Night Waves - Slavoj Zizek, Jared Diamond

Anne McElvoy talks to the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek and about his new book 'Living in the End Times' in which he argues that we are witnessing the death of capitalism. And the acclaimed American scientist and geographer Jared Diamond joins Night Waves for a series of personal columns deploying his award-winning mixture of accessible physiology, zoology, geography and linguistics. Diamond came to public attention witth his best-selling and genre-busting books about human history "Guns, Germs, and Steel" and "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" - and he is also an eminent scholar, recipient of numerous academic awards. For Night Waves, Jared Diamond responds to a series of topical issues with a brief essay that takes us back into the far reaches of civilization to find the continuities and eternal truths of human society -and its relationship with the natural world. Diamond has famously said of his work: "I've set myself the modest task of trying to explain the broad pattern of human history, on all the continents, for the last 13,000 years". Anne talks to the Brazilian choreographer Deborah Colker whose new work Cruel is at the Barbican in London. And as the big theatrical institutions encourage their audiences out of their seats and into "theatre games" we talk about the vogue for "interactive theatre". Anne meets up with Improbable Theatre at their rehearsals for Lifegame, a theatre show that takes as its subject and theme the life of one individual and discusses the role of the audience with John E McGrath, the artistic director of the National Theatre Wales and the playwright Mark Ravenhill.