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 one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists in 2013. Her new novel, The Bass Rock, tells the story of three generations of women whose fates are linked. Two exhibitions at Compton Verney that have sadly had to close because of coronavirus are kept alive by our critics: Cranach: Artist and Innovator and Fabric: Touch and Identity. And we suggest some culture that might already be on your shelves or on a screen near you to enjoy if you're stuck indoors. Tom Sutcliffe's guests this week are Charlotte Mullins, Bob and Roberta Smith and Laurence Scott. Podcast Extra recommendations Bob: Paul Klee, On Modern Art Certain Blacks, album by The Art Ensemble of Chicago The Letters of Van Gogh Charlotte: The Gallery of Lost Art - as she explains, what's left of it can be found at galleryoflostart.com and via Tate website The West Wing Laurence: Star Trek: the Next Generation, all 7 seasons Tom: Contagion and, as always, Call My Agent Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Sarah Johnson Image: Emily (SOPHIE RUNDLE) in The Nest Credit: Mark Mainz / Studio Lambert / BBC

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 determined to better herself A new retrospective of the work and life of Andy Warhol has just opened at Tate Modern in London, including many works never previoulsy exhibtited in the UK before Two new TV comedies with impeccable pedigrees - ITV's Kate and Koji (written by Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin - who wrote Outnumbered) and Breeders (co-produced by Chris Addison and Simon Blackwell) on Sky TV - have just started. Theyre very different.. are they very funny? Tom Sutcliffe guests are Sara Colllins, Alex Preston and Tiffany Jenkins. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations: Sara: Toni Mossion: The Pieces I Am + Fons Americanus by Kara Walker at Tate Modern Alex: The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins Tiffany: Music Clubs - Spin in OXford and House Concerts @42 in Edinburgh Tom: James Shapiro: Shakespeare In a Divided America Main image: Abi Daré © Alero Marcel

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 repeated sexual abuse as a child and how this drove him to seek justice for all abused children A new exhibition at The Hayward Gallery in London - Among The Trees - looks at the crucuial role that trees play in our lives and imaginations Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Christopher Frayling, Abigail Morris and Catherine O'Flynn. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations: Catherine - The National Telephone Kiosk Collection in Bromsgrove and the 1972 film La Cabina Christopher - Who's Afaid of Virginia Woolf at The Tobacco Factory in Bristol and Prints by Norman Ackroyd at Watts Gallery near Guildford Abigail - Carravagio in Rome and Bonus Family on Netflix Tom - English Monsters by James Scudamore Main image: Terraza Alta II, 2018 by Abel Rodríguez Acrylic and ink on paper © the artist and Instituto de Visión 2020

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 best-selling novel The Slap. His latest - Damascus - retells the story of St Paul's conversion. Leon Spilliaert was a Belgian painter in the early 20th century whose work often reflected his insomnia and seaside settings. A new exhibition at London's Royal Academy brings this lesser-known artist into the spotlight Malorie Blackman's successful Noughts and Crosses novels have been adapted for TV and they're coming to BBC1 at the beginning of March Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Sathnam Sanghera, Muriel Zhaga and Susan Jeffreys. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations: Sathnam - Jay-Z on Spotify Susan - Choirs and singing by candlelight Muriel - making Delia Smith's marmalade and rewatching Friends Tom - A.N. Wilson's The Mind of the Apostl e Main image © 2020 Curzon Artificial Eye

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 Churchill's 2000 play Far Away has just opened at London's Donmar Warehouse Teenage existence is never easy and having superpowers can only make it even more so. I Am Not Okay With This on Netflix is a new series with an adolescent female lead... Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Blake Morrison, Amber Butchart and Stephanie Merritt. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations: Stephanie: The Laramie Project Amber: We Will Walk at Turner Contemporary in Margate. And the sauna on Margate Beach Blake: When Time Stopped by Ariana Neumann Tom: Midsommer Main image: Taliban portrait. Kandahar, Afghanistan. 2002 © Collection T.Dworzak/Magnum Photos

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 politically charged leftists The End is a very darkly comic TV series set in a retirement village on Australia's Gold coast where Edie - played by Harriet Walter - ends up after trying to kill herself A retrospective of the video work of British artist Steve McQueen has just opened at Tate Modern in London. 14 video installations cover his work from 1992 to today Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Ayesha Hazarika, David Benedict and Julia Raeside. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations: Juiia: Julia Jacklin - Crushing David: Tony Kushner's The Visit at The National Theatre and Tana Frech - In The Woods Ayesha: BBC This Life box set and female comedians live Tom: In Wordsworth's Footseps on Radio 4 and American Factory documentary Main image credit: Marc Brenner

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 in it. Ta-Nehisi Coates has earned a great reputation as a writer and thinker on race in America. His first novel, The Water Dancer, is the story of Hiram Walker who becomes involved in a struggle to leave slavery and save those close to him. British Baroque at Tate Britain takes a look at art from the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 until the death of Queen Anne in 1714, highlighting the jostling for power at court and beyond and illustrating the creation of the great buildings of the age. And This Life returns to BBC4, a drama of young people entering the world of work in the law, perhaps best remembered for the simmering sexual tension between Miles and Anna. Will its fans from 1996 stick with it - and can it draw a new audience? Tom Sutcliffe's guests this week are Jen Harvie, Carl Anka and Terence Blacker. Podcast Extra recommendations Carl: YouTube Channel SB Nation and Brian Phillips' obit of Kobe Bryant available here: https://www.theringer.com/nba/2020/1/30/21114600/kobe-bryant-legacy Jen: film, Parasite on general release; Tate Britain's exhibition Terence: the music of Paolo Conte Tom: Edmund de Waal's book The White Road, and Zadie Smith's essay on Kara Walker in the NY Review of Books Photo: James Norton and Vanessa Kirby, (c) Signature Entertainment

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 The Art, Design and Future of Fungi is an exhibition at Somerset House in London which brings together work by artists and designers, exploring mycophilia, magic mushrooms and fungi futures Art On The BBC is a new documentary series which delves into 60 years of arts coverage on BBC TV, exploring how TV portrayal has changed. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Meg Rosoff, Katie Puckrik and Colin Grant. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations Meg: Jo Jo Rabbit film and Beryl at The Arcola Theatre Katie: Paris In The Spring CD on Ace Records Colin: The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste Tom: Cheer documentary on Netflix Photo: Beatrix Potter, Hygrophorus puniceus, pencil and watercolour, 7.10.1894, collected at Smailholm Tower, Kelso, courtesy of the Armitt Trust

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: From Holbein to Social Media is a new exhibition at London's Foundling Museum which looks at how artists have shown pregnant women over the centuries. Admission fee charged. The Windermere Children on BBC2 is the story of 300 Polish child survivors of concentration camps who were brought to the UK after the war and billetted in The Lake District Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Helen Lewis, Catherine Yass and Mark Billingham The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations: Catherine: Steve McQueen Year 3 at Tate Britain & A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride & Yinka Shonibare's Farm in Nigeria Mark: Elvis Presley 68 Comeback Special & Long Bright River by Liz Moore Helen: House Of Glass by Hadley Freeman & In The Darkroom by Susan Faludi Tom: Daniel Finkelstein's tweet thread about his mother's escape from Germany & Miss Austen by Gill Hornby & Shook opening at the Trafalgar Studios in April.

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 comedy TV series on HBO. Avenue 5 is set onboard a luxurious interplanetary cruiseship when things start to malfunction. American Dirt is a new novel from Jeanine Cummins which follows a Mexican woman and her young son who have to flee to El Norte to escape drug cartel violence. They have become migrants Tullio Crali was an Italian futurist painter who has an exhibition at London's Estorick Collection. He was a fervent futurist and you can see his paintings and sassintessi - compositions of stones and natural found objects Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Rosie Boycott, Ekow Eshun and Amanda Craig. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations Amanda: Kara Walker at Tate Modern and The Gulbenkian in Lisbon Rosie: Garden Museum at Newt Hotel in Somerset Ekow: Atlantiques on Netflix Tom: The Kinks' Days on Radio 4's Soul Music and Lucy Hughes-Hallett's The Pike Main image: Detail taken from Tricolour Wings, 1932 by Tullio Crali

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 winner of the Man Booker International Prize and his latest novel to be translated into English is The Doll, It's the story of his mother and her difficulties when she married his father British artist Saad Qureshi has an exhibition at The Chapel at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Something About Paradise considers the widely differing ideas of what paradise might look like BBC1 has a new sitcom,King Gary, co-written by and starring Tom Davis as Gary King a builder and building entrepreneur. It was launched with a pilot episode last year and is now a six part series. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Sarah Crompton, Rajan Datar and Lynn Nead. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations: Sarah: Bombshell, Little Women and Top Hat Lynn: Musicals at the BFI and her son's vegan Christmas cake Rajan: Death Of A Salesman with Wendell Pearce, and In The Viper's Shadow by Prince Fatty and Play Well at the Wellcome Collection Tom: Guys and Dolls Photo by Nik Mackey

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 studio album of all time. It's been a touring show, made into a video game and now it's become an immersive theatrical experience,complete with AI headsets. Untitled Goose Game is an award-winning game in which the player is a goose who wanders around irritating characters by honking and flapping at them. We look at a couple of graphic novels: Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me and November. Four hundred years ago, in August 1619, a ship carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans arrived in America. A podcast series “1619,” from The New York Times, hosted by Nikole Hannah-Jones, examines the long shadow of that fateful moment. You're Dead To Me is a BBC podcast series which describes itself as "a history podcast for people who don't like history". Presented by Greg Jenner, it looks at a variety of subjects from a lighthearted perspective Jordan Erica Webber's guests are Arifa Akbar, Naima Khan and Carl Anka. The producer is Oliver Jones. Podcast Extra Recommendations: Naima - Christina Craig; Mint Tea and Other Stories Carl - Super Eyepatch Wolf Arifa - Death Of England at The National Theatre Jordan Spinning by Tilley Walden

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 Shahidha Bari as well as lots of listeners on the phone from around the country, telling us what particularly impressed them last year. Producer Oliver Jones

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. It's a book that Alderton recommends giving as a present so Saturday Review suggests some other enduring literary choices that work as gifts. And Gypsy starring Ria Jones is on at the Royal Exchange, Manchester in a new production directed by Jo Davies. Do its songs keep our critics smiling in an age of different sexual politics? Rowan Pelling, Linda Grant and Kerry Shale join Tom Sutcliffe. The books recommended as gifts are: The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden Karoo by Steve Tesich The Prince of West End Avenue by Alan Isler Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote Love Lessons by Joan Wyndham The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson This is Pleasure by Mary Gaitskill Haunts of the Black Masseur by Charles Sprawson The Compleet Molesworth by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle This week's podcast choices are: Linda: podcast and Radio 4 programme Fake Heiress Kerry: album If You're Going to the City, a tribute to Mose Allison Rowan: TV series The Young Offenders, BBC3 Tom: TV series Watchmen, HBO

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. Compiled by scholars it pulls together notes and drafts to make a sequel. Will the reviewers consider it worth the effort? Theaster Gates is an African American social practice installation artist who has a major new exhibition opening at Tate Liverpool Mike Bartlett wrote the wildly popular Dr Foster but hasn't quite matched its success since. Will his new ITV series Sticks and Stones (about workplace bullying) reestablish his success? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Natalie Haynes, Abigail Morris and Bidisha. The producer is Oliver Jones Image: Nina Cassells (c) Johan Persson Podcast Extra recommendations Bidisha - Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen Abigail - Essays of E B White and Chernobyl podcast Natalie - Peaky Blinders and Lizzo Tom - Jo Jo Rabbit

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 Frankfurt Auschwitz trials. Caught between societal and familial expectations and her unique ability to speak truth to power—as she fights to expose the dark truths of her nation’s past. If everything your family told you was a lie, how far would you go to uncover the truth? A new exhibition of work by British abstract painter John Walker at Ikon in Birmingham includes new paintings A Very Scandi Scandal has just started in the Walter Presents slot on Channel 4. It's a Swedish comedy heist with two extremely unlikely bank robbers Shahidha Bari's guests are Dea Birkett, Kit Davis and Robert Hanks. The producer is Oliver Jones Main image: Rhashan Stone & Nicola Hughes in Fairview (c) Marc Brenner

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 Supplement imprint - the other reproduces Virginia Woolf's reviews from the TLS. Troy: myth and reality is the latest big exhibition at London's British Museum. trying to work out where legends end history begins in these classical tales Tim Minchin co-wrote and stars in a new roadtrip-based TV comedy series Upright which has just begun on Sky TV. In it he has to transport an old piano across Australia, accompanied by a sassy grumpy young female companion. Is it funny? Is it worth watching? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Deborah Moggach, Tom Shakespeare and Briony Hanson. The producer is Oliver Jones. Podcast extra recommendations: Tom Sh: Independence Square by AD Miller Deborah: Netherlandish Proverbs explained video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tboRw6CPXjI Briony: Hanna Gadsby's Douglas (and Nanette) Tom S: The End of the F***ing World on All 4 and Les Indes Galantes https://youtu.be/Q4jy2wrjESQ and Jo Jo Rabbit film

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 turned his attention to Country music for his latest series now airing on BBC4 Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Deborah Bull, Susie Boyt and Louisa Uchum Egbunike. The producer is Oliver Jones Photo by Matthew Murphy Susie: Wednesday Afternoon matinees at Regent Street Cinema and the Joan Crawford film Queen Bee Deborah: Ballet Black on tour and Inspire The Mind blog Louisa: Chinua Achebe- There was a Country and Chinelo Okparanta - Under the Udala Trees Tom: The Pallisers on Channel 4 and Lil Nas X - Old Town Road

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 Gunesekera was born in Ceylon - as it was known then - and his coming of age novel "Suncatcher" is set in his native country in 1964, as the struggle for independence began. Gold Digger is a Sunday night series just started on BBC1. When their 60 year old mum meets and moves in with a much younger man, Julia's children decide they don't like it and start to try and drive them apart George IV : Art and Spectacle has just opened at The Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace. He was arguably the most magnificent of British monarchs and formed an unrivalled collection of art, much of which remains in the Royal Collection Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Charlotte Mullins, Lynn Shepherd and Jim White. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations: Lynn - Leonardo Da Vinci at London's National Gallery Charlotte - Kathe Kollwitz at British Museum and Elizabeth Peyton at London's National Portrait Gallery Jim - Bruce Springsteen, Western Stars Tom - Giri Haji on BBC2 Rembrandt van Rijn, The Shipbuilder and his Wife: Jan Rijcksen and his Wife, Griet Jans, 1633 Image credit: Royal Collection Trust / (c) Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2019

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 character who bears a decided resemblance to Lerner himself. Is this a State of America novel or self-indulgent , if brilliant, writing? A new exhibition at Somerset House: 24/7 looks at artistic responses to the always-on culture that envelopes us all nowadays Self portrait as time, 2016: https://vimeo.com/170398999 Order of Magnitude: https://vimeo.com/333795857 The Morning Show is Apple TV+'s big marquee show designed to attract voewers and subscribers to the new streaming service. Starring Jennifer Aniston and Reece Witherspoon it deals with the #metoo movement set in a TV newsroom Tom's guests are Maria Delgado, Kevin Jackson and Louise Doughty. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra Recommendations: Maria - The Chambermaid film Kevin - Susan Sontag At The Same Time Louise - Wasafiri magazine Tom - Julian Barnes' The Man In The Red Coat

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 young boy, looking forward to his birthday tomorrow, always thinking of his mother even though the attention isn't reciprocal The BBC has a brand new version of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. It's been a book, a BBC Radio play, a film and now a TV adaptation. How does the small screen incarnation fare? Joy Labinjo is a young Nigerian/British painter who has an exhibition of her work at The Baltic in Gateshead. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, Christopher Frayling and Kathryn Hughes. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations: Ellah: Media Democracy podcast Christopher: The Dublin Murders and Paolozzi exhibition at Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert in London Kathryn: The Reinvention of Humanity by Charles King Tom: Guilt on BBC2 and The CryptoQueen podcast Main image: Dafne Keen Photo credit: Bad Wolf/BBC One/HBO

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 Mike Bartlett and starring Siobhan Redmond. Elizabeth Strout's new novel Olive Again reintroduces readers to Olive Kitteridge, from her best-selling 2008 novel. Older and (maybe) wiser, she's as blunt and delightful as ever as she copes with a second marriage. The Accident is a new series beginning on Channel 4 written by Jack Thorne and starring Sarah Lancashire. Presented by Emma Woolf, the reviewers are Pat Kane, Alex Clark and Sally Gardner. The producer is Oliver Jones. Podcast Extra recommendations: Sally: Mystify Pat: The Emotional Mind by Stephen T Asma and Rami Gabriel Alex: The Reluctant Landlord on TV and the Kilkenny One Act Play festival Emma: George Gissing

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. The playwright Charley Miles has insisted it is "NOT a play about The Yorkshire Ripper" but his presence is a dark force at the centre of the play. Pre-Raphaelite Sisters is a new exhibition at London's National Portrait Gallery which aims to look at the women behind the movement most commonly associated with the Brotherhood - as models, artists, makers, partners and poets. Living With Yourself is a Netflix series starring Paul Rudd as a man who accidentally finds himself cloned and having to deal with the new version of himself Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Helen Lewis, Maev Kennedy and Laurence Scott. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra selections Helen: Mephisto at The Gate Theatre... and public loos at theatres more generally Maev: Georgette Heyer Laurence: Patricia Lockwood on John Updike in the LRB

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 - Place and Progress. All of the paintings and engravings in Hogarth's series are united for the first time at the Sir John Soanes Museum in London Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Bob and Roberta Smith, Naima Khan and Stephanie Merritt. The producer is Oliver Jones. Podcast Extra recommendations: Bob and Roberta Smith - Kara Walker at Tate Modern Stephanie: Rachel Cusk - Coventry, Zadie Smith - In Defence Of Fiction, Rebecca Solnit - Whose story is this , Sinead Gleeson -Constellation, Emilie Pine - Notes to Self. Also Brooklyn 99 Naima: The Guilty on Netflix Tom: The Politician on Netflix and Jonathan Coe - Sinking Giggling Into The Sea in the LRB Main image: Marchánt Davis, The Day Shall Come Courtesy eOne / IFC Films

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. Dublin Murders is an adaptation by Sarah Phelps of the Tana French novels for BBC TV A new exhibition at London's Barbican Centre - Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art - spans the 1880s to the 1960s, celebrating the creativity of the spaces in which artists, performers, designers, musicians and writers congregated to push the boundaries of artistic expression. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Alex Preston, Katy Puckrik and Amanda Vickery. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extras: Katie: Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast Alex: The poetry of Mary Oliver Amanda: Unbelievable on Netflix Tom: Kara Walker at Tate Modern Main image: A Day in the Death of Joe Egg L-R Lucy Eaton, Claire Skinner, Storme Toolis, Patricia Hodge, Toby Stephens, Clarence Smith Photographer: Marc Brenner

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 in South London. It draws on some of his personal experience. Ann Patchett's new novel The Dutch House is a study of what money can do to a family, what motherhood means and the nature of loss - and it includes a character she claims is her first real villain. Mark Leckey's exhibition O'Magic Power of Bleakness at Tate Britain re-creates a space under a motorway bridge on the M53 where he used to hang out as a child for an audio-visual journey into memory and the world of spirits. And World on Fire is a new BBC1 drama for Sunday nights telling the story of the Second World War from both international and personal perspectives, by award-winning writer Peter Bowker. This week's reviewers are cultural commentator Gaylene Gould, author Catherine O'Flynn and Toby Lichtig, fiction editor of the TLS. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Sarah Johnson This week's podcast extra choices are: Gaylene: Cleveland Watkiss at the EFG London Jazz Festival https://efglondonjazzfestival.org.uk/events/cleveland-watkiss-60th Catherine: Pushing Paper at the British Museum https://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/pushing_paper.aspx and Hikaru Davis' videos finding out about his dad, David Bowie drummer Dennis Davis: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY2aDqSy2_g6hysuYU7uOPw/featured Toby: Brett Anderson of Suede's new memoir Afternoons with the Blinds Drawn Tom: Daniel Rachel's book Don't Look Back in Anger Main Image: Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp. L-R Toby Jones, Deborah Findlay, Sule Rimi Photo credit: Johan Persson

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 Academy has involved flooding a room in the gallery and filling another with his trademark cast iron figures hanging in different directions from the ceiling, walls and floors. Reasons to Stay Alive at the Sheffield Crucible Studio is based on Matt Haig's enormously successful book of the same name and explores the nature and impact of depression on those who have it and those around them, using choreography and creative staging. Nomad: In The Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin is a new film by Werner Herzog. His friend, the traveller and writer Bruce Chatwin, died in 1989 but left him his backpack. Taking it with him he travels the world and considers his relationship with Chatwin. This week's reviewers are Meg Rosoff, Bidisha and Patrick Gale. Presented by Tom Sutcliffe. Podcast extra recommendations: Meg suggests wandering elsewhere at the Royal Academy to see the Félix Vallotton and Helene Schjerfbeck exhibitions: https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions-and-events and Wilding by Isabella Tree Bidisha: Awkwafina on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqDpVfc2_sYFrdGZ8yhRk4Q Patrick: Better Than Us on Netflix Tom: Undone on Amazon Prime

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 and Dependency. There's an extensive exhibition of art by William Blake just opened at Tate Britain State Of The Union is a BBC TV series written by Nicjk Hornby and starring Chris O'Dowd and Rosamund Pike as a married couple undergoing marital therapy Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Liz Jensen, Amber Butchart and John Mullan. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast extra recommendations: Liz: Guerrilla gardening John: Gloucester Crescent by William Miller Amber: Margate Caves and Leiden Textile Research Centre in Holland https://www.trc-leiden.nl/ Tom: The Lives of Lucian Freud by William Feaver + Evan Davis' Sharpiegate on Thursday's PM on Radio 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008bb7 (listen from 41.22)

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 scattered with arcane language, following the lives of several characters dealing with - among other things - the approaching Black Death. A new display of items owned by The Rothschilds has opened at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire. Items of immense value from ruby and emerald jewellery to Roman glassware and amber caskets, many of these items haven't been on public display before Defending The Guilty is a comedy series on BBC2 exploring the world of barristers Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Mark Billingham, Barb Jungr and Julia Raeside. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations Julia: The Dublin Murders by Sarah Phelps + The Portland Brothers + Box Of Delights podcast Barb: Edna O'Brien -The Little Red Chairs + Jazzmeia Horn + Bob, Brel and Me Mark: Peaky Blinders + Nick Lowe Tom: Robert Harris - The Second Sleep + Mortimer and Whitehouse go Fishing

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 their recently deceased father and unearth some unpleasant truths Mary Beth Keane's new novel - Ask Again, Yes - is set in modern upstate New York following two families whose lives intertwine A Confession on ITV is based on a realm life crime story and stars Martin Freeman as a policeman who has to push the law to achieve justice Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Lisa Appignanesi, Emma Jane Unsworth and Andrew Miller The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations: Emma Jane: Succession series 2 and The New Me by Halle Butler Lisa: Benjamin Markovits - Christmas in Austin and Address Unknown by Kressman Taylor and Timberlake Wertenbaker's Proust Andrew: Chihuly at Kew Gardens and Chernobyl TV series and Eurythmics Tom: Wainwright bagging in The Lake District

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 exploring the wreckage of liberal democracy and a search for the signs of its revival. Brassic is a new TV series on Sky, co-created by This Is England’s Joe Gilgun and Bafta-winning writer Danny Brocklehurst. It's about a group of working-class friends in Lancashire finding ways to win at life Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Adam Mars Jones, Dorian Lynskey and Kit Davis. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations Adam: Winter Journey by Roderick Williams and Fosse Verdon on BBCTV Kit: Stay Free podcast and There There by Tommy Orange Dorian: Succession Series 2 and This Had Oscar Buzz podcast Tom: Mrs Palfrey at The Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor

