Dr Johnson in Tahrir Square

Goodness knows what the Great Cham would have made of Radio 4 airing an adapted version of his philosophical fable, Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, on Sunday afternoon. Perhaps he would be surprised to see it done at all: the works of Dr Johnson are hardly fashionable these days and Rasselas is probably little known to most people, let alone read for pleasure. Which is a shame. We studied it for A-level (a dead giveaway as to my age) and although Johnson’s robust cynicism could have scarred a depressive teenager for life (‘Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed’; ‘Such …is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to change again’), his clear-sighted examination of the purpose of life has kept me going through many a dark tunnel.