Cate Blanchett's appearance on London's theatre scene has caused so much excitement that ticket allocation is by ballot; When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other: Twelve Variations on Samuel Richardson's Pamela at the National Theatre is described as "six characters who act out a dangerous game of sexual domination and resistance." When Franz Kafka died in 1924, he left instructions that any remaining manuscripts should be burnt. These instructions were not followed and a legal battle ensue...
Jan 26, 2019•45 min
A new film telling the story of Mary Queen of Scots and her relationship with Elizabeth I, stars Saiorse Ronan and Margot Robbie as the 2 queens Approaching Empty is a new play by Ishy Din just opened at The Kiln Theatre in London. Set in a run-down minicab office in the north of England, it deals with how far you can trust your oldest friends Prix Goncourt-winning Leila Slimani's latest novel Adele is about a woman who - bored with her apparently idyllic married life - decides to plunge into a ...
Jan 19, 2019•50 min
The staging of all Harold Pinter's one act plays at The Pinter Theatre in London continues - We've been to see Party Time and Celebration Stan and Ollie is a film that examines the relationship between the two film comedy pioneers Laurel and Hardy as they toured the UK in their twilight years. Starring Steve Coogan and John C Reilly it deals with their occasional disputes and deep love and respect for each other Eric Vuillard's novel The Order Of The Day won 2017's Prix Goncourt. It's about Hitl...
Jan 12, 2019•49 min
Is 2019 the year to try something new? In this alternative edition of Saturday Review presented by Jordan Erica Webber, the panel review a fashion exhibition, a horror podcast, a murder mystery video game, two coming of age graphic novels and try to get out of a World War Two themed escape room. The Return of the Obra Dinn, a video game set in the 1807 in which you take on the role of an insurance adjuster, tasked with investigating a ship that has drifted into harbour after five years lost at s...
Jan 05, 2019•42 min
Find out what Saturday Review listeners chose as their cultural highlights of 2018. 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 Ekow Eshun and lots of listeners on the phone from around the country, who tell us what particularly impressed them last year. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast extra recommendations: Ekow: Stran...
Dec 29, 2018•1 hr 21 min
Mary Poppins returns to the silver screen with Emily Blunt in the title role and Lin-Manuel Miranda as Jack the lamplighter. It's a sequel not a remake with all new songs very much in the style of The Sherman Brothers' originals. Is it unfair to compare it with the much-loved Disney original? or is it impossible not to? The screenwriter of Black Panther, Danai Gurira's play The Convert at London's Young Vic stars Letitia Wright and Paapa Essiedu. Set in late 19th century Africa, a young woman is...
Dec 22, 2018•47 min
Mike Bartlett's play Snowflake is at The Old Fire Station in Oxford. It centres around a father who is awaiting the return of his daughter who walked out of his life 2 years before. Will she return? Why did she leave? Who is the young woman who arrives while he's waiting? It's a play for Christmas with warmth at its heart Mowgli: Legend Of The Jungle is the latest version of The Jungle Book just released on Netflix. Directed by Andy Serkis and starring motion-capture animals with famous voice ac...
Dec 15, 2018•50 min
Christopher Marlow's Doctor Faustus at Shakespeare's Globe in London stars Jocelyn Jee Esian as Faustus and Pauline McLynn as Mephistopheles and is directed by Paulette Randall. Jean Luc Godard's The Image Book is described as an avant-garde horror movie, a vast mosaic of image and sound exploring the modern Arabic world. It was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. Although it did not win the official prize, the jury awarded it the first "Special Palme d'Or" i...
Dec 08, 2018•49 min
Jean Genet's play The Maids has been adapted for an all-male cast at HOME in Manchester Alfonso Cuaron's latest film Roma won the top prize at this year's Venice Film Festival. Made with funding from Netflix it is getting a limited cinema release before it is available online in order to be eligible for Oscar consideration. Turbulence is the newest book from David Szalay; a collection of 12 interconnected short stories all of which revolve around international flights London's National Gallery h...
Dec 01, 2018•49 min
The Coen Brothers take on the Western movie in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Made with money from Netflix, is it REALLY a cinema release? Hadestown is a musical that's stopping off at London's National Theatre on its way from Off-Broadway to Broadway. It sets the Greek myth of story of Orpheus and Eurydice in modern New Orleans (and the underworld of course!) and reimagines the sweeping ancient tale as a timeless allegory for today's world. Chris Kraus wrote the bestseller I Love Dick and now fo...
