Night Waves - Andrew O'Hagan, Aida, World War Two

Matthew Sweet talks to the writer Andrew O'Hagan whose latest novel takes as its subject a fictionalised life of Maf the dog who belonged to Marilyn Monroe and was given to her by Frank Sinatra. Susan Hitch reviews the new production of Aida at the Royal Opera House. David McVicar returns to Covent Garden to direct a new production designed by Jean-Marc Puissant, Moritz Junge and Jennifer Tipton. Conducting Aida for the first time at Covent Garden is charismatic Italian Nicola Luisotti, the MD of the San Francisco Opera. Italian soprana Micaela Carosi sings Aida with Argentine tenor Marcelo Alvarez as Radames. Matthew also invites historians Laurence Rees and Hans Kundnani to discuss why the British still sprinkle World War II metaphors into everyday speech. In the last ten days Nick Clegg was likened to Churchill, and accused of a Nazi slur, the Blitz spirit was invoked over the flight ban and historian Dan Snow aped Dunkirk with a flit across the channel to help stranded travellers. Meanwhile online parodies of the film Downfall continue apace on line, including Hitler's furious reaction to the news of Oasis splitting up. Night Waves asks why the British still love to mention the war and reach so easily for its stock of metaphors and archetypes to make jokes and to explain contemporary events. Is this a powerful way of keeping alive important ideas about Britain's worth or a transmuting of the complexity and moral shades of true history into a series of glib references? Plus another instalment in the Night Waves series on elections through the ages as seen by their portrayals in art.