The February House
For a year during World War II, an unremarkable residence in Brooklyn Heights, New York City, became an epicentre of Western music and literature.
For a year during World War II, an unremarkable residence in Brooklyn Heights became the epicentre of Western music and literature. 7 Middagh Street was home to a list of luminaries: novelist Carson McCullers, burlesque dancer Gypsy Rose Lee, as well as three young Englishmen who’d emigrated to America as conflict blasted Europe - composer Benjamin Britten, tenor Peter Pears, and poet W.H. Auden.
85 years on, poet and cultural historian Gregory Woods rebuilds this ramshackle house share, and invite the walls to talk ...
With contributions from:
Katherine Bucknell, scholar, author, and a founder of The W.H. Auden Society
Paul Kildea, Australian composer and Britten expert
Paul Muldoon, Pulitzer Prize-winning Irish poet
Hugh Ryan, historian and author of ‘When Brooklyn Was Queer’
Sherill Tippins, historian whose book “February House” won the LAMBDA Literary Award For Biography and the National Prize For Arts Writing
Presented by Gregory Woods
Produced by Jude Shapiro
Exec Produced by Jack Howson
Mixed by Louis Blatherwick
With additional production from Will Coley and extra research from Saskia Cookson & Joy Nkoyo
A Peanut & Crumb production for BBC Radio 3
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