Saturday Review

By BBC Radio 4Society & Culture

Saturday Review episodes

October 10, 2015 Sicario, Teddy Ferrara, Jonathan Lee, Frank Auerbach, Black Roses
The American government's war on drugs is a familiar subject for a film. How does the latest - Sicario - advance the genre?
The Donmar Warehouse's production of a play about LGBTQ politics on an American campus - Teddy Ferrara - has been reworked from its US origination. How will it work in London?
Jonathan Lee's novel High Dive reimagines the story of the 1984 Brighton Bombing where the IRA tried to kill the Tory cabinet. How well does it meld fact and fiction?
Frank Auerbach is often hailed as Britian's finest living painter. We attend a retrospective exhibition at Tate Britain in London
Black Roses was Simon Armitage's prose poem - originally written for the radio - about the murder of Sophie Lancaster, a young goth girl kicked to death by a frenzied group of young men. It's now been made into a TV production as part of National Poetry Week
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Charlotte Mullins, Ryan Gilbey and Emma Woolf. The producer is Oliver Jones.
42 min
October 03, 2015 Medea, Jeanette Winterson, The Martian, Edmund deWaal's White at the RA, TV crime series
Medea is the latest production in London's Almeida Theatre's Greek season. Written by Rachel Cusk it portrays Medea as a realist and a moralist not a maniac.
The writer Edmund deWaal's interest in porcelain can be seen in an exhibition "White", at London's Royal Academy Library
Jeanette Winterson's latest novel The Gap of Time retells Shakespeare's Winter's Tale, setting it in the modern day.
Matt Damon plays an astronaut stranded on Mars in The Martian: how do you cope with life millions of miles from any other human being? And as 2 new TV crime series begin - Unforgotten and From Darkness - we consider the enduring appeal of police detective dramas.
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Iwona Blazwick, Don Guttenplan and Sarah Churchwell. The producer is Oliver Jones.
42 min
September 26, 2015 Ai Wei Wei, Margaret Atwood, 99 Homes, Fake It 'til You Make It, Music for Misfits
Ai Wei Wei's new exhibition at The Royal Academy shows how his work continues to be a thorn in the side of The Chinese government. But does it make for a satisfying exhibition?
Margaret Atwood's new novel The Heart Goes Last was originally published as a 4 part serial work online.
99 Homes is a film which takes what might sound like an unpromising premise - foreclosure of mortgages - and tries to turn it into a thriller.
You might not expect a play about depression to use song and dance and comedy to tell its tale but Fake it 'til you make it, at London's Soho Theatre attempts to do just that.
BBC4's Music for Misfits tells the tale of how independent record labels and indie bands reshaped the UK music business and were then appropriated by those they intended to replace.
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Crystal Mahey Morgan, David Hepworth and Deborah Moggach. The producer is Oliver Jones.
43 min
September 19, 2015 Submission; Hangmen; The World Goes Pop; You, Me and the Apocalypse; Tangerines
Michel Houellebecq's controversial sixth novel Submission is set in 2022 and depicts France ruled by sharia law under an Islamic president who has the stated aim of converting the whole of Europe to Islam. Part satire, part science fiction, does Hoeullebecq remain the "enfant terrible" of contemporary French literature?
Oscar and Golden Globe nominated film "Tangerines" is a beautifully eloquent statement for peace and the futility of bloodshed over racial and ethnic division. Set in the 1992 it features two tangerine growing Estonian farmers caught up in the conflict between Georgia and Abkhazian separatists. It is directed by award winning Georgian film maker Zaza Urushadze
The Ey Exhibition: The World Goes Pop at the Tate Modern shows how 60's and 70's pop art extended beyond America and Britain and dealt with more issues than consumerism, issues which include social imbalances, censorship, sexual liberation, war and civil rights.
Rob Lowe and Pauline Quirke star in a new Sky 1 comedy drama "You, Me and The Apocalypse," where the characters are forced to confront imminent extinction from an 8 mile wide comet hurtling towards earth. What would you do if you were told there were only 34 days before oblivion?
And Martin McDonagh's first UK play in ten years, Hangmen, receives its World Premiere at the Royal Court in London, and tells the fictional story of a rival to the well known hangman Albert Pierrepoint. How does Britain's second best-known executioner respond to the news that the British government is abolishing capital punishment?
42 min
September 12, 2015 Legend, Patrick deWitt, This Is England, Future Conditional, Drawing in Silver and Gold
Tom Hardy plays both Reggie and Ronnie Kray in Legend, the latest film to deal with the east end gangster twins
