
Herself (voice)

Himself / Louise Schwab (voice)

Armando Iannucci presents a personal argument in praise of the genius of Charles Dickens. Through the prism of the author's most autobiographical novel, David Copperfield, Armando looks beyond Dickens - the national institution - and instead explores the qualities of Dickens's work that still make him one of the best British writers. While Dickens is often celebrated for his powerful depictions of Victorian England and his role as a social reformer, this programme foregrounds the elements of his writing which make him worth reading, as much for what he tells us about ourselves in the twenty-first century as our ancestors in the nineteenth. Armando argues that Dickens's remarkable use of language and his extraordinary gift for creating characters make him a startlingly experimental and psychologically penetrating writer who demands not just to be adapted for television but to be read and read again.

"Well, I believe in anarchy! And I believe it will come true one day." That's what "May the Rebel," a union activist, anti-militarist, and anarchist, always ready to denounce oppression and defend victims, affirms at 85. Born in Brittany, she earned her living at age 10 delivering butter. In Paris, at 20, she became involved with the Anarchist Union. Sébastien Faure became her mentor. She used a grenade to trigger the Sacco-Vanzetti affair. A union delegate in Moscow in 1922, she sang "Hymn to Anarchy" before Trotsky. Children during the Spanish Civil War, Jews during the Second World War, conscientious objectors alongside Louis Lecoin during the Algerian War, and later, through her newspaper Le Réfractaire, the Larzac, Plogoff, and Creys-Malville protests—all these were battlegrounds for May Picqueray. To the very end, she remained true to her commitment to defending peace and individual liberties.

Everyone knows Aguigui Mouna, the jester who harangues the crowds on the Beaubourg esplanade in Paris and rides his bicycle through demonstrations. But many don't know the story of André Dupont, a Savoyard raised in tough conditions, forced into violence in the navy to rise to power and into resourcefulness in civilian life to survive. Antibes, 1952, the transformation: Aguigui Mouna is born. Laughter, solidarity, non-violence, humanism—Mouna has found the meaning of his existence. He will try to share them with all the robots of this "poop-pee-capitalist" society. A comic book character who, through his adventures, reveals the absurdities of his century.

Jenni has an ordinary life of simple patterns revolving around family and work. Her daily routine is seemingly unremarkable yet is of great interest to someone she doesn’t know—but who knows everything about her. Harvest is a thrilling and inventive depiction of the hidden value in mundane routines.