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 has a retrospective exhibition at Tate Modern, looking at more than 70 years of diverse creativity Tea Obreht won a slew of the most prestigious literary prizes for her previous (debut) novel. Her latest, just published, is Inland, a story about pioneers in America and the camel corps Andrew Davies is well known for his highly-acclaimed TV adaptations of classic literary works. He has just made Sanditon for ITV, based on the barely-begun work Jane Austen was writing when she died. He has said that he said all her material in the first half of the first episode, but the series runs to 8 episodes; how Austen-esque can it be? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Stephanie Merritt, Ryan Gilbey ad Karen Krizanovich. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations: Karen: Dearly Departed podcast Ryan: The work of Horace Ove Stephanie: Pericles at London's Globe Theatre Tom: Tom Holland's Dominion and Peter Sedgley's Colour Cycle 3

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 out what wonders members of our audience have come across. Tom Sutcliffe's guests Denise Mina, Louise Welsh and Don Paterson. The producer is Oliver Jones Audience recommendations: Samson Young at talbot Rice Gallery, Twice Over at Greenside, Bystanders at Summerhall, Something About Simon at Assembly George Square, The Edinburgh Night Walk at The Fruitmarket Gallery , Scottish Ballet's The Crucuble PodcastExtra recommendations: Denise -My Favourite Murder podcast Don - Succession Louise - Robert McFarlane's Underland Tom -Documentary Now. And Crocodile Fever at The Traverse. And Peter Gynt at The Festival Theatre also Cora Bissett - What Girls Are Made Of at The Assembly Hall

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 where cruelty, abuse and violence were the norm Olafur Eliasson: In Real Life is at Tate Modern in London - showing 27 years of the output of the Norwegian Icelandic artist This Way Up is a new sitcom on Channel 4 starring Aisling Bea and Sharon Horgan Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Henry Hitchings, Patrice Lawrence and Jen Harvie. The producer is Oliver Jones PodcastExtra recommendations: Jen: Burgerz by Travis Alabanza Shit Theatre's Drink Rum with Expats, and Fair Fringe /Cost Of The Fringe/ Fringe of Colour Henry: Jonathan Gibbs - The Large Door Patrice: Anthony Joseph - Kitch and Sam Selvon- The Lonely Londoners

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 astonishingly talented choreographer and film director Bob Fosse (played by Sam Rockwell) and his personal and creative relationship with his wife; the dancer Gwen Verdon Last Supper In Pompeii is a new exhibition at The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. It looks at the Roman city which was buried under lava in 79AD, through the prism of food and drink David Constantine's new collection of short stories is The Dressing-Up Box, full of darkness and unsettling worlds Ayesha Hazarika's guests are Deborah Moggach, Bridget Minamore and Michael Arditti. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations: Deborah - Crossbones Graveyard in Southwark Michael - Tim Parks' Destiny Bridget - The Mercury Prize nominees and Barbershop Chronicles Ayesha - Love Island

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; On Chapel Sands A new ITV drama starring Vicki McClure; I Am Nicola Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Abigail Morris, Oliver Morton and Lynn Nead. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast extra recommendations: Oliver: Herman Wouk – The Winds of War AND the Duncan Rand One Act Play Festival Lynn: The Wonder of Wimbledon on TV Abigail: a sonnet a day by Simon de Deney AND Call My Agent Tom: Black Monday on Amazon Prime

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; Parliament of Ghosts at The Whitworth Gallery reclaims and repurposes everyday artefacts David Nicholls' new novel Sweet Sorrow is a tale of adolescent/early adult yearnings framed by a Shakespeare production British indie film Only You follows a largely-carefree couple who get together and decide to have a baby but it's not as easy as they'd hoped And (of course) much much more from MIF Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Sarah Crompton, Katie Popperwell and Chris Thorpe. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations Sarah: Marius Petipa, The Emperor's Ballet Master by Nadine Meisner Katie: Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History podcast Chris: Abomination by Divide and Dissolve Tom: Spiderman -Into the Spider-verse

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 astronauts who went to the Moon half a century ago in Apollo 11. It uses previously unreleased audio recordings from within the lunar pod mixed with recreations of the journey. Fleischman Is In Trouble is the debut novel by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, previously a features writer at The New York Times and GQ. It has had glowing reviews; what will our panle make of it? An exhibition of work by Swiss-born artist Felix Vallotton at London's Royal Academy includes paintings and woodcuts in the many styles he adopted during his career. The show's subtitle is "Painter of Disquiet" Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Rebecca Stott, Robert Hanks and Susan Jeffreys. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast extra recommendations: Rebecca - Shame On me by Tessa McWatt Robert - Ngaio Marsh (and you can see Susan as a model on a Ngaio Marsh cover here https://tinyurl.com/y2jmths4 ) Susan - Jodrell Bank Blue Dot Festival and The Night Sky 2019 Tom - Jack Reacher books and BBC World Service's 13 Minutes To The Moon

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 Viv Groskop, Briony Hanson and Cahal Dallat. The producers are Oliver Jones and Hilary Dunn podcast extra recommendations: Cahal: the poet Chen Chen Viv: Mud and Stars by Sarah Wheeler and Game of Thrones Briony: pose and Paris Is Burning Tom: What/If on Netflix

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 minotaur, devours the young he has lured into his cave." Keith Haring at Tate Liverpool is the first major exhibition in the UK of American artist Keith Haring (1958-1990). Keith Haring brings together more than 85 works exploring a broad range of the artist's practice including large-scale drawings and paintings, most of which have never been seen in the UK. TS Eliot prize winning author Ocean Vuong is the American-Vietnamese writer of Night Sky with Exit Wounds. His debut novel "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" continues to explore his family's experience as immigrants and shows how his life story - as much as theirs - is shaped by the devastating legacy of the Vietnam war. ITV’s new period drama Beecham House, set in India at the cusp of the 19th century tells the story of John Beecham, played by Tom Bateman, who arrives in India in 1795 as a former employee of the East India Company. Co-created, written and directed by Gurinder Chadha whose past credits include Bend It Like Beckham, Bride and Prejudice, and Viceroy’s House. Ayesha Hazarika's guests are Stella Duffy, Alex Clark and Kevin Jackson Podcast recommendations: Kevin: Jack Reacher stories Stella: Wild Rumpus art company Alex: Novels set in one day Ayesha: The Handmaid's Tale on TV

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 Elif Shafak's new novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World we look backwards from the death of a prostitute. In flashback, she remembers her life and reflects on the changing nature of Turkish society The shoe designer Manolo Blahnik has staged an exhibition of his footwear at The Wallace Collection in London, drawing inspiration form the paintings and objects on display there Rajan Datar's guests are Linda Grant, Deborah Orr and David Hepworth. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast suggestions: Linda: the British Music Experience in Liverpool David: High Maintenance TV series Deborah: Killing Eve Rajan: Jumpa Lahiri -The Namesake, soul music and Tahnee Lonsdale at Dellasposa

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 almost as long. Now at the age of 85, Tate Britain is staging a retrospective exhibition of his abstract expressionist work. Comparisons are being drawn to Rothko, Pollock and Turner Brian Bilston has been described as the Poet Laureate of Twitter. His new comic novel Diary of a Somebody follows his attempt to write a new poem everyday for a year Wild Bill is ITV's comedy starring Rob Lowe as an American police chief constable who is transferred from Boston Massachusetts to Boston in Lincolnshire with hilarious consequences! Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Jenny McCartney, Dea Birkett and Ekow Eshun. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations: Dea: Delighted by the return of big top circuses Ekow: Faith Ringold at Serpentine Gallery. Also Get Up Stand Up and Kaleidoscope at Somerset House Jenny: Lowborn by Kerry Hudson Tom: MIke Nelson at Tate Britain

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 entirely on work by female artists There's a TV adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Good Omens, starring David Tennant and Michael Sheen - how well can it translate the peculiar magic of the books to the small screen? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Kamila Shamsie, Natalie Haynes and David Benedict. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations: Kamila: The Cricket World Cup David: Crossroads Motel board game and Green Smoke by Rosemary Manning and Mum on BBC2 Natalie: Hay Festival and Chris Ridell and Po’ Girl Tom: Oliver Morton – The Moon and the OED

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 previously unseen new chapters Marking the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci, The Queen's Gallery at Buckingham palace brings together more than 200 of his drawings from the Royal Collection, forming the largest exhibition of Leonardo's work in over 65 years. When They See Us is a new series beginning on Netflix. Directed by Ava DuVernay which tells the true story of the 1989 Central Park Jogger case in which five juvenile males – four African-American and one Hispanic – were convicted of the crimes. They spent time in jail and were eventually cleared 25 years later Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Laura Freeman, Jim White and Lynn Shepherd. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations: Jim: Free Solo and Dawn Wall Laura: Barbara Hepworth/Ben Nicholson at Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert Gallery Lynn: Don Giovanni at Garsington Opera Tom: BBC podcast Shreds

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 female survival. And also from Denise Mina - Conviction: about a woman whose complicated secret past begins to catch up with - and then threatens to overtake - her. A Tale of Two Empires at Birmingham's Barber Institute looks at the coins from the same period of Rome and Persia. Also we take a look at their permanent art collection. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Tom Holland, Arifa Akbar and Danielle Thom. The producer is Oliver Jones. Podcast Extra recommendations: Tom H: Linda Grant - A Stranger City and Game of Thrones. Arifa: Rejoicing at her Wondrous Vulva, the Young Woman Applauded Herself at The Oval House and Whatever Happened to Interracial Love by Kathleen Collins. Danielle waxed lyrical about the joy of mending and making things by hand and of psychogeography. Also the imminent Secret Rivers Of London exhibition at The Museum of London. Tom S: The Longdrop by Denise Mina and Years and Years on BBC1.

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 becomes a loving dad but can't quite let go of his past Mark Haddon's new novel The Porpoise reworks Shakespeare's Pericles, weaving a contemporary story with the classic tale An exhibition of David Nash sculptures in Cardiff is a look at a long career collaborating with nature to make predominantly wooden works. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Stephen Hough, Sarah Churchwell and Louise Doughty. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra choices Stephen: Chocolaterie Luc Van Hoorebeke in Ghent Louise: The Author's Club Best First Novel Award Sarah: Orson Welles' The Stranger

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 innovation from hieroglyphs to emojis Sandra Newman's novel The Heavens can be seen as five works in one - a time travel story, historical fiction, political allegory, social realism and a love story. How satisfyingly do the component parts combine into a coherent whole? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Tom Shakespeare, Helen Lewis and Katie Puckrik. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations: Tom Shakespeare - Phyllida Barlow at the Royal Academy and The Porpoise by Mark Haddon and The Bodmer Library in Geneva Helen Lewis - Ritblatt Treasures at The British Library and Patrick Melrose on NowTV Katie Puckrik -Clique on BBC3 and Tom Sutcliffe -Barry on NowTV

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 Cook, it continues her fascination with exploring classical themes; this time the story of David and Bathsheba interwoven with the life of 16th century poet Thomas Wyatt There's a new exhibition celebrating the work of film director Stanley Kubrick which has just opened at The Design Museum in London. On display are items from his personal archive directly related to his long career on groundbreaking films including 2001 A Space Odyssey, Full Metal Jacket and Spartacus Curry House Kid on Channel 4 is a documentary about Akram Khan's upbringing above a curry house and his desire to dance. it includes a new work about the world of the migrant Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Amber Butchart, Bob and Roberta Smith and Kerry Shale. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations: Bob: Sister Corita Kent at The House of Illustration Amber:Canterbury Archaeological trust the margate Caves Kerry: David Hepworth - a Fabulous Creation and Space Odyssey... by Michael Benson and After Life on Netflix Tom: documentary "Room 237"

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 Knight and Clive Rowe. Ian McEwan’s subversive and entertaining new novel Machines Like Me poses fundamental questions: what makes us human? Our outward deeds or our inner lives? Could a machine understand the human heart? Machines Like Me occurs in an alternative 1980s London, where Britain has lost the Falklands war, Margaret Thatcher battles Tony Benn for power and Alan Turing achieves a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. The novel's narrator Charlie drifts through life making his money by playing the stock market when he becomes involved in a menage a trois with a difference - one of the three is one of the first synthetic humans. It is not long before this strange love triangle inhabiting an even stranger alternate reality have to confront some profound moral dilemmas. Smoke and Mirrors The Psychology of Magic at the Wellcome Collection in London explores how magicians have achieved astonishing feats of trickery by exploiting the gap between what we think we perceive and what we actually perceive. Recently scientists have begun to appreciate this ability as a powerful tool for the study of human psychology. This research has emerged from an extraordinary history that stretches back to the 19th century, where a fascination with the paranormal coincided with the birth of science as a profession and the flourishing of the entertainment industry. Italian writer/director Paolo Sorrentino’s new film Loro - which means "them" - focuses on the controversial life of the former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi around the time of the “bunga-bunga” parties and the earthquake in L’Aquila. Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Geoffrey Durham, Naima Khan and Stephanie Merritt. The producer is Hilary Dunn. Podcast Extra Selections: Naima recommends Banthology: Stories from Unwanted Nations Geoffrey recommends the Swedish fantasy film Border and movie Leave No Trace Stephanie recommends the following Kate Atkinson 'Jackson Brodie' novels: One Good Turn, Case Histories, Started Early Took My Dog, When Will There Be Good News, Big Sky Tom recommends the Jon Ronson podcast 'The Last Days of August'

In her new film Wild Rose, rising star Jessie Buckley plays a Glaswegian country singer with dreams of making it big in Nashville. The trouble is that she has two small kids and is just out of jail. The Mary Quant exhibition at London's V&A shows a wide selection of her vibrant daring designs, made to be worn by real women and girls in the 60s and 70s A new play by one of France's brightest new names has just opened at London's Park Theatre; Intra Muros by Alexis Michalik is set in a drama workshop in a prison The Parisian is a novel by Isabella Hammad, set in pre-Balfour Middle East. It has received a lot of extremely warm praise from other authors, what will our panel make of it? We look at a couple of TV programmes coming at the same subject from different angles Life After Lock-Up, a documentary on Channel 4 about prisoners returning to society and Back To Life, a dramedy on BBC1 with Daisy Haggard Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Patrick Gale, Ayesha Hazerika and Catherine o'Flynn. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra selections Ayesha: Fleabag and The Breakup Monologues podcast Catherine: 1970s Public Service information films, and especially "Apaches" Patrick: BP Portrait of the Year exhibition in Winchester and Kate Clanchy- Some Kids I Taught Tom: David Sedaris on Radio 4. Barry on Sky Atlantic

Award-winning Italian film Happy as Lazzaro is a tale of human unkindness in a remote Italian Village where time stands still, but not in the same way for everyone Caryl Churchill's play Top Girls is revived by The National Theatre; is it hard not to view it nowadays as a period piece? Damian Barr's debut novel: You Will Be Safe Here is set in two separate parts of South Africa's troubled history The Victim is a new 4-part drama on BBC1., following the plaintiff and the accused in a Scottish court case. Can it provide a new twist on the much-worked-over TV formula of crime and courtroom drama and police procedural? A new exhibition at York Art Gallery looks at the work of John Ruskin and the influence of JMW Turner. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Meg Rosoff, Emma Woolf and John Mullan. The producer is Oliver Jones. Podcast Extra Recommendations Meg: The Alarming Palsy of James Orr by Tom Lee and Don McCullin's Tate Britain exhibition John: Call My Agent on Netflix Emma: 5 Live's podcast Paradise Tom: English Baroque Choir

Disney's latest live action remake of one of their classic cartoons is Dumbo, reimagined by Tim Burton. Grief Is The Thing With Feathers was a novel by Max Porter and has now been adapted for the stage by Enda Walsh and starring Cillian Murphy. It has just opened at the Barbican in London. Vincent Van Gogh lived in London for a few years and Tate Britain is staging an Exhibition Van Gogh and and Britain looking at the artists who influenced him, his own work and the artists he has influenced. Ewan Morrison's novel Nina X is a kidnap story about a young girl who was brainwashed by a Maoist cult before eventually being rescued and rehabilitated. British artist Sean Scully is one of Britain's richest artists and BBC2's Arena has followed him for a year, painting and creating and opening exhibitions of his work around the world. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are John Tusa, Deborah Moggach and Alex Preston. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations Deborah: Judges Lodgings in Presteigne John: The Way We Live Now by Trollope Alex: Standing At The Sky's Edge at The Crucible in Sheffield Tom: Wild Swans by Jung Chang

Jordan 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 credits include Glee, Nip/Tuck and American Horror Story. Pose is set in 1987–88 and looks at the juxtaposition of several segments of life and society in New York: the African-American and Latino ball culture world, the downtown social and literary scene, and the rise of the yuppie Trump milieu. Dave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He has written 14 books, including A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, What Is the What, The Circle and Heroes of the Frontier. His new novel The Parade tell the story of two foreign contracters who are sent to finish a highway in an unnamed country which is emerging from decades of war into a fragile peace. Jews, Money, Myth at the Jewish Museum in London is a major exhibition exploring the role of money in Jewish life. Art work included Rembrandt's first masterpiece Returning the Thirty Pieces of Silver and new commissions by Jeremy Deller and Doug Fishbone. American choreographer Mark Morris's Pepperland premiered at Liverpool’s Sgt Pepper at 50 festival in 2017 and is a collaboration between Morris and composer Ethan Iverson inspired by the Beatles iconic album. It is described as an "exuberant new dance work, visually on the cusp of Carnaby Street and Woodstock, it teases out the album’s colourfully avant-garde heart and eccentric charm, and resounds with all the ingenuity, musicality and wit for which the Mark Morris Dance Group is known.” Ethan Iverson composes a score featuring six idiosyncratic, jazzy reinventions of the original Beatle songs, including A Day in the Life, When I’m Sixty-Four, Penny Lane (originally meant to be on album, With a Little Help From My Friends and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club, and is performed live by a seven-piece band. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Kate Bassett, Kit Davis and Don Guttenplan . The producer is Hilary Dunn

Simon Amstell directs his first cinema release - Benjamin. The title character is a thinly-disguised version of himself with nervous lack of self esteem who is directing a film about himself. It's all very meta but is it marvellous? Milton Keynes has just reopened its art gallery. Much enlarged and architecturally improved, the first exhibition there is The Lie Of The Land, charting how the British landscape was transformed by changes in free time and leisure The bicentenary of Queen Victoria's birth has seen lots of artistic projects to mark the moment. Norther Ballet has commissioned a work by choreographer Cathy Marston which looks at the Queen's life through her relationship with her youngest daughter. Sadie Jones won the Costa First Novel award for her book The Outcast and her latest The Snakes is set in contemporary London and Burgundy. BBC4 marks the 30th anniversary of the creation of the World Wide Web with programmes including Me My Selfie and I presented by Ryan Gander and How To Go Viral: The Art of the Meme With Richard Clay Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Ellen E Jones, Jen Harvie and Toby Lichtig . The producer is Oliver Jones PodcastExtra recommendations Jen: Carolee Schneemann and Katherine Araniello Ellen: The Dropout podcast Toby: Max Cooper and Country by Michael Hughes Tom: James Mays' BBC documentary on Hornby Trains

Nicholas Hytner's new production at London's Bridge Theatre is Lucinda Coxon's play Alys Always, based on Harriet Lane's novel. A journalist decides to set her sights on a joining the exalted circle of a grieving best-selling author. Ray and Liz is the debut film from photographer Richard Billingham; weaving a story from his 1996 collection of autobiographical portraits of his hard-drinking and hard smoking parents living on the margins of society in a Black Country council home. Max Porter's new novel Lanny is a follow-up to his much-lauded debut Grief Is The Thing With Feathers. A magical child communicates with the present and a mysterious past Photographer Martin Parr has an exhibition. Only Human at London's National Portrait Gallery combining old and previously unseen works. ITV's police drama The Bay is set in the picturesque surroundings of Morecambe, Lancashire. Might it become the new Broadchurch? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Christopher Frayling, Charlotte Mullins and Emma Jane Unsworth. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations: Christopher: If Beale Street Could Talk and Moonlight. Also The Salt Path by Raynor Winn Emma-Jane: The Good Immigrant USA by Nikesh Shukla and Chimene Suleyman Charlotte: Studio Voices by Michael Bird and The National Sound Archive Tom: the disputed Caravaggio at the Colnaghi Gallery

Hilary 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. Blood is Maggie Gee's new novel. About a deputy head-teacher on the run after her father has been found badly beaten and bloodied. He had plenty of people who loathed him but his daughter Monica falls under suspicion It's more than 3 decades since Richard Gere made a TV series. In Mother Father Son on BBC2, he plays the patriarch of a super-powerful media mogul with personal family problems Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Rosie Boycott, Tom Dyckhoff and Muriel Zagha. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcastextra recommendations: Rosie: the joy of making pots, The novels of T C Boyle and The Uninhabitable Earth Tom D: The music of Talk Talk Muriel: The Christian Dior Exhibition at The V+A, films about birth, The Geneva Ceramics Museum Tom S: The York Museum Ceramics collection, The Dropout podcast

Capernaum was filmed on the streets of Lebanon, using non-professional actors including the child lead. It has gone on to win the Palme d'Or winner and is hotly tipped for the Foreign Language Oscar Shipwreck is American plawright Ann Washburn's latest play to premiere at London's Almeida Theatre. It's vehemently anti-Trump, but does the polemic get in the way for our reviewers? Nico Walker's novel Cherry tells his own - thinly disguised - life story. Born in Cleveland served in the US military in Iraq and returned home suffering from PTSD. developed heroin addiction, robbed banks to support his habit and ended up in jail. And that's where Walker is right now, serving out the last 2 years of his 11 year sentence for armed robbery. Is it grim, gripping or ghastly? The National Portrait Gallery in London is staging an exhibition of Elizabethan miniatures. Exquisite small portaits of figures of the day; bring a magnifying glass! Papanno's Greatest Arias: the director of London's Royal Opera House explores the attraction and technique involved in these vocal set pieces Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Kathryn Hughes, Barb Jungr and Boyd Tonkin. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast choices: Barb recommends And Breath Normally on Netflix and Antti Tuomainen Boyd recommends Harald Sohlberg at The Dulwich Picture Gallery Tom recommends Great News on Netflix Kathryn recommends tidying up

To mark 350 years since Rembrandt's death The Rijksmuseum's in Amsterdam is staging a major exhibition of all his works in their collection.22 paintings, 60 drawings and more than 300 best examples of Rembrandt’s prints A Private War is a film about the war correspondent Marie Colvin, who reported on conflicts around the world and was killed in Homs in Syria in 2012 Arthur Miller's play The American Clock, set in New York City in 1929, has just opened at The Old Vic Theatre in London. It's not revived very often: is that for a good reason? Austrian author Robert Menasse's latest novel The Capital won The 2017 German Book Prize. Set around The European Commission it's a story full of tragic heroes, manipulative losers and involuntary accomplices. Traitors on Channel 4 - a spy thriller set in London at the end of the Second World War and the beginning of The Cold War Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Tracy Chevalier, Miranda Carter and Terence Blacker. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast recommendations Miranda recommends Mercury Rev's album The Delta Sweete and Game of Thrones Tom recommends: Storyville - Conroy Under The Wire on iPlayer Tracy recommends: Clemency Burton Hill's book- Year of Wonder and especially Unsent Love Songs by Elena Kats Chernin Terence recommends: walking in the Waveny Valley

Oscar-tipped If Beale Street Could Talk is directed by Barry Jenkins who won Best Picture in 2016 for Moonlight... A woman in Harlem embraces her pregnancy while she and her family struggle to prove her fiancé is innocent of a crime Katherine Parkinson stars in Home I'm Darling, recently opened at London's Duke of York Theatre, as an ideal 1950s housewife living in the present day Tessa Hadley's newest novel Late In The Day. The death of a close friend in a tight circle of long-term friends throws all the remaining relationships into sharp relief The painter George Shaw - famed for his realist suburban subject matter has a new exhibition opening at the Holburne Museum in Bath A new BBC2 documentary David Bowie: Finding Fame investigates how David Robert Jones became David Bowie using previously unseen footage, interviews with friends and lovers and correspondence that is less than flattering. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Susie Boyt, Irenosen Okojie and Pat Kane. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast extra recommendations: Irenosen: Russian Doll on Netflix Tom: Ruskin Exhibition at 2 Temple Place

