Saturday Review

By BBC Radio 4Society & Culture

Saturday Review episodes

June 30, 2018 Leave No Trace, Rip It Up, One For Sorrow, Tim Winton, Bedtime Stories For The End Of The World
Leave No Trace is a film about love and survival. A father and daughter living in idyllic remote Oregon woodlands come up against authorities who decide their life can't continue as it has done . Directed by Debra Granik (Winter's Bone)
The story of the evolution of Scotland's pop music scene is told in a new exhibition; Rip It Up at The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
One For Sorrow is a new play at London's Royal Court Theatre by Cordelia Lynn, about a family who invite a stranger into their home following a terrorist attack
Australian novelist Tim Winton's new novel The Shepherd's Hut is about a dysfunctional 15 year old boy on the run when he believes he'll be convicted for his father's death
A new podcast - Bedtime Stories For The End Of The World - invites some of the UK's top poets to re-tell some of their favourite myths, fairytales and legends.
Panellists are Patrice Lawrence, Emma Jane Unsworth and Peter Ross. Presented by Anne Mcelvoy of The Economist. The producer is Oliver Jones.
46 min
June 23, 2018 The London Mastaba, Joseph O'Neill's Good Trouble, Shebeen, Arcadia, Japan's Secret Shame
Award winning writer Irish writer Joseph O'Neill's 2008 novel Netherland was endorsed by American President, Barack Obama. Good Trouble is his first collection of short stories.
Arcadia, the new film from the BAFTA award-winning Scottish director Paul Wright (whose debut feature For Those in Peril premiered at Cannes in 2013), explores our complex connection to the land we live in. Combining over 100 film clips from the last 100 years and a grand, expressive new score by musicians Adrian Utley from Portishead and Will Gregory from Goldfrapp it is described as a "a folk horror wrapped in an archive film."
Mufaro Makubika won the Alfred Fagon Award 2017 for Shebeen for best new work by a black British playwright. Set in 1958 in the writer's hometown of Nottingham, where many of those who had arrived on the Windrush had settled, Shebeen shines a light on a community under siege on the eve of the St Ann's race riots. Shebeen is directed by Matthew Xia and is currently on at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude are celebrated for their ambitious sculptural works that intervene in urban and natural landscapes around the world and temporarily alter both the physical form and visual appearances of sites. This summer the Serpentine Galleries presents a major exhibition of the artists' work, which draws upon their use of barrels to create artworks. Simultaneously, Christo presents The London Mastaba, his first outdoor, public work in the UK. The sculpture takes inspiration from mastabas - benches with two vertical sides, two slanted sides and a flat top - which originated with the first ancient civilisations of Mesopotamia. It will float on The Serpentine lake in Hyde Park from 18 June to 23 September. Measuring 20m in height by 30m and 40m, the sculpture consists of 7,506 horizontally stacked barrels, specifically fabricated and painted in shades of red, white, blue and mauve.
BBC 2's Japan's Secret Shame tells the moving story of 29 year-old Japanese journalist Shiori Ito, who in May 2017 shocked Japan when she went public with allegations that she was raped by a well-known TV journalist. Following Shiori over a year, the film portrays the consequences Shiori faced by speaking out in Japanese society.
52 min
June 16, 2018 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Hereditary, Thomas Cole, Daisy Johnson, Snatches on BBC4
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie has been adapted for the stage at London's Donmar Warehouse to mark the centenary of Muriel Sparks' birth
There's a new horror film which some critics have been comparing to The Exorcist and other touchstones of the genre; is Hereditary as scary as the publicity would have us believe?
London's National Gallery is staging two complementary exhibitions: Eden to Empire looks at the work of Thomas Cole, a Lancashire-born painter who became most famous for his landscapes of the American wilderness. Course of Empire is a smaller collection of work by contemporary American painter Ed Ruscha
Daisy Johnson's novel Everything Under resets a classical myth into the modern-day, set on the waterways of rural England
Snatches is a series of 15 minute monologues beginning on BBC4 to mark 100 years of women's suffrage. It tell tales of moments from women's lives over the last century,
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Rosie Boycott, Jude Kelly and Rhidian Brook. Producer is Oliver Jones.
49 min
June 09, 2018 My Name is Lucy Barton, Alexander McQueen, Rachel Kushner, Aftermath at Tate Britain, City of Ghosts
My Name is Lucy Barton is a one woman play starring Laura Linney in her London stage debut. At London's Bridge Theatre, it's based on the novel by Elizabeth Strout and directed by Richard Eyre
There's a new documentary looking at the life and career of designer Alexander McQueen who died in 2010. It includes interviews with familiar faces and also less-well-known family and friends
Rachel Kushner's novel The Mars Room is largely set within the American penal system - it's not a nice place to be, especially for the narrator who is a prisoner serving a life sentence in the largest women's prison in the world
Aftermath is an exhibition at Tate Britain of art from Europe following the end of the first World War - it shows new art movements emerging in Britain France and Germany reflecting and influencing the society from which it sprang
City of Ghosts is being shown in the Storyville strand on BBC4. It's an Oscar-nominated documentary about a group of Syrian website that opposes ISIS and tries to tell the truth about what is happening in their ruined home city of Raaqa
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Amber Butchart, Liz Jensen and Jim White. The producer is Oliver Jones.
50 min
June 02, 2018 Tartuffe, L'Amant Double, William Trevor, Animals and Us, Get Shorty on TV
A bilingual production of Moliere's Tartuffe at Theatre Royal Haymarket, written by Christopher Hampton and updated to a setting in contemporary Los Angeles sounds like a winning formula. It has had some damning reviews elsewhere in the press; what will our reviewers make of it?
