Episode description
As the journals of the American writer Joan Didion (based on conversations with her psychiatrist) are published, writer and journalist Rachel Cooke and Alan Taylor, editor of actor Alan Rickman's diaries, discuss the challenges, responsibilities and ethics of posthumously publishing the diaries of great writers, artists and actors.
Acclaimed German pianist Pianist Igor Levit talks about his own challenge - that of performing Erik Satie's pioneering piece Vexations, in a performance at the Multitudes arts festival at London's Southbank Centre. The performance is directed by leading performance artist Marina Abramovic and is expected to last approximately 15 hours, as Levit repeats Satie's one-page score 840 times.
And how should great women be memorialised? Cultural critic Stephen Bayley and author and activist Sara Sheridan discuss what a memorial to Queen Elizabeth II might look like, and why, in comparison to their male counterparts, so few women have grand memorials in our towns and cities.
Presenter: Kirsty Wark Producer: Mark Crossan