Saturday Review

By BBC Radio 4Society & Culture

Saturday Review episodes

March 21, 2020 The Nest, The Truth, The Bass Rock, Cranach at Compton Verney and Home Entertainment Recommendations
The Nest is the new Sunday night drama on BBC One that raises questions around the ethics of surrogacy as a wealthy couple invite a young woman whose past is not known to them into their lives.
The Truth is a French/Japanese production directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda who won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2018 for his film Shoplifters. It stars Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche in the story of an ageing actress who publishes her memoirs and is confronted by her daughter.
Evie Wyld was named as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists in 2013. Her new novel, The Bass Rock, tells the story of three generations of women whose fates are linked.
Two exhibitions at Compton Verney that have sadly had to close because of coronavirus are kept alive by our critics: Cranach: Artist and Innovator and Fabric: Touch and Identity.
And we suggest some culture that might already be on your shelves or on a screen near you to enjoy if you're stuck indoors.
Tom Sutcliffe's guests this week are Charlotte Mullins, Bob and Roberta Smith and Laurence Scott.
Podcast Extra recommendations
Bob: Paul Klee, On Modern Art
Certain Blacks, album by The Art Ensemble of Chicago
The Letters of Van Gogh
Charlotte: The Gallery of Lost Art - as she explains, what's left of it can be found at galleryoflostart.com and via Tate website
The West Wing
Laurence: Star Trek: the Next Generation, all 7 seasons
Tom: Contagion and, as always, Call My Agent
Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Sarah Johnson
Image: Emily (SOPHIE RUNDLE) in The Nest
Credit: Mark Mainz / Studio Lambert / BBC
47 min
March 14, 2020 Misbehaviour, On Blueberry Hill, Abi Dare, Warhol, Breeders and Kate+Koji
Misbehaviour is a new film about the 1970 Miss World pageant which saw the first black Miss World and was also disrupted by the nascent Women's Liberation movement who threw flour bombs at host Bob Hope
Sebastian Barry's play On Blueberry Hill is set in a prison cell where two men's stories of how they got there become intertwined.
Abi Daré's novel The Girl With The Louding Voice is the tale of Adunni, a fourteen year old Nigerian girl who has to go into domestic service in Lagos but is determined to better herself
A new retrospective of the work and life of Andy Warhol has just opened at Tate Modern in London, including many works never previoulsy exhibtited in the UK before
Two new TV comedies with impeccable pedigrees - ITV's Kate and Koji (written by Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin - who wrote Outnumbered) and Breeders (co-produced by Chris Addison and Simon Blackwell) on Sky TV - have just started. Theyre very different.. are they very funny?
Tom Sutcliffe guests are Sara Colllins, Alex Preston and Tiffany Jenkins. The producer is Oliver Jones
Podcast Extra recommendations:
Sara: Toni Mossion: The Pieces I Am + Fons Americanus by Kara Walker at Tate Modern
Alex: The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins
Tiffany: Music Clubs - Spin in OXford and House Concerts @42 in Edinburgh
Tom: James Shapiro: Shakespeare In a Divided America
Main image: Abi Daré © Alero Marcel
50 min
March 07, 2020 Hilary Mantel, The Mikvah Project, Sulphur and White, Among The Trees
Hilary Mantel's new novel - The Mirror and The Light - is the final part of her Thomas Cromwell trilogy. The previous two parts have sold millions of copies worldwide and garned prizes from all quarters. Can this one compare?
The Mikvah Project is a new play at The Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond. Two Jewish men meet every Friday for ritual cleansing and a close friendship develops.
Sulphur and White is a new British film which tells the true story of a highly successful banker who suffered repeated sexual abuse as a child and how this drove him to seek justice for all abused children
A new exhibition at The Hayward Gallery in London - Among The Trees - looks at the crucuial role that trees play in our lives and imaginations
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Christopher Frayling, Abigail Morris and Catherine O'Flynn. The producer is Oliver Jones
Podcast Extra recommendations:
Catherine - The National Telephone Kiosk Collection in Bromsgrove and the 1972 film La Cabina
Christopher - Who's Afaid of Virginia Woolf at The Tobacco Factory in Bristol and Prints by Norman Ackroyd at Watts Gallery near Guildford
Abigail - Carravagio in Rome and Bonus Family on Netflix
Tom - English Monsters by James Scudamore
Main image: Terraza Alta II, 2018 by Abel Rodríguez
Acrylic and ink on paper
© the artist and Instituto de Visión 2020
55 min
February 29, 2020 Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, Women Beware Women, Christos Tsiolkas, Leon Spilliaert, Noughts and Crosses
The newest film by French director Céline Sciamma (Tomboy, Girlhood) is Portrait Of A Lady On Fire. An 18th century painter is commissioned to paint a bride-to-be's wedding portrait and falls in love with her subject
Women Beware Women is a play by Middleton just opened at The Globe Theatre in London. How do you navigate a society in which women are consciously and unconsciously commodified, coerced and controlled?
