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Saturday Review

321 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 4 years ago - ★★★★★ - 67 ratings

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

Society & Culture
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Episodes

The Nest, The Truth, The Bass Rock, Cranach at Compton Verney and Home Entertainment Recommendations

March 21, 2020 20:00 - 46 minutes - 42.4 MB

The Nest is the new Sunday night drama on BBC1 that raises questions around the ethics of surrogacy as a wealthy couple invite a young woman whose past is not known to them into their lives. The Truth is a French/Japanese production directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda who won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2018 for his film Shoplifters. It stars Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche in the story of an ageing actress who publishes her memoirs and is confronted by her daughter. Evie Wyld was named as...

Misbehaviour, On Blueberry Hill, Abi Dare, Warhol, Breeders and Kate+Koji

March 14, 2020 19:14 - 49 minutes - 45.5 MB

Misbehaviour is a new film about the 1970 Miss World pageant which saw the first black Miss World and was also disrupted by the nascent Women's Liberation movement who threw flour bombs at host Bob Hope Sebastian Barry's play On Blueberry Hill is set in a prison cell where two men's stories of how they got there become intertwined. Abi Daré's novel The Girl With The Louding Voice is the tale of Adunni, a fourteen year old Nigerian girl who has to go into domestic service in Lagos but is dete...

Hilary Mantel, The Mikvah Project, Sulphur and White, Among The Trees

March 07, 2020 19:14 - 54 minutes - 49.6 MB

Hilary Mantel's new novel - The Mirror and The Light - is the final part of her Thomas Cromwell trilogy. The previous two parts have sold millions of copies worldwide and garned prizes from all quarters. Can this one compare? The Mikvah Project is a new play at The Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond. Two Jewish men meet every Friday for ritual cleansing and a close friendship develops. Sulphur and White is a new British film which tells the true story of a highly successful banker who suffered ...

Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, Women Beware Women, Christos Tsiolkas, Leon Spilliaert, Noughts and Crosses

February 29, 2020 19:14 - 49 minutes - 45.2 MB

The newest film by French director Céline Sciamma (Tomboy, Girlhood) is Portrait Of A Lady On Fire. An 18th century painter is commissioned to paint a bride-to-be's wedding portrait and falls in love with her subject Women Beware Women is a play by Middleton just opened at The Globe Theatre in London. How do you navigate a society in which women are consciously and unconsciously commodified, coerced and controlled? Australian author Christos Tsiolkas came to international attention with his ...

Midnight Family, Masculinities exhibition, Actress by Anne Enright, Far Away by Caryl Churchill, I Am Not Okay With This

February 22, 2020 19:15 - 49 minutes - 44.9 MB

Mexican documentary Midnight Family follows a family-run private ambulance in Mexico City racing to the scenes of accidents in order to earn a living Masculinities:Liberation Through Photography, is a new exhibition at The Barbican in London, about how masculinity is experienced, perfomed, coded and socially constructed. Actress is the latest novel from Irish author by Anne Enright. A daughter looks back at her sometimes fractious relationship with her famous mother A revival of Caryl Church...

Stoppard -Leopoldstadt, Emma, Philip Hensher, Steve McQueen - Tate Modern, The End

February 15, 2020 19:14 - 56 minutes - 51.8 MB

Tom Stoppard has a new play - Leopoldstadt - a slightly autobiographical telling of the story of several generations of a wealthy Jewish family in Europe over 6 decades, from 1899 How many different cinematic versions of Jane Austen novels does the world need? What does The latest Emma - directed by a former photographer/ pop video director - bring that's new? A Small Revolution in Germany is the latest novel from Philip hensher. It follows the diverging paths of a group of young politica...

Mr Jones, Death of England, The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates, British Baroque, This Life

February 08, 2020 20:00 - 56 minutes - 51.6 MB

Director Agnieszka Holland assembles a cast including James Norton and Vanessa Kirby to tell the story of Welsh journalist Gareth Jones who in 1933 travelled to Soviet Russia and told the truth about the famine in Ukraine. At the National Theatre, Clint Dyer directs the play he has co-written with Roy Williams, Death of England, starring Rafe Spall as a white working-class man whose father has died and who has to face up to his conflicted feelings about his country and the people who live i...

