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Matt Berry, Claire McGlasson, National Trust acquires view that inspired Turner, Vasily Grossman’s Stalingrad

Dulcet-toned comedian Matt Berry on his two new TV series What We Do in the Shadows and Year of the Rabbit plus the National Trust on buying a site specifically for its panorama

Dulcet-toned comedian Matt Berry joins us to discuss two new projects: a Â鶹ԼÅÄ TV spin-off of the 2014 cult mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows in which Berry plays a jaded 700 year-old vampire, and his new role as Detective Inspector Rabbit, a hardened Victorian booze-hound, in Channel 4’s period comedy Year of the Rabbit.

Men make a mess of the world with the First World War. Afterwards a female messiah emerges to lead humanity to salvation, through the work of a community of women in Bedford. That is the milieu of Claire McGlasson’s first book, The Rapture. Her work of fiction, though, is based on fact: the real-life Panacea Society. Claire tells Front Row about her strange love story psychological thriller escape novel.

Yesterday the National Trust announced they had bought Brackenthwaite Hows, the Lake District viewpoint that inspired JMW Turner’s watercolour Crummock Water, Looking Towards Buttermere. The site, which is 77 acres and includes a stone viewing-platform, is the first bought by charity specifically for its panorama. The National Trust’s General Manager for North Lakes Tom Burditt explains the site’s appeal.

As Vasily Grossman’s 1952 Russian novel Stalingrad is published for the first time in English, critic Boyd Hilton argues that it is one of the greatest novels of the 20th Century: an epic comparable to Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Kate Bullivant

Available now

28 minutes

Matt Berry

Matt Berry
Matt Berry &
Natasia Demetriou in
What We Do In The Shadows on Â鶹ԼÅÄ Two

Year of the Rabbit begins on Channel 4 on Mon 10 June 


Main image: Matt Berry in The Year of the Rabbit
Photo credit: Channel 4

View that inspired Turner

View that inspired Turner

The view from Brackenthwaite Hows towards Crummock Water and Buttermere that inspired Turner
Photo credit: John Malley

Claire McGlasson

Claire McGlasson
Claire McGlasson
Photo credit: Jeff Cottenden

Her novel The Rapture is out now

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  • Thu 6 Jun 2019 19:15

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