Saturday Review

Tom Sutcliffe and his guests playwright Mark Ravenhill, writer Kamila Shamsie and poet Paul Farley review the cultural highlights of the week.

Self Made is artist Gillian Wearing's film in which seven participants - who answered an ad which she placed - take part in Method acting workshops and then make a short film in which they can play themselves or a fictional character.

Children's author David Almond's novel The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean is intended for both young and adult readers. Billy is born on the day that some terrible cataclysm strikes his village and - for this and other reasons - is confined to just one room for the first 13 years of his life.

Alexi Kaye Campbell's play The Faith Machine is about disillusionment and the big question of what really matters. Sophie (Hayley Atwell) is fiercely idealistic while her partner Tom (Kyle Soller) is considerably more pragmatic. Meanwhile Sophie's father (Ian McDiarmid) is a bishop who rails against the church for their unyielding stance on gay clergy and gay marriage.

William Hurt stars as Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson in the HBO dramatisation of Andrew Ross Sorkin's book about the start of the Wall Street banking crisis in 2008 with the bail-out of Bear Stearns followed by the failure of Lehman Brothers.

Locked Room Scenario is an exhibition by Ryan Gander in and around an industrial shed just off City Road in London. Visitors to the site will find what appears to be a group show called Field of Meaning in the process of being dismantled, but will struggle to get into the gallery to see the work. Tantalising clues to what might or might not be going on are scattered around the site.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Tom Sutcliffe and guests historian Kathryn Hughes, novelist Louise Doughty and writer Jim White discuss the cultural highlights of the week including the film The Skin I Live In.

The Skin I Live In is Spanish director Pedro Almodovar's latest film. Ever since his wife died of her burns in a car crash, surgeon Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas) has been interested in creating a new skin with which he could have saved her. After twelve years, he manages to cultivate a skin that is a real shield against every assault. But the research laboratory in his own home has its own sinister secret.

The Genius in My Basement, the Biography of a Happy Man is Alexander Masters' story of mathmatics genius Simon Phillips Norton. Simon is exploring a theoretical puzzle so complex and critical to our understanding of the universe, that it is known as the Monster. This is Masters' folllow-up to his critically acclaimed Stuart: A Life Backwards

Bartlett Sher's production of South Pacific reinvents Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic musical. It swept the 2008 Tony Awards, played to sold-out houses on Broadway for 2 years, was televised across America, and now makes its London debut.

The tenth anniversary of 9/11 is almost upon us. Memory Remains: 9/11 Artifacts at Hangar 17 at the Imperial War Museum is a photographic exhibition by artist Francesc Torres to mark the 10th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks. We juxtapose that with a visit to another exhibition. The Museum of Broken Relationships is a touring exhibition, now open in London, which has collected together the weird and wonderful paraphernalia of hundreds of failed romances.

Phase Eight is a contemporary spy film, by David Hare, featuring Johnny, played by Bill Nighy, a long-serving MI5 officer. His boss and best friend Benedict dies suddenly, leaving behind him an inexplicable file, threatening the very stability of the organisation. Johnny is forced to walk out of his job, and then out of his identity, to find out the truth.

Producer: Anne Marie Cole.

Tom Sutcliffe and his guests writer Natalie Haynes; novelist Louise Welsh and musician Pat Kane review the cultural highlights of the week including In A Better World.

This award winning Danish film tells the story of Anton, a doctor who commutes between his home in an idyllic town in Denmark, and his work at an African refugee camp. His older son Elias is being bullied at school but is befriended by Christian, and the boys form a strong bond, but when Christian involves Elias in a dangerous act of revenge their lives are put in danger.

Precious Light is a contemporary celebration of the King James Bible by David Mach. His exhibition of sculpture and collage is at The City Art Centre, Edinburgh and features a dramatic depiction of the crucifixion at Calvary, sculptures made from match heads and coat hangers and his trademark witty and intricate approach to collage.

