Latest news with #APassagetoIndia
BBC News
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
BAFTA Television Award winners Rob Rinder and Rylan reveal details of new series from BBC Arts
Last year's BAFTA-winning Grand Tour of Italy gave Rob and Rylan a taste of adventure and sent them on a cultural odyssey that taught them about themselves and each other. Rob gave Rylan a crash course in art appreciation and Rylan encouraged Rob to get his head out of books and live life to the fullest. Now they're going to India to take things to the next level. Watch Rob and Rylan's Grand Tour on BBC iPlayer and add to your Watchlist On their second outing for BBC Arts, filmed in 2024, the pair follow in the footsteps of Rob's favourite author E.M. Forster, who a century ago wrote A Passage to India and changed the way the world saw the country. As they embark on their own passage to India and discover how the country's ancient wisdom, art and culture can challenge them both personally, intellectually and physically. Rob Rinder says: 'Following in the footsteps of my literary hero E.M. Forster and being in India gifted me the sense of being more alive - it's been a beautiful experience. I still can't believe that I had to walk barefoot through Varanasi to find spiritual enlightenment while Rylan went to a yoga class, but what I've taken from the art and the people here has changed my life.' Rylan says: 'I'm still amazed by the response we had for Rob and Rylan's Grand Tour, and now that we're BAFTA winners (!) I wanted to experience a culture that I really didn't know that much about. I genuinely didn't know if I could handle it, but there's something gorgeous about the chaos - everything is a walking, breathing piece of art. And you have to go around the cow.' Alistair Pegg, commissioning editor for Arts at the BBC, says: 'Rob and Rylan's Grand Tour was enjoyed by millions of us last year, and their BAFTA win last night just shows what an appetite there is for arts and culture that is accessible for all our audiences. So we're delighted that the boys have decided to go one better with a trip to India, which will reveal the depth of the country's art and culture, and challenge them as never before.' Lana Salah, Executive Producer for Rex, says: 'Rob and Rylan's Grand Tour of Italy wasn't just life changing, it turned them into BAFTA winners. But the boys' new trip to India took things to another level and I can't wait for audiences to discover, not just a new side of India but of Rob and Rylan too. India's unique take on life and death, family, love and sex, taught the pair how to see the world differently and gave them answers on how to improve their own lives.' Rob and Rylan's Passage to India (3x60) is produced by Rex, a Zinc Media Company, for BBC Two and BBC iPlayer. The Executive Producer is Lana Salah. The Commissioning Editors for the BBC are Suzy Klein and Alistair Pegg. CB
The Guardian
30-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Our Beautiful Boys by Sameer Pandya review – teenage lives at the crossroads
The Marabar caves in A Passage to India represent the breakdown of order and communication as well as provoking the terrible accusation that drives EM Forster's story. Sameer Pandya plays with a similar plot device in his compelling US-based novel, including an epigraph from Forster's classic. It is set in southern California, where three teenage boys on the brink of adulthood – stars of their high school American football team with promising college careers ahead of them – attend a party at an abandoned house in the hills. Vikram is an Indian American, while Diego, who is Latino, lives with his academic mother. MJ is white with wealthy parents. Part of the pleasure of Pandya's writing lies in his unravelling of identity politics – a theme explored in his debut, Members Only. In one of three ancient caves, the teenagers confront Stanley Kincaid, a school bully and drug dealer. He drunkenly lunges at them and they hit back to 'calm him down'. Later Stanley emerges from the cave bloodied and battered and accuses the boys of assaulting him, claiming that one of them returned and beat him so badly he had to pretend to pass out. Stanley is hospitalised, the boys are suspended and their brilliant trajectories into college are abruptly threatened. As the school principal investigates the various rumours swirling around the school and tries to ascertain what actually happened, the families meet to assess and limit the damage to their children's prospects. Along the way we learn of their troubled professional and home lives and realise the boys are carrying the weight of their parents' expectations. Pandya, an associate professor in Asian-American studies at the University of California, clearly knows this world. He gets under the skin of his three principals, their hopes, aspirations and uncertainties, contrasting these with the ideals and politics of their parents. Our Beautiful Boys reveals the inequality of America's education system – how it rewards those with money and influence – and is a profound meditation on identity, class, privilege and masculinity. Our Beautiful Boys by Sameer Pandya is published by Bloomsbury (£16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at Delivery charges may apply
