If you've watched any of the leading television shows in the past 25 years, it's likely Lesli Linka Glatter had a hand in directing them. Mad Men, Homeland, Twin Peaks, Gilmore Girls and The Walking Dead are just a few on a long and impressive list.

In South Canterbury, Geraldine is home to a unique vinyl and coffee outlet called The Record Keeper. It's entirely powered by solar power and a bit of a stage for up and coming musicians Next week Geraldine's theatre, cinema and town hall celebrates its centenary.

Following a notorious night of debauchery, English novelist Mary Shelley becomes the mother of horror. Set in Geneva in Switzerland in 1816, ATC's new thriller, Mary: The Birth of Frankenstein reimagines the evening 18-year-old Mary Shelley alongside family, lovers and artistic contemporaries, is challenged by poet Lord Byron to write a ghost story. The events of the infamous gathering are recreated by playwright Jess Sayer and what follows is seduction, rivalry and madness with Mary walking out with an icon. Actor, singer and dancer, Liv Tennet plays Mary while Oliver Driver directs the horror and both speak to Culture 101.

Writer, academic and plus-size model, Kaarina Parker will be walking in this year's Fashion Week. It coincides with RNZ's new documentary series, Cutting The Curve, which looks at the new era of diet drugs and where that leaves curve and plus-size women. Parker studied history and film at the Unviersity of Melbourne and has a masters in creative writing. Earlier this year, she released her debut novel Fulvia based on a woman in Rome who carved out a place for herself during one of the most scandalous and chaotic eras of Roman history by being everything a woman wasn't supposed to be. She joins Culture 101 as the Fast Favourites guest.

Culture 101's Mark Amery had to borrow a car this week and, while he was driving, pressed a button on the display console and a female voice startled him, speaking to him in Japanese. Mark doesn't speak Japanese.

For his latest blending of documentary and fiction, filmmaker Igor Bezinovic has turned the camera on a stranger-than-fiction story from the history of his own port city on the Adriatic coast, Rijeka . For Fiume o Morte! which appears in the Whanau Marama New Zealand International Film Festival in Poneke Wellington this week, Bezinovic enlisted 100s of members of his city's own community to reenact their occupation by a fascist poet for 16 months after the first world war.

Interactive Comedian George Fenn joins Culture 101 to talk about his acclaimed show, Sexy Ghost Boy

Simon Lewis Wards plays with the idea of nostalgia through familiar, quotidian objects.

This week we are heading to the North Canterbury inland town of Oxford or Tawera as it's known to Māori.  Celia Wilson is an Oxford based painter, and printmaker and joined Culture 101.

The 'hot mess' that's menopause and midlife with Petra Bagust and some of her cultural highlights.