Night Waves - Galileo, Birdsong, Nigeria, Sound in Art

Rana Mitter discusses the life and work of Galileo, 400 years after his book The Starry Messenger rocked the Catholic Church and laid the foundation stone of modern physics. Two new biographies reassess Galileo's place in Renaissance culture - Galileo by John Heilbron, Professor of History at Berkeley, and Galileo: Watcher of the Skies by David Wootton, Professor of History at York. David Wootton rejects the orthodoxy which holds that Galileo was a good Catholic and argues that Galileo was a clandestine devotee of Copernicanism much earlier than other biographers believe. John Heilbron reveals how his work on a Sun-Centred Universe transformed Galileo from a melancholic mathematics professor into an outspoken and celebrated astronomer - 'The Columbus of the Heavens'. Susannah Clapp reviews 'Birdsong', the stage adapation of Sebastian Faulks's celebrated novel set against a backdrop of Flanders in World War One. Birdsong opens at the Comedy Theatre London. Nigeria will celebrate fifty years as an independent state on 1st October. Rana asks the playwright Gabriel Gbadamosi and the publisher Bibi Bakare-Yusuf if the country, which has at least two hundred and fifty different cultural, religious and ethnic groups, has been able to develop a coherent national identity. And Rana discusses the increasing interest in art that uses sound with Susan Philipsz, nominated for this year's Turner Prize and John Keiffer, creative director of Sound and Music. Susan's public art installations include recordings of her voice singing songs played out under three bridges along the Clyde and her latest project uses the eerily deserted weekend streets of the City of London. Producer: Victoria Shepherd.