Australian author Christos Tsiolkas came to international attention with his best-selling novel The Slap. His latest - Damascus - retells the story of St Paul's conversion.
Leon Spilliaert was a Belgian painter in the early 20th century whose work often reflected his insomnia and seaside settings. A new exhibition at London's Royal Academy brings this lesser-known artist into the spotlight
Malorie Blackman's successful Noughts and Crosses novels have been adapted for TV and they're coming to BBC1 at the beginning of March
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Sathnam Sanghera, Muriel Zhaga and Susan Jeffreys. The producer is Oliver Jones
Podcast Extra recommendations:
Sathnam - Jay-Z on Spotify
Susan - Choirs and singing by candlelight
Muriel - making Delia Smith's marmalade and rewatching Friends
Tom - A.N. Wilson's The Mind of the Apostl e
Main image © 2020 Curzon Artificial Eye
50 min
February 22, 2020 Midnight Family, Masculinities exhibition, Actress by Anne Enright, Far Away by Caryl Churchill, I Am Not Okay With This
Mexican documentary Midnight Family follows a family-run private ambulance in Mexico City racing to the scenes of accidents in order to earn a living
Masculinities:Liberation Through Photography, is a new exhibition at The Barbican in London, about how masculinity is experienced, perfomed, coded and socially constructed.
Actress is the latest novel from Irish author by Anne Enright. A daughter looks back at her sometimes fractious relationship with her famous mother
A revival of Caryl Churchill's 2000 play Far Away has just opened at London's Donmar Warehouse
Teenage existence is never easy and having superpowers can only make it even more so. I Am Not Okay With This on Netflix is a new series with an adolescent female lead...
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Blake Morrison, Amber Butchart and Stephanie Merritt. The producer is Oliver Jones
Podcast Extra recommendations:
Stephanie: The Laramie Project
Amber: We Will Walk at Turner Contemporary in Margate. And the sauna on Margate Beach
Blake: When Time Stopped by Ariana Neumann
Tom: Midsommer
Main image: Taliban portrait. Kandahar, Afghanistan. 2002 © Collection T.Dworzak/Magnum Photos
50 min
February 15, 2020 Stoppard -Leopoldstadt, Emma, Philip Hensher, Steve McQueen - Tate Modern, The End
Tom Stoppard has a new play - Leopoldstadt - a slightly autobiographical telling of the story of several generations of a wealthy Jewish family in Europe over 6 decades, from 1899
How many different cinematic versions of Jane Austen novels does the world need? What does The latest Emma - directed by a former photographer/ pop video director - bring that's new?
A Small Revolution in Germany is the latest novel from Philip hensher. It follows the diverging paths of a group of young politically charged leftists
The End is a very darkly comic TV series set in a retirement village on Australia's Gold coast where Edie - played by Harriet Walter - ends up after trying to kill herself
A retrospective of the video work of British artist Steve McQueen has just opened at Tate Modern in London. 14 video installations cover his work from 1992 to today
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Ayesha Hazarika, David Benedict and Julia Raeside. The producer is Oliver Jones
Podcast Extra recommendations:
Juiia: Julia Jacklin - Crushing
David: Tony Kushner's The Visit at The National Theatre and Tana Frech - In The Woods
Ayesha: BBC This Life box set and female comedians live
Tom: In Wordsworth's Footseps on Radio 4 and American Factory documentary
Main image credit: Marc Brenner
57 min
February 08, 2020 Mr Jones, Death of England, The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates, British Baroque, This Life
Director Agnieszka Holland assembles a cast including James Norton and Vanessa Kirby to tell the story of Welsh journalist Gareth Jones who in 1933 travelled to Soviet Russia and told the truth about the famine in Ukraine.
At the National Theatre, Clint Dyer directs the play he has co-written with Roy Williams, Death of England, starring Rafe Spall as a white working-class man whose father has died and who has to face up to his conflicted feelings about his country and the people who live in it.
Ta-Nehisi Coates has earned a great reputation as a writer and thinker on race in America. His first novel, The Water Dancer, is the story of Hiram Walker who becomes involved in a struggle to leave slavery and save those close to him.
British Baroque at Tate Britain takes a look at art from the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 until the death of Queen Anne in 1714, highlighting the jostling for power at court and beyond and illustrating the creation of the great buildings of the age.
And This Life returns to BBC4, a drama of young people entering the world of work in the law, perhaps best remembered for the simmering sexual tension between Miles and Anna. Will its fans from 1996 stick with it - and can it draw a new audience?
Tom Sutcliffe's guests this week are Jen Harvie, Carl Anka and Terence Blacker.
