John Updike

This profile of the celebrated American author focuses on his quartet of novels about a character called Rabbit, an ex-basketball star who lives in a small Pennsylvanian town, modelled on Reading, where Updike lived as a child. Through an in-depth interview, sequences filmed with Updike at his old stamping grounds, and dramatisations from the Rabbit books, this programme defines the major themes and social issues in his work, relating them to his own past and his strongly-held beliefs.