In Can You Ever Forgive Me? Melissa McCarthy stars as Lee Israel, the best-selling biographer of celebrities such as Katharine Hepburn, Tallulah Bankhead, Estee Lauder and journalist Dorothy Kilgallen. In the early 1990s - when she was in her early 50s - Lee found herself unable to get published because she had fallen out of step with the marketplace. Unable to pay the rent (or the vet bills for her beloved cat) she turned her art form to deception, aided by her loyal friend Jack Hock (Richard E. Grant). You Know You Want This is the debut collection of short stories from Kristen Roupenian whose short story, Cat Person, became a viral sensation after being published by the New Yorker in December 2017. It became their most read story ever, with more than 2.6 million hits and counting. Included in this collection alongside 11 new stories which are described as examining "the pull and push of revulsion and attraction between people." Winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Martyna Majok’s Cost of Living receives its highly anticipated UK Premiere at Hampstead Theatre starring Adrian Lester and directed by Ed Hall. John, a wealthy, brilliant, and successful PhD student with cerebral palsy, hires Jess, a recent graduate who has fallen on hard times, as his new carer. Across town, truck driver Eddie attempts to support and re-engage with his estranged wife, Ani, following a terrible accident that has left her quadriplegic. As four very different lives collide and entwine, roles are unapologetically flipped, reversed and exposed - who is actually caring for whom? A Place That Exists Only in the Moonlight: Katie Paterson and JM Turner at the Turner Contemporary Gallery in Margate is the largest UK exhibition of Scottish artist Katie Paterson to date - paired by the artist with a group of works by JMW Turner. Works by Paterson included in the exhibition are Vatnajökull (the sound of), Earth-Moon-Earth and a new work, Cosmic Spectrum, the result of working with scientists Paterson creates a spinning wheel which charts the colour of the universe through each era of its existence. And a look at two recent reality television releases; the BAFTA nominated BBC 3 series Eating With My Ex - in which former couples are reunited over dinner to pick over the bones of their failed relationships - and Channel 4's Flirty Dancing which aims to match singletons based on their love of dance. Each hopeful will learn half a routine, taught by Dancing on Ice judge and Diversity star Ashley Banjo, which they will perform as a couple when they meet for the first time. Podcast extra recommendations Simon: Paul Weller - True Meanings, Fiddler On the Roof at The Menier Chocolate Factory, David Bramwell- The Cult of Water Kate: Pamela by Samuel Richardson and Fleabag on BBC3 Alex: Tessa Hadley -Late In The Day Tom: Peep Show on All 4 and Karl Marlantes -Matterhorn

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 ensued to decide to whom they should belong: to the country of his language - Germany, of his birth - Czechoslovakia or his cultural affinities -Israel?. Benjamin Balint's book follows the machinations of alleged ownership An exhibition of paintings by Pierre Bonnard at Tate Modern; "The Colour Of Memory" includes several canvases with their frames removed to reveal how he worked. Nicole Kidman plays a cop setting out to establish justice and to right wrongs in Destroyer. And a sneak preview of Saturday Review's Podcast Extra Cultural picks this week: Lynn Shepherd – True Detective – series 1 and 3 https://www.hbo.com/true-detective Katie Puchrik – https://www.sceneonradio.org/ Inua Elems – American sonnets for My Past and Future Assassins by Terrance Hayes Toms Sutcliffe's guests are Inua Ellams, Katie Puckrik and Lynn Shepherd. The producers are Oliver Jones and Hilary Dunn

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 world of illegal drugs, anonymous rampant sex, excessive alcohol and she has to lie to her disabled husband. Fausto Melotti was an Italian Futurist sculptor. Revered in Italy, he is less known beyond its borders but an exhibition at The Estorick Collection hopes to increase awareness of his harmonious and delicately-poised work Ride Upon The Storm is part of Channel 4's Walter Presents strand of international dramas. A Danish series by BAFTA award winning writer Adam Price, who previously created Borgen. Starring Lars Mikkelsen, it's about a family of priests with an ungodly father and all-too-human sons Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Luke Jennings, Deborah Bull and Patrice Lawrence. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra recommendations Luke: Mr Robot TV series Patrice: audiobook of The Rivers of London, read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith Deborah: Until The Lions by Akram Khan Tom: the book A Long Way To Shilo by Lionel Davidson and the film Free Solo

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 Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland, imagining the processes and machinations that made it possible and not quite the triumph it was portrayed The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge has an exhibition of "Whistler and Nature". exploring how J.M. Whistler's relationship towards the natural world evolved throughout his life Guitar Drum and Bass is a new series on BBC4, exploring the role that these instruments have played in the development of popular music - what makes a great drummer/bassist/guitarist? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Mark Billingham, Alice Jones and Susannah Clapp. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast extra Alice recommends Daniel Kitson at Battersea Arts Centre Mark recommends the Twitter poetry exchange between Richard Osman and Piers Morgan. Also the reissue of The Beatles' White Album, Willie Vlautin Susannah recommends Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies Tom recommends the podcast Broken Hearts

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 sea, and determining the fates of the 60 people aboard. Fashioned from Nature, an exhibition in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum looking at the natural origins to the clothes we wear as well as the fashion industry’s toll on nature. The Horror of Dolores Roach, is a gory podcast drama which updates Sweeney Todd into a contemporary gentrified New York neighbourhood, starring Daphne Rubin-Vega and Bobby Cannavale. Two coming of age graphic novels, Grafity’s Wall by Ram V and My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies from Ed Brubaker. The former is about four young people living in Mumbai, the latter is a pulp-fiction tale about a American teenage girl in a rehabilitation centre. Plus the panel visit an escape room, a physical game which asks players to solves puzzle in order to win their escape from a room within a set time. The Adventure Begins in London, is themed around a World War Two prisoner of war camp, will our panelist make it out in time? Jordan’s guests are Shahidha Bari, Amber Butchart, and Rajan Data. Produced by Kate Bullivant.

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: Strange days exhibition Tiffany: pre-sale auction houses Tom; Bill Viola

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 working for a devout Catholic priest who wants to spiritually mould her. John Lanchester's novel The Wall is about why the young are correct to distrust the old Dead Poets Live is about putting poetry on the stage, drawing together the most exciting performers to bring our greatest poets to new audiences, creating theatre out of poems and poets BBC1 has some BIG Christmas drama offerings. And it includes a 3 part adaptation of Andrea Levy's award-winning novel The Long Song, set in Jamaica during the final years of slavery and the transition to freedom. Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Andrew O'Hagan, Rowan Pelling and Stephanie Merritt. The producer is Oliver Jones. Main image: Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins in Mary Poppins Returns. Credit: Disney Pictures. Podcast Extra Andrew recommends The Life of Saul Bellow, Vol II - Love and Strife, 1965-2005 by Zachary Leader. Rowan recommends Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake. Stephanie recommends The Affair, ITV. Tom recommends James Joyce's Letters to Nora.

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 actors, what USP makes it different from the previous versions. Prize winning Mexican author Emiliano Monge's novel Among The Lost is a grim tale of 24 hours in the lives of 2 human traffickers in Latin America. How can an author breathe life into and make us care for two merciless criminals Rachel Maclean's show at London's National Gallery is The Lion and The Unicorn a video work based around the Scottish Independence referendum of 2014. If you are a fan of Bruce Springsteen, you will LOVE Springsteen on Broadway, a recording of his solo Broadway solo concert series which ran for 236 shows. If you're not, is it possible that you might be won over? Our reviewers were; find out why. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Natalie Haynes, Linda Grant and Nikesh Shukla. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra Natalie recommends Company at The Gielgud Theatre in London, Hadestown at London's National Theatre, Good Grief Charlie Brown at Somerset House and the TV series Community Nikesh recommends The Good Place and Go Ahead In The Rain by Hanif Abdurraqib Linda recommends Mansfield Park by Jane Austen Tom recommends going to see Monarch OF The Glen at London's National Gallery

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" in the festival's history Sheridan Smith, Alison Steadman and Sinead Keenan star in Care, a new 90-minute drama on BBC One, by Jimmy McGovern, co-written with Gillian Juckes whose real life experiences of how the NHS responds to patients with dementia formed the inspiration for the story. Joyce Carol Oates’s Hazards of Time Travel is her 46th novel and its published alongside a reissue of her bestselling novel Blonde, a fictionalised account of Marilyn Munro’s life. At 80 Oates is a five times Pullitzer prize finalist. Hazards of Time Travel is a dystopian narrative sets 20 years from now in a totalitarian North American States, or NAS where the punishment for speaking out is "deletion." Darren Almond's new work includes Time Will Tell and 9 x 9 x 9 at White Cube Bermondsey and focuses on the idea of time and how it is articulated through the language of numbers. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are David Benedict, Helen Lewis and Meg Rosoff. The producer is Hilary Dunn Podcast Extra: Helen Lewis's choice - Normal People by Sally Rooney Meg Rosoff's choice - Fiddler On The Roof at the Menier Chocolate Factory David Benedict's choice - Radio 3's Remembering World War 1: Vaughan WIlliams and Beyond including Cheryl Frances-Hoad's new work Last Man Standing

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 has an exhibition of work by two astounding artists who happened to be and brothers-in-law: Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini. It tells a story of art, family, rivalry, and personality. Gun No.6 is a documentary which tells the story of each crime carried out over a decade, using Britain's most deadly, illegal gun. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Deborah Moggach, Catherine O'Flynn and Cahal Dallat. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra: Deborah recommends the Oceania exhibition at the Royal Academy in London Catherine recommends Stan's Cafe and The Commentators Cahal recommends Conrad Shawcross: Psychogeometries Tom recommends People Just Do Nothing on BBC3

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 follows it with Social Practices, a particular mix of biography, autobiography, fiction, criticism, and conversations among friends. How does it hold together as a single book? There's an exhibition of work by French artist Fernand Leger just opened at Tate Liverpool charting his development throughout his life. BBC2's Death and Nightingales is an adaptation of Eugene McCabe’s novel set in Fermanagh in 1885, written by Alan (The Fall) Cubitt Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Kate Bassett, Kit Davis and Kevin Jackson. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra Kate recommends Gainsborough's Family Album at The National Portrait Gallery in London Kit recommends the podcasts Reply All and 99% Invisible Kevin is beguiled by The Other Side Of The Wind on Netflix Tom is entranced by repair videos on YouTube

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 wondered aloud whether such a female-centric story might be beyond his capabilities. Uwe Johnson's 1800 page meisterwerk Anniversaries was published in 4 parts from 1970 to 1983. It has just been translated into English for the first time - will they delight in its scope? An exhibition at Modern Art Oxford of video work by Penny Woolcock reveals her fascination with the underdog Podcastextra recommendations: Kathryn is a fan of Channel 4's The Secret Life of The Zoo Don was overawed by the majesty of the redwoods in Muir Woods in California Jenny has been reading Kafka's The Unhappiness of Being A Single Man Tom is looking forward to watching The House of Assad on BBC TV Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Don Guttenplan, Kathryn Hughes and Jenny McCartney. The producer is Oliver Jones

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 story to interrogate what happens to characters when the author abandons them....? Home Futures is a new exhibition at London's Design Museum comparing 20th century prototypes with the latest domestic innovations, and it asks "Are we living in yesterday's tomorrow?" Grand Designs is a long established Channel 4 TV show whose format allows viewers to follow the trials tribulations and triumphs of daring innovative home building projects. There's also a 'spinoff' Home of the Year edition Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Rebecca Stott, Maev Kennedy and Sarah Crompton. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra: Maev is delighted by the Twickenham Cinema Club Rebecca recommends Emma Rice's production of Wise Children at The Old Vic Sarah recommends Robert Icke's production of The Wild Duck at The Almeida Theatre

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 Darke" about love and dark machinations in world of fine art trading. Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele were near-contemporaries on the Viennese art scene if the late 1800s. A new exhibition at London's Royal Academy shows a selection of their drawings; erotic, tender, explicit, ethereal, beautiful and intimate Olivier and BAFTA award-winning playwright debbie tucker green's new play at The Royal Court Theatre in London is ear for eye, described as "a play about protest and the black body in the UK and US today” containing “snapshots of some experiences of protest; violence versus non-violence, direct action versus demonstrations”. Doing Money is a one-off drama for BBC TV about sex trafficking of Eastern European women. The writer Gwyneth Hughes also recently adapted Vanity Fair; the contrast could hardly be greater. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Ayesha Hazarika, Liz Jensen and Robert Hanks. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra selections: Liz recommends The British Library's selection of Mervyn Peake's manuscripts Ayesha recommends Tunng Robert recommends Day Of The Outlaw Tom recommends Room 237

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 there's a new leCarre drama - Little Drummer Girl Martin McDonagh's play A Very Very Very Dark Matter has just opened at London's Bridge Theatre. It begins with the idea that Hans Christian Andersen kept a Congolese pygmy in a 3ft x 3ft box in his home and SHE wrote all his stories, living on a diet of sausages. And, oh yes! Charles Dickens also had one too... Barbara Kingsolver's novel Unsheltered follows 2 parallel stories about families - nearly 150 years apart - sharing the same house Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Blake Morrison, Elizabeth Day and Tom Shakespeare. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast extra choices: Blake recommends Philip Larkin: Letters Home Elizabeth recommends Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister Tom Shakespeare recommends Melmoth by Sarah Perry Tom Sutcliffe recommends In The Dark podcast

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 , Hawaii to New Zealand it marks the 250th anniversary of Captain Cooke setting sail on the Endeavour Sally Rooney's novel Normal People was longlisted for this year's Man Booker prize. The highly-praised story follows the complicated and passionate relationship of 2 young lovers in modern Ireland Nina Raine's new play Stories at The National's Dorfman Theatre is about a 39 year old woman who wants to have a baby 'before it's too late' and her efforts to find the best father for her much-longed-for child Sally4Ever is Julia Davis' painfully-uncomfortable new comedy series on Sky Atlantic, about a bored woman who decides to ditch her dull fiance to pursue a lesbian affair Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Rosie Boycott, Geoffrey Durham and Viv Groskop. The producer is Oliver Jones Podextra recommendations Rosie recommends Stacey Dooley investigates Fashion's Dirty Secrets on BBC iPlayer Geoffrey recommends Whistle In The Dark by Emma Healey Viv recommends Angus Roxburgh's Moscow Calling Tom recommends The Long Take by Robin Robertson

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 London The Penguin Book Of The Contemporary British Short Story includes 30 works from writers including Ali Smith, Zadie Smith, Kazuo Ishiguro, Martin Amis, Rose Tremain and many more Informer is a new BBC TV series about a young British Muslim who is coerced into becoming a police informer to infiltrate his own community. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are John Mullan, Tiffany Jenkins and Arifa Akbar. The producer is Oliver Jones Podcast Extra: Arifa recommends: Memoirs of An Asian Football Casual and Ben Okri's short film The Insider Tiffany recommends the Slow Burn Podcast from Slate John recommends The Wife Tom recommends Sondheim's Company

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-winning Spanish writer Javier Marias. It's a story of love, espionage, betrayal and coming to terms with who you and what you can't change. Survey at The Jerwood Space in London is a chance to catch the work of 15 early-career artists from across a range of disciplines The Bisexual is a new drama series coming to Channel 4, created by and starring Desiree Akhavan (director of The Miseducation of Cameron Post) which explores - yes, you guessed it - the potentially thorny subject of bisexuality. Podcast Extra: Miranda Carter recommends the trailer for the new Holmes and Watson film and Also A Perfect Spy by John le Carre Esther recommends The BBC's RatLine podcasts Charlotte recommends Sylvia by Zoo Nation Tom doesn't really recommend Doris Salcedo at White Cube Bermondsey Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Esther Freud, Charlotte Mullins and Miranda Carter. The producer is Oliver Jones

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 success. Her latest - Melmoth - is a supernatural tale full of dilemmas and questions Space Shifters is an exhibition at London's Hayward Gallery which intends to re-orientate visitor's perceptions of the world around them Two Sci-fi TV series Maniac and Counterpart have begun on Netflix and Amazon Prime respectively Podcast Extra: Kamila Shamsie recommends the Canadian literary journal Brick. Barb Jungr recommends the band 10cc. Tom Dyckhoff recommends the book Inner City Pressure by Dan Hancox and two exhibitions at London's Photographers' Gallery. Tom Sutcliffe recommends the radio programme Ratlines on Radio 4 and the Doris Salcedo exhibition at White Cube. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Kamila Shamsie, Tom Dyckhoff and Barb Jungr. The producer is Oliver Jones

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 starring Giselle Allen, Rafael Rojas and Robert Hayward. Dick‘s new production relocates Puccini’s political thriller from Rome during the Napoleonic wars to an unnamed present-day country in which church and state collude as forces of reaction. Lake Success is American writer Gary Shteyngart's fourth novel and tells the story of hedge fund manager Barry Cohen, who oversees 2.4 billion dollars in assets. Stressed by a fraud investigation and by his son's diagnosis of autism, he flees New York on a Greyhound bus in search of a simpler life with his old college sweetheart. Making a New World season continues at the Imperial War Museum in London with four new exhibitions. John Akomfrah's Mimesis: African Soldier, Renewal: Life after the First World War in Photographs, Moments of Silence - two immersive installations from 59 Productions - and I Was There: Room of Voices, bringing together personal voices reflecting on the Armistice from the IWM's own sound archive. The Cry is a new 4-part psychological drama set in Scotland and Australia on BBC1. The drama chronicles the collapse of a marriage in the aftermath of the abduction of a baby from a small coastal town in Australia. Written by Jacquelin Perske, adapted from the novel by Helen Fitzgerald and starring Jenna Coleman as Joanna and Ewen Leslie as her husband Alistair.

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 his last major screen role in a career which included films such as Repo Man, Wild at Heart, Paris, Texas and Wise Blood. Lucky co-stars David Lynch, Stanton's long time friend and collaborator. The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume II: 1956 - 1963 edited by Peter K Steinberg and Karen V Kukil document - unabridged and without revision - Plath's literary development and private life. It includes 14 letters Plath wrote to her psychiatrist, Dr Ruth Beuscher, between 1960 and 1963. Trust is a ten part series starring Donald Sutherland as J Paul Getty and Hilary Swank as Gail Getty, the mother of John Paul Getty III, heir to the Getty oil fortune who was kidnapped in 1973 by the Italian mafia in Rome. It was written by Simon Beaufoy and directed (first three episodes) by Danny Boyle who previously worked together on Oscar winning Slumdog Millionaire. An Adventure by Vinay Patel at the Bush Theatre in London follows young couple Jyoti and Rasik as they leave India for Kenya in hope of a better life, only to find themselves entangled in the Mau Mau rebellion, from which they leave for England. It is based on the life story of Vinay Patel's grandparents and is directed by Madani Younis, the Artistic Director of the Bush Theatre.

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 Killing Eve on BBC3; a new slick female assassin TV series starring Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer as the detective tracking down the killer and the ruthless killer herself respectively Miriam Toews' novel Women Talking is set in a Mennonite settlement in rural Canada where a series of rapes has torn their world apart when it is discovered that the rapists come from within their own community I Object, Ian Hislop's Search for Dissent is at The British Museum, tracing the history of dissent subversion and satire hidden within the Museum's vast collections Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Meg Rosoff, Francis Wheen and Stephanie Merritt. The producer is Oliver Jones.

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 international legal ramifications of war crimes committed during the Rwandan genocide. Black Earth Rising stars Harriet Walter and Michaela Coel as a mother and daughter with a personal involvement that leads to family conflict Pat Barker's latest novel The Silence Of The Girls is a retelling of the Trojan Wars from the point of view of the women. Surreal Science is a new exhibition at London's Whitechapel Gallery combining collected 19th century scientific teaching models and illustrations, with new works selected by Salvatore Arancio to explore and understand the mysteries of nature and existence through scientific enquiry. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Helen Lewis, Susan Jeffreys and David Benedict. The producer is Oliver Jones.

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 it affects the locals in a village in Suffolk Two new series are starting on TV exploring similar territory: Extraordinary Rituals on the BBC and Grayson Perry: Rites of Passage on Channel 4. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Shahidha Bari, Kate Maltby and Rajan Datar. The producer is Oliver Jones.

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 as many other recommended events as we can cram into the programme! Onstage at the BBC's Big Blue Tent, Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Denise Mina, Don Paterson and Peggy Hughes. The producer is Oliver Jones.

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 paramilitaries in Northern Ireland. The BBC's new season Big British Asian Summer includes shows across the radio and TV networks looking at the British Asian experience. We're reviewing Big Asian Stand-up and A Passage to Britain. Nick Drnaso's graphic novel Sabrina has been Booker-shortlisted - the first of its kind to enter the ring traditionally associated with novels of the non-graphic kind. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Patrick Gale, Antony Johnston and Sharmaine Lovegrove. The producer is Oliver Jones.

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 1919-1933 at Tate Modern is an exhibition of many of the artists whose work was cast as degenerate by the Nazis. The term 'magic realism' was coined in 1925 to describe an artistic movement away from expressionism to a harsh, cold, unsettling veracity Andrew McMillan's collection of poems: playtime explores the different ways boys grow into their sexual selves and adult identities through rites of passage. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Linda Grant, Terence Blacker and Deborah Bull. The producer is Oliver Jones.

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 thoughts on the news of the day, "to get an imprint of the moment while it is still wet". White Cube Gallery's newest exhibition marks its 25th anniversary. Memory Palace is on at their two London sites (as well as at their Hong Kong gallery, but we didn't go there!) looking at memory and how it shapes our identities. BBCTV has put the 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (you know, the one where Colin Firth comes out of the lake clad in a clinging shirt) on iPlayer as a box set, we consider whether the fond memories of it match up to a re-watching 22 years on... Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Alex Preston, Kate Williams and Abigail Morris. The producer is Oliver Jones.

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 struggle to find beds on the Dusty Springfield Geriatric Ward, and the triumphs of the old people's choir. Pulitzer Prize winning writer Anne Tyler's new novel Clock Dance tells the life story of Willa Drake and her decision late in life to take on the care of a 9 year old child. Anne Tyler is an American novelist, short story writer, and literary critic. She has published over 20 novels, the best known of which are Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1982), The Accidental Tourist (1985), and Breathing Lessons(1988). All three were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with Breathing Lessons winning the prize in 1989. The tenth edition of the Liverpool Biennial includes more than 40 artists from over 22 countries. In the words of the lead curators, "The Biennial asks Beautiful world, where are you?" - a question derived from a 1788 poem by the German poet Frederich Schiller. Artists include Agnes Varda, Inci Eviner, Holly Hendry, Duane Linklater, Taus Makhacheva, Annie Pootoogook, Joyce Wieland and Rehana Zaman and their works ares spread across the city including public spaces, civic buildings and the city's leading art venues. Taiwanese writer/director Jenny Lu's film debut feature film The Receptionist is a drama based on an illegal massage parlour in London and follows the lives of the employees and clients as seen through the eyes of a Taiwanese graduate employed as a receptionist. In a new five part documentary series on BBC Four, Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema, film critic Mark Kermode presents a fresh and very personal look at the art of cinema by examining the techniques and conventions behind some classic genres: romcoms, heist movies,coming-of-age stories, science fiction and horror.

