South Bank Show Profiles W.H. Auden

The new season of ITV1’s flagship arts programme, sees the South Bank Show celebrating its thirtieth series on screen. The first subject to be profiled is the poet W.H. Auden: who will be discussed by Alan Bennett, Shirley Williams and Poet Laureate Andrew Motion on Sunday 18 February 2007.

It's been suggested that the centenary of the birth of W.H. Auden is in danger of passing without notice but not as far as the South Bank Show is concerned.

Melvyn Bragg visits Hadrian's Wall, the northern boundary of the land between Swaledale and Northumberland, which Auden wrote of as his "great good place."

He will examine the paradox of the Auden who fled to America in 1939 saying "No God willing I never want to see England again" and the ‘English Auden’ who was never able to sever himself from his roots.

Auden's words continue to reverberate around us from the Stop the Clocks sequence in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral; and the way his September 1st 1939 became the mourning song of New York after the terrorist attacks in 2001.

In this South Bank Show, Auden's verse will be read by John Woodvine.

Still leading the way, the South Bank Show is the first ITV1 programme to be available on the internet in both podcast (audio) and vodcast (video) format at itv.com/southbank.

Presented and edited by Melvyn Bragg. Produced and directed by John Mapplebeck.