Shows
Tales from the Green Benches: An Oral History of ParliamentHistorically Underrepresented MPsDuring much of the twentieth century, the stereotypical image of an MP was of a white, straight, male. But, as our archive of oral history interviews suggests, the makeup of the House of Commons would go through a significant change as we approached the millennium. However this doesn’t mean that Westminster, as both a location and an environment, adapted to meet this.In this episode we look at those Members who didn’t fit into this traditional image of an MP: women, Members from minority ethnic backgrounds, Members who identified as LGBTQ+, or those from work...
2024-12-0248 min
Tales from the Green Benches: An Oral History of ParliamentThe Role of the Whips and Party SplitsWestminster is a place built on relationships, both within the Parties and across the House. But what happens when these relationships become strained?In this episode we look behind the curtain at the role of the Whips- the figures in charge of Party discipline. Using reflections from those who were appointed to the Whips’ office during their time in Parliament, as well as those who were the subject of their disciplinary methods, Emma and Alex present a personal view of this sometimes shadowy role and discuss some of the major disputes the Whips dealt with during ou...
2024-11-2544 min
The New AbnormalHilary Sutcliffe 'The Seven Signals of Trustworthiness'Series FourThis episode of 'The New Abnormal' podcast features Hilary Sutcliffe, Director of SocietyInside, who bring together people and ideas to help tech and its governance earn the trust of society. The name #SocietyInside is a riff off the famous brand ‘IntelInside’ and aims to encapsulate their aspiration that we reverse-engineer innovation from the needs of society rather than just create technologies which are in an eternal search for a home.Hilary explores the purpose, risks, ethics, stakeholder involvement and governance of these technologies through research, writing and stakeholder involvement as well as ac...
2024-06-2643 min
Carnegie Council PodcastsFrom Another Angle: Ethics, with Christian HuntIn this episode, host Hilary Sutcliffe explores . . . ethics from another angle, with Christian Hunt, author of Humanizing Rules: Bringing Behavioural Science to Ethics and Compliance. It's mind-boggling how many principles and guidelines are available on creating ethical cultures or delivering ethical technologies. But these are often high level and abstract, easy to talk about, and hard to do. Hunt's book explores ethics not top down from the c-suite, but from the bottom up; using behavioral understanding and decades of hands-on experience to help organizations look at ethics from a human perspective, and design the rules and process t...
2023-11-1653 min
Carnegie Council PodcastsFrom Another Angle: Trustworthy Tech Development, with Julie DawsonIn this episode, host Hilary Sutcliffe explores . . . trustworthy tech development from another angle, investigating not just fresh thinking, but fresh doing. As part of her work on trust and technology governance, she seeks to understand the processes of those organizations who are taking trust and responsibility seriously from the start, and find out what they do and how they do it. Sutcliffe explores the practicalities of how a company can provide evidence of trustworthiness with Julie Dawson, the chief policy and regulatory officer of global digital identity company Yoti. For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.o...
2023-11-0251 min
Carnegie Council PodcastsFrom Another Angle: Technological Progress, with Simon JohnsonIn this episode, host Hilary Sutcliffe explores . . . technological progress from another angle. Does technology increase prosperity, make our lives better and create lots of new jobs? Or in reality does it promote greater inequality, more badly paid jobs and exploited workers, with the prosperity going to the few and not the many? Sutcliffe explores with Professor Simon Johnson the lessons of over a thousand years of technological progress and they discuss the practicalities of what he calls a more "human complementary" approach to what technology may be. Professor Johnson is an economist at MIT and...
2023-10-1948 min
Policy & InsightsRisk culture: Balancing risk and opportunity with a 'Pro-Society' mindsetHilary Sutcliffe, Director of a London-based not-for-profit organization, SocietyInside, introduces us to the concept of a "Pro-Society" approach to innovation and regulation and explains how this gives stronger incentives for corporations to reverse-engineer innovation from societal demands rather than simply creating innovations in a relentless quest for a home.
