Saturday Review

By BBC Radio 4Society & Culture

Saturday Review episodes

January 11, 2020 1917, London International Mime Festival, King Gary, Ismail Kadare, Saad Qureshi,
Sam Mendes' film 1917 is set during the First World War and based on his Grandfather's experiences during the conflict. It's already won a Golden Globe and is touted for more awards glory. What do our reviewers make of it?
This Time is a show by the group Ockham's Razor and part of The London International Mime Festival 2020. It tells an inter-generational story through circus skills with a 4 person troupe whose member range from 13 to 60
Albanian author Ismail Kadare was the inaugural winner of the Man Booker International Prize and his latest novel to be translated into English is The Doll, It's the story of his mother and her difficulties when she married his father
British artist Saad Qureshi has an exhibition at The Chapel at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Something About Paradise considers the widely differing ideas of what paradise might look like
BBC1 has a new sitcom,King Gary, co-written by and starring Tom Davis as Gary King a builder and building entrepreneur. It was launched with a pilot episode last year and is now a six part series.
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Sarah Crompton, Rajan Datar and Lynn Nead. The producer is Oliver Jones
Podcast Extra recommendations:
Sarah: Bombshell, Little Women and Top Hat
Lynn: Musicals at the BFI and her son's vegan Christmas cake
Rajan: Death Of A Salesman with Wendell Pearce, and In The Viper's Shadow by Prince Fatty and Play Well at the Wellcome Collection
Tom: Guys and Dolls
Photo by Nik Mackey
53 min
January 04, 2020 Little Women, War Of The Worlds Immersive Experience, Untitled Goose Game, Graphic novels, podcasts
There's a new all-star Little Women on the big screen. The cast includes Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Emily Watson, Laura Dern, Timothee Chalamet and Meryl Streep. Louisa May Alcott's novel has been a popular text for film makers since the first silent version in 1912 - is there anything new which director Greta Gerwig can bring to this version?
HG Wells' novel The War Of The Worlds is probably best known to many people as the Jeff Wayne musical version, it's the UK's 32nd best-selling studio album of all time. It's been a touring show, made into a video game and now it's become an immersive theatrical experience,complete with AI headsets.
Untitled Goose Game is an award-winning game in which the player is a goose who wanders around irritating characters by honking and flapping at them. We look at a couple of graphic novels: Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me and November.
Four hundred years ago, in August 1619, a ship carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans arrived in America. A podcast series “1619,” from The New York Times, hosted by Nikole Hannah-Jones, examines the long shadow of that fateful moment. You're Dead To Me is a BBC podcast series which describes itself as "a history podcast for people who don't like history". Presented by Greg Jenner, it looks at a variety of subjects from a lighthearted perspective
Jordan Erica Webber's guests are Arifa Akbar, Naima Khan and Carl Anka. The producer is Oliver Jones.
Podcast Extra Recommendations:
Naima - Christina Craig; Mint Tea and Other Stories
Carl - Super Eyepatch Wolf
Arifa - Death Of England at The National Theatre
Jordan Spinning by Tilley Walden
45 min
December 28, 2019 Listeners' cultural highlights of 2019
Find out what Saturday Review listeners chose as their cultural highlights of 2019. We asked what you'd enjoyed this year and you told us about things we'd missed, disagreed about some cultural events we'd reviewed, and let us know about which ones had delighted you too. We'll discuss all the regular genres: films, theatre, exhibitions, books and television. And lots of items which we didn't get a chance to review from the past 12 months. Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Tiffany Jenkins and Shahidha Bari as well as lots of listeners on the phone from around the country, telling us what particularly impressed them last year.
Producer Oliver Jones
1 hr 1 min
December 21, 2019 Cats, Susan Hill's Ghost Story, Martin's Close, Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck, Gypsy
The much-anticipated film of Cats with its stellar and fur-enhanced cast including Judi Dench and Taylor Swift finally reaches the big screen. Catnip or catastrophe?
Spooky offerings in the Christmas TV schedule this year include Martin's Close by Mark Gatiss on BBC 4 and Susan Hill's Ghost Story on Channel 5. How shiver-inducing are they?
Nora Ephron's collection of essays on ageing and much else - I Feel Bad About My Neck - is being reissued with a new introduction by Dolly Alderton. It's a book that Alderton recommends giving as a present so Saturday Review suggests some other enduring literary choices that work as gifts.