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 Lyttelton Theatre to direct Ben Power's English version of Italian writer Stefano Massini's The Lehman Trilogy, inspired by the events following the economic crisis of 2008. The Lehman Trilogy stars Simon Russell Beale, Adam Godley and Ben Miles as the Lehman brothers and is an epic story of making it and breaking it, charting one family's fortunes over 163 years and tracing the financial sector from boom to bust. Tim Parks is the author of fourteen novels including Europa (shortlisted for the Booker prize), Destiny, Cleaver, Sex is Forbidden and, most recently, In Extremis. He has also written several books of non fiction, the latest of which "Out of My Head" tells the highly personal and often surprisingly funny story of Parks's quest to discover more about consciousness. It seems not a day goes by without a discussion on whether computers can be conscious, whether our universe is some kind of simulation, whether the mind is unique to humans or spread out across the universe. Out of My Head aims to explore these ideas via metaphysical considerations and laboratory experiments in terms we can all understand and invites us to see space, time, colour and smell, sounds and sensations in a new way. Tate Modern joins forces with 14-18 NOW, the UK's arts programme for the First World War centenary, to commemorate the significant contribution of African men and women in this conflict. William Kentridge's "The Head and the Load" is performed against the dramatic backdrop of Tate Modern's Turbine Hall and tells the untold story of the hundreds of thousands of African porters and carriers who served in British, French and German forces during the First World War. It combines music, dance, film projections, mechanised sculptures and shadow play to create an imaginative landscape on an epic scale. Netflix's new 8 part drama series Sacred Games was announced as one of seven Netflix Indian Originals. Based on Vikram Chandra's 2006 thriller novel of the same name it stars Saif Ali Khan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, and Radhika Apte, and tells the story of a righteous police officer who attempts to thwart a terrorist attack in Mumbai after being warned by a notorious criminal and burrows deep into India's dark underworld. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Michael Arditti, Shahidha Bari and Sarah Crompton.

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 Museum in London has reopened its South Hall Gallery as World Gallery; exploring the fundamental questions of what it means to be human; that's a big task The BBC is showing a new adaptation of the novel Picnic at Hanging Rock (made into a successful film in 1975). It stars Natalie Dormer and has a decidedly modern approach to a period piece Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Mark Billingham, Kathryn Hughes and Alice Jones. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Leave No Trace is a film about love and survival. A father and daughter living in idyllic remote Oregon woodlands come up against authorities who decide their life can't continue as it has done . Directed by Debra Granik (Winter's Bone) The story of the evolution of Scotland's pop music scene is told in a new exhibition; Rip It Up at The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. One For Sorrow is a new play at London's Royal Court Theatre by Cordelia Lynn, about a family who invite a stranger into their home following a terrorist attack Australian novelist Tim Winton's new novel The Shepherd's Hut is about a dysfunctional 15 year old boy on the run when he believes he'll be convicted for his father's death A new podcast - Bedtime Stories For The End Of The World - invites some of the UK's top poets to re-tell some of their favourite myths, fairytales and legends. Panellists are Patrice Lawrence, Emma Jane Unsworth and Peter Ross. Presented by Anne Mcelvoy of The Economist. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Award winning writer Irish writer Joseph O'Neill's 2008 novel Netherland was endorsed by American President, Barack Obama. Good Trouble is his first collection of short stories. Arcadia, the new film from the BAFTA award-winning Scottish director Paul Wright (whose debut feature For Those in Peril premiered at Cannes in 2013), explores our complex connection to the land we live in. Combining over 100 film clips from the last 100 years and a grand, expressive new score by musicians Adrian Utley from Portishead and Will Gregory from Goldfrapp it is described as a "a folk horror wrapped in an archive film." Mufaro Makubika won the Alfred Fagon Award 2017 for Shebeen for best new work by a black British playwright. Set in 1958 in the writer's hometown of Nottingham, where many of those who had arrived on the Windrush had settled, Shebeen shines a light on a community under siege on the eve of the St Ann's race riots. Shebeen is directed by Matthew Xia and is currently on at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East. Christo and Jeanne-Claude are celebrated for their ambitious sculptural works that intervene in urban and natural landscapes around the world and temporarily alter both the physical form and visual appearances of sites. This summer the Serpentine Galleries presents a major exhibition of the artists' work, which draws upon their use of barrels to create artworks. Simultaneously, Christo presents The London Mastaba, his first outdoor, public work in the UK. The sculpture takes inspiration from mastabas - benches with two vertical sides, two slanted sides and a flat top - which originated with the first ancient civilisations of Mesopotamia. It will float on The Serpentine lake in Hyde Park from 18 June to 23 September. Measuring 20m in height by 30m and 40m, the sculpture consists of 7,506 horizontally stacked barrels, specifically fabricated and painted in shades of red, white, blue and mauve. BBC 2's Japan's Secret Shame tells the moving story of 29 year-old Japanese journalist Shiori Ito, who in May 2017 shocked Japan when she went public with allegations that she was raped by a well-known TV journalist. Following Shiori over a year, the film portrays the consequences Shiori faced by speaking out in Japanese society.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie has been adapted for the stage at London's Donmar Warehouse to mark the centenary of Muriel Sparks' birth There's a new horror film which some critics have been comparing to The Exorcist and other touchstones of the genre; is Hereditary as scary as the publicity would have us believe? London's National Gallery is staging two complementary exhibitions: Eden to Empire looks at the work of Thomas Cole, a Lancashire-born painter who became most famous for his landscapes of the American wilderness. Course of Empire is a smaller collection of work by contemporary American painter Ed Ruscha Daisy Johnson's novel Everything Under resets a classical myth into the modern-day, set on the waterways of rural England Snatches is a series of 15 minute monologues beginning on BBC4 to mark 100 years of women's suffrage. It tell tales of moments from women's lives over the last century, Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Rosie Boycott, Jude Kelly and Rhidian Brook. Producer is Oliver Jones.

My Name is Lucy Barton is a one woman play starring Laura Linney in her London stage debut. At London's Bridge Theatre, it's based on the novel by Elizabeth Strout and directed by Richard Eyre There's a new documentary looking at the life and career of designer Alexander McQueen who died in 2010. It includes interviews with familiar faces and also less-well-known family and friends Rachel Kushner's novel The Mars Room is largely set within the American penal system - it's not a nice place to be, especially for the narrator who is a prisoner serving a life sentence in the largest women's prison in the world Aftermath is an exhibition at Tate Britain of art from Europe following the end of the first World War - it shows new art movements emerging in Britain France and Germany reflecting and influencing the society from which it sprang City of Ghosts is being shown in the Storyville strand on BBC4. It's an Oscar-nominated documentary about a group of Syrian website that opposes ISIS and tries to tell the truth about what is happening in their ruined home city of Raaqa Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Amber Butchart, Liz Jensen and Jim White. The producer is Oliver Jones.

A bilingual production of Moliere's Tartuffe at Theatre Royal Haymarket, written by Christopher Hampton and updated to a setting in contemporary Los Angeles sounds like a winning formula. It has had some damning reviews elsewhere in the press; what will our reviewers make of it? Francois Ozon's newest film L'amant Double deals with a Hitchcockian plot line involving twin psychiatrists both treating the same beautiful young woman who is having emotional and relationship problems. They also both happen to be sleeping with her too. It's very slick, stylish and French but is it any good? A final collection of short stories by acclaimed Irish writer William Trevor, who died in 2016, has just been published. We discuss "Last Stories" Animals and Us is the latest exhibition at Turner Contemporary in Margate; it reflects on the relationship between humans and other animals. How well does it deal with such a gargantuan subject? Elmore Leonard's book Get Shorty was made into a successful film in 1995 and is now a TV series starring Chris O'dowd. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Christopher Frayling, Rebecca Stott and Tiffany Jenkins. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Animated film The Breadwinner (co=produced by Angelina Jolie) is the story of a young Afghani girl in Kabul who has to disguise her gender in order to be able to support her family David Shrigley was the curator for this year's Brighton Festival. We went to see Problem in Brighton; described as "an alt-rock/pop pantomime... requiring ear plugs and an open mind". what on earth is one of those?! Sister Corita Kent was an artist, a famously charismatic educator and a Roman Catholic nun based in LA during the 60s. Her vibrant screen-printed banners drew on pop art influences and confronted poverty, racism and war in spite of disapproval from her archdiocese who said her work was blasphemous and communist. An exhibition of her work has just opened in Ditchling in Sussex. Susannah Walker's The Life of Stuff is a memoir of the mess we leave behind. When she has to clear her mother's house, she is confronted by the random collections of a hoarder and reflects on what causes it and what it all means. Anthony Hopkins plays King Lear in modern dress in BBC TV's latest Shakespeare adaptation, directed by Richard Eyre Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Katie Puckrik, Kerry Shale and Susan Jeffreys. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Alfred Molina plays artist Mark Rothko in Red at London's Wyndham's Theatre Ian McEwan has adapted his own novel On Chesil Beach for the big screen, starring Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle as newlyweds whose wedding night nuptials are complicated by memories and misunderstandings The story of the scandal of 1970s Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe and his apparent homosexual affair with male model Norman Scott is now a TV series starring Hugh Grant. A Very English Scandal is written by Russell T Davis and directed by Stephen Frears. The Aviator by Russian author Eugene Vodolazkin has been translated into 14 languages and won a slew of literary prizes; how old is the central character? does his extraordinary memory have something to do with cryogenic suspension? There's a new exhibition at The Welcome Collection in London looking at all things dental- will it set our reviewers' teeth on edge or make them smile? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Blake Morrison, Elizabeth Day and Charlotte Mullins. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Is a world without crime a utopia or a dystopia if the price is total constant surveillance by the state? British thriller Anon is set in a world where wanting to be anonymous makes you the subject of society's suspicions. It stars Clive Owen as a detective investigating gruesome murders. Russian theatre director Lev Dodin's production of Vasily Grossman's novel Life and Fate comes to the UK for a very limited run Benedict Cumberbatch stars in David Nicholl's adaptation of the Patrick Melrose stories for Sky Atlantic. Jesmyn Ward's novel Sing Unburied Sing was one of Barack Obama's best books of 2017 and has also won America's National Book Award. It examines the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and the power - and limitations - of family bonds. A new exhibition looking at the life of the co-creator of the indomitable Gaul Asterix is opening at at London's Jewish Museum Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Sathnam Sanghera, Lisa Appignanesi and Kit Davis. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Jason Reitman's new film Tully stars Charlize Theron as a mom coping with pressures of modern motherhood and at the edge of her sanity until a night nanny appears and everything seems to be looking up Mood Music is Joe Penhall's newest play which has just opened at London's Old Vic Theatre. It deals with the tricky business of the music biz and who can be credited with the success of a hit song. Whee there's a hit, there's a writ Rachel Cusk's novel Kudos is the third part in her trilogy which began with Outline and Transit. RIBA is currently staging an exhibition based around the idea of perspective. How we perceive it and its effects upon the observer. BBC4 is about to launch a season of programmes about contemporary dance, we look at a Michael Clark performance and a new piece about The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Tom Dyckhoff, Barb Jungr and Jenny McCartney. The producer is Oliver Jones.

British film Beast, set on Jersey observes a dark and complicated relationship between a troubled young woman and a local man suspected of committing ghastly crimes The Writer is Ella Hickson's new play at London's Almeida Theatre. Does the patriarchy work against the interests and power of women writers? Curtis Sittenfeld's collection of short stories You Think It, I'll Say It, covering subjects including unhappily married couples to happily unmarried couples, revenge and a female president of the US Rodin and the art of ancient Greece is an exhibition at The British Museum, looking at the inspiration Rodin took from the statuary of The Parthenon Netflix is embracing the scandi-drama zeitgeist with their first original Danish series The Rain, set six years after a rain-carried virus wipes out almost everyone in Scandinavia. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Denise Mina, Sarfraz Manzoor and Alice Jones. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Let The Sunshine In, directed by Claire Denis is a French film starring Juliette Binoche as a divorced Parisienne dealing with love and looking for a relationship that will work for her The latest West End jukebox musical Tina is about the tumultuous life of Tina Turner and her transformation from Anna Mae Bullock - born into rural poverty in the Southern USA - into half of Ike-and-Tina-Turner and a disastrous violent marriage into a world-conquering solo superstar Aminatta Forna's new novel Happiness follows the story of two strangers who bump into each other on Waterloo Bridge in London and their intertwining narratives. An urban wildlife expert and a psychiatrist specialising in PTSD share a lot in common Marina Amaral is a photograph colourisation expert and her work is much admired. She has colourised photographs of prisoners at Auschwitz and gained plaudits from the general public and survivors groups but does altering a historical document change our understanding of its meaning? BBC TV's latest Sunday night series is an adaptation of Wilkie Collins' The Woman In White Tom Sutcliffe's guests are David Olusoga, Shahidha Bari and Maev Kennedy. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Quiz is the latest play from James Graham. Its subject matter is the edition of Who Wants To be A Millionaire in which a lot of coughing went on. We the audience are asked to vote on whether we think the major is guilty or not of trying to beat the system. French film Custody is a searing and unflinching look at a disintegrating marriage and the emotional and psychological consequences on all those in the family 1960's sci-fi TV series Lost In Space is returning. And this time it's on Netflix with all the enormo-budgets that have become associated with that channel. But has spending more money made it any better? Nikesh Shukla's novel: The One Who Wrote Destiny is about the immigrant experience of a Gujarati family into the UK, following different generations' approach to assimilation and identity There's an exhibition of work by 50 women abstract artists from 1918 to 2018 at Victoria Miro Gallery in London, called Surface Work. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Ayesha Hazarika, Pat Kane and Lynn Nead. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Black comedy thriller film Thoroughbreds is about 2 American teenage girls who hatch a plot to kill one of their step-fathers. Is it easier to hire an assassin or do it themselves? And will emotions get in the way of such a potentially messy business? Congreve's The Way Of The World at London's Donmar Warehouse is a restoration comedy. But how funny can one make a wildly convoluted 300 year old plot about inheritance funny for today's theatre goers? Richard Powers' latest novel is The Overstory - about mankind's relationship with the arboreal world. Eight stories set around the USA over several centuries come together to make readers rethink their relationship with trees BBC TV is broadcasting a 4 part adaptation of China Mieville's novel The City & The City. It's a complicated speculative fiction work involving two cities which occupy exactly the same space and time but are invisible to each other. Well sort of... See if our reviewers have made sense of the idea The Arts Council Collection tours the UK bringing major works by established and emerging British artists to venues which might not otherwise have access to important contemporary art. The exhibition In My Shoes at Yorkshire Sculpture Park is the opening venue for a chance to see the newest collection additions. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Jessica Burton, John Mullan and Sarah Crompton. The producer is Oliver Jones.

The American auteur Wes Anderson's new stop motion animation feature film "Isle of Dogs" is set in a dystopian future Japan and features the voices of Bryan Cranston, Bill Murray, Greta Gerwig, Scarlet Johansson and Edward Norton - as dogs marooned in a garbage dump called Trash island. This is Anderson's second animation after his adaptation of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr Fox, and tells the story of 12 year old run away Atari on a mission to save his dog, Spots, after a deadly dog flu virus spreads through the canine population. The Inheritance at London's Young Vic by American playwright Matthew Lopez is an epic two part play about gay life in New York in the shadow of the Aids crisis. Directed by Stephen Daldry, whose credits include Billy Eliot, The Hours and The Reader, The Inheritance is inspired by EM Forster's Howard's End which Lopez read as a teenager growing up in Florida Panhandle and features Vanessa Redgrave in Part 2. Viv Albertine was the guitarist in cult post punk band The Slits turned solo artist, tv and film director and now writer. To Throw Away Unopened is a follow up to her award winning memoir Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. and explores the impact her parents had upon her and her sister growing up - prompted by the dramatic falling out between the sisters as their mother lay dying. Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics 2008- 2018 at the Design Museum in London examines the political graphic design of a turbulent decade. The political events featured include: the 2008 financial crash; the Barack Obama presidency; the Arab Spring; the Occupy movement; the Charlie Hebdo attacks; Brexit and Donald Trump's presidency.

Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kayling star as deities who are millions of years old in the £108m mega-budget film: A Wrinkle In Time. It's a story which mixes physics, time travel, female empowerment, and bullying at school. Does the presence of Oprah et al make it divine or dreadful? The Great Wave is a new play by Japanese Ulsterman Francis Turnly about the kidnapping in the 1970s of Japanese citizens by the North Korean authorities. Some returned, others were (and maybe still are) held by their captors. It's running at The Dorfman at London's National Theatre, Philip Hensher's latest novel The Friendly Ones follows two contemporaneous storylines about 2 families; one British, the other Bangladeshi. Come Home on BBC1 is a new drama about a family break-up told from different sides of the story. It's written by Danny Brocklehurst and features Christopher Eccleston as the dad, Greg America's Cool Modernism at Oxford's Ashmolean looks at art from the US from O'Keeffe to Hopper; before the word 'cool' was synonymous with 'groovy' Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Mark Ravenhill, Deborah Orr and Amanda Craig . The producer is Oliver Jones.

A new theatrical adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein at The Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre aims to be one of the most faithful versions to the original novel. What does this add to our understanding of the play and of the Creature? This year's Palme d'Or winning film The Square, is a Swedish satirical drama dealing with the world of contemporary art and our personal boundaries and responsibilities. Chloe Benjamin's latest novel 'The Immortalists' follows the lives of a group of contemporary New York Jewish American siblings and poses the question "how would you live your life if you knew the day you would die'? Two exhibitions have opened this week in London of the work of Tacita Dean (former YBA), known primarily for her work in film Annihilation is a new release on Netflix, written and directed by Alex Garland. With five female leads, its scheduled theatrical release has been dropped, but can we read into that decision: that it's no good? Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Susannah Clapp, Ryan Gilbey and Alex Clark. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Australian film Sweet Country is an Australian Western set in the 1920s - can there be justice when an aboriginal man kills a white farmer in self defence. High Society is a new exhibition at The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam - a series of life-size portraits from the masters of art history from Rembrandt to Manet and Velasquez. The National Theatre's latest production stars Rory Kinnear and Anne Marie Duff in Macbeth. Wendy Cope's first collection of poetry in 7 years is Anecdotal Evidence David Byrne has been one of the most consistently inventive and exciting musicians and performers for more than 4 decades. His latest release American Utopia is his first solo album for nearly a decade-and-a-half and looks at the state of the US right now. What does his eye alight upon and what does he make of it...? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Sir Richard Eyre, Tracy Chevalier and Natalie Haynes. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Fanny and Alexander opens at London's Old Vic Theatre. Adapted from Ingmar Bergman's award-winning 1982 film, how well does such a sumptuous film transfer to the stage? Also coming from Sweden is our film this week (well, to be more accurate, it's a Swedish/German/Egyptian co-production). The Nile Hilton Incident tells the true story of an Egyptian policeman investigating the death of a nightclub singer in Cairo, as The Arab Spring is beginning. But the justice system seems intent on stymieing his work. Toby Litt's latest novel is Notes For a Young Gentleman. It's told in the form of advice left behind by a WW2 soldier after a mission that went wrong. In Tones Drones and Arpeggios; The Magic of Minimalism on BBC4, Charles Hazlewood interviews La Monte Young and Terry Riley about the movement which stripped music back to its sonic essentials and power The latest exhibition at London's Photgraphers' Gallery is 'Under Cover, a Secret History of Cross Dressers' Made up of a collection of amateur 'found photographs' from Europe and the US dating from 1880 onwards, it explores the many manifestations of gender non-conformity and cross-dressing. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Rosie Boycott, Linda Grant and Robert Hanks. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Ruth Wilson stars in British film Dark River; a tragedy about a family coping with death on a rundown farm in Yorkshire, The B*easts at London's Bush Theatre is an exploration of the pornification of culture and the sexualisation of children. Kenneth Clark's landmark 1969 BBC TV series Civilisation explored the history of Western art, architecture and philosophy since the Dark Ages. It's now been remade as Civilisations. Fire Sermon is a novel by Jamie Quatro about a mother devoted to her family who begins an affair, throwing all her moral certainties into a spiral. Pop! Art in a Changing Britain is a new exhibition at Chichester's Pallant Gallery. The issues raised by pop artists in the 50s and 60s about mass media, the cult of celebrity, questions of identity and prevalent political concerns still resonate today. Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Kate Maltby, Viv Groskop and Kevin Jackson. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Greta Gerwig's latest film stars Saoirse Ronan. Lady Bird has been Oscar-nominated but will it impress our panel of reviewers? Alfred Döblin's 1929 novel Berlin Alexanderplatz is considered one of the finest novels ever written. How does a brand new translation improve it? For more than 35 years, Kettle's Yard in Cambridge was the home of Jim and Helen Ede and they opened it to the public allowing everyone to enjoy their art collection. Following 2 years of closure and a multi-million pound programme of improvements it has reopened Howard Brenton's play, The Shadow Factory is the opening production for a new arts centre in Southampton. Set during The Battle of Britain - when Southampton was heavily bombed - it tells the story of a government initiative to make more spitfires using the facilities and technologies of many small industries throughout the city Troy; Fall of a City is a new swords and sandals series on on BBC1 based on Ancient Greek tales Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Deborah Moggach, Meg Rosoff and Boyd Tonkin. The producer is Oliver Jones.

David Hare's first episodic television drama Collateral is a BBC and Netflix co production starring Carey Mulligan, John Simm, and Billie Piper. Set in contemporary London it explores the challenges posed by mass migration as a result of war, poverty and persecution. Hare references ground breaking television such as Cathy Come Home, The Boys From The Blackstuff and A Very British Coup as inspiration: will Collateral prove as innovative and as game changing? Winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes and Best Film at the London Film Festival, Andrey Zvyagintsev's Loveless tells the story of a divorcing couple whose 12 year old son goes missing after an argument. Drawing parallels with Ingmar Bergman's Scenes From a Marriage, Loveless is a probing look at the state of modern Russian society. Gundog marks the Royal Court debut of writer Simon Longman and is directed by Vicky Featherstone, recently named the most influential person working in British theatre by The Stage newspaper. Gundog is set on a remote farm where sisters Becky and Anna are holding it together after the death of their mother when a stranger enters their midst. Emily Fridlund's debut novel History of Wolves was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2017. Born in Minnesota, her new collection of short stories Catapult is a wry look at the trials and tribulations of American family life. T-shirt: Cult - Culture - Subversion at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London explores the T-shirt in the 20th Century, charting the history, culture and subversion of the most affordable and popular item of clothing on the planet. From men's underclothes to symbol of rock and roll rebellion, through punk and politics to luxury fashion item, T-shirts broadcast who we are and who we want to be.

Journey's End opened as a play in 1928. Set in the trenches of the First World War, there's a new film version which will hold a different resonance for modern viewers as for those theatre-goers 90 years ago . The horrors of war never really change, how do artists successfully interpret it anew? The latest production at London's Bridge Theatre is of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. There have been a lot of recent productions -what do our reviewer think makes this one special? Julian Barnes new novel -The Only Story - is about an affair between a young man and an older woman in 1960's Home Counties suburbia; an affair whose effects are reflected upon over the years. An exhibition of works from the collection of Charles I which were sold off and dispersed by Oliver Cromwell have now been gathered together for the first time in centuries, at the Royal Academy in London A new ITV drama - Trauma - starring Adrian Lester and John Simm begins on ITV. A trauma surgeon must face the reality of a bereaved father Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Christopher Frayling, Bridget Minamore and Bidisha. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Peter Carey's novel A Long Way From Home tells the story of a husband and wife taking part in a round-Australia endurance race in the 1950s. The Hayward Gallery in London reopens after a multi-million pound refit with an exhibition of work by the photographer Andreas Gursky. Giant photographs on brutalist walls. Richard Linklater's film Last Flag Flying is about three Vietnam veterans who come together to bury a son who has died in the conflict in Iraq. It stars Laurence Fishburne, Brian Cranston and Steve Carell. John is the name of a new play by Annie Baker at The Dorfman at London's National Theatre. Nearly three and a half hours long it's set in a B+B in Gettysburg Pennsylvania. Altered Carbon is a dystopian sci-fi series starting on Netflix. Is it possible to look to the future without mining the tropes of Bladerunner? Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Katie Puckrik, Liz Jobey and Ekow Eshun. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Disney Pixar's latest release is their first with an all-Latin cast. Coco explores the Mexican tradition of The Day of The Dead and a young boy's coming to terms with his heritage The new novel from Tim Pears is the second in his proposed trilogy. The Wanderers is the story of two young people in pre-WW1 England and the horses that are part of their lives All's Well That Ends Well has opened at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at London's Globe Theatre Hauser and Wirth Somerset has opened a new exhibition "The Land We Live In- The Land We Left Behind" that deals with attitudes to the countryside BBC Radio 4 has dramatised Elif Shafak's novel The Bastard of Istanbul as part of the Reading Europe season of programnmes Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Tom Holland, Stephanie Merritt and Kathryn Hughes. The producer is Oliver Jones.

