23/06/2012

Tom Sutcliffe and his guests novelist Gillian Slovo and writers Sarfraz Manzoor and Maev Kennedy review the week's cultural highlights including The Last of the Haussmans

Stephen Beresford's play The Last of the Haussmans at the National Theatre in London stars Julie Walters as Judy - an aging child of the 60s whose children Libby (Helen McCrory) and Nick (Rory Kinnear) feel that her lofty ideals are no substitute for proper parenting and a substantial inheritance.

The narrator of Ancient Light by John Banville is Alexander Cleave - an actor in his sixties, remembering the affair he had with his best friend's mother fifty years ago. But it soon becomes clear that his recollection of events may not be entirely reliable. And when he is cast in a film, there are odd echoes between the role he's playing and details of his own past life.

The Russian film Silent Souls - directed by Aleksei Fedorchenko - is a low-key kind of road movie in which a husband cremates his much-loved wife with the help of his best friend. The traditions and rituals which they adhere to are those of the Merjan - the remnants of a Finnish people who settled in Russia centuries ago.

Yoko Ono: To The Light is a retrospective of the artist's work at the Serpentine Gallery in London. It includes two versions of her Cut Piece in which audience members cut the clothes from her body with scissors and Amaze - a transparent plastic maze.

Veep is Armando Ianucci's HBO comedy starring Julia Louis Dreyfus as Selena Meyer - Vice President of the United States of America. Fans of The Thick of It will recognise the same bracing style making the journey from Whitehall to Washington.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.