Saturday Review

Saturday Review

By BBC Radio 4Society & Culture
Download on the App Store

Saturday Review episodes

  • The Beguiled, Joshua Cohen, Soul of a Nation, A Tale of Two Cities, Ozark

    Sophia Coppola's film The Beguiled is set during the American Civil War when a wounded Yankee soldier is rescued by the last few staff and pupils at a largely abandoned school for young women in the deep south. Can hospitality overcome suspicion? And who has the upper hand?

    Moving Kings, Joshua Cohen's new novel, is set in New York and Israel
    Soul of a Nation at Tate Modern explores art in the age of Black Power. Work by African American artists exploring and celebrating black identity 1963-1983
    Regent's Park Theatre's latest production is an adaptation of Charles Dickens' French Revolution-set A Tale of Two Cities.
    Ozark is a new series on Netflix about a Chicago lawyer whose debt to a Mexican drug lord means he has to relocate with his family to Missouri

    Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Ellen E Jones, Sathnam Sanghera and Susannah Clapp. The producer is Oliver Jones.

    46 min
  • Committee, Terrence Malick, Neel Mukherjee, Frieze Sculpture, Gay Britannia radio drama

    Committee is a new musical that's opened at London's Donmar Warehouse. Based on the parliamentary investigation into Kids Company. It might seem like an unorthodox source of inspiration , but so were London Road and Jerry Springer

    Terrence Malick's latest film Song To Song has polarised critics; will our reviewers s be beguiled or bewildered?
    State of Freedom by award winning author Neel Mukherjee is a novel which explores the interweaving of five stories and five lives via an initially invisible thread.
    There's a free outdoor exhibition of sculpture in Regents Park with 23 works from contemporary artists.
    The BBC's Gay Britannia season includes a drama on Radio 3 exploring the troubled creative process behind the 1961 film Victim which dealt with homosexual blackmail. Also a series of radio essays The Love That Wrote Its Name exploring significant and long-lasting gay partnerships among important figures in the arts.

    Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Deborah Moggach,Kate Williams and Geoffrey Durham. The producer is Oliver Jones.

    47 min
  • Alone In Berlin, Ink, Christopher Wilson, White Cube, Earl Slick and Lied

    Emma Thompson and Brendan Gleeson in a film adaptation of Hans Fallada's novel Alone In Berlin - based on a true story of small scale wartime heroism.

    Ink - a play about Rupert Murdoch's acquisition of The Sun in 1969 and the grubby world of redtop journalism.Opening at London's Almeida Theatre.
    Christopher Wilson's novel; Zoo, a comedy set in Stalin's dying days, about a boy who inadvertently becomes the food taster for The Man of Iron
    Dreamers Awake is a new exhibition at White Cube Gallery looking at women in the Surrealist movement and its lasting influence on female artists
    2 TV music documentaries about famous rock sideman including Earl Slick (who played guitar with David Bowie, John Lennon and many more) and Becoming a Lied Singer in which Baritone Thomas Quasthoff gives his personal guide to Lieder - poems of nature, love and death for solo voice and piano.
    Tom Sutcliffe's guests will be Stephen Hough, Georgie Hopton and Natalie Haynes. The producer is Oliver Jones.

    48 min
  • Baby Driver, Gloria, Crimes of the Father, Germany at Tate Liverpool, Gypsy

    Edgar Wright's film Baby Driver is a high-octane thriller about a getaway driver who has to do "one last job" before he can get out of a life of crime. It has a fantastic soundtrack, but is that enough?

    Gloria at The Hampstead Theatre is a play by Pulitzer-nominated American playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. It's comic drama about ambition, office warfare and hierarchies
    Thomas Keneally's latest novel Crimes Of The Father deals with a fictionalised sex abuse case against the Catholic church in 1990s Australia
    Tate Liverpool has a new exhibition: Germany, Portraying A Nation 1919-1933, looking at the work of painter Otto Dix and photographer August Sander capturing life between the wars
    Netflix new series Gypsy is about a therapist who develops intimate and possibly dangerous relationships with people in her patients' lives

    Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Rowan Pelling, Rosie Boycott and Cahal Dallat. The producer is Oliver Jones.

    48 min
  • Barbershop Chronicles, Slack Bay, Amanda Craig, Sidney Nolan, GLOW

    Inua Ellam's play Barbershop Chronicles has opened at London's National Theatre. It's about the intimate and almost-sacred masculine world of black barber shops around the world.