Ingmar Bergman, The Lighthouse, William Gibson, The Art, Design and future of Fungi, Art on the BBC

February 01, 2020 19:14 - 56 minutes - 52 MB

Ingmar Bergman's 1966 film Persona has been adapted into a stage play and it is the opening production at the newly revamped Riverside Studios in London The Lighthouse, starring Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson is a black and white film set in a claustrophobic remote isolated lighthouse where the two keepers begin to rub each other up the wrong way William Gibson is a sci-fi writer whose latest novel Agency imagines a dystopian future world where time travel is possible but only virtually T...

David Copperfield, Welkin, Motherwell, Pregnancy exhibition, Windermere Children

January 28, 2020 15:47 - 50 minutes - 46.5 MB

Armando Iannucci has taken on Dickens' David Copperfield with Dev Patel in the lead role A new play by Lucy Kirkwood, Welkin, has opened at London's National Theatre. The Welkin is set in Norfolk in 1759, when a jury of matrons is called to try a female murder suspect who is 'pleading the belly' in order to avoid execution Motherwell is the memoir of journalist, the late Deborah Orr recounting her childhood and growing up in Scotland and trying to break from her family Portraying Pregnancy:...

Beckett triple bill, Bombshell, Avenue 5, American Dirt, Tullio Crali

January 18, 2020 19:15 - 53 minutes - 49.3 MB

A triple bill of Samuel Beckett plays has just started at London's Jermyn Street Theatre. Directed by Trevor Nunn, it's a chance to see Krapp's Last Tape as well as two lesser-known works - Eh Joe and The Old Tune.https://bit.ly/2Rm8AtG https://bit.ly/2uWA95b Bombshell has been Oscar nominated. It's the story of Roger Ailes' reign at Fox News and the sexual harrasment cases that were brought against him. It stars Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron and Margot Robbie Armando Iannucci has a new co...

1917, London International Mime Festival, King Gary, Ismail Kadare, Saad Qureshi,

January 11, 2020 19:15 - 52 minutes - 48.2 MB

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 winn...

Little Women, War Of The Worlds Immersive Experience, Untitled Goose Game, Graphic novels, podcasts

January 04, 2020 19:15 - 44 minutes - 40.6 MB

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 stu...

Listeners' cultural highlights of 2019

December 28, 2019 19:16 - 1 hour - 55.3 MB

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 Shahi...

Cats, Susan Hill's Ghost Story, Martin's Close, Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck, Gypsy

December 21, 2019 20:00 - 49 minutes - 45.5 MB

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. ...

Aquarela, Swive, Robert Musil, Theaster Gates, Sticks and Stones

December 13, 2019 19:15 - 50 minutes - 46.4 MB

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....

Fairview at Young Vic, So Long My Son, Annette Hess, John Walker, A Very Scandi Scandal

December 07, 2019 19:15 - 52 minutes - 48.1 MB

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 Frankf...

The Nightingale, My Brilliant Friend, Lee Child, Troy: myth and reality, Upright

November 30, 2019 19:15 - 55 minutes - 51 MB

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 Suppleme...

The Nightingale, My Brilliant Friend, Lee Child, Troy: Myth and Memory, Upright

November 30, 2019 19:15 - 55 minutes - 51 MB

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 Supplemen...

Dear Evan Hansen, Feast & Fast, Greener Grass, Irenosen Okojie, Ken Burns' Country series

November 23, 2019 19:15 - 49 minutes - 45.3 MB

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 tu...

The Gangster The Cop The Devil, Touching the Void, Romesh Gunesekera, Gold Digger, George IV : Art and Spectacle

November 16, 2019 19:15 - 50 minutes - 46.5 MB

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 G...

The Report, Shook, The Topeka School, 24/7 exhibition, The Morning Show

November 09, 2019 19:15 - 52 minutes - 47.7 MB

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 characte...

Making Waves, The Antipodes, Hanne Orstavik, His Dark Materials, Joy Labinjo

November 02, 2019 19:15 - 51 minutes - 47 MB

Making Waves: The Art Of Cinematic Sound is a documentary looking at (and listening to) the work of sound designers in film. What do they do and how do they affect the viewer? The Antipodes the latest play by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Annie Baker. Set in a brainstorming meeting for some undisclosed creative company, the tensions of office relationships and the need to be imaginative lead to tensions Hanne Orstavik's novel Love unfolds in a village in far northern Norway. Jon is a you...