Nov 24, 2018•54 min
The latest production of Macbeth at London's Globe Theatre sees real-life husband and wife, Paul Ready and Michelle Terry play the murderous couple French film The Workshop is about a young people's writer's group where tensions over the plot development spill into the film's own story-line Italian author Elena Ferrante's multi-million selling, globally-successful novels are coming to the TV. My Brilliant Friend has been adapted and directed by Saverio Costanzo: a man! Some avid fans have wonder...
Nov 17, 2018•46 min
Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan in Paul Dano's directorial debut Wildlife; a story of familial unravelling in 1960s America Middle England is Jonathan Coe's latest novel; the third part of his trilogy which began in 2001 with The Rotters Club. It follows the same characters and their offspring dealing with life from 2010 to today Jane Austen began - but never finished - a book which became known as The Watsons. In Laura Wade's new play opening at Chichester's Festival Theatre she picks up the...
Nov 10, 2018•50 min
Mike Leigh's film Peterloo is his biggest budget film. 200 years ago mounted yeomanry massacred unarmed protesters in Manchester who had gathered to demand their rights. The story is not often taught in schools and this film aims to increase public awareness of the barbarity and indifference of the authorities. We're reviewing 2 illustrated story books; Booker Prize winner George Saunders follows up Lincoln In The Bardo with a story apparently written by a fox. Also Posy Simmonds "Cassandra Dark...
Nov 03, 2018•49 min
Gus Van Sant's new film Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot is about John Callahan; the quadriplegic, alcoholic cartoonist whose work skewered the lives of disabled people and those who patronise them. An exhibition of the work of pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones has opened at Tate Britain in London. Its their first major retrospective of his work for 75 years and includes works that have never been on public display before. Following BBC TV's enormous success with The Night Manager t...
Oct 27, 2018•48 min
They Shall Not Grow Old is a film directed and created by Peter Jackson about The First World War. Compiled using colourised and painstakingly-restored footage from 100 years ago accompanied by the testimonies of the soldiers who fought. Is it tampering with history or an exciting new way to bring it back to life? Oceania at The Royal Academy is the first major survey of Oceanic art to be held in the UK, featuring art from Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia. From New Guinea to Easter Island , H...
Oct 20, 2018•49 min
First Man is a film about astronaut Neil Armstrong's life in the lead-up to the Apollo 11 moon-landing mission. The Modern Couples exhibition at The Barbican Gallery shines a spotlight upon the often under-appreciated partners of artistic geniuses whose contribution to their work and achievements has been hitherto unacknowledged or unknown. Jonathan Price and Eileen Atkins star in The Height Of The Storm, a new play by Florian Zeller translated by Christopher Hampton which has just opened in Lon...
Oct 13, 2018•48 min
The latest reworking of the classic film story of a performer-on-the-wain-being-eclipsed-by-his-protege, A Star Is Born features Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper as the two leads. It has received 5 star reviews all over the place; what will our reviewers make of it? There's a double-bill of Harold Pinter plays; The Lover and The Collection opening in London as part of Pinter At The Pinter. A series of one-act plays at the theatre named after the playwright. Berta Isla is the latest novel from award-...
Oct 06, 2018•50 min
Two For Joy is a British film starring Samantha Morton, Billie Piper and Daniel Mays. a study of family tensions, depression and hope Poet In Da Corner is a play that explores how grime music (and Dizzee rascal's award-winning album Boy In Da Corner in particular) changed the life of a young Mormon girl in Essex who transformed from Deborah Stevenson into Grime MC Debris. It's about how an album can turn your life around. Sarah Perry's 2016 novel The Essex Serpent was a runaway prize-winning suc...
Sep 29, 2018•49 min
Lenny Abrahamson's The Little Stranger, based on the novel by Sarah Waters, is set in the austerity-era Britain of 1948. Domhnall Gleeson is Dr Faraday who is called out to a patient at Hundreds Hall, a country manor where his mother once worked as a housemaid. The Little Stranger also stars Ruth Wilson, Charlotte Rampling and Will Poulter. Giacomo Puccini's Tosca in a new production by Opera North opens at the Grand Theatre in Leeds, directed by Edward Dick, conducted by Antony Hermus and starr...
Sep 22, 2018•50 min
Christian Marclay's acclaimed 24 hour video installation The Clock at Tate Modern is a montage of thousands of film and television clips that depict clocks or reference time and operates as a journey both through cinematic history as well as a functioning timepiece. The installation is synchronised to local time wherever it is on display, transforming artificial cinematic time into a sensation of real time inside the gallery. John Carroll Lynch's debut feature Lucky stars Harry Dean Stanton in h...