The controversy surrounding London's Royal Court Theatre's staging of Andrea Dunbar's semi-autobiographical play Rita Sue and Bob Too led to it being postponed and then rapidly reinstated. Written in 1982 when she was 19, can it now be seen as a period piece? 3 Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri is a darkly comic film starring Frances McDormand, written produced and directed by Martin McDonagh Lily Tuck is a winner of The National Book Award in the USA. Her latest novel Sisters imagines a woman trying to deal with her relationship with her husband's first wife. History In The Making at Alan Cristea Gallery in London is an exhibition of works which make reference to, or appropriate, historical art as part of their working practice, Britannia is a new TV series set in 43AD, "following the Roman army as they return to crush the Celtic heart of Britannia". It's on Sky Atlantic Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Miranda Carter, Maria Delgado and Lawrence Norfolk. The producer is Oliver Jones.

A digital edition of Saturday Review presented by Antonia Quirke. Crown Heights is a new on-demand film based on an episode of NPR's This American Life, telling the true story of Trinidadian teenager Colin Warner's twenty year wrongful incarceration. The Miniaturists takes a long-running short play night and turns it into a podcast with five new short plays from up and coming British playwrights. The reviewers explore the world's greatest and strangest museums, galleries and monuments with Google Cultural Institute. The story of a refugee's journey across the sea is rendered in an interactive graphic novel format in Nam Le & Matt Huynh's The Boat. Antonia's guests are Inua Ellams, Andy Riley and Errollyn Wallen. The producer is Caitlin Benedict.

Tom 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 Blonde THEATRE 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 End of Hope at Orange Tree Theatre Consent at the National Theatre Girl From The North Country at the Old Vic Angels in America at the National Theatre The Last Testament of Lillian Bilocca at Hull Truck BOOK The Book of Dust by Philip Pullman 4321 by Paul Auster Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders To Kill the President by Sam Bourne Stranger in Their Own Land by Arlie Hochschild Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead Homegoing Yaa Gyasi Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor ART Blade Nayan Kulkarni Jasper Johns at the Royal Academy of Arts Howard Hodgkin: Paintng India at the Hepworth Gallery Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power at Tate Modern JW Anderson: Disobedient Bodies at the Hepworth Gallery Revolutionary Russia at the Royal Academy Kathe Kollwitz at Icon Gallery Frank Quitely at Kelvingrove Museum Glasgow Michelangelo and Sebastiano at the National Gallery Hokusai at the Victoria and Albert Museum TELEVISION The Handmaid's Tale Schitt's Creek GLOW Detectorists The Leftovers Mindhunter Ken Burn's The Vietnam War Wormwood The Good Fight Alias Grace Back The producer is Hilary Dunn.

The much-anticipated musical Hamilton has opened in London. It tells the story of Alexander Hamilton; one of the Founding Fathers of The United States with intentionally colour-conscious casting of non-white actors as the Founding Fathers. It has been a phenomenon on Broadway and across the US; how will it play with British audiences? Irish film Sanctuary has a cast made up almost exclusively of actors with learning difficulties. It lightly tells the story of a trip to the cinema where the best laid plans go awry. And even though it includes hugging and learning, does it tread the difficult line avoiding sentimentality or patronising the cast and the issues raised? In Louise Erdrich's newest novel Future Home Of The Living God, evolution is running backwards and all around the central character society is crumbling. She's a 26 year old fighting for her life in an oppressive post-cataclysm America, pregnant (maybe by an angel) And we review 3 of the BBC's TV Christmas specials: Father Brown, Upstart Crow and Not Going Out - what is the attraction of these yearly yuletide delights? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Sarah Churchwell, Dreda Say Mitchell and David Benedict. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Crooked House: there's an all-star film adaptation of one of Agatha Christie's own favourite novels. Its being shown on Channel 5 before being released in the cinema; does that bode well or ill? The League of Gentlemen began at The Edinburgh Fringe, transferred to radio then to TV, to a stage show and then to film. They're returning to BBC TV for 3 pre-Christmas specials, reviving favourite characters from the many iterations. Cult American TV programme Twilight Zone has been adapted for the stage in a new production at London's Almeida Theatre. How does Rod Serling's classic sci-fi series work when its not 'on the box'? From Life at The Royal Academy in London is an exhibition exploring how artists have made art from life. There's a new translation of Homer's Odyssey by Emily Wilson; the first into English by a woman. Does this give us a radically new perspective on the classical work? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Helen Lewis, Sophie Hannah and Rosie Goldsmith. the producer is Oliver Jones.

Menashe is a new film set in the Hasidic Jewish community in New York with almost the dialogue in Yiddish. It's a story about a hapless father trying to bond with his son and also conform to religious expectations Parliament Square is the 2017 Bruntwood Prize winning play at London's Bush Theatre about a woman on a mission Her Body and Other Parties is a collection of short stories by American author Carmen Maria Machado The story of the creative minds behind Winnie The Pooh - AA Milne and EH Shepard - are the subject of a new exhibition at London's Victoria and Albert Museum Marvelous Mrs Maisel is a TV drama series about a New York Jewish housewife in the 1950s who decided to become a stand-up comedian Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Lionel Shriver, Bridget Kendall and Michael Arditti. The producer is Oliver Jones.

A Christmas Carol is London's Old Vic Theatre's Christmas offering this year. It's a new version by Jack Thorne (who wrote Harry Potter and The Cursed Child) directed by Matthew Warchus and starring Rhys Ifans as Ebenezer Scrooge The Disaster Artist is a tribute to one of the worst films ever - Tommy Wisseau's The Room. If the original was such a stinker, can a film about it be funny about the ineptitude or just cruel? Elisa Lodato's novel An Unremarkable Body tells the story of a middle-aged daughter coming to terms with the death of her mother. There's an exhibition of work by Rose Wylie at London's Serpentine Galleries Crown Court was a daytime TV series which ran for 12 years from 1972. It's being resurrected with Judge Rinder as the gavel-banging star; Judge Judy meets 12 Angry men? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Patrick Gale, Briony Hanson and John Mullan The producer is Oliver Jones.

A new play by Anders Lustgarten, The Secret Theatre opens at London's Sam Wannamker Playhouse and is about Sir Frances Walsingham- Queen Elizabeth I's spymaster Paul Theroux's latest novel Mother Land is comic work about a ghastly matriarch exerting a poisonous influence on her grown-up children 20th century designer Erte worked in fashion, jewellery, graphic arts, costume and set design for film, theatre, and opera, and interior decor. An exhibition of his work at London's Grosvenor Gallery includes his exquisite alphabet. "What's your idea of romance"? American indie film Beach Rats explores the story of a young man discovering his sexuality and confused by what's on offer. BBC documentary Joe Orton Laid Bare looks at the life of the playwright who died 50 years ago. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Adam Mars Jones, Ellen E Jones and Louise Doughty. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Mudbound, is a searing look at prejudice set in the Jim Crow deep south of the United States shortly after WW2 Network is a new production at The National Theatre in London. It's an adaptation of the 1976 Oscar-winning film about a TV anchorman who announces that he's "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore" which appalls then delights and ultimately infuriates his network bosses. It stars Bryan "Breaking Bad" Cranston as the newsreader who wigs out. Javier Cercas's novel The Impostor tells the extraordinary tale of a Spanish man who falsely claimed to have been a survivor of Mauthausen concentration camp. Can we trust that anything in the story he tells of his life is true? She's Got To Have It was Spike Lee's 1986 breakout film which he has now adapted into a 10 part TV series for Netflix North: fashioning Identity, is an exhibition at Somerset House exploring contemporary artistic and stylistic representations of the north of England. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Emma Jane Unsworth, Kit Davis and Jim White. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross is revived at London's Playhouse Theatre, starring Christian Slater John Hamm and Geena Davis in Marjorie Prime - a film about love loss and avatars There's a new BBC TV adaptation of E M Forster's Howards End Richard Flanagan's novel First Person - his first since the Mann Booker winning The Narrow Road To The Deep North - draws on his own experience as a ghost writer. Red Star Over Russia is an exhibition at Tate Modern marking the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution and examining its impact on visual culture Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Bob and Roberta Smith, Charlotte Mullins and Susan Jeffreys. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Heather is a play at London's Bush Theatre about a reclusive children's author who becomes famous 78/52 is a star-studded 90 minute film analysing the infamous shower scene in Hitchcock's Psycho. In less than three minutes it has 78 set-ups and 52 edit cuts and is a transformatory moment of cinema. Ali Smith's second novel in her seasonal series is Winter; family ructions around a Christmas gathering looking back through previous gatherings Monochrome at The National Gallery in London is an exhibition looking at how and why artists in different eras have worked in black and white. And nowadays they can work in no colour palette at all Babylon Berlin is a new 16 part, €38m series beginning on Sky Atlantic, set in the decadent world of the Weimar era German capital. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Gillian Slovo, Damian Barr and Gaylene Gould. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Young Marx is the opening production at Nicholas Hytner's newest venture; the brand new Bridge Theatre in London. It stars Rory Kinnear as a youthful version of the writer of Das Kapital Armie Hammer plays a visiting professor who is the object of a crush by a younger man in a new film Call me By Your Name. The exhibition Age of Terror: Art since 9/11 has just opened at The Imperial War Museum in London, showing works by an international array of artists created in the wake of the events of that world-changing day Susie Boyt's latest novel - Love and Fame - examines relations between siblings as well as a difficult marriage. Alias Grace on Netflix is a new series dramatising Margaret Atwood's novel Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Antonia Quirk, Ayesha Hazarika and Ryan Gilbey. the producer is Oliver Jones.

Armando Iannucci's film The Death of Stalin is described as "A comedy of terrors" and "A comedy of hysteria". How funny can a film about the death of the man whose regime saw the murder of hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens actually be? There's a new trilogy of Philip Pullman books on the way; it's both the sequel and prequel to His Dark Materials. We're looking at Part 1 of The Book of Dust - La Belle Sauvage An exhibition of work by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov at Tate Modern in London profiles the lives of 2 Russian conceptual artists from their beginnings, un-sanctioned by the state, to their more modern, still uncompromising work Albion is the latest play by Mike Bartlett (Doctor Foster, King Charles III) opening at London's Almeida Theatre Gunpowder; a Guy Fawkes drama beginning on BBC1 comes in 3 episodes - concluding just in time for Bonfire Night Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Melissa Harrison, Alex Preston and Amanda Craig. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Sally Potter's new film The Party is her funniest to date with an all-star cast telling a neat little tale of a disastrous dinner party Heisenberg:The Uncertainty Principle is a new play by Simon Stephens. relating physics with relationship advice The Sparsholt Affair is Alan Hollinghurst's new novel about a love affair set in Oxford during the Second World War Degas: A Passion for Perfection is at Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum, with works by Degas himself and also looking at those who influenced him and those he influenced A new 3 part series, The Gamble, on BBC Radio 4 looks at the connection between risk and creativity, narrated by the actor Noma Dumezweni Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Sarah Crompton, Kevin Jackson and Graham Farmelo. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Blade Runner 2049; 35 years after the original cult film, Denis Villeneuve directs the sequel starring Ryan Gosling. How can anyone follow up such a classic? James Graham's comic play Labour of Love tells the story of The Labour Party over several elections in the same fictional constituency somewhere in the north Midlands. starring Martin Freeman and Tamsin Greig Halloween may be a few weeks away but Saturday Review is getting in early with two books - Eight Ghosts, commissioned by English Heritage (8 short stories by a range of exciting authors set in their properties) AND Ghosts :A Cultural History by Susan Owens Timewasters is a comedy series beginning on ITV in which a bunch of young present day black Britons find a time machine and head back to 1920s London. The British Library has a new exhibition celebrating 140 years of recorded sound Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Charlotte Mendelson, Tracy Chevalier and Christopher Frayling. The producer is Oliver Jones.

British film Daphne portrays the hectic life of a young woman in an overwhelming, contemporary London The National Theatre's touring production of Jane Eyre started in London, has been around the country and it's back in the capital. Multi award-winning American documentary maker Ken Burns has a new series. It's about the Vietnam war and has just begun on BBC4 Italian author Nicola Lagioia's novel Ferocity won that country's highest literary award, how well does it work in translation? An exhibition of the work of Jasper Johns has just opened at London's Royal Academy Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Sebastian Faulks, Meg Rosoff and Tiffany Murray. The producer is Oliver Jones.

This year's Golden Bear winning film On Body And Soul is a peculiar love story between two social misfits who work at a Hungarian abattoir A revival of Thornton Wilder's most-performed play Our Town at Manchester's Royal Exchange resets it to reflect the local audience Jennifer Egan's follow up to her multi prize-winning A Visit From The Goon Squad is Manhattan Beach. Set in the docks of New York during wartime, Egan has described it as "a fairly straightforward, noirish thriller". Will our panel be more effulgent? A major new exhibition of the work of the late street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat has opened at London's Barbican Centre; was he warmly or suffocatingly embraced by New York's hungry art scene in the 1980s? HBO TV's new series The Deuce begins on Sky Atlantic And - if you listen to the podcast version of this programme, you can find out what the reviewers have been enjoying when they're not absorbing stuff for the Saturday Review Tom Sutclidffe's guests are Natalie Haynes, Arifa Akbar and Peter Kemp. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Writer / director Darren Aronofsky's Mother! is a horror film starring Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem. A young woman is single handedly restoring her husband's country home which has been destroyed by fire, when their seemingly tranquil life is disrupted by the arrival of a mysterious couple played by Michelle Pfeiffer and Ed Harris. Booker prize winning Irish writer Roddy Doyle frequently returns in his novels to a childhood in the 1960s and 1970s on a housing estate in north Dublin. His new novel Smile returns to the trauma of school days when 54-year-old Victor Forde, separated from his television presenter wife, is confronted by memories of his experiences at the Christian Brothers school he attended as a child. Kathe Kollwitz was one of the leading artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, notable for the emotional power of her drawing, printmaking and later sculpture. Portrait of the Artist: Kathe Kollwitz at Birmingham's Ikon Gallery includes around forty works from the British Museum's remarkable print collection. Known for painting, printmaking and sculpture, her most famous art cycles, including The Weavers and The Peasant War, depict the effects of poverty, hunger, and war on the working class. Hampstead Theatre presents the world premiere of Terry Johnson's new play Prism, based on the extraordinary life of double Oscar-winning cinematic master Jack Cardiff. Cardiff is played by Olivier award winning actor Robert Lindsay and Prism also stars Claire Skinner. And a look the art of the opening title sequences with reference to a number of recent dramas as well as classic favourites. How much has the aesthetic of the opening title sequence changed and what is the future for the form? Image: Left to right: Javier Bardem and Jennifer Lawrence in mother!. Credit: Paramount Pictures.

Stephen Sondheim's Follies starring Imelda Staunton and directed by Dominic Cooke is staged at the National's Olivier Theatre for the first time. The story concerns a reunion in a crumbling Broadway theatre of the past performers of the "Weismann's Follies", a musical revue (based on the Ziegfeld Follies), that played in that theatre between the World Wars. Salman Rushdie's new novel The Golden House invokes literature, pop culture and cinema to spin the story of the American zeitgeist over the last 8 years. The novel opens with the inauguration of Barack Obama and closes with the election of President Trump and is about a wealthy immigrant family in Manhattan told from the perspective of a young, aspiring film maker who lives opposite them. Writer/director Taylor Sheridan's Wind River stars Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tracker and an FBI agent, respectively, who try to solve a murder on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. The last in a trilogy of films which includes Hell or High Water and Sicario. Tin Star is a ten part British drama series created by Rowan Joffe on Sky Atlantic starring Tim Roth and Christina Hendricks. Police detective Jim Worth is the new police chief of a small town in the Rocky Mountains, where he has moved with his family to escape his past. The influx of migrant workers from a new big oil company, headed by the mysterious Mrs. Bradshaw, forces Worth to confront the resulting wave of crime that threatens his town. Can Graphic Design Save Your Life? is a new exhibtion at Wellcome Collection in London, the first major show to explore the relationship between graphic design and health and includes 200 exhibits, including the rarely displayed emblems of the Red Cross, Red Crescent and the Red Crystal.

How do you write about scent and smells? We're looking at Kate Grenville's new book The Case Against Fragrance which looks at the potentially poisonous fumes with which we voluntarily surround ourselves. British film God's Own Country has been described as Breakback Yorkshire. It's set on a farm on the moors with love developing among the livestock. It's time for Folkestone's third Triennial, inviting artists to engage with the rich cultural history and built environment of the locality, and to exhibit newly commissioned work in public spaces around the town. Since it began in 2009, NT Live has been seen by more than 5.5 million people in over 2,000 venues around the world, including over 650 venues in the UK alone. Their latest production stars Billy Piper in Simon Stone's re-imagining of Lorca's Yerma. Robert Mitchell and David Webb are back with a new series called - appropriately - Back Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Linda Grant, Katie Puckrik and David Benedict . The producer is Oliver Jones.

Recorded at The Edinburgh Festivals, there's a selection of some of the highlights from this year's typically varied assortment of delights. Also: Ned Beauman's new novel; Madness Is Better Than Defeat, set in 1930s Honduras An exhibition of British Realist painters at The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Kathryn Bigelow's film Detroit tells the story of the 1960s race riots in that city Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Inua Ellams, Louise Welsh and Peggy Hughes. the producer is Oliver Jones.

Final Portrait; Stanley Tucci's film about Giacometti tries to show the tortured creative process of a genius Ben Wishaw plays an aerospace billionaire who sets out to change the world in Against at London's Almeida Theatre. Can money overcome violence? Peter Kosminsky's drama, The State on Channel 4, attempts to understand why young British people might join Islamic State The plot of Nicole Krauss's latest novel Forest Dark seems to mirror her own life - down to a writer character called Nicole. The National Gallery of Ireland has undergone a €30m refit over the last 8 years and has at last reopened with a blockbuster exhibition: Vermeer and the Masters of Genre painting Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Philip Hensher, Kathryn Hughes and Sally Gardner. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Charlize Theron stars as an MI6 spy in Berlin just before the fall of the wall. In Atomic Blonde she shows that she's quite capable of doing anything a male spy could do; with lots of seducing, fighting and killing Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara play a married couple in A Ghost Story. After he is killed, he haunts his old locations wearing a white bed sheet with eye holes cut out. Jonathan Dee's novel The Locals is the follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize nominated The Privileges. A New York hedge fund manager moves into a small rural community and becomes mayor Project X: This Is Human is a new art exhibition at HOME in Manchester The BBC launches a period medical comedy Quacks on BBC2. Rory Kinnear, Matthew Baynton and Tom Basden play Victorian doctors and medical pioneers. Shahidha Bari's guests are Abigail Morris, Michael Arditti and Gail Tolley. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Danish/German co-production Land of Mine is a film about a group of German POWs who - once the Nazi occupation of Denmark ended - were made to clear mines on the coastal beaches Mosquitoes, starring Olivia Coman and Olivia Williams, is the latest play by Lucy Kirkwood at The Dorfman at London's National's Theatre. It interweaves family relations, particle physics and sexting Bernard MacLaverty's first novel for a decade and a half is Midwinter Break - a long-married couple escape to Amsterdam. Can it match the success of Grace Notes? Matisse In The Studio is a new exhibition at at Lonodn's Royal Academy 'does what it says on the can' - it's a look at his work and the items which inspired it; from a flower vase or a chocolate pot to an African mask or weaving Trust Me is a new BBC drama starring Jodie Whittaker (the next Dr Who) about a nurse who loses her job and decides to keep working by impersonating a doctor Tom Sutcliffe's guests are David Aaronovitch, Helen Lewis and Deborah Bull. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Tom Sutcliffe and guests review a gorgeous selection of this week's art

Christopher Nolan's film Dunkirk dramatises the many acts of heroism and horror of the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of soldiers during World War 2 from French beaches. Many critics are talking about Oscars, will our reviewers agree? The newest production of Much Ado About Nothing at London's Globe Theatre sets the story during the armed struggles of the Mexican Revolution. Sarah Winman's novel Tin Man is a love story between two boys and a woman who changes their love and their lives; it's about relationships, loss and kindness The first posthumous exhibition of the work of Rose Finn-Kelcey at Modern Art Oxford takes a selective look at the breadth of her work over several decades. The BBC's LGBTQ season marking the 50th anniversary of The Sexual Offences Act, presents Against the Law starring Daniel Mays as Peter Wildeblood, one the defendants in the 1954 Montagu case. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Lisa Appignanesi, Paul Morley and Alex Clark. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Sophia Coppola's film The Beguiled is set during the American Civil War when a wounded Yankee soldier is rescued by the last few staff and pupils at a largely abandoned school for young women in the deep south. Can hospitality overcome suspicion? And who has the upper hand? Moving Kings, Joshua Cohen's new novel, is set in New York and Israel Soul of a Nation at Tate Modern explores art in the age of Black Power. Work by African American artists exploring and celebrating black identity 1963-1983 Regent's Park Theatre's latest production is an adaptation of Charles Dickens' French Revolution-set A Tale of Two Cities. Ozark is a new series on Netflix about a Chicago lawyer whose debt to a Mexican drug lord means he has to relocate with his family to Missouri Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Ellen E Jones, Sathnam Sanghera and Susannah Clapp. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Committee is a new musical that's opened at London's Donmar Warehouse. Based on the parliamentary investigation into Kids Company. It might seem like an unorthodox source of inspiration , but so were London Road and Jerry Springer Terrence Malick's latest film Song To Song has polarised critics; will our reviewers s be beguiled or bewildered? State of Freedom by award winning author Neel Mukherjee is a novel which explores the interweaving of five stories and five lives via an initially invisible thread. There's a free outdoor exhibition of sculpture in Regents Park with 23 works from contemporary artists. The BBC's Gay Britannia season includes a drama on Radio 3 exploring the troubled creative process behind the 1961 film Victim which dealt with homosexual blackmail. Also a series of radio essays The Love That Wrote Its Name exploring significant and long-lasting gay partnerships among important figures in the arts. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Deborah Moggach,Kate Williams and Geoffrey Durham. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Emma Thompson and Brendan Gleeson in a film adaptation of Hans Fallada's novel Alone In Berlin - based on a true story of small scale wartime heroism. Ink - a play about Rupert Murdoch's acquisition of The Sun in 1969 and the grubby world of redtop journalism.Opening at London's Almeida Theatre. Christopher Wilson's novel; Zoo, a comedy set in Stalin's dying days, about a boy who inadvertently becomes the food taster for The Man of Iron Dreamers Awake is a new exhibition at White Cube Gallery looking at women in the Surrealist movement and its lasting influence on female artists 2 TV music documentaries about famous rock sideman including Earl Slick (who played guitar with David Bowie, John Lennon and many more) and Becoming a Lied Singer in which Baritone Thomas Quasthoff gives his personal guide to Lieder - poems of nature, love and death for solo voice and piano. Tom Sutcliffe's guests will be Stephen Hough, Georgie Hopton and Natalie Haynes. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Edgar Wright's film Baby Driver is a high-octane thriller about a getaway driver who has to do "one last job" before he can get out of a life of crime. It has a fantastic soundtrack, but is that enough? Gloria at The Hampstead Theatre is a play by Pulitzer-nominated American playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. It's comic drama about ambition, office warfare and hierarchies Thomas Keneally's latest novel Crimes Of The Father deals with a fictionalised sex abuse case against the Catholic church in 1990s Australia Tate Liverpool has a new exhibition: Germany, Portraying A Nation 1919-1933, looking at the work of painter Otto Dix and photographer August Sander capturing life between the wars Netflix new series Gypsy is about a therapist who develops intimate and possibly dangerous relationships with people in her patients' lives Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Rowan Pelling, Rosie Boycott and Cahal Dallat. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Inua Ellam's play Barbershop Chronicles has opened at London's National Theatre. It's about the intimate and almost-sacred masculine world of black barber shops around the world. French film Slack Bay is a comedy about a series of mysterious seaside murders. Starring Juliette Binoche, it mixes professional actors with complete novices and slapstick comedy with cannibalism and gender-fluid relationships Amanda Craig's latest novel The Lie Of the Land tells the story of a London couple who move to the country under straitened circumstances and uncover a grisly murder in their new home Birmingham's Ikon Gallery is staging an exhibition of a series of Sidney Nolan portraits, as part of the commemoration marking the centenary of his birth. He was an Australian who moved to the UK at the age of 32 but whose work never reflected his new home. GLOW is a new Netflix series from the makers of Orange Is The New Black, set in the world of women's TV wrestling in the 1980s. It's all big hair, power ballads, coke snorting and grappling. Emma Dabiri's guests are Catherine O'Flynn, Liz Jensen and Sarfraz Manzoor. The producer is Oliver Jones.