Play Well, Monos, Vassa, Elizabeth Strout, The Accident

October 26, 2019 18:16 - 46 minutes - 42.9 MB

Play Well is a new exhibition opening at the Wellcome Collection in London, aiming to explore how play transforms both childhood and society. On a mountaintop in Colombia, eight children with guns watch over a hostage and a conscripted milk cow, communicated with over the radio by a threatening commander. That's the basic plot of a new film Monos, which has won awards at international festivals. Vassa is the new production at London's Almeida Theatre, adapted from Maxim Gorky's play by Mi...

Non Fiction, Stillicide and The Diver's Game, There Are No Beginnings, Pre-Raphaelite Sisters, Living With Yourself

October 19, 2019 19:00 - 54 minutes - 49.9 MB

Non Fiction is a very French film about writers and publishers debating the future of the book vs e-book. But the characters also all appear to be having affairs with each other: Tres Francais! But will our reviewers be seduced? Stillicide by Cynan Jones and The Diver's Game by Jesse Ball are two new dystopian novels which both authors insist are NOT dystopian. Who's right; The reader or the author? There Are No Beginnings is the play chosen to open the newly renovated Leeds Playhouse. Th...

The Day Shall Come, Man In The White Suit, Zadie Smith, Hogarth - Place and Progress

October 12, 2019 18:16 - 49 minutes - 44.9 MB

Chris Morris's film The Day Shall Come, is a very dark comedy about a genuine FBI operation to deal with potential domestic terrorists in the USA. Man In The White Suit was one of the highly-successful Ealing Comedy films. Released in 1951, it told the story of a man who invents a revolutionary fabric. Now adapted for the stage starring Stephen Mangan in the role originally played by Alec Guinness. Zadie Smith has published a collection of short stories called Grand Union. Hogarth exhibition...

Joker, Mary Costello, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, Dublin Murders, Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art

October 05, 2019 18:16 - 55 minutes - 51.1 MB

Joker: What was it about the new DC comic-based film which helped it to win the highest prize at this year's Venice Film Festival? Starring Joaquin Phoenix, it's a dark affair but is it deserving of the plaudits and prizes? Mary Costello's new novel "The River Capture" is set in rural Ireland where a young woman arrives and changes the life of those she meets A revival of A Day In The Death Of Joe Egg at London's Trafalgar Studios comes shortly after the death of its author Peter Nichols....

Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp, The Last Tree, The Dutch House, Mark Leckey, World on Fire

September 28, 2019 19:00 - 48 minutes - 44.2 MB

Caryl Churchill celebrated her 80th birthday last year. She's written four new short plays for the Royal Court, the theatre with which she's most closely associated: Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp. Horror and abuse flash through often very funny scenes played by a cast including Toby Jones and Deborah Findley. Shola Amoo's praised second feature The Last Tree is an account of a boy of Nigerian heritage who grows up in foster care in rural Lincolnshire and then goes to live with his mother...

The Farewell, Quichotte, Antony Gormley, Reasons to Stay Alive, Nomad: In The Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin

September 21, 2019 19:00 - 46 minutes - 43 MB

Lulu Wang's personal film The Farewell stars rapper Awkwafina in its lead role as a granddaughter not sure whether she should collude with a lie about her grandmother's health. Shot mostly in Mandarin Chinese, it's been a huge success at the US box office. Quichotte is Salman Rushdie's latest, Booker-shortlisted novel, a satire on contemporary life and politics. Does its Don Quixote-style plot take the reader with it on its wild ride? Antony Gormley's solo exhibition at the Royal Acade...

Hustlers, A Very Expensive Poison, Tove Ditlevsen, William Blake, State of the Union

September 14, 2019 18:00 - 50 minutes - 46.5 MB

Hustlers is a new crime drama film based on a 2015 article in New York magazine about a group of strippers in the USA who decided to embezzle money from the men who came to their club. A Very Expensive Poison at The Old Vic in London tells the story of the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB man who was poisoned in 2006 in London by agents of the Russian state. A trio of autobiographical works by the late Danish novelist Tove Ditlevsen have just been published: Childhood, Youth an...

