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Confessions

Ian McMillan presents Radio 3's cabaret of the word, exploring confessions. With novelist and critic DJ Taylor, and performers Francesca Millican-Slater and Christopher Green.

The Verb this week is all about confessions. We're listening...

DJ Taylor is a novelist and a critic. His biography of George Orwell won the Whitbread Prize. His latest book is 'The Prose Factory' (Vintage) .

The performer Christopher Green is best known for his characters Tina C and Ida Barr, who both appear on Radio 4. For The Verb he is performing from his new show 'Prurience', which is at Southbank Centre in July.

Francesca Millican-Slater is performing from her piece examining the sin of Pride for the Penned in the Margins project 'Fair Field', a celebration of William Langland's 'Piers Plowman'

And Dr Lawrence Warner, Reader in English at King's College London explains why medieval texts are so fascinated with confession.

Producer: Faith Lawrence.

45 minutes

Last on

Fri 19 May 2017 22:00

Christopher Green

Christopher Green

Writer, performer and trained hypnotherapist Christopher Green has written an immersive new play examining the intersection between theatre and therapy. Chris鈥檚 character leads a fictional self-help group for pornography addicts. He says he has been careful to reflect the true 鈥榠neloquent, eloquent鈥� language of 鈥榗onfession鈥�. 鈥楶rurience鈥� is being performed at South Bank Centre.

Lawrence-Warner

Lawrence-Warner
Lawrence Warner is reader in Medieval English at King鈥檚 College London and academic advisor on 鈥楶enned in the Margins鈥� new production 鈥楩air Field鈥�, a celebration of William Langland鈥檚 epic medieval poem 鈥楶iers Plowman鈥�, which Warner describes as 鈥�7,000 lines of confession鈥�.

Francesa Millican-Slater

Francesa Millican-Slater

As part of 鈥楩air Field鈥�, Francesca Millican-Slater has written 鈥楾he Confession of the Seven Sins鈥�. Here, she performs an extract from 鈥楶ride鈥�, which blends the language of the modern television talent show with the language of Piers Plowman. For Millican-Slater, confessing is a fashionable thing to do online, and there is a 鈥榗ertain deliciousness in admitting to a bad thing鈥�.

DJ Taylor

DJ Taylor

Writer and literary critic DJ Taylor explores confessions in literature across the centuries from St Augustine, right up to 鈥楥onfessions of a Window Cleaner鈥�. He offers his 鈥榬ules of confession writing鈥�, arguing that the more artistic a confession, the less likely it is to be genuine. Some Victorian pornography, however, is so boring he suspects it might be an accurate representation.

Broadcast

  • Fri 19 May 2017 22:00

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