Saturday Review

By BBC Radio 4Society & Culture

Saturday Review episodes

December 02, 2017 A Christmas Carol, The Disaster Artist, An Unremarkable Body, Rose Wylie, Crown Court
A Christmas Carol is London's Old Vic Theatre's Christmas offering this year. It's a new version by Jack Thorne (who wrote Harry Potter and The Cursed Child) directed by Matthew Warchus and starring Rhys Ifans as Ebenezer Scrooge
The Disaster Artist is a tribute to one of the worst films ever - Tommy Wisseau's The Room. If the original was such a stinker, can a film about it be funny about the ineptitude or just cruel?
Elisa Lodato's novel An Unremarkable Body tells the story of a middle-aged daughter coming to terms with the death of her mother.
There's an exhibition of work by Rose Wylie at London's Serpentine Galleries
Crown Court was a daytime TV series which ran for 12 years from 1972. It's being resurrected with Judge Rinder as the gavel-banging star; Judge Judy meets 12 Angry men?
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Patrick Gale, Briony Hanson and John Mullan
The producer is Oliver Jones.
48 min
November 25, 2017 The Secret Theatre, Paul Theroux, Erte, Beach Rats, Joe Orton Laid Bare
A new play by Anders Lustgarten, The Secret Theatre opens at London's Sam Wannamker Playhouse and is about Sir Frances Walsingham- Queen Elizabeth I's spymaster
Paul Theroux's latest novel Mother Land is comic work about a ghastly matriarch exerting a poisonous influence on her grown-up children
20th century designer Erte worked in fashion, jewellery, graphic arts, costume and set design for film, theatre, and opera, and interior decor. An exhibition of his work at London's Grosvenor Gallery includes his exquisite alphabet.
"What's your idea of romance"? American indie film Beach Rats explores the story of a young man discovering his sexuality and confused by what's on offer.
BBC documentary Joe Orton Laid Bare looks at the life of the playwright who died 50 years ago.
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Adam Mars Jones, Ellen E Jones and Louise Doughty. The producer is Oliver Jones.
48 min
November 18, 2017 Mudbound, Network, Javier Cercas, She's Got To Have It, North exhibition
Mudbound, is a searing look at prejudice set in the Jim Crow deep south of the United States shortly after WW2
Network is a new production at The National Theatre in London. It's an adaptation of the 1976 Oscar-winning film about a TV anchorman who announces that he's "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore" which appalls then delights and ultimately infuriates his network bosses. It stars Bryan "Breaking Bad" Cranston as the newsreader who wigs out.
Javier Cercas's novel The Impostor tells the extraordinary tale of a Spanish man who falsely claimed to have been a survivor of Mauthausen concentration camp. Can we trust that anything in the story he tells of his life is true?
She's Got To Have It was Spike Lee's 1986 breakout film which he has now adapted into a 10 part TV series for Netflix
North: fashioning Identity, is an exhibition at Somerset House exploring contemporary artistic and stylistic representations of the north of England.
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Emma Jane Unsworth, Kit Davis and Jim White. The producer is Oliver Jones.
49 min
November 10, 2017 Glengarry Glen Ross, Marjorie Prime, Howards End, Richard Flanagan, Red Star Over Russia
Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross is revived at London's Playhouse Theatre, starring Christian Slater
John Hamm and Geena Davis in Marjorie Prime - a film about love loss and avatars
There's a new BBC TV adaptation of E M Forster's Howards End
Richard Flanagan's novel First Person - his first since the Mann Booker winning The Narrow Road To The Deep North - draws on his own experience as a ghost writer. Red Star Over Russia is an exhibition at Tate Modern marking the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution and examining its impact on visual culture
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Bob and Roberta Smith, Charlotte Mullins and Susan Jeffreys. The producer is Oliver Jones.
48 min
November 04, 2017 Heather at the Bush Theatre; 78/52 film; Ali Smith's novel, Winter; Monochrome at the National Gallery; Babylon Berlin
Heather is a play at London's Bush Theatre about a reclusive children's author who becomes famous
78/52 is a star-studded 90 minute film analysing the infamous shower scene in Hitchcock's Psycho. In less than three minutes it has 78 set-ups and 52 edit cuts and is a transformatory moment of cinema.
Ali Smith's second novel in her seasonal series is Winter; family ructions around a Christmas gathering looking back through previous gatherings
Monochrome at The National Gallery in London is an exhibition looking at how and why artists in different eras have worked in black and white. And nowadays they can work in no colour palette at all
Babylon Berlin is a new 16 part, €38m series beginning on Sky Atlantic, set in the decadent world of the Weimar era German capital.