    French film Slack Bay is a comedy about a series of mysterious seaside murders. Starring Juliette Binoche, it mixes professional actors with complete novices and slapstick comedy with cannibalism and gender-fluid relationships
    Amanda Craig's latest novel The Lie Of the Land tells the story of a London couple who move to the country under straitened circumstances and uncover a grisly murder in their new home
    Birmingham's Ikon Gallery is staging an exhibition of a series of Sidney Nolan portraits, as part of the commemoration marking the centenary of his birth. He was an Australian who moved to the UK at the age of 32 but whose work never reflected his new home.
    GLOW is a new Netflix series from the makers of Orange Is The New Black, set in the world of women's TV wrestling in the 1980s. It's all big hair, power ballads, coke snorting and grappling.

    Emma Dabiri's guests are Catherine O'Flynn, Liz Jensen and Sarfraz Manzoor. The producer is Oliver Jones.

    46 min
  • Raphael, My Cousin Rachel, Common, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Riviera

    My Cousin Rachel is an atmospheric adaptation for the big screen of Daphne Du Maurier's novel starring Rachel Weisz and Sam Claflin and directed by Notting Hill director Roger Michell. Like her most famous novel "Rebecca" the narrative revolves around a large private estate in Cornwall and a powerful woman whose life is an enigma.

    Arundhati Roy was the first Indian woman writer to win the Booker Prize, which she won in 1997 for her novel The God of Small Things, and which sold over 8 million copies world wide. A political activist and writer, it has taken her 20 years to publish her ambitious second novel, The Ministry of Untold Happiness.

    Raphael: The Drawings at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford includes 120 drawings by the celebrated Renaissance artist, including 50 from the Ashmolean's own collection which is the largest and most important in the world. The drawings are taken from across Raphael's brief but brilliant career, taking visitors from his early career in Umbria through his radically creative years in Florence to the period where he was at the height of his powers in Rome, working on major projects such as the Vatican frescoes.

    Common, a world premiere by DC Moore, and directed by Headlong's Artistic Director Jeremy Herrin opens at the National's Olivier Theatre. An epic new history play co-produced by the National Theatre and Headlong, it is set in the early days of the Industrial Revolution when the common land of England is under threat. Common stars Anne-Marie Duff.

    Set against an awe-inspiring backdrop of the Riviera in the South of France, Riviera is a new ten part television series from Sky, and stars Julia Stiles as Georgina Clios, the smart and resourceful second wife of a billionaire banker who dies in a yacht explosion. This catastrophe sets in motion a dramatic chain of events that exposes the darker side of the Riviera's glitz and glamour and the global art market. Conceived by Neil Jordan, who co-wrote the first episode with John Banville, the series also stars Adrian Lester.

    49 min
  • Wonder Woman, Persuasion, Lucienne Day/Barbara Brown, Adam Thorpe, Ackley Bridge

    The long- awaited Wonder Woman blockbuster movie has arrived amongst us mere mortals - prepare to be overwhelmed, puny mortals.

    A stage adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion has opened at The Manchester Royal Exchange. It's taken an unconventional approach and includes silver swimwear and a foam party - is this a step too far for a classic text or a bold new interpretation?
    The work of designers Lucienne Day and Barbara Brown can be seen at The Whitworth Gallery in Manchester. Their fabrics seems fresh, familiar and distinctive six decades after they were created
    Adam Thorpe's latest novel Missing Fay deals with a familiar trope in novels; the missing child. How does he mine something new from a seam which has been worked so often before?
    Channel 4 has a new drama based around a fictional school in Yorkshire. Ackley Bridge is being promoted and scheduled to get a lot of attention, but how well does it deal with modern education?
    Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Paul Farley, Bidisha and Susan Jeffreys. The producer is Oliver Jones.

    48 min
  • Woyzeck, The Other Side of Hope, Handmaid's Tale, Elif Batuman, California exhibition

    John Boyega plays the title role in Woyzeck; an updating of a 19th century German play about a man driven mad by circumstances. How well has the Star Wars actor adapted to the stage? And has Jack Thorne - who adapted Harry Potter for the theatre - made the play relevant for today's audience?