Patrick deWitt's new novel Undermajordomo Minor is the follow-up to the Booker shortlisted The Sisters Brothers. It's a bizarre fable of sorts set in an unspecified country and time.
This is England '90 is the fourth part of Shane Meadows' partly-autobiographical series. From the initial film, it has become a successful TV series for Channel 4
Rob Brydon plays a long-suffering teacher in Tamsin Oglesby's Future Conditional at London's Old Vic Theatre. It deals with the sticky business of getting your child into a good secondary school.
Drawing in Silver and Gold at British Museum looks at the once-popular art of metalpoint, with works from Rembrandt, Van Eyck, Hans Holbein, Otto Dix, Holman Hunt and more.
42 min
September 05, 2015 Jonathan Franzen, People, Places and Things, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Lady Chatterley, Dulwich Picture Gallery
Jonathan Franzen's latest novel Purity deals with the intrusiveness of the internet and social media though a mysterious family history and hacking and whistleblowing.
People Places and Things at The Dorfman Theatre is Duncan Macmillan's latest play, dealing with addiction, recovery and an individual's identity
Me and Earl and The Dying Girl, is a film which sort-of delivers what the title says. It's a teenage cancer weepy, but does it have anything new to say or a new way of saying it?
Lady Chatterley returns to the small screen in a new BBC adaptation. Modern sensibilities are less likely to be offended by some aspects than others. Should we let wives and servants watch this version?
We visit Dulwich Picture Gallery's permanent collection - the world's first purpose-built public art gallery founded in 1811.
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Meg Rosoff, David Olusoga and Stephanie Merritt. The producer is Oliver Jones.
42 min
August 29, 2015 Hamlet, Sensorium, 45 Years, Les Murray, Ascent of Woman
Benedict Cumberbatch's Hamlet has been much-anticipated and every ticket was sold out a year in advance; will our critics be dazzled or disappointed?
Sensorium at Tate Britain in London is a new exhibition which aims to stimulate all our senses as we view a selection of paintings. Can they enhance or distract us from the gallery experience?
Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling star in 45 Years, a British film about a couple celebrating their wedding anniversary when a long-forgotten event disturbs their happiness.
Poet Les Murray has been declared by The National Trust of Australia as one of the 100 Australian Living Treasures. Now 76, he has just published his latest collection: Waiting For The Past
BBC TV has begun a 4-part series The Ascent of Woman, looking at the history of women from the dawn of civilisation to the modern day.
Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Tracy Chevalier, Alice Rawsthorn and Kathryn Hughes. The Producer is Oliver Jones.
42 min
August 22, 2015 Saturday Review: Best of The Fest
In Edinburgh for The Festivals: Ian Rankin, Louise Welsh and James Runcie review Theatre de Complicite's The Encounter, Robert LePage's 887 Ex Machina, Adam Mars Jones' book about his father and dealing with Alzheimer's, Netflix's series Narcos, a new film about drug lord Pablo Escobar. And also their own selections from the rich array available in the city.
42 min
August 15, 2015 A Little Life, Trainwreck, John Hurt, Scandalous Lady W, Bedwyr Williams
Hanya Yanagihara's novel A Little Life is an expansive novel about a group of male friends in New York. It has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015.
American comic actor Amy Schumer stars in Trainwreck as a hard-living young woman for whom love turns her life around
Sir John Hurt plays the title role in Radio 4's adaptation of John Mortimer's 1989 play Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell; an entertainingly dissolute life spent in old Soho.
The Scandalous Lady W on BBC2 tells the story of an 18th century noblewoman whose infidelity led to a sensational public trial.
Bedwyr Williams is a Welsh artist who has exhibited work at The Venice Biennale and now has a show at The Whitworth in Manchester (Museum of The Year 2015).
42 min
August 08, 2015 Diary of a Teenage Girl, Splendour, Death by Video Game, York Art Gallery, Last Man on Earth
Controversial film Diary of a Teenage Girl deals with a 15 year old girl who looks for love and ends up sleeping with her mother's boyfriend.
Abi Morgan's play 2002 play Splendour is revived at London's Donmar Warehouse - 4 women deal with an imminent civil war, separately and together
Simon Parkin's book Death By Video Game looks ta the cultural significance and influence of the industry worth £3.9bn last year in the UK alone.
York Art Gallery has reopened after a 3 year £8m refit. Housing the Centre Of Ceramic Art, how well does it combine old masters with new pottery?
A new US TV comedy series Last Man On Earth has a central character who is a dreadful slob - why bother making an effort when you're alone on the planet? - does that make him too unappealing to like?
43 min