Francois Ozon's newest film L'amant Double deals with a Hitchcockian plot line involving twin psychiatrists both treating the same beautiful young woman who is having emotional and relationship problems. They also both happen to be sleeping with her too. It's very slick, stylish and French but is it any good?
A final collection of short stories by acclaimed Irish writer William Trevor, who died in 2016, has just been published. We discuss "Last Stories"
Animals and Us is the latest exhibition at Turner Contemporary in Margate; it reflects on the relationship between humans and other animals. How well does it deal with such a gargantuan subject?
Elmore Leonard's book Get Shorty was made into a successful film in 1995 and is now a TV series starring Chris O'dowd.
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Christopher Frayling, Rebecca Stott and Tiffany Jenkins. The producer is Oliver Jones.
47 min
May 26, 2018 The Breadwinner, Brighton Festival, Sister Corita Kent, Susannah Walker, King Lear
Animated film The Breadwinner (co=produced by Angelina Jolie) is the story of a young Afghani girl in Kabul who has to disguise her gender in order to be able to support her family
David Shrigley was the curator for this year's Brighton Festival. We went to see Problem in Brighton; described as "an alt-rock/pop pantomime... requiring ear plugs and an open mind". what on earth is one of those?!
Sister Corita Kent was an artist, a famously charismatic educator and a Roman Catholic nun based in LA during the 60s. Her vibrant screen-printed banners drew on pop art influences and confronted poverty, racism and war in spite of disapproval from her archdiocese who said her work was blasphemous and communist. An exhibition of her work has just opened in Ditchling in Sussex.
Susannah Walker's The Life of Stuff is a memoir of the mess we leave behind. When she has to clear her mother's house, she is confronted by the random collections of a hoarder and reflects on what causes it and what it all means.
Anthony Hopkins plays King Lear in modern dress in BBC TV's latest Shakespeare adaptation, directed by Richard Eyre
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Katie Puckrik, Kerry Shale and Susan Jeffreys. The producer is Oliver Jones.
50 min
May 19, 2018 Red, On Chesil Beach, A Very English Scandal, The Aviator, Teeth at The Wellcome
Alfred Molina plays artist Mark Rothko in Red at London's Wyndham's Theatre
Ian McEwan has adapted his own novel On Chesil Beach for the big screen, starring Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle as newlyweds whose wedding night nuptials are complicated by memories and misunderstandings
The story of the scandal of 1970s Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe and his apparent homosexual affair with male model Norman Scott is now a TV series starring Hugh Grant. A Very English Scandal is written by Russell T Davis and directed by Stephen Frears.
The Aviator by Russian author Eugene Vodolazkin has been translated into 14 languages and won a slew of literary prizes; how old is the central character? does his extraordinary memory have something to do with cryogenic suspension?
There's a new exhibition at The Welcome Collection in London looking at all things dental- will it set our reviewers' teeth on edge or make them smile?
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Blake Morrison, Elizabeth Day and Charlotte Mullins. The producer is Oliver Jones.
48 min
May 12, 2018 Anon, Life and Fate, Patrick Melrose, Jesmyn Ward: Sing Unburied Sing, Asterix at London's Jewish Museum
Is a world without crime a utopia or a dystopia if the price is total constant surveillance by the state? British thriller Anon is set in a world where wanting to be anonymous makes you the subject of society's suspicions. It stars Clive Owen as a detective investigating gruesome murders.
Russian theatre director Lev Dodin's production of Vasily Grossman's novel Life and Fate comes to the UK for a very limited run
Benedict Cumberbatch stars in David Nicholl's adaptation of the Patrick Melrose stories for Sky Atlantic.
Jesmyn Ward's novel Sing Unburied Sing was one of Barack Obama's best books of 2017 and has also won America's National Book Award. It examines the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and the power - and limitations - of family bonds.
A new exhibition looking at the life of the co-creator of the indomitable Gaul Asterix is opening at at London's Jewish Museum
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Sathnam Sanghera, Lisa Appignanesi and Kit Davis. The producer is Oliver Jones.
49 min
May 05, 2018 Jason Reitman's Tully, Mood Music, Rachel Cusk, Perspective at RIBA, BBC4 Dance Season
Jason Reitman's new film Tully stars Charlize Theron as a mom coping with pressures of modern motherhood and at the edge of her sanity until a night nanny appears and everything seems to be looking up
Mood Music is Joe Penhall's newest play which has just opened at London's Old Vic Theatre. It deals with the tricky business of the music biz and who can be credited with the success of a hit song. Whee there's a hit, there's a writ
Rachel Cusk's novel Kudos is the third part in her trilogy which began with Outline and Transit.
RIBA is currently staging an exhibition based around the idea of perspective. How we perceive it and its effects upon the observer.
BBC4 is about to launch a season of programmes about contemporary dance, we look at a Michael Clark performance and a new piece about The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Tom Dyckhoff, Barb Jungr and Jenny McCartney. The producer is Oliver Jones.
49 min
April 28, 2018 Beast, The Writer, Curtis Sittenfeld, Rodin and the art of ancient Greece, The Rain
British film Beast, set on Jersey observes a dark and complicated relationship between a troubled young woman and a local man suspected of committing ghastly crimes
The Writer is Ella Hickson's new play at London's Almeida Theatre. Does the patriarchy work against the interests and power of women writers?
Curtis Sittenfeld's collection of short stories You Think It, I'll Say It, covering subjects including unhappily married couples to happily unmarried couples, revenge and a female president of the US
Rodin and the art of ancient Greece is an exhibition at The British Museum, looking at the inspiration Rodin took from the statuary of The Parthenon
Netflix is embracing the scandi-drama zeitgeist with their first original Danish series The Rain, set six years after a rain-carried virus wipes out almost everyone in Scandinavia.
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Denise Mina, Sarfraz Manzoor and Alice Jones. The producer is Oliver Jones.
50 min