    Finnish film director Aki Kaurasmaki's latest film is The Other Side of Hope - told in his trademark low key, quiet manner, it deals with a refugee arriving in Helsinki.
    There's a new TV version of The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel, coming to Channel 4. It's had rave reviews in the US, will it beguile our reviewers?
    Turkish/American writer Elif Batuman's latest novel The Idiot is set over the course of one year in a student's life at Harvard in the late 1980s. Her academic pursuits and longing for love are revealed in the novel (which intentionally shares its title with Dostoevsky)
    California Designing Freedom is a new exhibition at London's Design Museum celebrating the enormous range of items designed in The Golden State. It ties together the explosion in design with the hippy movement and mind-expanding drugs.

    Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Louise Doughty, Giles Fraser and Maev Kennedy. The producer is Oliver Jones.

    46 min
  • Life of Galileo, Colossal, Jimmy McGovern, Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Thresholds at Somerset House

    Joe Wright directs Brecht's Life of Galileo at The Young Vic, reimagining it with a Chemical Brothers rave soundtrack...

    In science fiction black comedy Colossal, Anne Hathaway plays a woman coping with alcoholism whose alter ego just happens to be a giant space monster. It's a kaiju movie
    Jimmy McGovern's newest TV offering is Broken which stars Sean Bean as an inner city priest coping with escalating personal and parish pressures.
    Lucy Hughes-Hallett's novel Peculiar Ground deals with the construction and changing nature of the walls of a country estate across the centuries.
    Thresholds is an exhibition by Mat Collishaw at Somerset House, re-staging one of the earliest exhibitions of photography in 1839, when William Henry Fox Talbot showed his first prints.

    Tom Sutcliffe's guests are John Mullan, Laline Paull and Tiffany Jenkins. The producer is Oliver Jones.

    47 min
  • Salome, Frantz, Anything's Possible, Giacometti, 3 Girls

    Yaël Farber's Salome at NT tries to retell a biblical story many of us half-know. Has she been misrepresented and misunderstood and is she more than the scheming woman who arranged the decapitation of John The Baptist?

    Francois Ozon's bilingual film Frantz is a tale of love and lies in France and Germany shortly after the First World War. If telling the truth is too painful, can it be okay to lie?
    Anything is Possible is a new novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout. Continuing the story of characters from her previous highly-acclaimed work, My Name Is Lucy Barton.
    Tate Modern's newest exhibition looks at the career and output of sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti
    BBC TV has dramatised the Rochdale sex abuse scandal. Starring Maxine Peake, it's not easy viewing but what what light can a drama shine upon such a notorious case?

    Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Blake Morrison, Viv Groskop and Barb Jungr. The producer is Oliver Jones.

    47 min

About Saturday Review

From the publisher's feed

Presenter Tom Sutcliffe and guests offer sharp, critical discussion of the week's cultural events

More shows like Saturday Review

Global News Podcast by BBC World Service

Global News Podcast

7,574 Listeners

The LRB Podcast by The London Review of Books

The LRB Podcast

303 Listeners

Newshour by BBC World Service

Newshour

1,043 Listeners

In Our Time by BBC Radio 4

In Our Time

5,492 Listeners

The Documentary Podcast by BBC World Service

The Documentary Podcast

1,795 Listeners

In Our Time: Culture by BBC Radio 4

In Our Time: Culture

602 Listeners

Free Thinking by BBC Radio 4

Free Thinking

296 Listeners

6 Minute English by BBC Radio

6 Minute English

1,826 Listeners

Learning English Conversations by BBC Radio

Learning English Conversations

1,035 Listeners

The Infinite Monkey Cage by BBC Radio 4

The Infinite Monkey Cage

1,958 Listeners

Desert Island Discs by BBC Radio 4

Desert Island Discs

2,015 Listeners

Great Lives by BBC Radio 4

Great Lives

488 Listeners

Backlisted by Backlisted

Backlisted

582 Listeners

Front Row by BBC Radio 4

Front Row

135 Listeners

Start the Week by BBC Radio 4

Start the Week

161 Listeners

The History of Literature by Jacke Wilson / The Podglomerate

The History of Literature

1,114 Listeners

The TLS Podcast by The TLS

The TLS Podcast

181 Listeners

The Week in Art by The Art Newspaper

The Week in Art

206 Listeners

You're Dead to Me by BBC Radio 4

You're Dead to Me

3,212 Listeners

The Great Women Artists by Katy Hessel

The Great Women Artists

535 Listeners

Americast by BBC News

Americast

711 Listeners

The Bomb by BBC World Service

The Bomb

1,007 Listeners

This Cultural Life by BBC Radio 4

This Cultural Life

117 Listeners

The Rest Is Politics by Goalhanger

The Rest Is Politics

3,050 Listeners