Broad Street to Brideshead
Join Oxford University student Nancy Gittus for a journey into the heart of a university and city that have shaped some of the world’s greatest literature. From the worried jottings of Samuel Johnson to the fiery sermons of John Donne, Nancy uncovers the way Oxford’s libraries, traditions, tutors, rivalries, and chance encounters left a lasting impression on generations of writers.
Broad Street to Brideshead
Episode Three: Evelyn Waugh
Episode Three of Broad Street to Brideshead encounters the wit, satire, and University years of of Evelyn Waugh — novelist, convert, and chronicler of a vanishing world.
We’re joined by acclaimed Waugh scholar and literary critic Dr Ann Pasternak Slater, formerly a Fellow and Tutor at St Anne's College, Oxford, who helps unravel the brilliance and contradictions of one of the 20th century’s sharpest pens. From acid social satire to aching nostalgia, from bohemian antics to Benedictine retreats, Waugh’s life was as complex and captivating as his prose.
Together, we trace Waugh’s journey from undergraduate parodies of Hertford College life, to later visions both barbed and beatific.