Rojo, Hansard, James Meek, Rothschilds at Waddesdon Manor, Defending the Guilty

September 07, 2019 18:16 - 51 minutes - 46.7 MB

Argentinian film Rojo is set just before the 1975 military coup, looking at the simmering tensions and the complicity that made it happen and the way so many people turned a blind eye Hansard at London's National Theatre is a debut play. A junior Tory minister under Margaret Thatcher comes into deeply personal conflict with his politically-opposed wife over Clause 28 James Meek's novel 'To Calais In Ordinary Time' tells a story about 14th century Europe, written in a distinctive argot scatt...

The Souvenir, Bait, Appropriate, Mary Beth Keane, A Confession

August 31, 2019 18:16 - 50 minutes - 46.3 MB

Two Brit indie film productions arrive at once: Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir is a slightly autobiographical work about a struggling young film-maker's relationship with a charismatic drug addict. Also Bait; set in a fishing village in Cornwall and with an intentionally handmade aesthetic, it explores the tense relationship between locals and incomers. Appropriate at The Donmar Warehouse is a new play from Brandon Jacobs Jenkins. A family in the American south are dealing with the estate of th...

Almodovar's Pain and Glory, Robert Icke's The Doctor, Brassic, Peter Pomerantsev

August 24, 2019 18:16 - 50 minutes - 46.3 MB

Pedro Almodovar's new film Pain and Glory has been hailed as his most personal to date The Doctor at London's Almeida Theatre is Robert Icke's latest production. Freely adapted from Arthur Schnitzler's Professor Bernhardi, it's a play about ethics, morals and the repercussions of decisions both personal and professional. And how does what we say we are affect other people's perceptions of us? Peter Pomerantsev's "This is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality" is a book expl...

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Actually, Dora Maurer, Tea Obreht

August 17, 2019 19:00 - 50 minutes - 46.2 MB

Quentin Tarantino's 9th offering to the world (he's said he'll only do 10, then retire from directing) is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, part fable, part historical love letter to LA in the 60s. It deals with the point when The Manson Family drove a stake through the heart of the 1960s peace and love movement. Actually is a play by Annie Ziegler at London's Trafalgar Studios, dealing with the aftermath of an accusation of rape on a college campus Dora Maurer was born in Hungary in 1936 and...

At the Edinburgh Festivals, including The Secret River and the Pet Shop Boys Musical, Musik

August 12, 2019 08:58 - 50 minutes - 46.1 MB

We're at the Edinburgh Festivals, including the Pet Shop Boys/Jonathan Harvey musical starring Frances Barber: Musik. Also the stage adaptation of Kate Grenville's best-selling novel about the collision between settlers and Indigenous Australians, The Secret River. As well as the Bridget Riley retrospective at The National Gallery of Scotland and Blinded By The Light - the film of Safraz Mansoor's story about growing up in Luton and his love for the music of Bruce Springsteen. Also we find o...

There Is a Light That Never Goes Out, Animals, Colson Whitehead, Olafur Eliasson, This Way Up

August 03, 2019 18:16 - 47 minutes - 43.4 MB

There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, Scenes From The Luddite Rebellion has just opened at Manchester Royal Exchange. Combining verbatim recreations and imagined encounters, it looks at Manchester and England at the beginning of industrialisation Animals is a new film based on the novel by Emma Jane Unsworth. Two friends messily drift along and apart and back together in Dublin Colson Whitehead's new novel The Nickel Boys fictionalises the true story of a reform institution in Florida whe...

Bridges of Madison County, Die Tomorrow, Fosse/Verdon, Last Supper In Pompeii, David Constantine

July 27, 2019 18:16 - 57 minutes - 52.2 MB

Bridges of Madison County began life as a novel, then became a film and is now a musical. Opening at London's Menier Chocolate Factory, it stars Jenna Russell in the lead role. How does it work on the stage? Thai film Die Tomorrow sounds like it might be a Bond movie but is a thoughtful look at death and mortality; mixing different formats: documentary, drama, interview, but never showing any death Fosse/Verdon begins soon on BBC2. It's an American drama which tells the story of the astonis...