2023-09-0110h 06
Carnegie Council PodcastsFrom Another Angle: Accidents, with Jessie SingerIn this episode host Hilary Sutcliffe explores . . . accidents from another angle. There is one thing we thought we knew about accidents, that they are accidental, no-one's fault, simply the result of human error. But author and journalist Jessie Singer's in her compelling book There Are No Accidents shows that whilst one person dies by accident in the United States alone every three minutes these deaths are in fact far from accidental. The majority are not random acts of God but are the predictable and preventable if only money and power were not prioritized at the expense of ordinary people....
2023-06-1337 min
Carnegie Council PodcastsFrom Another Angle: Expectations, with David Robson In this episode, host Hilary Sutcliffe explores . . . expectation from another angle. Her guest David Robson delves into the science of expectation in his award-winning new book The Expectation Effect. They discuss how changes in our expectations can have dramatic effects on our bodies, minds, actions, and life outcomes. For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org.
2023-05-3031 minCarnegie Council PodcastsFrom Another Angle: Ourselves at Work, with Gabriella BraunIn this episode host Hilary Sutcliffe explores . . . ourselves at work from another angle. She talks with Gabriella Braun about her intriguing book All That We Are: Uncovering the Hidden Truths Behind Our Behaviour at Work, which in a series of compelling stories about company problems, strips away the outward trappings of status, power, and even our skills and experience, and shows that what goes on beneath, and in our past, is what really drives our behavior. They discuss how this knowledge can empower us to better understand our colleagues and ourselves making the work place a kinder, better place t...
2023-05-1631 minCarnegie Council PodcastsFrom Another Angle: Regulation, with Christopher HodgesIn this episode, host Hilary Sutcliffe explores . . . regulation from another angle. The basis of most regulation and criminal justice is the concept that instilling fear of consequences, such as fines, sanctions, and jail is the best way to deter future misbehavior in companies and individuals. Her guest this week Chris Hodges OBE, emeritus professor of justice systems at the University of Oxford and a legal scientist and former regulator, explores the extensive research which shows that in reality this is not true and why it often does the opposite, increasing the chances of further bad conduct. He...
2023-05-0240 minCarnegie Council PodcastsFrom Another Angle: Democracy, with Claudia ChwaliszIn this episode, host Hilary Sutcliffe explores . . . democracy from another angle. For most people, democracy means elections, then governing, and then four years later, you do it again. Claudia Chwalisz, founder and CEO of DemocracyNext, has different ideas. Her vision is for a democracy that is a lot more "democratic," where you as a citizen have a real say in how your country is run, and might even do away with elections and politicians altogether. Chwalisz previously established and led the OECD's work on innovative citizen participation, and co-authored the organization's flagship report "Innovative Citizen Participation and Ne...
2023-04-1827 minCarnegie Council PodcastsFrom Another Angle: The Way We See Ourselves, with Jon AlexanderIn this episode, host Hilary Sutcliffe explores . . . the way we think about ourselves from another angle. She talks with Jon Alexander, founder of the New Citizenship Project and author of the inspiring book Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us, one of McKinsey's top five recommended books of 2022 alongside those of Bill Gates, Francis Fukuyama, Adam Grant, and Henry Kissinger. Alexander explores changes in the way we see ourselves, how we see one another, how the organizations and institutions that structure our society see us, and how we behave as a result. He als...
2023-04-0442 minCarnegie Council PodcastsFrom Another Angle: Freedom of Thought, with Susie AlegreIn this first episode, host Hilary Sutcliffe explores . . . our freedom to think from another angle. We might feel that what goes on in our heads remains in our heads, but international human rights lawyer Susie Alegre explores the surprising ways that our innermost thoughts are being exposed and manipulated through the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI). She explains how what is often seen as the most fundamental human right, our freedom of thought, is being eroded; what this means in practice, and what we can do to protect what goes on in our minds. Alegre is the...
