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How do the different versions reflect the politics and culture of their own particular times? What makes a good Carol movie? Is it truth to the original or is it something else?
In this talk we use mathematics to look at these flaws and answer associated questions (eg. voting trends and gerrymandering). For a bit of light relief we will see how the same principles work in the Eurovision Song Contest.
Musorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov (1872) is set in the ‘Time of Troubles’, using Pushkin’s incisive verse tragedy on the chaotic period preceding the establishment of the Romanovs.
The rousing finale of Mikhail Glinka's patriotic A Life for the Tsar (1836) guaranteed it a place as the traditional season opener in Russian opera houses.
Today's cry in democratic states, and not just from representatives of populist parties, is government with the people rather than government for the people.
Between 1951 and 1959, over 95% of voters supported the two major parties. Since 1983, fewer than 80% have voted Conservative or Labour. How is the decline of the two party system to be explained?