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Gillian Slovo, Damian Barr and Gaylene Gould. The producer is Oliver Jones.
47 min
October 28, 2017 Young Marx, Call Me by Your Name, Art since 9/11, Susie Boyt - Love & Fame, Alias Grace on Netflix
Young Marx is the opening production at Nicholas Hytner's newest venture; the brand new Bridge Theatre in London. It stars Rory Kinnear as a youthful version of the writer of Das Kapital
Armie Hammer plays a visiting professor who is the object of a crush by a younger man in a new film Call me By Your Name.
The exhibition Age of Terror: Art since 9/11 has just opened at The Imperial War Museum in London, showing works by an international array of artists created in the wake of the events of that world-changing day
Susie Boyt's latest novel - Love and Fame - examines relations between siblings as well as a difficult marriage.
Alias Grace on Netflix is a new series dramatising Margaret Atwood's novel
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Antonia Quirk, Ayesha Hazarika and Ryan Gilbey. the producer is Oliver Jones.
48 min
October 21, 2017 The Death of Stalin, Philip Pullman, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Albion, Gunpowder
Armando Iannucci's film The Death of Stalin is described as "A comedy of terrors" and "A comedy of hysteria". How funny can a film about the death of the man whose regime saw the murder of hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens actually be?
There's a new trilogy of Philip Pullman books on the way; it's both the sequel and prequel to His Dark Materials. We're looking at Part 1 of The Book of Dust - La Belle Sauvage
An exhibition of work by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov at Tate Modern in London profiles the lives of 2 Russian conceptual artists from their beginnings, un-sanctioned by the state, to their more modern, still uncompromising work
Albion is the latest play by Mike Bartlett (Doctor Foster, King Charles III) opening at London's Almeida Theatre
Gunpowder; a Guy Fawkes drama beginning on BBC1 comes in 3 episodes - concluding just in time for Bonfire Night
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Melissa Harrison, Alex Preston and Amanda Craig. The producer is Oliver Jones.
48 min
October 13, 2017 The Party, Heisenberg: The Uncertainty Principle, The Sparsholt Affair, Degas at the Fitzwilliam, The Gamble
Sally Potter's new film The Party is her funniest to date with an all-star cast telling a neat little tale of a disastrous dinner party
Heisenberg:The Uncertainty Principle is a new play by Simon Stephens. relating physics with relationship advice
The Sparsholt Affair is Alan Hollinghurst's new novel about a love affair set in Oxford during the Second World War
Degas: A Passion for Perfection is at Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum, with works by Degas himself and also looking at those who influenced him and those he influenced
A new 3 part series, The Gamble, on BBC Radio 4 looks at the connection between risk and creativity, narrated by the actor Noma Dumezweni
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Sarah Crompton, Kevin Jackson and Graham Farmelo. The producer is Oliver Jones.
47 min
October 07, 2017 Blade Runner 2049, Labour of Love, Eight Ghosts, Ghosts: A Cultural History, Timewasters, 140 Years of Recorded Sound
Blade Runner 2049; 35 years after the original cult film, Denis Villeneuve directs the sequel starring Ryan Gosling. How can anyone follow up such a classic?
James Graham's comic play Labour of Love tells the story of The Labour Party over several elections in the same fictional constituency somewhere in the north Midlands. starring Martin Freeman and Tamsin Greig
Halloween may be a few weeks away but Saturday Review is getting in early with two books - Eight Ghosts, commissioned by English Heritage (8 short stories by a range of exciting authors set in their properties) AND Ghosts :A Cultural History by Susan Owens
Timewasters is a comedy series beginning on ITV in which a bunch of young present day black Britons find a time machine and head back to 1920s London.
The British Library has a new exhibition celebrating 140 years of recorded sound
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Charlotte Mendelson, Tracy Chevalier and Christopher Frayling. The producer is Oliver Jones.
47 min
September 30, 2017 30/09/2017
British film Daphne portrays the hectic life of a young woman in an overwhelming, contemporary London
The National Theatre's touring production of Jane Eyre started in London, has been around the country and it's back in the capital.
Multi award-winning American documentary maker Ken Burns has a new series. It's about the Vietnam war and has just begun on BBC4
Italian author Nicola Lagioia's novel Ferocity won that country's highest literary award, how well does it work in translation?
An exhibition of the work of Jasper Johns has just opened at London's Royal Academy
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Sebastian Faulks, Meg Rosoff and Tiffany Murray. The producer is Oliver Jones.
48 min