2023-03-2133 minCarnegie Council PodcastsFrom Another Angle: Trailer to the Series, with Host Hilary SutcliffeIn this new Carnegie Council podcast series, Hilary Sutcliffe, a member of the Artificial Intelligence & Equality (AIEI) Board of Advisors, explores fresh perspectives from some of today's most innovative thinkers who challenge the foundational understanding of some familiar concepts—such as human nature, democracy, capitalism, innovation, regulation—and bring them to you . . . from another angle. In this introduction to the podcast, Sutcliffe, along with AIEI co-directors Anja Kaspersen and Wendell Wallach, discuss the series and its aspiration to challenge our basic assumptions and open up new possibilities and different ways of responding to the pressing issues or our a...
2023-03-1607 min
The Human Risk PodcastNick Chatrath on AI & LeadershipAs we enter the Age of Artificial Intelligence, what role will humans play? On this episode, I'm speaking to leadership expert and coach Nick Chatrath. He's a former colleague of mine and the author of a new book called 'Threshold: Leading In The Age of AI', which explores how leadership models will need to evolve in the AI Era in order to avoid humans feeling frustrated, unmotivated, and burnt out.In our discussion, we explore how AI taking over cognitive tasks will mean leaders need to develop new skills in order to motivate their workforce. How can we...
2023-03-0354 min
The Human Risk PodcastHilary Sutcliffe on TrustWhat do we mean when we say we trust a person or an organisation? It’s a word we use a lot that we intuitively understand. Trust plays a vital part in how we interact with others. If we trust someone, we’re more likely to engage with them. If we don’t, we might avoid engaging them or expend extra effort in keeping an eye on what they’re up to. But what makes a person or organisation trustworthy? Does it matter as much as we might think, and what does the presence or absen...
2022-12-1958 min
Front RowUnderwater Museum in Cyprus, Poet Fred D'Aguiar, Helen Zaltzman on Answer Me This podcastJason deCaires Taylor has been working in underwater art for 15 years. Today, he joins us to discuss his new museum Musan, built in the Mediterranean sea off the coast of Cyprus.
The Answer Me This podcast began in 2007. Presenters Helen Zaltzman and Olly Mann have been answering questions from listeners about anything and everything over the subsequent 400 episodes. And now they've decided to call it a day. We find out how podcasting has evolved over the years.
Fred D'Aguiar's book Year of Plagues: A Memoir of 2020 chronicles the year when he was diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer, when...
2021-08-2628 minFront RowThe Courier, Deceit, 2.22 A Ghost Story reviewIn 1962 the USA and USSR engaged in one of the most terrifying acts of brinksmanship the world has seen. But few people know of the role played by an ordinary British businessman in bringing the Cuban Missile Crisis to an end. New film The Courier, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, tells the true story of Greville Wynne, recruited by MI6 to penetrate the Soviet nuclear programme. Director Dominic Cooke talks to Tom about creating this Cold War spy thriller.Deceit is a new four-part drama on Channel 4 documenting the investigation launched by the police in the wake of the...
2021-08-1228 minFront RowAi Weiwei, Claire Fuller, Seamus Heaney's poetry on locationThe artist Ai Weiwei has just unveiled his seven-metre-tall Gilded Cage at Blenheim Palace, a sculpture which addresses the international migrant crisis. He discusses this, as well as the largest exhibition of his work ever staged, in Lisbon, and why he has now made Portugal his home.In the run-up to the awarding of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021, Front Row is talking to each of the shortlisted authors. This week it’s the turn of Claire Fuller for her novel Unsettled Ground which has won praise for its sensitivity and intelligence. It’s the story of twi...
2021-06-0828 minFront RowFilms Gunda and First Cow reviewed, Actor and writer Amy Trigg, Composer Dan JonesBriony Hanson joins Tom to review two extremely different films starring animals as their central characters. First Cow - directed by Kelly Reichardt - is set in Oregon in the 1820s, in which two protagonists use stolen milk to survive in a harsh environment. Gunda – executive-produced by Joaquin Phoenix - is a 90 minute black and white, which follows a sow with her litter, some cows and a one-legged cockerel in a fascinating but unsentimental look at animals and farming.Amy Trigg is currently making her debut as a playwright with her award-winning one-woman play, Reasons You Should(nt...