Turner prize winning artist Tony Cragg's exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art features around fifty major sculptures, some of which are on a monumental scale and are sited in the Gallery's grounds. Cragg has worked in materials such as plastic, bronze, glass, stainless steel and wood.

The novel The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje is set in the early 1950s, when an eleven-year-old boy boards a ship bound for England. At mealtimes he is seated at the "cat's table" with a ragtag group of "insignificant" adults and two other boys. As the ship makes its way across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal and into the Mediterranean, the boys tumble from one adventure to another, "bursting all over the place like freed mercury." But there are other diversions: one man talks to them about jazz and women, another about literature. And at night, the boys spy on a shackled prisoner - his crime and fate, a mystery that will haunt them.

Finally a selection of theatre presented at the Edinburgh festival, among them Marc Almond and Mark Ravenhill's song cycle Ten Plagues; and Art Malik and his daughter Keira starring in Rose, a play about a cultural hybrid who believes he will thrive best if he cuts off his roots altogether

Producer: Anne Marie Cole.

Bidisha and her guests comedian David Schneider, novelist Deborah Moggach and theatre writer David Benedict review the week's cultural highlights including Anna Christie.

Anna Christie is Eugene O'Neill's stormy, sea-swept play about a woman returning to the docks and sailors' bars where her sea-lag father drinks himself into oblivion. He's trying to forget his guilt at having sent her away to a farm when she was a little girl. He thought he was sending her to safety, but land turned out to be just as dangerous as the sea. In Rob Ashton's production at the Donmar Warehouse in London, Ruth Wilson plays Anna, for whom redemption seems to come in the form of Jude Law's virile Irishman, Mat Burke. But he knows nothing about her former life - and when he finds out, all hell and hypocrisy break loose.

The Artist of Disappearance is a trio of novellas by the internationally acclaimed writer Anita Desai. These novellas are a sober, carefully written lot, dealing with the past and its mementoes: a young government worker visits a museum full of artefacts from colonial voyages; a translator tries to render some literature in a minority dialect for a wider audience, and a hermit-like man finds his solitude disrupted by a film crew documenting the ravages of climate change.

Project Nim is director James Marsh's documentary about a group of American scientists and researchers who, in the 1970s, decide to try to teach a chimpanzee sign language and bring it up in all respects as a human baby. A 10 day old chimp - Nim Chimpsky, named in satirical honour of the academic Noam Chomsky, who'd scoffed at the project - is taken from his mother and handed over to one of psychology professor Herb Terrace's former students to bring up. The documentary tells the story of Nim's chequered life and of the consequences of the scientists' intervention on their own relationships - and their conscience.

Debbie Tucker Green's play Random debuted to great success at the Royal Court in 2009. Its star was actress Nadine Marshall, who played all the different roles of a black British London family going about their business on a spring morning, until their lives are transformed by a devastating event. Debbie Tucker Green has now adapted the play for Channel 4 and also directs it, while Nadine Marshall returns to narrate and to play one of the characters.

Curtain Call is the latest attempt by the Roundhouse in North London to capitalise on its vast, rotund shape. Designer Ron Arad has put up a giant round curtain made up of 5,600 white silicon rods hanging from the ceiling, with a diameter of 18 metres. You step inside and sit yourself down to watch a 2 hour loop of video pieces by a variety of contributors from fashion designer Hussein Chalayan to students from the Royal College of Art. Is it the perfect meeting of form and function? Or is it like watching a big Imax screen?

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Bidisha and her guests the writers Lisa Appignanesi, Ekow Eshun and Misha Glenny review the week's cultural highlights including A Midsummer Night's Dream at the RSC.

Nancy Meckler's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon is set in the 1960s and has comedian Marc Wooton playing the role of Bottom. Imaginative lighting effects and choreography are used to conjure up a suitably otherworldly backdrop for the supernatural events that play out in a forest outside Athens.