My Cousin Rachel is an atmospheric adaptation for the big screen of Daphne Du Maurier's novel starring Rachel Weisz and Sam Claflin and directed by Notting Hill director Roger Michell. Like her most famous novel "Rebecca" the narrative revolves around a large private estate in Cornwall and a powerful woman whose life is an enigma. Arundhati Roy was the first Indian woman writer to win the Booker Prize, which she won in 1997 for her novel The God of Small Things, and which sold over 8 million copies world wide. A political activist and writer, it has taken her 20 years to publish her ambitious second novel, The Ministry of Untold Happiness. Raphael: The Drawings at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford includes 120 drawings by the celebrated Renaissance artist, including 50 from the Ashmolean's own collection which is the largest and most important in the world. The drawings are taken from across Raphael's brief but brilliant career, taking visitors from his early career in Umbria through his radically creative years in Florence to the period where he was at the height of his powers in Rome, working on major projects such as the Vatican frescoes. Common, a world premiere by DC Moore, and directed by Headlong's Artistic Director Jeremy Herrin opens at the National's Olivier Theatre. An epic new history play co-produced by the National Theatre and Headlong, it is set in the early days of the Industrial Revolution when the common land of England is under threat. Common stars Anne-Marie Duff. Set against an awe-inspiring backdrop of the Riviera in the South of France, Riviera is a new ten part television series from Sky, and stars Julia Stiles as Georgina Clios, the smart and resourceful second wife of a billionaire banker who dies in a yacht explosion. This catastrophe sets in motion a dramatic chain of events that exposes the darker side of the Riviera's glitz and glamour and the global art market. Conceived by Neil Jordan, who co-wrote the first episode with John Banville, the series also stars Adrian Lester.

The long- awaited Wonder Woman blockbuster movie has arrived amongst us mere mortals - prepare to be overwhelmed, puny mortals. A stage adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion has opened at The Manchester Royal Exchange. It's taken an unconventional approach and includes silver swimwear and a foam party - is this a step too far for a classic text or a bold new interpretation? The work of designers Lucienne Day and Barbara Brown can be seen at The Whitworth Gallery in Manchester. Their fabrics seems fresh, familiar and distinctive six decades after they were created Adam Thorpe's latest novel Missing Fay deals with a familiar trope in novels; the missing child. How does he mine something new from a seam which has been worked so often before? Channel 4 has a new drama based around a fictional school in Yorkshire. Ackley Bridge is being promoted and scheduled to get a lot of attention, but how well does it deal with modern education? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Paul Farley, Bidisha and Susan Jeffreys. The producer is Oliver Jones.

John Boyega plays the title role in Woyzeck; an updating of a 19th century German play about a man driven mad by circumstances. How well has the Star Wars actor adapted to the stage? And has Jack Thorne - who adapted Harry Potter for the theatre - made the play relevant for today's audience? Finnish film director Aki Kaurasmaki's latest film is The Other Side of Hope - told in his trademark low key, quiet manner, it deals with a refugee arriving in Helsinki. There's a new TV version of The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel, coming to Channel 4. It's had rave reviews in the US, will it beguile our reviewers? Turkish/American writer Elif Batuman's latest novel The Idiot is set over the course of one year in a student's life at Harvard in the late 1980s. Her academic pursuits and longing for love are revealed in the novel (which intentionally shares its title with Dostoevsky) California Designing Freedom is a new exhibition at London's Design Museum celebrating the enormous range of items designed in The Golden State. It ties together the explosion in design with the hippy movement and mind-expanding drugs. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Louise Doughty, Giles Fraser and Maev Kennedy. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Joe Wright directs Brecht's Life of Galileo at The Young Vic, reimagining it with a Chemical Brothers rave soundtrack... In science fiction black comedy Colossal, Anne Hathaway plays a woman coping with alcoholism whose alter ego just happens to be a giant space monster. It's a kaiju movie Jimmy McGovern's newest TV offering is Broken which stars Sean Bean as an inner city priest coping with escalating personal and parish pressures. Lucy Hughes-Hallett's novel Peculiar Ground deals with the construction and changing nature of the walls of a country estate across the centuries. Thresholds is an exhibition by Mat Collishaw at Somerset House, re-staging one of the earliest exhibitions of photography in 1839, when William Henry Fox Talbot showed his first prints. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are John Mullan, Laline Paull and Tiffany Jenkins. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Yaël Farber's Salome at NT tries to retell a biblical story many of us half-know. Has she been misrepresented and misunderstood and is she more than the scheming woman who arranged the decapitation of John The Baptist? Francois Ozon's bilingual film Frantz is a tale of love and lies in France and Germany shortly after the First World War. If telling the truth is too painful, can it be okay to lie? Anything is Possible is a new novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout. Continuing the story of characters from her previous highly-acclaimed work, My Name Is Lucy Barton. Tate Modern's newest exhibition looks at the career and output of sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti BBC TV has dramatised the Rochdale sex abuse scandal. Starring Maxine Peake, it's not easy viewing but what what light can a drama shine upon such a notorious case? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Blake Morrison, Viv Groskop and Barb Jungr. The producer is Oliver Jones.

A revival of Tony Kushner's epic play about the US AIDS epidemic Angels In America is being staged at London's National Theatre. It's nearly 8 hours long (in two parts); is it still pertinent and is it worth sitting through? Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem was an enormous theatrical success and his latest The Ferryman has just opened at London's Royal Court Theatre. Set during The Troubles in Northern Ireland it deals with one family's unavoidable and unwilling involvement The family at the heart of Japanese film Harmonium seem to have a functioning but unemotional stability. And then a stranger comes into their lives and slowly things change. For the better or for the worse? Laurent Binet's new novel The Seventh Function of Language is about the death (or was it an assassination?!) of Roland Barthes - the death of the author of "The Death Of The Author" Eric Gill was one of the finest sculptors of the 20th Century. And also a paedophile. A new exhibition in his home village of Ditchling, tries to see if it's possible to appreciate his art as entirely separate from his biography Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Damian Barr, Maria Delgado and Gillian Slovo. The producer is Oliver Jones.

British film Lady Macbeth has been much praised for the central perfomance by Florence Pugh as the intelligent complicated 19th century woman sold into marriage and realising that her soul is being stifled. Ivo Van Hove's prodiuction of Obsession - an adaptation of The Postman Always Rings Twice stars Jude Law. It should be theatrical gold... Sarah Schmidt's debut novel See What I Have Done deals with the still-unsolved Lizzie Borden case from 1892: "Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks" London's Whitechapel Gallery has a new exhibition: Iself, bringing together the work of artists exploring their own personal identity Griefcast - In Cariad Lloyd's podcast she talks with fellow comedians about their own experiences of coping with grieving, mourning and death and mortality. How funny can such a grim subject be? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Alex Preston, Andrea Rose and Kit Davies. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Gemma Arterton and Bill Nighy star in in Their Finest; a new film about the vital role of movies in Britain during The War. A revival of Christopher Hampton's 1970 play The Philanthropist has opened in London. It features a glittering array of actors best known for their TV work. How well do their skills transfer to the stage? Lisa McInerny won The Bailey's Prize 's for her first novel The Glorious Heresies. Her latest, The Blood Miracles, continues that story with same characters many years older and a little wiser Ashley Bickerton is a painter and sculptor whose work is much admired (and collected) by Damien Hirst, among others. A new exhibition at Hirst's Newport Gallery includes work from throughout Bickertion's career The Hours is a new radio dramatization of Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer winning book inspired by Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. Starring Rosamund Pike it has the tricky job of maintaining three simultaneous plotlines set in different eras Viv Groskop's guests are Emma Jane Unsworth, Ryan Gilbey and Ekow Eshun. The producer is Oliver Jones.

South Korean film director Park Chan-Wook's latest film "The Handmaiden" is based on Welsh writer Sarah Waters' hit 2002 novel Fingersmith about a lesbian love affair in Victorian England transported to 1930s Korea. Award winning British writer Hari Kunzru's fifth novel, White Tears, is a ghost story, a terrifying murder mystery, a timely meditation on race, and a love letter to all the forgotten geniuses of American music and Delta Mississippi Blues. American Pulitzer Prize nominee Rajiv Joseph's new play opens at the newly refurbished Bush Theatre in London and tells the story of two guards at the Taj Mahal, as the magnificent monument nears completion in Agra, India in 1648. Born to Kill is a new four-part drama exploring the mind of Sam, a teenager on the verge of acting out suppressed psychopathic desires. As this chilling coming of age drama unfolds, decades of deceit are revealed and Sam's family's long buried past returns with a vengeance. Starring Romola Garai (The Hour, Suffragette) and Daniel Mays (Line of Duty). And Game Changers, Another Way to Play at Somerset House in London shows how designers and artists continuously adapt the mechanics of familiar games, featuring chess, billiards and mazes.

Nina Raine's new play Consent at London's National Theatre explores the tricky intertwining of modern relationships and legal niceties The life of American poet Emily Dickinson is dramatised in Terence Davies' new film A Quiet Passion. Does enough happen to make it dramatically interesting? Jon McGregor's newest novel Reservoir 13 looks at a community exploring the loss of one family, as life goes on for everyone else Tate St Ives is reopening after many months of closure for development. The first exhibition is The Studio and The Sea We look at a couple of car-based TV comedies; Peter Kaye in Car Share + Miriam Margolyes in Bucket And in the podcast, our guests reveal what they enjoy in the world of arts when they're not reviewing it for us Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Katie Puckrik, Alex Clark and Kevin Jackson. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Scarlett Johansson plays Major in the manga-based action film Ghost In The Shell. David Tennant leads the cast of Don Juan in Soho. Patrick Marber's play, based on Moliere's original - which debuted a decade ago - reaches London's West End for the first time Australian poet Les Murray's latest collection On Bunyah cogitates on the rural spot in New South Wales where his ancestors settled and lived - Wild Horses Creek, known to the aboriginal Australians as Bunyah The Art of Comics, a new exhibition in Glasgow, looks at the work of comicbook artist Frank Quitely, "from Krypton to Kelvingrove.. from Gotham to Glasgow". Harlots is a TV series starting on ITV Encore - is it too good to be hidden away on a niche channel? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Miranda Carter, Jim White and Robert hanks. The producer is Oliver Jones.

The RSC is staging Shakepeare's Roman plays, beginning with Julius Caesar and Antony & Cleopatra - how have they made them chime for today's audiences? The debut film from American director Nicolas Pesce The Eyes of my Mother is a black and white gothic tale of murder, home-invasion incest, necrophilia, abduction, imprisonment, involuntary surgery..I could go on, but I think you've probably got the idea by now. Is it any good? David Vann's new novel is Bright Air Black, a poetic prose retelling of the Medea story. BBC TV had adapted Evelyn Waugh's Decline & Fall as a 3 part series starring Jack Whitehall - do our reviewers think a good job has been done with a classic novel? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Christopher Frayling, Kathryn Hughes and Alice Jones. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Griff Rhys Jones plays the title rol in a freely adapted production of Moliere's The Miser Personal Shopper stars Kristen Stewart as a young woman trying to communicate with her dead twin brother beyond the veil President Abraham Lincoln never overcame his grief at the death of his son Willie and American novelist George Saunders has written Lincoln In The Bardo which explores how he tried to cope An exhibition of works by Michelangelo & Sebastiano at London's National Gallery explores the two artists mutually supportive and inspiring relationship Simon Amstell has created Carnage, a mockumentary from the future looking at the rise of veganism. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Mark Ravenhill, Rosie Boycott and Melissa Harrison. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Gurinder Chadha's film Viceroy's House mixes a love story with the history of Indian Partition Andrew Scott plays The Dane in The Almeida Theatre's latest production of Hamlet The Fatal Tree is Jake Arnott's newst novel, set in 18th century London, written in street slang of the time and telling a true story about a married criminal couple of the time BBC TV's Britain In Focus is a series looking at the history of photography in The UK, at the professional and personal level The Serpentine Gallery has an exhibition of work by Zambian-born British conceptual artist John Latham Tom Sutcliffe's guests are John Tusa, Bidisha and Laura Ashe. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Tamsin Greig has been gender-blind cast as Malvolia in The National Theatre's production of Twelfth Night. Does it work or is it an interesting novelty Quebecois film director Xavier Dolan's latest film It's Only The End Of The World was booed when it won The Grand Prix at last year's Cannes Festival and some reviewers have described it as "disappointing" "excruciating" and "deeply unsatisfying". What will our panel make of it? America After The Fall is an exhibition at London's Royal Academy which looks at painting in the USA in the 1930s, responding to social change and economic anxiety. HBO's Big Little Lies is a new TV series with an all star cast and a grubby tale of the dirt that lies beneath modern glamour Ross Raisin's new novel A Natural is about a young footballer whose dreams of reaching the upper leagues are rapidly fading and whose identity is conflicted. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Russell Kane, Abigail Morris and Susan Jeffreys. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Revolution: Russian Art 1917-32 is an exhibition at the Royal Academy where the title tells you what to expect but what surprises and delights lie in wait for visitors? Dan Gillespie Sells - lead songwriter with pop group The Feeling - has written a musical: Everybody's Talking About Jamie. Opening at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre, it's about a northern working class lad who decides to escape his humdrum life by adopting a drag persona. A bit like Billy Elliott in a dress? Moonlight is the Oscar-touted film looking at the experience of a gay African American boy growing up to become a man and his struggle with identity fulfilment and happiness Emily Ruskovich's novel Idaho tells the story of how violence within a family wrenches it apart, through multiple perspectives and timeshifts. BBC TV has adapted Len Deighton's novel SS-GB; what would the UK have been like, if we'd lost The Battle Of Britain and Nazis had taken over in 1941? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Helen Lewis, Ellen Jones and Cahal Dallat. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Ang Lee's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is the first film to utilise a shooting and projection frame rate of 120 frames per second in 3D at 4K HD resolution. In a drama which tells the story of American war heroes on leave from Iraq, will audiences be won over by what Ang Lee calls a " new immersive cinema?" Vietnamese American writer Viet Thanh Nguyen won the Pullitzer Prize for his debut novel The Sympathizer about the Vietnam war. His new book of short stories, The Refugees, draws heavily on his own experience of arriving in America having fled Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975. Bruegel's Defining A Dynasty at The Holburne Museum in Bath is the UK's first exhibition devoted to the Bruegel dynasty and brings together 35 works produced by four different generations of the family. A key work in the exhibition is the Wedding Dance in the Open Air, an oil painting from the Holburne's own collection which, following conservation work and technical examination, can be attributed firmly to the hand of Pieter Bruegel the Younger. The Kettering Incident is a new 8 part series on Sky Atlantic starring Elizabeth Debicki who played opposite Tom Hiddleston in BBC's hit drama The Night Manager. Shot entirely on location in Tasmania, The Kettering Incident follows a doctor (Debicki) who returns to her home town after several years overseas, only to find herself at the centre of a mystery surrounding the disappearance of a young girl. Stefan Zweig's 1938 novel Ungueld des Herzens (Beware of Pity) brings together two of Europe's most boundary-pushing, imaginative theatre companies at the Barbican for the first time. Theatre de Complicite's Simon McBurney directs the outstanding Berlin theatre company Schaubühne in a story of a doomed romance set in the Austro-Hungarian empire just before the first world war.

Sex With Strangers is Laura Eason's 2009 play about a brash blogger (whose blog shares the title of the play) meeting a shy novelist the Hampstead Theatre Toni Erdmann is a German comedy film which has been nominated for the Best Foreign Language Oscar. is it wunderbar or nicht so gut? John Burnside has a new novel out: Ashland and Vine about friendship, history and memories Turner Prize-winning Keith Tyson's latest exhibition Turn Back Now at the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings shows more than 350 of his studio wall drawings where the work itself is the process. Sheridan Smith stars in The Moorside, a BBC TV drama about the kidnapping of Shannon Matthews Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Stig Abel, Dea Birkett, and Linda Grant. The producer is Oliver Jones.

The Estorick Collection in London has reopened after a refit with an exhibition 'War In The Sunshine: The British in Italy 1917-1918'; paintings and photographs from that conflict The Nix is the first novel by Nathan Hill, about a son trying to understand his counter-culture mother who has gained notoriety after attacking a right wing politician Rebecca Hall was tipped for an Oscar for playing Christine Chubbuck, a TV newsreader who committed suicide live on air in 1974. Will our reviewers feel Rebecca Hall was cheated out of a nomination The musical Death takes a Holiday opens at London's Charing Cross Theatre. Created by a multi-TONY Award winning team, will London theatre-goers take it to their hearts? Amazon TV's new series 'Z: The Beginning of Everything', stars Christina Ricci as Zelda Fitzgerald, American socialite, novelist and wife of F Scott Fitzgerald who was troubled with psychiatric problems Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Catherine O'Flynn, Sarah Moss and Robert Hanks. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Lion is the film about a young Indian orphan adopted by Australian parents who finds his way back to the village where he was born by using the internet. starring Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman. Could it be Oscar-winning material? Raising Martha is a new comedy play at London's Park Theatre - it's farce about frogs, families, dozy policemen and digging up corpses. Hungarian prize-winning novelist Laszlo Krasznahorkai's latest novel The Last Wolf tells a story in one 74 page sentence - does this feat overwhelm the content? Siobhan Davies' dance work material/rearranged/to/be is at London's Barbican BBC TV has a new Sunday night drama: Apple Tree Yard. Adapted from Louise Doughty's best-selling thriller novel, what makes it feel new? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Bridget Minamore, Elizabeth Day and Inua Ellams. The producer is Oliver Jones.

We can help you to decide between two films touted for Oscars glory: La La Land revives The Hollywood musical and Manchester By The Sea starring Casey Affleck- If you have to choose, which one deserves your custom? Michael Chabon's latest novel Moonglow is sort-of autobiographical - the lies, deception, rumours, legends, confessions and confusions that all families create are explored through a life lived in The American Century. Katherine Soper (a 24-year-old former perfume seller) won The UK's biggest playwriting competition with Wish List; a play informed by what she calls the government's "systematic assault" on disabled and mentally ill people. It's being staged at London's Royal Court Theatre Artist Charles Avery's work is an ongoing evolving depiction of an imaginary island. Through drawings, sculptures and texts. he has created its topology, cosmology and inhabitants. He has a new exhibition of his imaginings. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Kate Williams, Maria Delgado and David Benedict. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Tony Harrison's play The Trackers of Oxyrhynchus is revived at London's Finborough Theatre 87 year old Chilean film director Alejandro Jodorowsky's latest film Endless Poetry is the second instalment of a planned five part autobiographical series Tom Hardy stars in BBC TV's new drama Taboo, Emily Fridlund's History of Wolves is the growing-up tale of a lonely Minnesota schoolgirl BBC Radio drama On Kosovo Field is a 5-part fantasy play by Finn Kennedy which includes a score by PJ Harvey, whose notes, photos, poetry and songs helped to inspire it Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Viv Groskop, Ekow Eshun and Louise Doughty The producer is Oliver Jones.

A 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 Year Films The 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 Kingdom Amma Asante Anomalisa Charlie Kaufman Julieta Pedro Almodovar Finding Dory A Bigger Splash Luca Guadagnino Theatre A Streetcar Named Desire Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester King Lear Talawa co-production Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester King Lear starring Glenda Jackson at Old Vic, London Harriet Martineau Dreams of Dancing Live Theatre Newcastle This Restless House Glasgow Citizens Theatre Any Means Necessary Nottingham Playhouse Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour National Theatre, London Midsummer's Night Dream The Globe Theatre, London Imogen The Globe Theatre, London Shakespeare Trilogy, Donmar Warehouse, London No Man's Land, National Theatre, London (NT live performance) Backstage in Biscuit Land, Soho Theatre, London Groundhog Day (musical) Old Vic, London Flowers for Mrs Harris, Sheffield Crucible Richard III, Almeida Theatre, London Faith Healer, Donmar Warehouse, London Travesties, Menier Chocolate Factory, London Television Stranger Things - Netflix Westworld - HBO The Young Pope - Sky The Crown - Netflix War and Peace - BBC The Night Of - HBO Black Mirror - Netflix Planet Earth II - BBC Happy Valley - BBC Transparent - Amazon Fleabag - BBC The Missing - BBC Flowers - Channel 4 National Treasure - Channel 4 Angie Tribeca - E4 Motherland - BBC Exhibitions Georgia O'Keeffe, Tate Modern, London Picasso Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, London Abstract Expressionism, Royal Academy, London Hieronymus Bosch, Het Noordbrabants Museum, Holland Towards Night, The Towner Gallery, Eastbourne In Reading Prison, Artangle Winifred Knights, Dulwich Picture Gallery Inside: Artist and Writers in Reading Prison - Artangel The Infinite Mix, The Store in the Strand, London Stan Douglas, The Secret Agent, Victoria Miro Gallery, London Victor Pasmore, Towards A New Reality, Nottingham Lakeside Gallery Russia and The Arts, National Portrait Gallery, London The Shchukin Collection, Icons of Modern Art, Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris Books Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift Golden Hill by Francis Spufford Swing Time by Zadie Smith Hotels of North America by Rick Moody The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry The Sellout by Paul Beatty The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen The Good Immigrant ed. Nikesh Shukla 1971 - Never a Dull Moment: Rock's Golden Year by David Hepworth Missing Presumed by Susie Steiner Days Without End by Sebastian Barry Also mentioned: Lemonade (album/film) Beyonce We're Here Because We're Here Jeremy Deller Bob Dylan, winner of Nobel Prize for Literature Horace and Pete Louis C.K David Bowie's Art Collection Blackstar David Bowie You Want It Darker Leonard Cohen The producer is Hilary Dunn.

A revival of Yasmina Reza's Art at London's Old Vic revives the art of the review - is it art? Martin Scorsese's latest film Silence has taken nearly 3 decades to reach the screen. It's the story of two Christian missionaries in 17th century Japan. Is it worth the the long wait? We investigate Virtual Reality gaming - there are many different headsets and games on the market, but which are worth your attention Ghanaian-American novelist Yaa Gyosi's Homegoing is a debut novel that has been garnering a lot of extremely favourable attention from readers and critics alike. It deals with slavery and its intimate weaving into the history of America Alan Bennett's Diaries on Christmas Eve on BBC2 is described as 'a candid look into the mind' of the much-loved author, following him through the year. It includes the revelation that he has always wanted to own a donkey Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Naomi Alderman, Sathnam Sanghera and Emma Woolf. The producer is Oliver Jones Photo credit: Michael Lionstar.

Ruth Wilson plays the lead in Ivo van Hove's production of Hedda Gabler at London's National Theatre, Son of Joseph (a French film with religious overtones) takes on the overwhelming might of the latest Star Wars Rogue One. Blockbuster vs indie might not be an equal fight but thank goodness there's something else out this week! How good is it? Nadeem Aslam's latest novel The Golden Harvest is set in modern Pakistan, with the resilience of the human spirit fighting corruption and international interference Roger Hiorns was brought up in Birmingham and his latest exhibition at the city's IKON Gallery looks at his career-long fascinations with human corporeality and its meeting with the mechanical and he proposes a new pathway into how artists can continue to make and behave And we cionsider a couple of the big crime dramas on TV over Christmas - ITV's Maigret (starring Rowan Atkinson) and Agatha Christie's Witness For The Prosecution on the BBC Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Alex Preston, Stephanie Merritt and Jamila Gavin. The producer is Oliver Jones.

