15/09/2012

Tom Sutcliffe and his guests novelist Alex Preston and writers Miranda Sawyer and Kevin Jackson review the week's cultural highlights including Jonathan Pryce as King Lear.

Jonathan Pryce is cast in the title role in Michael Attenborough's production of King Lear at the Almeida Theatre in London. Phoebe Fox plays his youngest daughter, Cordelia, who doesn't give her father the response he was expecting when he starts carving up his kingdom.

Lawrence Norfolk's novel John Saturnall's Feast is set in Somerset before, during and after the Civil War. John Saturnall is an orphan who finds work in the kitchens of Buckland Manor where his prodigious skills with food win him friends and foes alike. But at the back of his mind is always his mother's account of an ancient pagan feast which has been handed down over generations.

Guy Maddin is a Canadian film director whose previous works include the autobiographical film My Winnipeg. His new offering Keyhole initially has the trappings of a film noir when the gangster Ulysses Pick (Jason Patric) returns to his home under heavy police gunfire. He is trying to find his wife Hyacinth (Isabella Rossellini) but he has to make his way through every room of the house - encountering its ghosts - before he can reach her.

Hunted is a new spy drama on BBC One, written by Frank Spotnitz, creator of The X-Files. Melissa George stars as Sam Hunter - the most skilled operative of a private espionage company. Sam drops out of sight for a year after things go badly wrong on a job in north Africa. When she gets back in the saddle, she wants to find out who's trying to kill her and why.

Bronze is an exhibition at the Royal Academy which celebrates the use of this versatile alloy with a selection of more than 150 of some of the finest bronzes from Asia, Africa and Europe spanning a period of over 5000 years.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.