Arena Season 1, Episode 312

The Waugh Trilogy: Bright Young Thing · BBC Four · Saturday, April 18

Twenty-one years after his death Evelyn Waugh looms larger than ever over the English literary scene. In the course of three programmes Arena uses the testimony of his friends and foes to explore the man and his work. The first programme covers the period of his early life and his arrival in his 20s on the literary horizon with the publication of Decline and Fall and Vile Bodies. Among those appearing are the dedicatees of his first two novels, Sir Harold Acton and Lady Diana Mosley, and fellow writers Anthony Powell, Peter Quennell and Graham Greene.