Making Noise Quietly, Night of the Iguana, The Moon, Laura Cummings, I Am Nicola

July 20, 2019 18:16 - 48 minutes - 44.3 MB

Theatre director Dominic Dromgoole has made his feature film debut with Making Noise Quietly; a triptych of stories about the effects of war. Tennessee Williams' play Night Of The Iguana is based on his 1948 novel and has just opened in a new production at London's Noel Coward Theatre, featuring Clive Own and Lia WIlliams An exhibition looking at mankind's relationship with The Moon begins at The Royal Maritime Museum in Greenwich Laura Cummings' biography of her mother's peculiar upbringing...

The Manchester International Festival: Tree, David Lynch at Home, Parliament of Ghosts, David Nicholls. Only You and much more

July 13, 2019 18:15 - 50 minutes - 46.4 MB

The Manchester International Festival is a biannual event, enveloping the city in a wide range of arts events across the genres. We'll be casting our critical net as wide as possible Film director David Lynch has curated a series of events at the venue Home, including an exhibition of his artwork and a series of concerts There's been controversy around the Idris ELba/ Kwame Kei Armah play Tree, but will our panel think it's any good? An exhibition by Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama; Parliamen...

Never Look Away, The End of History at London's Royal Court, 8 Days to the Moon, Fleischman Is in Trouble, Felix Vallotton

July 06, 2019 19:00 - 52 minutes - 48.4 MB

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's first film The Lives Of Others won the best Foreign Language Oscar, his follow-up The Tourist was a critical disaster. How will his latest - Never Look Away - fare critically and at the box office? Jack Thorne's latest play The End Of History has just opened at London's Royal Court Theatre. It's the story - over three decades - of a left-leaning family who love each other and love to bicker. 8 Days To The Moon on BBC TV follows the progress of the three a...

Support The Girls, The Hunt at The Almeida, Cut and Paste in Edinburgh, Grossman's Stalingrad

June 29, 2019 19:00 - 52 minutes - 48.3 MB

American indie film Support The Girls is set in a sports bar in America where the manager's day just keeps getting worse The Hunt stared life as a multi award winning Danish film. Its been adapted for the stage at The Almeida Theatre in London Cut and Paste; 400 Years of Collage in Edinburgh explores the sticky multi-shaped world of collage Vasily Grossman's novel Stalingrad was his successor to Life and Fate. The first translation into English is eagerly awaited. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are...

Bitter Wheat, Toy Story 4, Keith Haring, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Beecham House

June 22, 2019 19:00 - 48 minutes - 44.3 MB

Toy Story 4 hits the cinema screens. Featuring the voices of Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Keanu Reeves, and Annie Potts - as the kick-ass heroine Bo Peep - what does the Toy Story franchise have to offer the new generation of toy loving kids? John Malkovich returns to the stage after a 33 year absence to star in David Mamet's Bitter Wheat about a depraved Hollywood mogul . The play's protagonist Barney Fein is described "as a bloated monster – a studio head, who like his predecessor, the minota...

Diego Maradona, Sweat, Catch 22, Elif Shafak, Manolo Blahnik

June 15, 2019 19:00 - 51 minutes - 47.2 MB

Sweat, starring Martha Plimpton was a sel-out success when it premiered at London's Donmar Warehouse last year. Now it's got a West End transfer to the Gielgud Theatre Asif Kapadia won an Oscar for his biopic about Amy Winehouse. Now he's looking at Diego Maradona's extraordinary career as the finest footballer in the world and also his unravelling life off the pitch George Clooney appears in and is a producer and director for a new TV adaptation of Joseph Heller's Catch 22 on Channel 4 In...

Gloria Bell, Wife at The Kiln Theatre, Frank Bowling, Brian Bilston, Wild Bill

June 08, 2019 19:00 - 51 minutes - 47.3 MB

Chilean director Sebastián Lelio's 2013 film Gloria has been remade for an English-speaking audience as Gloria Bell. Starring Julianne Moore it's extremely faithful to the original; what's new about it? Wife is the latest play by Samuel Adamson which has just opened at The Kiln in London. Drawing on many influences including Ibsen's A Doll's House, it explores many decades of gay history Guyana-born artist Frank Bowling OBE has lived in then UK since he was a teenager and been a painter alm...

