The RHODcasts

Eventually the law will catch up with even the mightiest corporations. But it might take a century or two. Nothing in our modern zero-tax rated, political influence-peddling corporate world has prepared us for the breathtaking greed and recklessness of the biggest and baddest corporation, the East India Company. Look at the grand eighteenth-century palaces that dot the English and Scottish countryside and the exotic loot that adorns their interiors and consider where the money came from. Distinguished historian and multi-award winning author William Dalrymple tells the story of The Anarchy.

Between 1603 and 1613, writes Andrew Dickson in The Guardian, the Globe and other London playhouses were shut for an astonishing total of 78 months because of plague. As if that’s of any comfort to Antoni Cimolino, the artistic director of North America’s biggest classical repertory theatre company, the Stratford Festival in beautiful Stratford, Ontario.
Antoni’s conversation ranges from a historical introduction to the festival and the Falstaff-sized role played by its founder, the radical British director Sir Tyrone Guthrie, to the challenge of managing a $60m Canadian budget when there is no income whatsoever from bums on over 3000 seats. Listen for a walk-on part by the great Canadian heart-throb Mike Shara playing Berowne in the company’s truly excellent production of Love’s Labours Lost, an important part of their survival strategy now that more than half of Stratford’s Shakespeare canon is available on video.

If one should assess Senator Joseph McCarthy’s success by the number of ardent Communists revealed by his investigations in the late 1940s and early 1950s to be operating in the United States government, the only possible conclusion is that he was a pathetic failure. The harm he did to individuals, and the lives his actions forced to a premature end, are yet shamefully legion. 

A hundred books later, along comes Larry Tye’s biography of McCarthy, Demagogue. Tye’s reading of McCarthy’s private papers sheds new light on a man who attacked his opponents ruthlessly and when challenged over a lie, lied some more, and kept far more senior and able colleagues in a state of permanent fear. Tye writes “his rise and reign… go a long way to explain the astonishing ascension of President Donald J. Trump.” As we hear in this newest RHODcast, the parallels are horribly familiar.

“Demagogue” is published in the UK on August 16, 2020.

This episode with David Greig, who is incidentally stepping down after eight highly successful years as Artistic Director of the Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh, showed an innovative approach to performing under Covid restrictions. Originally published on July 30, 2020, it describes a make-believe encounter somewhere in the Highlands between a Roman legionary and a young Pictish woman. In the following summer the play made its long-awaited debut in the open air at Pitlochry Festival Theatre (now helmed in 2025 by first-time artistic director Alan Cumming). Here though, Greig talks about the challenges and rewards of taking it to BBC Radio 3.

The dykes and ditches of some scrubby forest in the west Perthshire hamlet of Inchtuthill are all there is of the uncompleted Roman capital of the North. Imperial politics and a sudden reversal of fortune led to the legionaries clearing out almost overnight in the late first century AD. It’s a mystery that captivated the Scottish playwright David Greig. Join us as we discuss the essence of his new play “Adventures with the Painted People”, its rapid evolution for radio, and the next steps for Scottish theatre in time of Covid.

The Beatles came from a very special place. The humor of Liverpool - hard-edged and seriously funny - was explored by a generation of comedians in its working mens’ (that is what they were) clubs. “Jigsy” began life as a play, the fruit of years of observation by the writer and BBC arts producer Tony Staveacre (who, fair’s fair, is also my brother-in-law). Modeled closely on Jackie Hamilton, who never really broke into television, Jigsy was brought to life by the Liverpool actor who started in standup, Les Dennis. Eight years later, in the midst of the pandemic, Jigsy is slaying them on YouTube. By happy coincidence Tony Staveacre’s BBC show about Jackie Hamilton, Standing Up for Liverpool gets an outing on BBC Radio 4 Extra on July 18th at 10:30PM. 

Keith Lockhart, conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, talks with Rhod about the famous July 4 Pops concert in a time of coronavirus and the challenges of rehearsing an orchestra together apart. Then watch the Pops’ viral performance of John Williams’ opening anthem for the 1996 Summer Olympics, Summon The Heroes. And why not look in on the Boston Pops At Home. 

In 2020, a summer of no Olympics and precious little else because of lockdown, the conductor KEITH LOCKHART tells RHOD SHARP how 80 members of the Boston Pops came together from home in a YouTube performance of John Williams' Olympic anthem Summon The Heroes. (recorded June 2020)