Queenie Dove is the narrator of Jill Dawson's novel Lucky Bunny. She grows up in the East End of London during the 1930s and 40s, learning to use her talent for deception to her best advantage. After the war she finds herself rubbing shoulders with recognisable characters from London's demi-monde as she carves out a shadowy but independent life for herself.

French director Julie Bertuccelli's film The Tree stars Charlotte Gainsbourg as a widowed mother bringing up her four children in rural Queensland. Her daughter Simone is convinced that her late father has taken up residence in the huge fig tree that looms over the house, a conviction that grows stronger as the tree itself begins to endanger the family.

Channel 4's new late night arts season Street Summer is a celebration of street culture and includes films about graffiti, hip hop and streetdance. Bidisha and her guests have watched two programmes from the season: Concrete Circus which features four street athletes who have become YouTube legends and One Man Walking - a piece of contemporary urban choreography.

The exhibition Joffe et Pye is an attempt by the artists Jasper Joffe and Harry Pye to revive salon culture in East London. Held in Joffe's studio-cum-home it features paintings by both artists which celebrate friends and family... and Snoopy.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Tom Sutcliffe and his guests writer Gillian Slovo, historian Dominic Sandbrook and anthropologist Kit Davis review the week's cultural highlights including Julian Barnes' new novel.

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes is narrated by Tony Webster, a man in his sixties who is forced to think again about the story of his life when he receives a lawyer's letter about an unexpected and puzzling bequest. His problem is that he can't be sure how reliable his memory is about two significant events in his life.

Lee Chang-dong's film Poetry won the Korean director the Best Screenplay award at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Yun Jung-hee plays Mija - a woman who is diagnosed at the beginning of the film as being in the early stages of Alzheimer's. She also discovers that the surly and ungrateful teenage grandson who is living with her has committed a crime which has led to a girl's suicide - she finds herself coerced into persuading the girl's mother to hush the matter up.

The starting point for Nicholas Wright's play Rattigan's Nijinsky - which has premiered at the Chichester Festival Theatre - is an unfilmed screenplay which Rattigan wrote in 1974 for the BBC, about the relationship between Sergei Diaghilev and the brilliant young Russian dancer. Wright locates the drama in Rattigan's suite at Claridges where episodes from the Nijinsky script play out between the playwright's meetings with the dancer's widow and with a BBC producer.

Amy Winehouse's death has generated a huge amount of instant reaction copy in the press. Tom and his guests have been reading news stories, tributes and opinion pieces to get a sense of how the British media have responded to this sad event -- and to what extent they have attempted to fit Winehouse's death into the same well-worn template of rock-star misbehaviour that characterised most of the coverage of her while she was alive.

The Borgias is a Showtime mini-series about the prominent Renaissance family which is being shown on Sky Atlantic. Written by the Irish writer and filmmaker Neil Jordan, it stars Jeremy Irons as Rodrigo Borgia whose elevation to the papacy is the subject of the first episode. Sex, poisoning and corruption soon enter the picture.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Tom Sutcliffe and his guests the writers Malorie Blackman, David Aaronovitch and Lindsay Johns review the week's cultural highlights including the film Beginners.

Mike Mills' film Beginners stars Ewan McGregor as Oliver, a lonely graphic designer mourning his father Hal (Christopher Plummer) who came out when he was widowed at the age of 75. Oliver's only companion is the dog he's inherited from his father until he meets a beautiful French actress.

Hari Kunzru's novel Gods Without Men features a set of interlocking narratives stretching from the 18th century to the present day, all located around a mysterious rock formation in the California desert. Echoing through them all are child disappearances, mysterious arrivals and the possibility of contact with extraterrestrial beings.

Loyalty at the Hampstead Theatre in London is writer Sarah Helms' first play. Described as a fictionalised memoir, it is based on Helms' experience as the partner of Jonathan Powell - Tony Blair's former Chief of Staff - before and during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Laura (played by Maxine Peake) is opposed to the war, while her partner Nick (Lloyd Owen) is busy planning it with Tony Blair (Patrick Baladi) leading to inevitable conflict on the home front.

