On the first episode of our new series, Inside Culture, presenter Fionn Davenport speaks to Susan Sontag’s son, David Rieff, about the disadvantages of cultural memory in this decade of commemorations and the old adage “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.
David talks about memory being less about a claim to the past and how it is more about asserting a present way of thinking spun by interested parties. He also talks about his mother Susan Sontag and he was the one to bring her to Sarajevo where she mounted her famous production of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.
We visit Block T in Smithfield to discuss regeneration and the ‘Art Washing’ of the area to make way for redevelopment. Orla Fitzpatrick – a local, photo-historian and Block T studio occupant – gives her impression of the changes in the area over the past 20 years, whilst Block T Managing Director Laura Dovn explains that even though Block T is closing it’s a good model for future organisations.
And we find out why Largo el Factotum is an operatic tongue-twister that even Italians find difficult to pronounce. Inside Culture looks at the rehearsal process of The Barber of Seville by Wide Open Opera coming to the Bord Gais Energy Theatre and Wexford Opera.