2021-06-0128 min
Front RowTaylor Swift's Fearless, Prince Philip portraitist Jonathan Yeo, David Almond, ThemTaylor Swift, who recently won Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards, has today released a new album called Fearless (Taylor's Version), which is an exact remake of her 2008 breakthrough album, Fearless. Music critic Sophie Harris explains why Taylor is repeating herself and reviews the new record. Tom Sutcliffe discusses HRH the Duke of Edinburgh's interest in art and literature with Jonathan Yeo, who painted his portrait, and Ian Lloyd, author of The Duke: 100 Chapters in the life of Prince Philip. Skellig author David Almond discusses his new novel Bone Music. Set in the...
2021-04-1042 min
AI Asia Pacific Institute Podcast#33: Hilary Sutcliffe on Trust and Tech Governance"If we don't see soft law actually working, then societal trust is not going to follow" — Hilary Sutcliffe
Hilary runs London-based not-for-profit SocietyInside. The name is a riff on the famous brand ‘IntelInside’ and its focus is the desire that innovation should have the needs and values of people and planet at its heart - not simply the making of money.
She explores the issues of trust, ethics, values and governance of technology (AI, nanotech, biotech and gene editing in particular) through collaborative research, exploring trustworthy process design, public speaking, coaching, mentoring and acting as a crit...
2021-03-3146 minFront RowBen Hopkins, Luke Jerram, Winsome Pinnock, Rex ObanoScreenwriter and novelist Ben Hopkins talks to Tom about his ambitious new novel, Cathedral. It's a portrait of the construction of the medieval period's greatest buildings, featuring a cast of intriguing characters all vying for power - from the bishop to his treasurer to local merchants and lowly stone cutters.Faith, Hope and Glory is a new drama series on Radio 4 which sees British playwrights Roy Williams, Rex Obano, and Winsome Pinnock chart the history of postwar Britain through the intersecting lives of three women. Starting in 1946, a week of 15 minute dramas which set the scene: Hope...
2021-02-1128 min
The New P & L - Principles and Leadership in BusinessThe New P&L speaks to ethical technology advocate & Director of SocietyInside, Hilary SutcliffeThe commitment to developing global standards for the ethical development and implementation of technological innovation is critical to building trust - not just in the technology companies themselves, but also business more generally and the political institutions that serve us as citizens. This week The New P&L - Principles & Leadership in Business Podcast Series speaks to Hilary Sutcliffe, director of SocietyInside - an organisation that works with businesses and governments around the world, helping them to design and roll out more principled, ethical and citizen-centric models of innovation.
2020-04-2845 min
Saturday ReviewHilary Mantel, The Mikvah Project, Sulphur and White, Among The TreesHilary 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 repeated sexual abuse as a child and how this drove him...
2020-03-0754 min
I See NewsEpisode 1I See News is a brand new, cutting-edge news show from the creator of I See You, Facebook's weirdest weekly satire column. Sick of one-dimensional media coverage? I See News has access to every parallel world going, pulling in insights and stories from the alternative timelines where just about anything can happen.This week we explore an alternative Brexit, find out what's happening with the impeachment proceedings in an America ruled by Hilary Clinton, Jamie Theakston's horrifying secrets are exposed and Danny Sutcliffe gets his own segment to run the truth train on the fake n...
2019-10-1819 minSaturday ReviewSupport The Girls, The Hunt at The Almeida, Cut and Paste in Edinburgh, Grossman's StalingradAmerican 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 Viv Groskop, Briony Hanson and Cahal Dallat. The producers are Oliver Jones and Hilary...
2019-06-2952 minSaturday ReviewSweet Charity, Machines Like Me, Smoke and Mirrors: The Psychology of Magic, LoroJosie 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 Knight and Clive Rowe.Ian McEwan’s subversive and entertaining new novel Machines Like Me poses fundamental questions: what makes us hu...