Kenneth Grange: Making Britain Modern at the Design Museum in London is a celebration of the designer behind a host of hugely familiar objects including the parking meter, the Kodak Instamatic camera, the Kenwood Chef, the Wilkinson Sword razor and the Intercity 125 high speed train.

Marcus du Sautoy is the current Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and the presenter of the BBC2 series The Code. Over three programmes he aims to show how profound mathematical principles underlie everything we perceive in the natural and manmade world.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Tom Sutcliffe and his guests the historian Kathryn Hughes and the writers Kevin Jackson and Adam Mars Jones review the cultural highlights of the week including The Tree of Life.

The Tree of Life is Terrence Malick's allusive and fragmented film based notionally around a 1950s Texan family - Mr and Mrs O'Brien (Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain) and their three sons - but which also swoops giddily around a time-frame that stretches from the birth of the universe and the evolution of life on Earth to the present day and then on to some kind of afterlife.

That Day We Sang is a play with songs by Victoria Wood which was commissioned by the Manchester International Festival and is playing at the Manchester Opera House. It takes for its inspiration a famous recording of Purcell's Nymphs and Shepherds performed by a choir of Manchester schoolchildren in 1929. The play cuts between 1929 and 1970 when some of the former choir members have their memories of that day triggered by a TV documentary.

Scenes from Village Life by Amos Oz is a collection of linked short stories which describe a small settlement in Israel - each story concentrating on a different inhabitant of the village. Most of the characters seem to be looking for someone or something or are unsettled by a presence at the edge of their perception. The village seems to be pervaded by a sense of loneliness and irrationality.

To mark the centenary of Mervyn Peake's birth, Brian Sibley has adapted the writer's Gormenghast novels for the Classic Serial on Radio 4. The History of Titus Groan has a cast which includes David Warner, Miranda Richardson, James Fleet and Tamsin Grieg and brings alive the grotesque and gothic world of Gormenghast over the course of six episodes.

Sarah Waters' best-selling novel The Night Watch has been adapted for BBC2 by Paula Milne. Set during the Second World War and its aftermath it features Anna Maxwell Martin as Kay - a gay ambulance-woman - and makes great use of flashbacks to explain the complicated tensions that exist between her friends and former lovers.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Sarfraz Manzoor and his guests writer Bidisha, actor Kerry Shale and theatre writer David Benedict review the cultural highlights of the week including Richard III at the Old Vic.

The last time Sam Mendes directed Kevin Spacey was in the 1999 film American Beauty and they both won Oscars. Now the pair are reunited at the Old Vic in London for Mendes' production of Richard III with Spacey playing the power-crazed Plantagenet.

The action in Aatish Taseer's novel Noon takes place over two decades - from the mid 80s to the present day - and focuses on Rehan Tabassum as he travels from the West back to India and Pakistan, trying to reconcile himself with his long absent father and struggling to come to terms with his ambivalent feelings for his homeland.

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi's film A Separation is set in present-day Tehran. It tells the story of a couple - Simin and Nader - whose marriage runs into trouble when they can't agree on whether or not to leave the country with their 11 year old daughter and Nader's senile father. The film has picked up a succession of awards including the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.

The BBC1 drama Stolen - written by Stephen Butchard and directed by Justin Chadwick - stars Damian Lewis as a police officer working in the Human Trafficking Unit, investigating cases of children being trafficked into the country to be sold on and exploited.

Eyewitness: Hungarian Photography in the 20th Century is an exhibition at the Royal Academy in London which demonstrates the extraordinary influence that a handful of photographers had when they left Hungary after the First World War and moved to Western Europe and the USA. More than 200 photographs showcase the trailblazing work of Brassai, Robert Capra, Andre Kertesz, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Martin Munkacsi.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.