A revival of Once in a Lifetime, the 1930s comedy about the movie industry at the beginning of the talkies. A new film with the title "Birth of a Nation" cannot escape the obvious associations with the 1915 DW Griffith silent film of the same name which portrayed The Ku Klux Klan in a heroic light. This production has been dogged by controversy for completely different reasons. Alice In Space by Gillian Beer looks at Lewis Carroll's classic and resets it in the context of its time to shine a fresh reinvigorating light on the work There's an exhibition about Mathematics at London's Science Museum, looking at how it shapes our world BBC2 presents a two part series about Walt Disney - his life and legacy Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Meg Rosoff, Jacqueline Springer and David Benedict. The producer is Oliver Jones.

The Royal Shakespeare Company presents Anders Lustgarten's new play Seven Acts of Mercy; drawing connections between Caravaggio and modern Liverpool Spike Lee's latest film Chi-raq retells the classic Greek tale of Lysistrata imagining a sex strike organised by the women of Chicago in order to get their menfolk to renounce violence. American painter, sculptor, printmaker, photographer and performance artist Robert Rauschenberg is the subject of a retrospective at Tate Modern; the first since his death in 2008 Two books of poetry, one American, one British - Ben Lerner's No Art and Rachael Boast's Void Studies This Is Us has been enormously successful in the USA and has now been bought by Channel 4 - will it be embraced by British viewers? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Tiffany Jenkins, Damian Barr and Frances Stonor Saunders. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Young British playwright Lucy Kirkwood's latest play The Children opens at London's Royal Court Theatre: three old friends discussing the future after an unnamed disaster Korean horror drama film The Wailing has been gaining a lot of international attention - combining a ghost story and zombies and a police drama Tim Roth plays the serial murderer John Christie in BBC TV's Rillington Place. A three part series, it looks at the story from the points of view of Christie, his wife and the lodger who was wrongly hanged for the murders. Penelope Lively's latest collection of short stories is called "Purple Swamp Hen" There's a new exhibition in Nottingham of the work of the late Victor Pasmore, British abstract artist and educator Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Blake Morrison, Barb Jungr and Andrea Rose. The producer is Oliver Jones.

The RSC's production latest Tempest features Simon Russell Beale as Prospero and has a holographic Ariel. Does cutting edge technology sit comfortably inside Shakespeare's play which is so full of magic? Philip Roth's novel Indignation, set in 1950's America is now a film. Dealing with social mores, the desire to rebel and how it affects the rebel Zadie Smith's latest novel Swing Time is a story of the long and complicated friendship between two girls whose lives diverge. Divines is a Cannes Award winning French film set in the banlieue where crime seems the only way out of the social structure The Design Museum has reopened at a new site in Kensington in London - formerly The Commonwealth Institute, it has cost £38m to adapt - does it impress? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Tom Holland, Sarah Crompton and Louise Jury. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Glenda Jackson returns to the stage after 25 years as an MP to play the title role in King Lear at London's Old Vic Theatre. Is she a frail 80 year old or a commanding presence? French/Polish film The Innocents is based on a true story about a convent in post-war Poland where the nuns were raped by Soviet soldiers. Linda Grant's latest novel The Dark Circle tells the story of Lenny and Miriam, two east-enders convalescing in a TB sanatorium in 1940s Kent The Radical Eye, Modernist Photography from the Sir Elton John Collection is the new exhibition at London's Tate Modern. Pinner's favourite son has been purchasing work by the world's leading photographers for more than 2 decades and created one of the leading private collections in the world. Stephen Poliakoff's Close to the Enemy on BBC TV is set in London immediately after WWII as a special British Army unit tries to turn former Nazi scientists to work for 'us' now Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Rosie Boycott, Melissa Harrison and Ryan Gilbey. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Tom Ford's new thriller film Nocturnal Animals stars Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal A revival of terry Johnson's play Dead Funny opens at London's Vaudeville Theatre; does it live up to its name? David Olusoga presents BBC TV's Black and British part of a season of programmes under that title Naomi Alderman's novel The Power imagines a world in which women can conjure electrical charges from their hands - how does it change the gender power balance? Emma Hamilton - Seduction and Celebrity is a new exhibition in Greenwich looking at the life and career. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Rowan Pelling, Christopher Frayling and Helen Lewis. The producer is Oliver Jones.

There's a revival of Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus at London's National Theatre. It's the story of Mozart's supposed rivalry with fellow composer Salieri and it has a live orchestra on stage accompanying and acting in the play Werner Herzog's latest film Lo and Behold considers the history and future, the successes and failures of the world wide web Israeli author David Grossman's novel A Horse Walks Into A Bar is a story about an edgy stand-up comedian who's playing strange confessional games with his audience Tate Britain has an exhibition of the work of Paul Nash, from his times as a war artist in both world wars and his surrealist paintings to his less well known assemblages The BBC's new period drama has been in the planning stages for a long time; The Moonstone is based on Wilkie Collins' novel, acknowledged as the first and greatest of English Detective novels. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Abigail Morris, Rajan Datar and Maev Kennedy. The producer is Oliver Jones.

David Hare's latest play The Red Barn is an adaptation of a Georges Simenon thriller now at London's National Theatre Ken Loach's new film I Daniel Blake is a typically hard-hitting reflection on the political state of modern Britain. It won this year's Palme d'Or, will it win over the reviewers? The Young Pope is a new series from Sky Atlantic starring Jude Law as the first American pontiff; new, controversial and unconventional Pope Pius XIII (born Lenny Belardo) Award-winning Irish novelist Sebastian Barry's newest work Days Without End is set in 1850s America following soldiers fighting in the Indian Wars and then in the Civil War. We visit the Yves Klein retrospective at Tate Liverpool. He was a leading member of the Nouveau Realisme movement (and invented his own shade of blue) before dying at the age of 34 Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Shahidha Bari, Demetrios Matheou and Polly Samson.

We're looking at two plays about black America this week: Kemp Powers' One Night In Miami imagines a meeting in 1964 between boxer Cassius Clay, activist Malcolm X, singer Sam Cooke & American Football star Jim Brown as they decide how they can each change the world. Katori Hall's The Mountaintop is set 4 year's later and imagines Rev Martin Luther King's last night alive, in a hotel room in Memphis Charlie Brooker's distopian TV show Black Mirror was a huge success when it began on Channel 4. The new series has moved on to Netflix - a different scale of budget and a different audience. Can it have the same effect? Ali Smith's Autumn is the first in a quartet of seasonal novels. It imagines a contemporary Britain struggling to deal with its identity London's National Gallery's Beyond Caravaggio exhibition explores the influence of Caravaggio on the art of his contemporaries and followers. Razia Iqbal's guests Emma Dabiri, Ekow Eshun and Hardeep Singh Kohli. The producer is Oliver Jones.

The 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 Patrick Marber and stars Tom Hollander as Henry Carr the British consular official who played Algernon and fell out with Joyce during the production. A major exhibition of portraits by Pablo Picasso opens at the National Portrait Gallery, with over 80 portraits by the artist in all media including the Cubist portrait from 1910 of the German art dealer and early champion of Picasso's work Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. In Nicotine by Nell Zing - whose work is admired by Jonathan Franzen - the author sets her third novel in a house in New Jersey inhabited by a group of anarchist smokers, united in defense of their right to smoke. When Penny Baker inherits the house from her father she becomes enmeshed in the political fervor and commitment of her fellow squatters. And in Divorce, a new Sky Atlantic TV drama written by Sharon Horgan, Sarah Jessica Parker stars as Frances, a woman who suddenly begins to reassess her life and her marriage, and finds that making a clean break and a fresh start is harder than she thought. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Kamila Shamsie, Tim Lott and Charlotte Mullins. The producer was Hilary Dunn.

Free 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 Abstract Expressionism to be held in the UK for six decades and features work by Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still amongst many others. Award winning writer Rachel Cusk's new novel Transit documents a writer and her two young sons moving to London following a family collapse. There are many transitions to negotiate - personal, moral, artistic, practical as the writer endeavours to construct a new reality for herself and her children. Marking the bicentenary of Charlotte Bronte's birth, her novel Villette is brought to life in a striking new adaptation for the Courtyard Theatre in Leeds. Yorkshire writer Linda Marshall-Griffiths reimagines Charlotte Brontë's ground-breaking novel whilst remaining true to its unique insights into loneliness, yearning and the redemptive power of love. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Katie Puckrik, Alex Clark and Francis Spufford. The producer was Hilary Dunn.

Robert Harris's latest novel, Conclave is about the appointment of a new pope and all the rivalry and ambition that goes on behind the scenes When Father Comes Home From The Wars at London's Royal Court Theatre is the story of a slave in Texas in 1862 who has to fight alongside those who support slavery Little Men tells the story of 2 boys growing up in New York whose friendship grows as their relationship between their respective parents deteriorates Channel 4's new comedy series (more bitter than sweet) Damned features Jo Brand and Alan Davies as jaded social workers try to cope with circumstances beyond their control London's Hayward Gallery is currently closed for repairs, so they've opened a pop-up gallery nearby, showing ten audiovisual installations in an abandoned office space: The Infinite Mix exhibition Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Jonathan Beckman, Alice Jones and Susannah Clapp. The producer is Oliver Jones.

New Zealand's most successful home grown film ever reaches the UK: Hunt for The Wilderpeople is a story about identity, intergenerational friendship and loss in the bush Eimear McBride's first published novel won an array of literary prizes. Her follow-up The Lesser Bohemians is told in a similar style - will it attract a similarly delighted critical response? Bedlam: The Asylum and Beyond is a new exhibition at London's Wellcome Collection which looks at how the legacy of Bethlem Hospital has shaped the mental health landscape in this country National Treasure on Channel 4 is a drama that imagines a well-known TV personality coming under suspicion for historical sexual abuse allegations Which actor plays Faustus and which plays Mephistophilis in the RSC's production of Dr Faustus at The Barbican is decided live onstage each night in a unique way. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Louise Doughty, John Mullan and Catherine O'Flynn. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Jeff Bridges stars as a Texas Ranger on the hunt for a couple of bank robber brothers in a modern day western Hell or High Water Jonathan Safran Foer's Here I Am combines a domestic breakdown with an international world-shattering incident. London's V+A Museum's new exhibition You Say You Want A Revolution looks at global changes between 1966 -1970 when the world seemed to be be in a state of political upheaval The Globe Theatre's new production, The Inn At Lydda is an imagining of Tiberius Caesar's journey to meet Jesus. But he arrives just after the crucifixion The BBC is celebrating 60 years since Tony Hancock's TV sitcom debut with a clutch of comedy pilots - are they a continuation of a noble tradition or a pale imitation? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Philip Hensher, Kate Williams and Muriel Zhaga. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Ian McEwan's latest novel Nutshell tells the story from the point of view of a foetus. Sausage Party is the sweariest, most vulgar cartoon film you will ever have seen. From the imagination of Seth Rogen, it imagines the world of sentient food Artangel's project 'Inside- artists and writers in Reading Prison' is staged at the gaol where Oscar Wilde was incarcerated. It features work by contemporary artists reflecting on the themes of imprisonment and separation. Kenneth Branagh reprises another role associated with Laurence Olivier; playing Archie Rice in John Osbourne's The Entertainer. He can't escape the comparisons but can he live up to expectations? The Collection is a new TV drama series dealing with the not-so-glamorous world of haute couture.

Tim Minchin's latest musical Groundhog Day is his follow-up to the best-selling triumph of Matilda. Based on the hit film, will this also be a hit? Pedro Almodovar's 20th film, Julieta, is based on 3 short stories by Alice Munro. It was intended as his English language debut to star Meryl Streep. HBO's new TV-noir series The Night Of... tells the story of a Pakistani-American who - after a night of drug-fuelled sex - awakes to discover a corpse and is accused of the murder. Peter Ho Davies' novel The Fortunes tells 4 tales of Chinese-Americans through the 20th and 21st centuries Kaleidoscope: It's Me To The World, is the newest exhibition at Modern Art Oxford. Celebrating 50 years of contemporary art, performance and experimental visual culture Tom Sutcliffe's guests are David Hepworth, Kit Davis and Susan Jeffreys. The producer is Oliver Jones.

From the Edinburgh Festivals: Tom Sutcliffe and his guests discuss their selection of what's on offer this year. The National Theatre of Scotland's Anything That Gives off Light and Cheek by Jowl's Russian language Measure for Measure Hermann Koch's new novel Dear Mr M, Surrealist Encounters at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art The documentary film Tickled about the peculiar, secretive world of competitive tickling which has surprising menace lurking beneath the surface. Also the guests present their personal choices from the enormous range of art on offer across the city Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Denise Mina, Louise Welsh and Stuart Kelly. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Todd Solondz's latest film Wiener Dog has been described as uniquely misanthropic; will our panellists agree? The National Theatre of Scotland's production: Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour , written by Lee "Billy Elliot" Hall, arrives in London after a national tour and before it heads to Australia. There's plenty of profanity but is there any profundity? Tiffany McDaniel's The Summer That Melted Everything is a first novel about the time The Devil came to visit a small southern US town. The Hunterian Collection at London's Royal College of Surgeons is an unrivalled collections of human and non-human anatomical and pathological specimens, models, instruments, painting and sculptures that reveal the art and science of surgery from the 17th century to the present day. Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words is a new look at the actress whose life scandalised old Hollywood. What does it tell us about fame today. Sarah Crompton's guests are Natalie Haynes, Amanda Craig and Jake Arnott. The producer is Oliver Jones. (Main image: Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour. L-R Caroline Deyga (Chell), Kirsty MacLaren (Manda), Melissa Allan (Orla), Frances Mayli McCann (Kylah), Dawn Sievewright (Fionnula), Karen Fishwick (Kay). Photo by Manuel Harlan).

Harry Potter and The Cursed Child is London's biggest theatre event of 2016 and probably the decade. J K Rowling revisits her famed creations 19 years after the books ended. Brian Cox plays a revered aging actor at the end of his career and possibly his life in The Carer; a British comedy about fame, mortality, love and incontinence Film director Baz Luhrmann's has a Netflix TV series The Get Down which dramatises the origins of hip hop Clive James' latest book is about the phenomenon of the Box Set. Called Play All, it examines the joys and problems of binge-watching The Knives by Richard T Kelly is a novel set in the corridors of power; following a Home Secretary dealing with matters of domestic terror and family discord Sarah Crompton's guests are Bidisha, Rosie Goldsmith and Benedict Nightingale. The Producer is Oliver Jones.

Thomas Vinterberg's film The Commune draws on his own communal upbringing in Denmark. How does such intimate living affect close relationships Sean O'Casey's play The Plough and The Stars is revived at London's Lyttleton Theatre, based around Ireland's Easter Uprising of 1916 Sarah Moss's novel The Tidal Zone is a story of parental love BBC4's programme Britain's Pompeii explores a bronze age fenland village, recently unearthed by archeologists, which revealed substantial new information about its inhabitants The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge is marking its 200th anniversary with an exhibition of stunning Illuminated manuscripts Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Joe Dunthorne, Stella Duffy and Lisa Appignanesi. The producer is Oliver Jones.

The biggest film maker in contemporary Hollywood takes on a much-loved story by a master story teller. Stephen Spielberg directs Roald Dahl's The BFG. Adam Haslett's novel Imagine Me Gone deals with an unhappy family trying to find happiness stability and normality. An new exhibition of photographic portraits by William Eggleston provides an insight into his home life. Previously untitled works have now had the sitters identified, lending a new twist to the pictures Some Girls by Neil LaBute is revived at London's Park Theatre. It's an examination of fragile male psyche with ulterior motives Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Sathnam Sanghera, Alice Rawsthorn and Barb Jungr. The producer is Oliver Jones.

The remaking of Ghostbusters in 2016 has 4 women taking the leading roles and it has caused consternation among devotees of the original film. What on earth is all the fuss about? Is it just a bunch of sexist fanboys determined not to enjoy it because girls are involved? Matt Smith plays a perfectionist film director in Unreachable, a new play at London's Royal Court Theatre. Kei Miller's novel Augustown is set in a lightly-fictionalised version of the real Jamaican town of the same name, involving flying prophets and civil unrest This year's Liverpool Biennial has a typically eclectic selection of artists and venues; what caught the eye of our reviewers? BBC TV has a new adaptation of Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, starring Toby Jones and Vicky McClure. Sarah Crompton's guests are Naomi Alderman, Kathryn Hughes and Giles Fraser. The producer is Oliver Jones.

A major retrospective exhibition of the work of Georgia O'Keeffe at Tate Modern brings together a wide range of her work from the floral paintings to her landscapes and urban paintings A complicated web of marital intrigue unfolds in Rebecca Miller's film Maggie's Plan - is it more than Woody Allen lite? Needles and Opium is Canadian performer Robert lePage's latest work to reach the UK - a revival of a work debuted in 1991 and based on the New York experiences of Jean Cocteau and Miles Davis Karan Mahajan's novel The Association of Small Bombs is set in Delhi, which follows the consequences and web of influences of a terrorist attack When politics seems wobbly, commentators in the press reach for the solid base of a good metaphor; Shakespeare, Game of Thrones and The Thick of It and Game of Cards have all been invoked to try and describe the consequences of the Brexit vote and Tory and Labour parties disarray. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Alex Preston, Rosie Boycott and Simon Evans. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Emma Watson plays an air stewardess who gets caught up in the Chilean politics of early era Pinochet. The Colony explores a little-known side of the regime Faith Healer is Brian Friel's play about the fallibility of remembering, revived at London's Donmar Warehouse Libyan writer Hisham Matar tells the story of how the disappearance of his father led his own exile from his homeland and political awakening during Ghadafi's dictatorship David Hockney's work created on iPad and a collection of 82 portraits are on show in 2 new exhibitions ITV's Brief Encounters is a drama about the founding of the Ann Summers' retail outlets Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Stephanie Merritt, Dreda Say Mitchell and Pat Kane. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Liza Johnson directs Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey in the title roles of Elvis and Nixon a film which dramatises the unlikely 1970 meeting between the two men . The title role in a production of Shakespeare's Henry V at the Regent's Park Open Air theatre is taken by the actress Michelle Terry. Debut novel The Girls by Emma Cline looks at relationships and their consequences in a Charles Manson-like cult in California. The City of London has placed 15 sculptures by leading artists among architectural landmarks such as the Gherkin and the Cheesegrater - an opportunity to see engaging works in unusual settings. Polish television drama serial The Border dealing with the highly topical subject of immigration control starts downloads on All Four this week. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Ellah Alfrey, Linda Grant and Nikesh Shukla. The producer is Harry Parker.

Matteo Garrone's fantasy film Tale of Tales is a modern interpretation of a 17th century fairytale collection filled with dark gothic strangeness. Ralph Fiennes plays Richard III in a new production at London's Almeida Theatre. He's a very cynical psychopath as well as a ruthless monarch Annie Proulx's Barkskins is a large novel dealing with an enormous subject - the irreversible catastrophe of deforestation Tate Modern has opened a new extension: Switch House. It improves the gender balance of artists on display and broaden the geographical reach of works BBC TV is launching a new horror drama The Living and The Dead - early last century a country doctor begins to experience eerie goings-on Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Meg Rosoff, Adam Mars Jones and Cahal Dallat. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Terrence Rattigan's post-war classic Deep Blue Sea opens in a new production at London's NationalTheatre; dealing with need, loneliness and long-repressed passion. Directed by Carrie Cracknell with Helen McRory as Hester Fire At Sea is the Italian documentary which won The Golden Bear at this year's Berlin Film festival. Set on the Sicilian Island of Lampedusa, it examines the lives of the locals and the migrants who land there. Edmund White's novel Our Young Man is a work of gay fiction set in the world of modelling in 1980s New York, with an apparently-ageless central character and the spectre of AIDS on the horizon. Dulwich Picture Gallery is staging an exhibition of the works of early 20th century painter British Winifred Knights We consider a couple of recent supernatural/horror TV dramas - Outcast and Preacher. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Bidisha, Shahidha Bari and David Benedict. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Minefield at London's Royal Court Theatre examines the personal effects of The Falklands War on veterans from both sides using testimonies of the actors who are all former combatants. The Nice Guys is a new film with Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe as a couple of mismatched private eyes BBC TV is showing Versailles, a drama series about the goings-on at the court of Louis XIV- the Sun King - has already caused consternation in France, but why? Francis Spufford's first novel Golden Hill is set in the grubby dangerous world of Manhattan in 1746: New York before it became New York. The 50 year career of Hungarian conceptual artist Dora Maurer is marked in an exhibition at London's White Cube Gallery Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Richard Eyre, Francis Stonor Saunders and Jamila Gavin. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Whit Stillman takes on an early Jane Austen epistolary novella, Love and Friendship; a film full of wicked women and gullible men Cornelia Parker's asked 60 artists to submit items to an exhibition of found objects at London's Foundling Museum. The man who revived Doctor Who for the BBC -Russell T Davis - turns his attentions to an all-star version TV of Midsummer Night's Dream Simon Armitage has translated another Middle English poem; Pearl. It's the tale of a man addressing a daughter who died as an infant and returns as a bride of Christ Rory Kinnear plays Macheath in the National Theatre's production of Brecht and Weill's The Threepenny Opera Tom Sutcliffe's guests are John Tusa, Kamila Shamsie and Nihal. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Laurie Anderson's film Heart of a Dog explores death and longing through the story of her terrier Don DeLillo's novel new Zero K explores death and longing and cryogenic suspension The revival at London's Young Vic of Joe Penhall's 2000 play Blue/Orange manages to deal in a darkly comic way with paranoid schizophrenia. Jo Brand returns to TV as Kim Wilde - a community nurse coping with financial cuts and family crises in Going Forward. It's dark but is it comic? Seeing Round Corners is a new exhibition at Turner Contemporary in Margate which celebrates the centrality of the circle in art. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Sarah Crompton, Alex Clark and Robert Hanks. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Lionel Shriver's The Mandibles imagines a dystopian America of the future Richard Linklater's follow-up to his Oscar-nominated tour de force Boyhood is meant to be the spiritual sequel to 1993's Dazed and Confused. Everybody Wants Some!! looks at a group of baseball scholarship students settling-in at a Texas university Horror Thriller film Green Room has been making some audience members vomit and faint -how well will our reviewers cope? At the Brighton Festival: Spy Monkey's The Complete Deaths brings all of the grim and ghastly killings from Shakespeare's works into one gruesome play Gillian Wearing's A Room With Your Views captures a snapshot of views from windows around the world - what does it reveal? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Damian Barr, Viv Groskop and Rebecca Stott. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Ben Elton has a new sitcom on BBC2; Upstart Crow starring David Mitchell as The Bard of Avon. Could it be a return to his golden form of Blackadder? A Midsummer Night's Dream is the first production by Emma Rice, the new Artistic Director at London's Globe Theatre. Does it auger well for her residency? Terrence Malick is a much-admired film director whose recent work has received very mixed critical responses. Will his latest, Knight of Cups, be admired or reviled? Novelist Louise Erdrich is of North American Indian descent and her work reflects this. Her newest - LaRose - is set in the world of the Ojibwe tribe Mona Hatoum has a retrospective of her work at Tate Modern - how well does or can it chronicle her conceptual art? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Elif Shafak, Denise Mina and Boyd Tonkin. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Son of Saul is an award-laden Hungarian film dealing with the sonderkommandos at Auschwitz, Jewish inmates who were forced to prepare and mislead new arrivals. Mark Haddon's latest book is a collection of rather dark short stories which he hopes can "create empathy for unloveable people in difficult circumstances". Belgian theatre director Ivo van Hove has condensed several Shakespeare royal plays into Kings of War; four and a half hours in Dutch, telling English history. Nick Hornby has adapted Nina Stibbe's Love Nina for BBC TV Pablo Bronstein brings dance to Tate Britain Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Ekow Eshun, Antonia Quirke and Kate Bassett. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Portuguese film director Miguel Gomes has created a trilogy based on The Arabian Nights. We've watched the first volume of the 6 hour epic The Flick is a transfer from Broadway to London's Dorfman Theatre. Set in a rundown movie theatre, it explores the dynamics of the relationships among an increasingly unmotivated staff Garth Greenwell describes his novel What Belongs To You like this; "I'm a queer writer writing in the queer literary tradition for queer people". Is it a straightforward book? The British Museum in London has a new exhibition: Sicily, Culture and Conquest. It looks at the island at the toe of the boot of Italy, whose strategic position and rich soil means that - over the centuries - it has been ruled by many different nations and absorbed many different cultures BBC TV's All The World's a Screen is an Arena special on the global history of Shakespeare's work as seen on the silver screen Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Christopher Frayling, Helen Lewis and Lynn Nead. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Helen Mirren, Alan Rickman and Aaron Paul star in Eye in the Sky, a contemporary thriller set in the world of counter intelligence and drone warfare - is the life of a 9 year old girl acceptable collateral damage? Rick Moody's new novel Hotels of North America has an unusual narrative voice. It takes the form of a series of hotel reviews, as written by Reginald Edward Morse, one of the top reviewers on RateYourLodging.com, where his many reviews reveal more than just details of hotels -they tell his life story. Playwright Suhayla El-Bushra takes Nikolai Erdman's Soviet classic The Suicide and sets it in contemporary urban London at London's National Theatre, starring Javone Prince from E4's Phone Shop. A new comedy drama on Channel 4, Flowers, stars Olivia Colman and Julian Barratt (The Mighty Boosh) and features an eccentric family struggling to hold themselves together in a crumbling old house. Conceptual Art in Britain 1964-1979 at Tate Britain shows how artists working in Britain transformed the nature of art, bringing together 70 works by 21 artists.