2019-04-2049 minSaturday ReviewPose on BBC Two; Us; Jews, Money, Myth; Pepperland; The ParadeJordan Peele’s debut feature film, Get Out, won him an Oscar for best original screenplay. His new film Us is also a horror film, features a score by Michael Abels and stars Lupita Nyong'o as Adelaide Wilson whose childhood obsession with the Hands Across America commercial reverberates through the film.American tv drama Pose on BBC 2 features the largest transgender cast of any commercial, scripted TV show and trans writers Janet Mock and Our Lady J worked on the script alongside the show’s creators, Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Steven Canals. Ryan Murphy’s previous TV cre...
2019-03-2354 minSaturday ReviewWhat They Had, Dressed, Renaissance Nudes, Maggie Gee, Mother Father SonHilary Swank stars in What They Had; a film which deals with the effects Alzheimer's Disease can have on the family of a loved one
Dressed was a big hit in Edinburgh last year, winning a Fringe First Award. It investigates the healing power of clothes. Following a traumatic experience, a young woman decides to create her entire wardrobe of clothes herself as her own way of coping
The latest exhibition at London's Royal Academy looks at Renaissance Nudes. Transferring from The Getty Centre in LA, it has many extraordianry works which have never come to the UK before.
...
2019-03-0251 minSaturday ReviewWhen We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other, Kafka's Last Trial, Bonnard, DestroyerCate 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 ensued to decide to whom they should belong: to the country of his language - Germany, of his birth - Czechoslovakia or...
2019-01-2644 minSaturday ReviewDoctor Faustus, The Image Book, Care, Hazards of Time Travel, Darren AlmondChristopher 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" in the festival's history
Sheridan Smith, Alison Steadman and Sinead Keenan star in Care, a new 90-minute...
2018-12-0848 minSaturday ReviewListeners and reviewers choose the best of the arts from 2017 from across the genresTom Sutcliffe is joined by Kerry Shale, Tiffany Jenkins and Shahidha Bari as well as listeners around the country who choose the best of the arts from 2017 from across the genres.FILM
Dunkirk
Bladerunner 2049
78/52
Manchester by the Sea
La-La Land
Get Out
Elle
Frantz
Land of Mine
Wonder Woman
Atomic BlondeTHEATRE
Boudica at the Globe
Barbershop Chronicles
Follies at the National Theatre
Hamlet at the Pinter Theatre
The Best Thing
Finding Joy
Gloria at Hampstead Theatre
Network at the National Theatre
Flight Pattern at the Royal Opera House
The Ferryman at Royal Court
The...
2017-12-3050 minSaturday ReviewHighlights of 2016A look at the highlights of 2016 according to our panel and our listeners. And there are some delightful surprises.
Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Kerry Shale, Sarah Crompton, Sarfraz Mansoor and listeners from around the UK with their suggestions. Saturday Review's Picks of The YearFilmsThe Revenant Alejandro Inarritu
Spotlight Tom McCarthy
I Daniel Blake Ken Loach
Queen of Katwe Mira Nair
Nocturnal Animals Tom Ford
Deadpool starring Ryan Reynolds
Snowden starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Sausage Party
Hell or High Water David Mackenzie
Arrival Denis Villeneuve
Fire At Sea Gianfranco Rosi
A United...
2016-12-3141 minSaturday ReviewThe Girl on The Train, Travesties, Picasso Portraits, Nicotine, DivorceThe Girl on The Train starring British actress Emily Blunt is based on Paula Hawkins's best selling thriller which has sold more than 10 million copies world wide. The film is set in New York, rather than London, and explores the voyeuristic obsessions of its alcoholic central character as she observes her former neighbourhood from a train window on her daily commute.
Tom Stoppard wrote Travesties in 1974, inspired by the true story of James Joyce's involvement in a production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Ernest in Zurich in 1917. A revival at the Menier Chocolate Factory is directed by...
2016-10-0841 minSaturday ReviewFree State of Jones, Abstract Expressionism, Transit, Crisis in Six Scenes, VilletteFree State of Jones is an American war film inspired by the life of Newton Knight and his armed rebellion against the Confederacy in Jones County, Mississippi, during the American Civil War. Written and directed by Gary Ross, the film stars Matthew McConaughey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Mahershala Ali and Keri Russell.