And Gypsy starring Ria Jones is on at the Royal Exchange, Manchester in a new production directed by Jo Davies. Do its songs keep our critics smiling in an age of different sexual politics?
Rowan Pelling, Linda Grant and Kerry Shale join Tom Sutcliffe.
The books recommended as gifts are:
The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden
Karoo by Steve Tesich
The Prince of West End Avenue by Alan Isler
Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
Love Lessons by Joan Wyndham
The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
This is Pleasure by Mary Gaitskill
Haunts of the Black Masseur by Charles Sprawson
The Compleet Molesworth by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle
This week's podcast choices are:
Linda: podcast and Radio 4 programme Fake Heiress
Kerry: album If You're Going to the City, a tribute to Mose Allison
Rowan: TV series The Young Offenders, BBC3
Tom: TV series Watchmen, HBO
50 min
December 13, 2019 Aquarela, Swive, Robert Musil, Theaster Gates, Sticks and Stones
Aquarela is a movie about water...filmed at 96 frames per second- four times faster than normal and there are fewer than a handful of cinemas in then world with equipment to show it properly. What's them point?
Swive (Elizabeth) at The Sam Wannamaker Playhouse imagines Elizabeth I from teenager to monarch and the wiles and strength ways she needed to keep on top
Robert Musil's most famous book The Man Without Qualities was published in 1943 and a follow-up Agathe has just been published. Compiled by scholars it pulls together notes and drafts to make a sequel. Will the reviewers consider it worth the effort?
Theaster Gates is an African American social practice installation artist who has a major new exhibition opening at Tate Liverpool
Mike Bartlett wrote the wildly popular Dr Foster but hasn't quite matched its success since. Will his new ITV series Sticks and Stones (about workplace bullying) reestablish his success?
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Natalie Haynes, Abigail Morris and Bidisha. The producer is Oliver Jones
Image: Nina Cassells
(c) Johan Persson
Podcast Extra recommendations
Bidisha - Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen
Abigail - Essays of E B White and Chernobyl podcast
Natalie - Peaky Blinders and Lizzo
Tom - Jo Jo Rabbit
51 min
December 07, 2019 Fairview at Young Vic, So Long My Son, Annette Hess, John Walker, A Very Scandi Scandal
Fairview is a Pulitzer Prize-winning play just opened at the Young Vic in London. It starts out like a conventional US African American dramedy and then begins to mess with the audience's expectations. How will our reviewers feel about it?
Chinese film So Long My Son has won awards at international film festivals. It tells the story of a family over 30 years of turbulent Chinese history
Annette Hess' prize-winning novel The German House is the story of a Polish translator at the 1963 Frankfurt Auschwitz trials. Caught between societal and familial expectations and her unique ability to speak truth to power—as she fights to expose the dark truths of her nation’s past. If everything your family told you was a lie, how far would you go to uncover the truth?
A new exhibition of work by British abstract painter John Walker at Ikon in Birmingham includes new paintings
A Very Scandi Scandal has just started in the Walter Presents slot on Channel 4. It's a Swedish comedy heist with two extremely unlikely bank robbers
Shahidha Bari's guests are Dea Birkett, Kit Davis and Robert Hanks. The producer is Oliver Jones
Main image: Rhashan Stone & Nicola Hughes in Fairview (c) Marc Brenner
53 min
November 30, 2019 The Nightingale, My Brilliant Friend, Lee Child, Troy: myth and reality, Upright
The Nightingale is a film set in Tasmania in the brutal days of convict settlers and soldiers. A young wife faces violence as she tries to track down a man who has violated her family
The National Theatre's adaptation of Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend condenses the four wildly-successful novels into 2 three-hour plays at The Olivier.
The creator of Jack Reacher - Lee Child- has written a short book about The Hero. It's the first of two publications in the new Times Literary Supplement imprint - the other reproduces Virginia Woolf's reviews from the TLS.
Troy: myth and reality is the latest big exhibition at London's British Museum. trying to work out where legends end history begins in these classical tales
Tim Minchin co-wrote and stars in a new roadtrip-based TV comedy series Upright which has just begun on Sky TV. In it he has to transport an old piano across Australia, accompanied by a sassy grumpy young female companion. Is it funny? Is it worth watching?
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Deborah Moggach, Tom Shakespeare and Briony Hanson. The producer is Oliver Jones.
