Mary Beard introduces Front Row Late: Clash of the generations

We’ll be raising questions, about art, literature and culture. How have they represented the clash between old and young? (Even in fifth-century BC Athens comedians were raising a laugh at the fantasy of sons thrashing their fathers!)

Is the history of art and literature built on the idea that the young must overthrow the conventions of the old? But are the young always so radical? What explains our nostalgic desire to revive the culture of our parents and grandparents?

We’ll be starting with Damien Hirst’s new exhibition at the eighteenth-century stately home of Houghton Hall in Norfolk.

More than forty of Hirst’s recent paintings (consisting largely of coloured spots) have been installed in place of the old-masters, along with a collection of his sculptures (including some of his most unsettling dismembered bodies) scattered around the house and grounds.

When we visited on Easter Sunday, visitors from four to ninety four were loudly debating the show. Had Hirst triumphed over the classical décor? Or had Houghton tamed Hirst? We’ll be following up those debates on Friday evening.

We will also be discussing The Inheritance, a new two-part epic showing at the Young Vic, about gay lives in New York, past and present (with Vanessa Redgrave in the only female role).

And we will take a diversion through The Generation Game, not Mel and Sue’s current BBC revival, but the original version from the 1970s to the 90s. What was the point of it all: Brucie and Anthea and those hapless pair of contestants, mothers and sons, fathers and daughters? And why on earth did more than 20 million people tune in to watch it?

Series 2, Episode 1 of Front Row Late airs live on BBC Two on Friday 6 April 2018 at 23:05 (23:35 on BBC Two Northern Ireland).