Crisis in Six Scenes is Woody Allen's first television series. Made for Amazon Studios it also stars Miley Cyrus and Elaine May and is set during the turbulent years of the late 1960s in the USA.
The Royal Academy of Arts in London presents the first major exhibition of...
2016-10-0141 minSaturday ReviewHieronymus Bosch, OJ Simpson, North Water, A Bigger Splash, BattlefieldThe biggest Hieronymus Bosch exhibition ever has just opened in Holland. 500 years after his death, Noordbrabants Museum has gathered together the largest collection of his bizarre, extraordinary work
OJ Simpson's 1994 trial has been turned into a US TV drama. Does it have something new to show or say?
Ian McGuire's North Water has garnered positive reviews from the likes of Hilary Mantel and Martin Amis. It's a whodunnit set on board an 18th century whaling ship. "A version of Captain Ahab (if you squint a little) meets a version of Sherlock Holmes"
Ralph Fiennes stars in A Bigger Splash...
2016-02-1342 minSaturday ReviewMr Holmes, The Household Spirit, Fighting History, The Brink, The Mother... With the HatIan McKellan takes on the legendary role of Detective Sherlock Holmes in Mr Holmes, alongside a stellar cast including Laura Linney, Frances de La Tour and Roger Allam. A cantankerous 93 year old who has retired to the Sussex countryside with only his housekeeper and her ten year old son for company, Holmes becomes obsessed with his last unsolved case. How will McKellan's elderly Holmes appeal to cinema audiences so familiar with one of British literature's most iconic characters?The Mother...With The Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis opens at London's National Theatre and tells the story of...
2015-06-2041 minSaturday ReviewThe Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, Anselm Kiefer, An Enemy of the People, IdaTom Sutcliffe and guests Lisa Appignanesi, Ryan Gilbey and Denise Mina discuss the cultural highlights of the week including two times Booker winner Hilary Mantel's new book of short stories "The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher," in which she turns her gaze away from Tudor England to the challenges of the recent past.The first major of retrospective of German artist Anselm Kiefer in the UK opens at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. From mythology to the Old and New Testaments, Kabbalah, alchemy, philosophy and the poetry of Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann, Kiefer's work wrestles...
2014-09-2741 min
Start the WeekHilary MantelHilary Mantel takes a break from her award-winning series of novels charting the rise and fall of the Tudor fixer, Thomas Cromwell, to discuss her new collection of short stories. She talks to Tom Sutcliffe about why her latest work eschews the historical to focus on contemporary Britain. The Director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor tells the story of Germany from its Roman past to the present day through objects that symbolise the dynamic changes in its culture and identity. 'English Magic' is the focus of the artist Jeremy Deller's touring exhibition which melds myth, folklore and politics...
2014-09-2242 minSaturday ReviewThe Mary Rose Museum; David Mamet's Race; more vampires in ByzantiumTom Sutcliffe and guests, Ellah Allfrey, Misha Glenny and Kevin Jackson, discuss the cultural highlights of the week including the £27m Mary Rose Museum opening in Portsmouth's Historic Dockyard and David Mamet's RaceIn the UK premiere of David Mamet's play, "Race," starring Jasper Britton and Clarke Peters - known to television audiences from "The Wire" - Mamet sets out to write a play which explores racial tension. Mamet himself says, "Race, like sex, is a subject on which it is near impossible to tell the truth." A playwright who likes to shock, most famous for his P...
2013-05-3141 minSaturday Review24/11/2012Tom Sutcliffe and guests Lionel Shriver, Alex Preston and Jim White discuss the week's cultural highlights including Pinero's farce The Magistrate. This production marks the first time that American actor John Lithgow has appeared at the National Theatre - he is best known to English audiences for his role in the US sitcom Third Rock From The Sun.David Ayer's cop flick "End of Watch" is a fast-paced action thriller, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena with the aim of presenting Los Angeles Police Department as it "really is".In Michael Kimball's novel "Big Ray"...