Podcast Extra recommendations
Carl: YouTube Channel SB Nation and Brian Phillips' obit of Kobe Bryant available here: https://www.theringer.com/nba/2020/1/30/21114600/kobe-bryant-legacy
Jen: film, Parasite on general release; Tate Britain's exhibition
Terence: the music of Paolo Conte
Tom: Edmund de Waal's book The White Road, and Zadie Smith's essay on Kara Walker in the NY Review of Books
Photo: James Norton and Vanessa Kirby,
(c) Signature Entertainment
57 min
February 01, 2020 Ingmar Bergman, The Lighthouse, William Gibson, The Art, Design and future of Fungi, Art on the BBC
Ingmar Bergman's 1966 film Persona has been adapted into a stage play and it is the opening production at the newly revamped Riverside Studios in London The Lighthouse, starring Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson is a black and white film set in a claustrophobic remote isolated lighthouse where the two keepers begin to rub each other up the wrong way
William Gibson is a sci-fi writer whose latest novel Agency imagines a dystopian future world where time travel is possible but only virtually
The Art, Design and Future of Fungi is an exhibition at Somerset House in London which brings together work by artists and designers, exploring mycophilia, magic mushrooms and fungi futures
Art On The BBC is a new documentary series which delves into 60 years of arts coverage on BBC TV, exploring how TV portrayal has changed.
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Meg Rosoff, Katie Puckrik and Colin Grant. The producer is Oliver Jones
Podcast Extra recommendations
Meg: Jo Jo Rabbit film and Beryl at The Arcola Theatre
Katie: Paris In The Spring CD on Ace Records
Colin: The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste
Tom: Cheer documentary on Netflix
Photo: Beatrix Potter, Hygrophorus puniceus, pencil and watercolour, 7.10.1894, collected at Smailholm Tower, Kelso, courtesy of the Armitt Trust
57 min
January 28, 2020 David Copperfield, Welkin, Motherwell, Pregnancy exhibition, Windermere Children
Armando Iannucci has taken on Dickens' David Copperfield with Dev Patel in the lead role
A new play by Lucy Kirkwood, Welkin, has opened at London's National Theatre. The Welkin is set in Norfolk in 1759, when a jury of matrons is called to try a female murder suspect who is 'pleading the belly' in order to avoid execution
Motherwell is the memoir of journalist, the late Deborah Orr recounting her childhood and growing up in Scotland and trying to break from her family
Portraying Pregnancy: From Holbein to Social Media is a new exhibition at London's Foundling Museum which looks at how artists have shown pregnant women over the centuries. Admission fee charged.
The Windermere Children on BBC2 is the story of 300 Polish child survivors of concentration camps who were brought to the UK after the war and billetted in The Lake District
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Helen Lewis, Catherine Yass and Mark Billingham
The producer is Oliver Jones
Podcast Extra recommendations:
Catherine: Steve McQueen Year 3 at Tate Britain & A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride & Yinka Shonibare's Farm in Nigeria
Mark: Elvis Presley 68 Comeback Special & Long Bright River by Liz Moore
Helen: House Of Glass by Hadley Freeman & In The Darkroom by Susan Faludi
Tom: Daniel Finkelstein's tweet thread about his mother's escape from Germany & Miss Austen by Gill Hornby & Shook opening at the Trafalgar Studios in April.
51 min
January 18, 2020 Beckett triple bill, Bombshell, Avenue 5, American Dirt, Tullio Crali
A triple bill of Samuel Beckett plays has just started at London's Jermyn Street Theatre. Directed by Trevor Nunn, it's a chance to see Krapp's Last Tape as well as two lesser-known works - Eh Joe and The Old Tune.https://bit.ly/2Rm8AtGhttps://bit.ly/2uWA95b
Bombshell has been Oscar nominated. It's the story of Roger Ailes' reign at Fox News and the sexual harrasment cases that were brought against him. It stars Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron and Margot Robbie
Armando Iannucci has a new comedy TV series on HBO. Avenue 5 is set onboard a luxurious interplanetary cruiseship when things start to malfunction.
American Dirt is a new novel from Jeanine Cummins which follows a Mexican woman and her young son who have to flee to El Norte to escape drug cartel violence. They have become migrants
Tullio Crali was an Italian futurist painter who has an exhibition at London's Estorick Collection. He was a fervent futurist and you can see his paintings and sassintessi - compositions of stones and natural found objects
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Rosie Boycott, Ekow Eshun and Amanda Craig. The producer is Oliver Jones
Podcast Extra recommendations
Amanda: Kara Walker at Tate Modern and The Gulbenkian in Lisbon
Rosie: Garden Museum at Newt Hotel in Somerset
Ekow: Atlantiques on Netflix
Tom: The Kinks' Days on Radio 4's Soul Music and Lucy Hughes-Hallett's The Pike
Main image: Detail taken from Tricolour Wings, 1932 by Tullio Crali
54 min