theatre and film. He ran the National Theatre in London for ten years and also created acclaimed productions of Guys and Dolls and Mary Poppins. For the big screen he's directed Notes on a Scandal and Iris. He talks to Mariella Frostrup about his five favourite books, and how they shaped his life.
And Dr Sarah Dillon continues her series of close reading by turning her attention to Aldous Huxley and the opening of his novel Brave New World. Published in 1932, the novel is set in a dystopian future where human beings are reproduced artificially, the opiate of the people is the drug soma and the population is strictly controlled and divided into castes.
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Sir Richard Eyre - 5 of the Best
Duration: 19:26
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - Close Reading
Duration: 08:21
BOOKLIST
Five of the Best - Sir Richard Eyre
Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
Sons and Lovers by D H Lawrence
Down with Skool! by Geoffrey Willans (author) with illustrations by Ronald Searle
Faber Book of Modern Verse ed. Michael Roberts published 1936
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Close Reading
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
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Close Reading - Aldous Huxley - Brave New World
The enormous room on the ground floor faced towards the north.Μύ Cold for all the summer beyond the panes, for all the tropical heat of the room itself, a harsh thin light glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some draped lay figure, some pallid shape of academic goose-flesh, but finding only the glass and nickel and bleakly shining porcelain of a laboratory.Μύ Wintriness responded to wintriness.Μύ The overalls of the workers were white, their hands gloved with a pale corpse-coloured rubber.Μύ The light was frozen, dead, a ghost.Μύ Only from the yellow barrels of the microscopes did it borrow a certain rich and living substance, lying along the polished tubes like butter, streak after luscious streak in long recession down the work tables.
βAnd this,β said the Director opening the door, βis the Fertilizing Room.β
Credits
| Role | Contributor |
|---|---|
| Presenter | Mariella Frostrup |
| Interviewed Guest | Richard Eyre |
Broadcasts
- Sun 28 Dec 2014 16:00ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
- New Year's Day 2015 15:30ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4 LW
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