2012-11-2442 minSaturday Review17/11/2012Tom Sutcliffe and guests Boyd Tonkin, Kevin Jackson and Monique Roffey discuss the cultural highlights of the week including The Effect by Lucy Prebble which opens at London's National Theatre with Billie Piper in the leading role. Lucy Prebble is the award winning writer of Enron,which explored financial malpractice in one of America's largest corporations. In "The Effect" Prebble takes on more major themes: how society treats the mentally ill, what we understand about the brain and what are the effect of drugs upon our emotions, particularly on love. Amour - or Love - is the...
2012-11-2041 minSaturday Review10/11/2012Tom Sutcliffe and guests - the novelist Tracy Chevalier, critic Sarfraz Manzoor and director of the Serpentine Gallery Julia Peyton-Jones - discuss the cultural highlights of the week, including Alan Bennett's new play "People" starring Frances de la Tour and Linda Bassett which opens at the National Theatre this week. The play explores the theme of heritage Britain and the price we put on privacy - through the prism of analysing available options for elderly sisters occupying a grand stately home in an advanced state of decay. Ben Affleck directs and stars in Argo, a feature film...
2012-11-1241 minSaturday Review02/06/2012Tom Sutcliffe and his guests writers Malorie Blackman and Giles Fraser and musician Pat Kane review the week's cultural highlights including Ridley Scott's film Prometheus and Christopher Eccleston's performance as Creon in Antigone at the National Theatre.It is over thiry years since Ridley Scott all but invented the science fiction film genre, first with Alien and then with Blade Runner. Prometheus is described as a prequel to Alien, the film which itself has spawned so many sequels. Starring Girl With The Dragon Tatoo star Noomi Rapace along with Michael Fassbender and British actor Idris Elba...
2012-06-0241 minSaturday Review12/05/2012Tom Sutcliffe and his guests writers Miranda Sawyer and Ekow Eshun and historian Kathryn Hughes review the week's cultural highlights including Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary MantelBring Up The Bodies is the sequel to Hilary Mantel's Booker Prize winning historical novel Wolf Hall. It is 1535 and Thomas Cromwell is Henry VIII's chief minister, trying to serve the king's interests following the break with Rome.The Rest Is Silence is dreamthinkspeak's deconstruction of Hamlet, performed in a warehouse in Shoreham-by-Sea as part of the Brighton Festival. Directed by Tristan Sharps, the action takes place...
2012-05-1241 min
Midweek21/12/2011This week Libby Purves is joined by Alistair Sutcliffe, Martha Fiennes, Celia Imrie and Amanda Vickery.Alistair Sutcliffe is a GP who became the first man to summit the highest mountain on each of the seven continents at the first attempt. He subsequently suffered a near fatal brain haemorrhage, and he describes his recovery as the most difficult climb of all in his book 'The Hardest Climb', published by Blue Moose.Martha Fiennes is a filmmaker, whose films include Onegin and Chromophobia. She also directs television commercials. For her latest project she has created her...
2011-12-2141 minSaturday Review22/10/2011Tom Sutcliffe and his guests writers Rowan Pelling, Jim White and Deborah Moggach review the week's cultural highlights, including Tilda Swinton in We Need To Talk About Kevin.Lynne Ramsay's film We Need To Talk About Kevin is adapted from the Orange Prize winning novel by Lionel Shriver. Tilda Swinton stars as Eva, a former travel writer who has enormous problems forming a bond with her son Kevin - a child who, from the start, seems to go out of his way to provoke and antagonise her and whose actions spiral into the truly atrocious....
2011-10-2241 minSaturday Review19/03/2011Tom Sutcliffe and guests writer Iain Sinclair, anthropologist Kit Davies and journalist Natalie Haynes review the week's cultural highlights including Neil LaBute's new play "In A Forest Dark and Deep" starring Matthew Fox and Olivia Williams.Neil LaBute is a film director and writer as well as a prolific dramatist whose past credits include The Shape of Things and the Olivier Award nominated Fat Pig. In A Forest Dark and Deep is set in a country retreat deep in the woods to which college lecturer Betty (played by Olivia Williams) invites her brother Bobby (played by Matthew...
2011-03-2241 min