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Radio 3's cabaret of the word, presented by Ian McMillan.

Novelist Marina Lewycka talks about Gerrard Winstanley's standing as one of the most significant prose writers and radical thinkers of early modern England. After the Civil War, England was a fecund ground for new ideas, attitudes and actions and Winstanley and the Diggers were pioneers of 'direct action' and communal living.

Jonny Trunk is interested in retro culture in the information age; and talks to Ian about the re-issue of Seasons - a CD made by the Radiophonic Workshop in the 1960s for 'music and movement' classes in schools. It's a mix of unexpected electronics, percussion and poetry by Ronald Duncan.

Stella Duffy looks at her bookshelf and talks about how writers use prologues to set up the work that follows. She guides us through some of the prologues in literature, from the most famous - Chaucer's prologue to the Canterbury Tales - to The Taming of the Shrew, where Shakespeare reassures the audience that what they're about to see is just a play within a play, to Erica Jong's Fanny where the author must interrupt her prologue to attend to a sick dog, leaving the reader to peek at the work she's left on her desk.

And there's new writing from Chibundu Onuzo, a twenty-one year old student from London who's just published her first novel. She reads Easter Sunday, a story set in her native Nigeria.

Producer : Dymphna Flynn.