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Adaptation

Hilary Mantel analyses how fiction changes when adapted for stage or screen.

Hilary Mantel on how fiction changes when adapted for stage or screen. Each medium, she says, draws a different potential from the original. She argues that fiction, if written well, doesn't betray history, but enhances it. When fiction is turned into theatre, or into a film or TV, the same applies - as long as we understand that adaptation is not a secondary process or a set of grudging compromises, but an act of creation in itself. And this matters. "Without art, what have you to inform you about the past?" she asks. "What lies beyond is the unedited flicker of closed-circuit TV." The programme is recorded in Stratford-Upon-Avon in front of an audience, with a question and answer session, chaired by Sue Lawley. The producer is Jim Frank.

50 minutes

Last on

Sat 15 Jul 2017 11:06GMT

Broadcasts

  • Tue 11 Jul 2017 08:06GMT
  • Sat 15 Jul 2017 11:06GMT

The Reith Lectures on Radio 4

Archive recordings from the 成人快手's flagship annual lecture series going back to 1948