Starry Messenger, Thunder Road, This Brutal House, Hauser and Wirth Somerset, Good Omens

June 01, 2019 19:00 - 51 minutes - 46.8 MB

Matthew Broderick and Elizabeth McGovern in the London premiere of Kenneth Lonergan's play The Starry Messenger Thunder Road was made for $200,000 and went on to win awards at international film festivals. What was it about the film which beguiled jurists and audiences? Niven Govinden's novel This Brutal House looks at the New York drag scene of the 1980s and 90s Hauser and Wirth Somerset's latest exhibition ‘Unconscious Landscape: Works from the Ursula Hauser Collection’ is focused entirel...

Memoir of War, King Hedley II, Gerald Murnane, Leonardo Da Vinci, When They See Us

May 25, 2019 19:00 - 50 minutes - 45.9 MB

Memoir Of War,based on Marguerite Duras's book “La Douleur” is set in Occupied France. Critical opinion has varied widely from 'dreadful' and 'empty' to 'masterpiece'. What will our reviewers make of it? King Hedley II starring Lenny Henry, has opened at the Theatre Royal Stratford East Gerald Murnane's novel A Season On Earth tells the tale of a lustful teenager in Melbourne in the 1950s. It was originally published in 1976 and is now reissued as was originally intended; with two previo...

Birds of Passage, White Pearl, Thomas Harris/Denise Mina, Tale of Two Empires

May 18, 2019 19:00 - 54 minutes - 50.3 MB

Colombian film Birds of Passage explores the emergence of illegal drug trading in the 60s and 70s and it's ghastly effects and lasting legacy on family. Corporate black comedy White Pearl has opened at London's Royal Court. About 6 Asian women in an office in Singapore who try to fix a problem when their advertisement goes viral by mistake. And then things spiral out of control. New novels from Thomas Harris - Cari Mora: set in Miami, monsters lurk in the crevices between male desire and f...

Death of a Salesman, The Hustle, The Virtues, Mark Haddon, David Nash

May 11, 2019 19:00 - 50 minutes - 46.1 MB

The latest production at London's Young Vic Theatre is Death of a Salesman. It recasts the Lomans as an African-American family with Wendell Pierce as WIlly Rebel Wilson and Anne Hathaway play female con artists in Chris Addison's directorial debut, The Hustle. It's a gender-swap reworking of 1988 comedy film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels; but is it funny? Shane Meadows has created a new 4 part drama for Channel 4: The Virtues, starring Stephen Graham as a traumatised young man who grows up and be...

The Long Shot, Jude, Making Your Mark at British Library, The Heavens

May 04, 2019 19:00 - 49 minutes - 44.9 MB

Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen star in Long Shot playing an American presidential hopeful and a lovable doofus. Take a wild guess who plays which part? Howard Brenton's new play Jude -at The Hampstead Theatre - is a re-imagining of Thomas Hardy's Jude The Obscure with a Syrian cleaner who possesses a prodigious skill set in the classics and ancient languages - as the title character Writing: Making Your Mark is the newest exhibition at The British Library. It charts 5,000 years of human in...

Eighth Grade, All My Sons, Lux by Elizabeth Cook, Stanley Kubrick, Curry House Kid

April 27, 2019 19:00 - 52 minutes - 48.3 MB

Youtube star/standup comedian Bo Burnham has now turned his hand to film directing and his debut work is a coming-of-age tale: Eighth Grade. It's about a 15 year old girl dealing with the trials and tribulations of high school life, discovering how the world works and why. Arthur Miller's All My Sons was his breakthrough work when it debuted on Broadway in 1947. A new production at London's Old Vic theatre stars Sally Field and Bill Pullman Lux is the latest historical novel by Elizabeth C...

Sweet Charity, Machines Like Me, Smoke and Mirrors: The Psychology of Magic, Loro

April 20, 2019 19:00 - 49 minutes - 45.3 MB

Josie Rourke returns to the work of Cy Coleman, who wrote the music for City of Angels; with the Broadway classic Sweet Charity. With choreography from the world-renowned Wayne McGregor, Rourke reunites with Anne-Marie Duff as Charity, and Arthur Darvill makes his Donmar debut as Oscar, for her farewell production as Donmar Artistic Director. During Sweet Charity, multiple guest actors will play the role of Daddy Brubeck including Shaq Taylor, Adrian Lester, Le Gateau Chocolat, Beverley Kni...