Sep 15, 2018•46 min
The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a new film set in the US in the 90s; Cameron (played by Chloe Grace Moretz) is a teenage lesbian sent to a gay conversion centre but not really motivated to try and change Humans has transferred from an award-winning run on Broadway to The Hampstead Theatre in London. An American family gather together for Thanksgiving supper and all the worries and fears bubble to the surface. But it's not all grim soul-searching Phoebe Waller Bridge is the name behind Killin...
Sep 08, 2018•53 min
The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in London is an intimate candle-lit theatre space ideally suited for Shakespeare productions. Their latest is Love's Labour's Lost, played largely as broad comedy... how does it handle the pathos? Polish film Cold War won the Best Director Palme d'Or this year. It's a love story set in Soviet era Poland and the obstacles which make reaching for hope and resolution sometimes seem impossible A new TV drama series co-production from BBCTV and Netflix looks at the interna...
Sep 01, 2018•51 min
A revival of Michael Frayn's multi award-winning 1998 play Copenhagen at The Chichester Minerva Theatre. 20 years on from the original production how does it stand up and what does it say to the new audiences? Ian McEwan's novel The Children Act has been adapted for the big screen by Richard Eyre, starring Emma Thompson, Fion Whitehead and Stanley Tucci All Among The Barley is Melissa Harrison's new novel. The Costa and Bailey's nominee explores the rhythms of rural life between The Wars and how...
Aug 25, 2018•53 min
We're in Edinburgh for the festivals. In venues throughout the city there's a barrage of theatre, cabaret, music, books, kids' shows; something for everyone, . We're reviewing Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord's productions of The Beggar's Opera and La Maladie de la Mort as well as National Theatre Of Scotland's Midsummer. Also Raqib Shaw exhibition; Reinventing The Old Masters. We're discussing Andrew Miller's novel Now We Shall Be Entirely Free and the film The Eyes of Orson Welles. AND mentioning a...
Aug 18, 2018•48 min
Iceland's film industry is not a big player around the globe, but it does create character-driven small-scale works. Under The Tree is a very dark Icelandic comedy film about what happens when neighbours fall out and civility begins to evaporate. There's a revival of Brian Friel's Aristocrats, a play about a Catholic family on its uppers in Donegal just opened at London's Donmar Warehouse. Michael Hughes new novel, Country, is a re-imagining of The Iliad, set in the sticky lethal politics of par...
Aug 11, 2018•47 min
Italian film Sicilian Ghost Story is based on a real life kidnapping of the son of a Mafia supergrass The new production of Othello at London's Globe Theatre includes Mark Rylance as Iago HBO's Succession is a new series telling the story of a media empire led by an ageing patriarch which is thrown into confusion when he suffers a brain haemorrhage: which of his children is capable of taking over the responsibilities and pressures of running the company? Magic Realism: Art in Weimar Germany 1919...
Aug 04, 2018•50 min
Apostasy is a British film about disfellowship in Jehovah's Witness congregations. How do families cope when their religious beliefs come into conflict with contemporary social mores. London's National Theatre is staging its first production of a play by Eugene Ionesco. Adapted and directed by Patrick Marber, Exit The King stars Rhys Ifans as a monarch who knows he will die before the end of the play. Olivia Laing's first novel Crudo was written in real time in 7 weeks during 2017, recording her...
Jul 28, 2018•49 min
Alan Bennett's new play Allelujah! opens at the Bridge Theatre in London directed by Nicholas Hytner, with music by George Fenton and choreography by Arlene Phillips. It stars Deborah Findlay, Rosie Ede, Sacha Dhawan, Manish Gandhi and Simon Williams. The Beth, an old fashioned cradle-to-grave hospital serving a town on the edge of the Pennines, is threatened with closure as part of an NHS efficiency drive. Meanwhile, a documentary crew eager to capture its fight for survival follows the daily s...
Jul 21, 2018•48 min
Incredibles 2 is writer / director Brad Bird's long awaited sequel to the Oscar winning Incredibles (2005). Produced by Pixar Animation Studios the film follows the Parr family as they balance regaining the public's trust of superheroes with their civilian family life, only to face a new foe who seeks to turn the populace against them. The voice cast includes Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell and Samuel L. Jackson. Sam Mendes (Skyfall, King Lear, The Ferryman) returns to the National's...
Jul 14, 2018•52 min
There's a new Whitney Houston documentary by Kevin MacDonald. It explores her life her stratospheric successes and her demons which led to her premature death AM Homes has a collection of 13 short stories. Days of Awe explores the heart of contemporary America The Jungle is a play about an Afghan refugee attempting to reach the UK from The Jungle - the unofficial shantytown which emerged in Calais. It's a transfer to London's Playhouse Theatre from a sold-out run at The Young Vic The Horniman Mu...
Jul 07, 2018•47 min