Podcast extra recommendations:
Tom Sh: Independence Square by AD Miller
Deborah: Netherlandish Proverbs explained video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tboRw6CPXjI
Briony: Hanna Gadsby's Douglas (and Nanette)
Tom S: The End of the F***ing World on All 4 and Les Indes Galantes https://youtu.be/Q4jy2wrjESQ and Jo Jo Rabbit film
56 min
November 23, 2019 Dear Evan Hansen, Feast & Fast, Greener Grass, Irenosen Okojie, Ken Burns' Country series
Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen has been an enormous success and has now transferred to London's West End. It's the story of a socially awkward young man who accidentally becomes a hero
Feast & Fast: The art of food in Europe, 1500 – 1800 is the latest exhibition at The Fitzwilliam in Cambridge
Greener Grass is a peculiar take on the American suburban comedy
British Nigerian author Irenosen Okojie's collection of short stories; Nudibranch
American documentary series maker Ken Burns has turned his attention to Country music for his latest series now airing on BBC4
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Deborah Bull, Susie Boyt and Louisa Uchum Egbunike. The producer is Oliver Jones
Photo by Matthew Murphy
Susie: Wednesday Afternoon matinees at Regent Street Cinema and the Joan Crawford film Queen Bee
Deborah: Ballet Black on tour and Inspire The Mind blog
Louisa: Chinua Achebe- There was a Country and Chinelo Okparanta - Under the Udala Trees
Tom: The Pallisers on Channel 4 and Lil Nas X - Old Town Road
50 min
November 16, 2019 The Gangster The Cop The Devil, Touching the Void, Romesh Gunesekera, Gold Digger, George IV : Art and Spectacle
The Gangster The Cop The Devil is an award-winning Korean action thriller about an unlikely alliance between a maverick police detective and a ruthless mobster who have to work together to catch a serial killer
Touching the Void began life as a book by Joe Simpson, about a climbing accident which nearly killed him. It has since been turned into a film and now a stage play. How can you show vertiginous dangers and a lot of internal thought processes in the theatre?
Sri Lankan writer Romesh Gunesekera was born in Ceylon - as it was known then - and his coming of age novel "Suncatcher" is set in his native country in 1964, as the struggle for independence began.
Gold Digger is a Sunday night series just started on BBC1. When their 60 year old mum meets and moves in with a much younger man, Julia's children decide they don't like it and start to try and drive them apart
George IV : Art and Spectacle has just opened at The Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace. He was arguably the most magnificent of British monarchs and formed an unrivalled collection of art, much of which remains in the Royal Collection
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Charlotte Mullins, Lynn Shepherd and Jim White. The producer is Oliver Jones
Podcast Extra recommendations:
Lynn - Leonardo Da Vinci at London's National Gallery
Charlotte - Kathe Kollwitz at British Museum and Elizabeth Peyton at London's National Portrait Gallery
Jim - Bruce Springsteen, Western Stars
Tom - Giri Haji on BBC2
Rembrandt van Rijn, The Shipbuilder and his Wife: Jan Rijcksen and his Wife, Griet Jans, 1633
Image credit: Royal Collection Trust / (c) Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2019
51 min
November 09, 2019 The Report, Shook, The Topeka School, 24/7 exhibition, The Morning Show
The Report is a docu-drama starring Adam Driver telling the story of Senate staffer Daniel Jones and the Senate Intelligence Committee as they investigate the CIA's use of torture following the September 11 attacks.
Shook is a debut play at The Southwark Playhouse which won the Papatango New Writing Prize. How will our reviewers receive this brand new work at a fringe theatre by an unknown writer?
The Topeka School by Ben Lerner is the third part of his trilogy featuring a central character who bears a decided resemblance to Lerner himself. Is this a State of America novel or self-indulgent , if brilliant, writing?
A new exhibition at Somerset House: 24/7 looks at artistic responses to the always-on culture that envelopes us all nowadays
Self portrait as time, 2016: https://vimeo.com/170398999
Order of Magnitude: https://vimeo.com/333795857
The Morning Show is Apple TV+'s big marquee show designed to attract voewers and subscribers to the new streaming service. Starring Jennifer Aniston and Reece Witherspoon it deals with the #metoo movement set in a TV newsroom
Tom's guests are Maria Delgado, Kevin Jackson and Louise Doughty. The producer is Oliver Jones
Podcast Extra Recommendations:
Maria - The Chambermaid film
Kevin - Susan Sontag At The Same Time
Louise - Wasafiri magazine
Tom - Julian Barnes' The Man In The Red Coat
53 min