French film Dheepan won the 2015 Palme d'Or, with a tale of Tamil refugees fleeing Sri Lanka and arriving in France, finding a whole new set of opportunities and problems Alistair McDowall's newest play X is set on a space station on Pluto. It opens at London's Royal Court Theatre; will our reviewers think it's out of this world? David Szalay's was named as one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists in 2013. His new novel All That Man Is looks at 9 young men in modern Europe Shakespeare In Art is an exhibition at Compton Verney looking at the many ways that artists in different disciplines have depicted the work of The Bard. The Five is a new thriller TV series where a group of friends is reunited when one of them is implicated in a murder. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Malorie Blackman, Kerry Shale and Alice Jones. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Akira Kurosawa's Ran,originally released in 1985, was - at the time - the most expensive Japanese film ever made. It won awards galore and is considered a classic. Is it still as breathtaking as on first release? Eugene O'Neill's play Long Day's Journey Into Night is at Bristol's Old Vic starring Jeremy Irons and Lesly Manville. It's directed by Richard Eyre. Julia Davis' newest TV comedy Camping follows several couples (with varying degrees of dysfunction in their relationships) as they spend a ghastly holiday under canvas Ann Wroe's book 6 Facets of Light is a series of meditations on the essential nature of light. The Museum of Brands offers a peculiar and unique view of 200 years of British society through packaging, design, toys, magazines and other items. Formerly in Gloucester, it has now moved to a new location in London Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Andrea Rose, Geoffrey Durham and Maev Kennedy. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Paapa Essiedu is the first black actor to play Hamlet for the RSC in a new production opening in Stratford directed by Simon Godwin. Booker short listed writer Deborah Levy explores the complex emotional dynamics of the mother / daughter relationship in her new novel Hot Milk. Court is Mumbai born Chaitanya Tamhane's feature film debut - an Indian courtroom drama film which explores the limitations of Indian legal system through the trial of an elderly folk singer at a Sessions Court in Mumbai. Paul Strand: Photography and Film for the 20th Century at the V&A in London shows how the pioneering American photographer defined the way in which fine art and documentary photography is understood and practised today in the first major retrospective of his work for 40 years. And barrister turned writer Peter Moffat's new political thriller Undercover on BBC One, stars Sophie Okonedo as Maya, who is about to be appointed as the first black Director of Public Prosecutions. Adrian Lester plays her husband Nick, an under cover police officer with a complex past. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Arts Editor at the New Statesman, Kate Mossman, novelist Patrick Gale and writer Susan Jeffreys.

A O Scott's book Better Living through Criticism looks at the very stuff of Saturday Review - who needs critics nowadays? Ben Wheatley's film High-Rise is an adaptation ofthe 1972 novel by JG Ballard - an urban dystopia set in a brutalist tower block. Jane Horrocks' newest production is a genre hybrid; "a theatrical experience with music" . If You Kiss Me, Kiss Me at London's Young Vic is her tribute to the music she loved as a teenager Charlotte Bronte came to London from Yorkshire five times in her life. A small exhibition at The John Soane's Museum commemorates her visits. London's National Portrait Gallery has an unprecedented exhibition of Russian works normally displayed at The State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. It's part of a cultural exchange between the two museums, both founded 160 years ago. Sarah Crompton's guests are Tiffany Jenkins, Francis Spufford and Louise Doughty. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Motown, The Musical - with one of the best pop songbooks to draw on; how could this stage show fail? Charlie Kaufman's latest film is a stop-motion tale of loneliness, isolation and the possibility of redemptive love: Anomalisa In The Age of Giorgione at London's Royal Academy, examines the development of The Venetian Renaissance, through works by Giorgione and his contemporaries such as Titian and Durer The central character of Ottessa Moshfegh's novel Eileen is a lonely self-loathing secretary at a boy's prison, looking after her alcoholic father. And then along comes hope... Art of Scandinavia on BBC4: Andrew Graham Dixon looks at the art of Denmark, Norway and Sweden Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Lisa Appignanesi, Rowan Pelling and Elizabeth Day. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Hail Caesar is the Coen Brothers' newest film - recalling the Golden Age of Hollywood: the scandal, the vice and the Studios' men who handled the catastrophes. The RSC has adapted Cervantes' masterpiece Don Quixote in a new production in Stratford. Can they do justice to a book, more than 4 centuries old, which is often hailed as the The Greatest Work Of The Spanish Language? Ta Nehisi Coates writes about the experience of young black America. His work is admired by the likes of Barack Obama and he's been described as The Young James Joyce of the hip-hop generation. We look at his latest work: The Beautiful Struggle Botticelli Reimagined at The V+A examines the enduring impact of the Fifteenth century Florentine genius, BBC Three's first online only drama is Thirteen, a kidnap thriller about a girl who escapes her captor 13 years after being abducted Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Liz Jensen, Crystal Mahey Morgan and Nicholas Rankin. The producer is Oliver Jones. Main Image: Ivy Moxam (played by Jodie Comer), from Thirteen, BBC Three. Credit: BBC/Todd Anthony.

Sacha Baron Cohen's new comedy Grimsby tells the story of two brothers separated in childhood reunited as adults; one is a spy, the other a lazy git Thus Bad Begins is the latest novel from Javier Marias; one of Europe's finest writers Artist Mark Wallinger's recent work has focussed on religion death and William Blake. He has a new exhibition opening in London Sarah Kane's plays have always excited controversy: a restaging of Cleansed at London's Dorfman Theatre looks set to rouse familiar fury BBC TV has new drama series starting: Murder and Broken Biscuits Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Louise Scodie, Amanda Craig and Kevin Jackson. The producer is Oliver Jones.

a bunch of corrupt cops stage a bank heist in Triple 9; but can there honour among thieves in such a high-stakes job? Chekhov's Uncle Vanya at London's Almeida Theatre has been adapted and directed by Robert Icke giving it a fresh contemporary feel. John leCarre's 1993 novel The Night Manager has become a 6 part BBCTV series. Espionage, amoral weapons dealers, beautiful tragic women; all the best ingredients are there, what does it add up to? Award-winning French novelist Maylis de Kerangal's latest work translated into English is Mend The Living - dissecting 24 hours of a human heart. The first major London exhibition of work by - and influenced by - Eugene Delacroix has opened at The National Gallery. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Gillian Slovo, Jason Cowley and Kathryn Hughes. The producer is Oliver Jones.

The 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, a tale of louche life set around a swimming pool in a baking hot Italian villa. Also starring Tilda Swinton, Matthius Schoenaerts and Dakota Johnson Battlefield at The Young Vic is Peter Brook's distillation of his magnum opus Mahabarata. A few short tales which deal with life an immense canvas in miniature Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Amanda Vickery, Natalie Haynes and Jim White. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo's acclaimed career came to a crushing halt in the late 1940s when he and other Hollywood figures were blacklisted for their political beliefs. Starring Bryan Cranston as Trumbo, Jay Roach's film tells the story of the Oscar winning writer's relationship with the US government, studio bosses and Hollywood icons such as John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Edward G Robinson and Otto Preminger. A new ten part Sky Atlantic / HBO tv series Vinyl, created by Mick Jagger, Martin Scorsese and Terence Winter, is set in the music business in 970s New York City and stars Bobby Cannavale, with the first episode directed by Scorsese himself. At the age of 36, on the verge of completing eleven years of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. His reflections on doctoring, illness and the meaning of life form the basis of his memoir "When Breath Becomes Air" - which includes an epilogue from his wife. A new production of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom opens at the National Theatre in London - one of the ten-play Pittsburgh Cycle by August Wilson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright whose work chronicles the twentieth century African American experience. Written in 1982 and set in a recording studio in Chicago in 1927, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom features Ma Rainey, played by Sharon D Clarke, who is determined that 'Black Bottom', the song that bears her name, will be recorded her way. The Rhubarb Triangle & Other Stories is the largest Martin Parr exhibition in the UK for over a decade, comprising more than 300 photographs that span the past 40 years, and including a new commission The Rhubarb Triangle, focusing on an area of countryside known between Wakefield, Morley and Rothwell in West Yorkshire, which is famous for producing early-forced rhubarb. Parr's photographs capture the back-breaking work of moving the rhubarb from field to shed, the freezing cold and exhausting labour of picking the vegetable by candlelight and the consumption of the rhubarb by coach parties and food tourists.

Spotlight starring Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton and Rachel McAdams and directed by Tom McCarthy tells the true story of the Boston Globe's Pulitzer Prize winning "Spotlight" team of investigative journalists, who in 2002 shocked the world by exposing the Catholic Church's systematic cover-up of widespread paedophilia perpetrated by more than 70 local priests. It has six Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. Booker prize winning novelist Howard Jacobson's new novel, My Name is Shylock, is a retelling of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice - part of a series of Shakespeare-inspired novels by well known writers to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. Jacobson challenges the traditional anti-Semitic interpretations of Shakespeare's most performed play. Academy Award winning director of The Great Beauty Paolo Sorrentino's new film Youth stars Harvey Keitel and Michael Caine, and is set in an elegant hotel in the Swiss Alps. Fred, a composer and conductor, is now retired. Mick, a film director, is still working. They look with curiosity and tenderness on their children's confused lives, Mick's enthusiastic young writers, and the other hotel guests, all of whom, it seems, have all the time that they lack. Wit is a Pulitzer Prize winning play by American playwright Margaret Edson which opens at Manchester's Royal Exchange with former Coronation Street star Julie Hesmondhalgh. It portrays the final hours of Dr Vivian Bearing, a renowned expert on the work of 17th-century poet John Donne, and who is in hospital dying of ovarian cancer. Edson's first, and only, play, it was inspired by her experience of working on a cancer ward. And Electronic Superhighway, a landmark exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in London that brings together over 100 artworks to show the impact of computer and internet technologies on artists from the mid-1960s to the present day.

Oscar-nominated film The Big Short - a comedy about the financial crisis Julian Barnes' new novel The Noise of Time tells the story of Russian composer Shostakovich, coping as a creative artistic genius under the yoke of the Stalin's Soviet system Champagne Life - the Saatchi Gallery's exhibition of women artists. New play 4000 Days at The Park Theatre is about a man who emerges from a coma and discovers he can't remember anything from the past decade. Ray Winstone plays the author HG Wells in a new TV series"The Nightmare World of HG Wells AS Byatt, (who has just won the Erasmus Prize) and comedian Russell Kane join Tom Sutcliffe and David Benedict. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Leonardo DiCaprio stars as American pioneers-man Hugh Glass, in Oscar-contender The Revenant. It's graphic, visceral, epic in scope and could sweep the boards at the awards Photographer Annie Leibovitz has an exhibition of portraits under the title "Women", which will tour the globe. How does she tackle such an enormous subject? The debut novel by former civil servant Nicholas Searle "the Good Liar" is gaining a lot of attention but do our critics think it's a good book? BBC iPlayer's first online-only drama is a snooker comedy film 'The Rack Pack' - which tells the story of the rise of the sport in the early 80's from a parlour game to a world-conquering TV fixture. Give Me Your Love is a play at The Battersea Arts Centre about the treatment of former combatants who have PTSD with MDMA (ecstasy). Is this a wise move? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Paul Morley, Natalie Haynes and Jacqueline Springer. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Quentin Tarantino's film Hateful Eight - the work of a genius at the top of his game or more of the same? The Chichester Festival Theatre's revival of Guys and Dolls has transferred to London's Savoy Theatre George Simenon wrote 75 Maigret novels and they're all being republished - how well do they stand up nowadays? The Metropolitan Police's Crime Museum is usually closed to the public but The Museum of London has a temporary exhibition showing 600 of the 2000 items it contains; fascinating and gruesome certainly... but is it distasteful? ITV's historical drama Jericho looks at the lives of the Victorian navvies who built the great engineering edifices of the age Tom Sutcliffe's guests are David Schneider, Sophie Hannah and Dreda Say Mitchell. The producer is Oliver Jones.

The Danish Girl is the remarkable love story inspired by the lives of Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener, portrayed in the film respectively by Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything) and Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina), and directed by Academy Award winner Tom Hooper (The King's Speech, Les Misérables). Lili Elbe defied convention and pushed the boundaries of medical science to become the first transgendered woman. How will 21st century audiences react to this telling of her story? Andrew Davies's new adaptation of Tolstoy's epic novel War and Peace - into only six episodes on BBC One - features a cast of stars including Lily James, Paul Dano, James Norton, Rebecca Front, Stephen Rea and Jim Broadbent. Davies says he abridges by picking out the "best bits" - but will television audiences agree with his choice? Deutschland 83 is an eight-episode German television series starring Jonas Nay as a 24-year-old native of East Germany who in 1983 is sent to the West as an undercover spy for the Stasi secret police. The first German language series to be screened in the US - how will British audiences react? Follow Me is a thriller by Angela Clarke in which a murderer tweets his crimes. In What She Left, T R Richmond looks at the victim's digital footprint in order to piece together what has happened to her. How are writers responding to trends in social media? And a look at 2015 computer games. Fallout 4 (a sequel to Fallout 3) is high tech, spectacular and epic. Her Story, a surprise hit on the gaming circuit, is low tech and almost entirely narrative driven.

Dominic West and Janet McTeer star in the first major London production for 30 years of Christopher Hampton's Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Star Wars is back. Unless you've been living in cave, it's been hard to avoid. But is it any good? Last year WBEZ, Chicago Public Radio created the astoundingly successful Serial podcast and now there's a new series unravelling the peculiar story of American soldier Bowe Bergdahl Dickensian is Tony "Eastenders" Jordan's mash-up of several Charles Dickens stories and characters. How well does this TV series capture the spirit of the originals? Penguin publishing is putting out a series of 45 small books, each of which tells the story of a different British monarch. Tom Sutcliffe is joined for the final edition of Saturday Review for 2015 by Timberlake Wertenbaker, Rosie Goldsmith and Patrick Gale. The producer is Oliver Jones.

www.Wonder.land is Damon Albarn's re-imagining of Lewis Carol's tales of Alice, the White rabbit et al, transferred from The Manchester International Festival to London's National Theatre. Lily Tomlin plays the feisty Grandma who has to help her granddaughter find the money needed for an abortion Nureyev - Dance to Freedom, is a BBC4 drama-documentary which tells the story of the famous dancer's dramatic defection to The West in 1961 Adam Roberts' novel The Thing Itself deals with Emmanuel Kant, the search for extra-terrestrial life, time-hopping and so much more London's V+A Museum has reopened refurbished European Galleries. With an embarrassment of riches from which to choose, how have they updated the display? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are John Tusa, Louise Doughty and Lynn Nead. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Sunset Song is Terence Davies' first film for a decade - telling Lewis Grassic Gibbon's tale of northern Scottish farming and family before and after the First World War. Sheridan Smith takes the role of actress Fanny Brice in the first London production of Funny Girl for 50 years. Made famous by Barbra Streisand on stage and screen, they're big shoes to fill and the current run of shows is already sold out, is it any good? Edna O'Brien's latest novel The Little Red Chairs places a major war criminal in a small Irish village and ghastly violence comes with him Big Bang Data is an exhibition at London's Somerset House which explores how artists are trying to depict the welter of data that is out there, growing all the time. Frank Skinner and Suzy Klein look at the world of popular British entertainment before TV in the BBC4 series What a Performance.

Spielberg's latest film, Bridge of Spies, features Tom Hanks as a lawyer in 1950s America, hired to defend a Soviet spy. Does that combination of actor and director guarantee a great film? Todd Haynes' has adapted a Patricia Highsmith novel for Carol. Cate Blanchett plays a woman trapped in a loveless marriage of convenience who falls in love with a shop girl Rooney Mara. Complications ensue. Richard Eyre directs Ibsen's Little Eyolf at London's Almeida Theatre - difficult play dealing with marriage and grief. A retrospective exhibition of more than 30 years of the work of Irish artist Michael Craig-Martin has opened at The Serpentine Gallery. Nobel Winnner Kenzaburo Oe's latest novel is Death by Water; a leisurely tale about family crises and family legends Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Joe Dunthorne, Damian Barr and Susannah Clapp. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Gaspar Noe's film Love is so sexually explicit that it has been labelled as pornography by many reviewers. It is eye-poppingly graphic, but is there substance beneath the lengthy sex scenes? The subject of Andy Martin's new book is author Lee Child. He shadowed Child as he wrote his most recent Jack Reacher novel. It's a meta book about a writer and his craft. Banned by the censors in 1907, Harley Granville Barker's play Waste is being staged at London's National Theatre. It exposes a cut-throat, cynical world of sex, sleaze and death BBCTV has adapted John Lanchester's novel Capital -about the crazy housing market in London - into a series starring Toby Jones Tate Liverpool imagines the world in 2053 when all art has vanished and museum visitors have to evoke the works themselves.

Danny Boyle directs Michael Fassbender in the title role of Steve Jobs - a biopic of the technology genius. Kenneth Branagh's Theatre Company launches with Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. An exhibition Masters of the Everyday: Dutch Artists in the Age of Vermeer at The Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace allows the public a chance to see some Dutch masters from The Royal Collection. ENO is staging Verdi's Force of Destiny; great music (the Jean de Florette tune!), a chorus of 49 singers, an orchestra of 69 musicians and a crazy plot, what does it all add up to? The Great Swindle by Pierre Lemaitre was the 2013 winner of France's most prestigious book award, the Prix Goncourt. It looks at the aftermath of WW1 on a group of very different soldiers. Main Image: Miranda Raison (Hermione) and Kenneth Branagh (Leontes) in Theatre Company's The Winter's Tale. Credit: Johan Persson.

Saoirse Ronan in the film adaptation of Colm Toibin's novel Brooklyn has been touted by some critics as Oscar material; do our reviewers agree? Bob Dylan Bootlegs Vol 12 date from his most fecund period 1965-66. How much light does a collection of outakes and alternative versions throw upon his creative processes? Simon Russell Beale plays an 18th century cross-dressing satirist, impressionist and comedian in Mr Foote's Other Leg. It's now transferred to the West End Jonathan Coe's new novel Number 11 is his 11th book, published on 11th November. A new exhibition at London's Jewish Museum looks at the significance of blood in religion through manuscripts, prints, Jewish ritual and ceremonial objects, art, film, literature and cultural ephemera. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Kit Davis, Tom Holland and Kerry Shale. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Even though he's banned from making films in his home country, Iranian director Jafar Panahi's film Taxi Tehran won this year's Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Was this a largely political or aesthetic award? Ronald Harwood's play The Dresser became an award-winning film in 1983. A new version for BBC TV stars Anthony Hopkins and Ian McKellen Hampton Court houses just a few paintings from The Royal Collection in The Cumberland Gallery. It's a small sample of the glorious riches The Queen holds in trust for the nation. David Mitchell's new novel Slade House tells a spooky tale of mindbending, timeslips and soul-stripping. David Hare's play The Moderate Soprano is about the beginnings of Glyndebourne Opera in the 1930s and its eccentric founder Capt John Christie Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Deborah Bull, Rebecca Stott and Michael Arditti. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Salisbury Playhouse has commissioned 4 new plays to mark the octocentenary of Magna Carta. How do contemporary playwrights deal with the ideas behind an 800 year old document? Mississippi Grind is a film that follows 2 gamblers trying to beat the odds to turn their lives around as they head down the Mississippi river to the big game in New Orleans . The latest cult TV series from the USA is Mr Robot - turning the world of computer coders and hackers into nailbiting narrative The prolific and highly influential design team of Charles and Ray Eames are the subject of a new exhibition at The Barbican in London. You probably know their work without realising it (they designed the "Mastermind" chair and much more) Beatlebone by Kevin Barry is the imagined story of John Lennon trying to reach spiritual peace by going to an island he has bought off the coast of Ireland.

The film Suffragette looks at the campaign 100 years ago to gain women the right to vote. It was made with an all-star largely-female cast and crew. How broad is the appeal of this historical retelling? City On Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg has been hyped by the publishers and lauded by many critics. It's a 944-page novel about New York City in the mid 1970s; does it justify the hoopla? Wolf in Snakeskin Shoes is a modern reworking of Moliere's Tartuffe at London's Tricycle Theatre. Set in a black southern baptist church with a dissembling pastor, do the themes still resonate in the twenty-first century? 'Periodic Tales, The Art of the Elements" is an exhibition at Compton Verney in Warwickshire. It explores the way the elements of the periodic table have inspired and influenced artists over the centuries. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Rowan Pelling, Geoffrey Durham and Linda Grant. The producer is Oliver Jones.

The American government's war on drugs is a familiar subject for a film. How does the latest - Sicario - advance the genre? The Donmar Warehouse's production of a play about LGBTQ politics on an American campus - Teddy Ferrara - has been reworked from its US origination. How will it work in London? Jonathan Lee's novel High Dive reimagines the story of the 1984 Brighton Bombing where the IRA tried to kill the Tory cabinet. How well does it meld fact and fiction? Frank Auerbach is often hailed as Britian's finest living painter. We attend a retrospective exhibition at Tate Britain in London Black Roses was Simon Armitage's prose poem - originally written for the radio - about the murder of Sophie Lancaster, a young goth girl kicked to death by a frenzied group of young men. It's now been made into a TV production as part of National Poetry Week Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Charlotte Mullins, Ryan Gilbey and Emma Woolf. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Medea is the latest production in London's Almeida Theatre's Greek season. Written by Rachel Cusk it portrays Medea as a realist and a moralist not a maniac. The writer Edmund deWaal's interest in porcelain can be seen in an exhibition "White", at London's Royal Academy Library Jeanette Winterson's latest novel The Gap of Time retells Shakespeare's Winter's Tale, setting it in the modern day. Matt Damon plays an astronaut stranded on Mars in The Martian: how do you cope with life millions of miles from any other human being? And as 2 new TV crime series begin - Unforgotten and From Darkness - we consider the enduring appeal of police detective dramas. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Iwona Blazwick, Don Guttenplan and Sarah Churchwell. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Ai Wei Wei's new exhibition at The Royal Academy shows how his work continues to be a thorn in the side of The Chinese government. But does it make for a satisfying exhibition? Margaret Atwood's new novel The Heart Goes Last was originally published as a 4 part serial work online. 99 Homes is a film which takes what might sound like an unpromising premise - foreclosure of mortgages - and tries to turn it into a thriller. You might not expect a play about depression to use song and dance and comedy to tell its tale but Fake it 'til you make it, at London's Soho Theatre attempts to do just that. BBC4's Music for Misfits tells the tale of how independent record labels and indie bands reshaped the UK music business and were then appropriated by those they intended to replace. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Crystal Mahey Morgan, David Hepworth and Deborah Moggach. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Michel Houellebecq's controversial sixth novel Submission is set in 2022 and depicts France ruled by sharia law under an Islamic president who has the stated aim of converting the whole of Europe to Islam. Part satire, part science fiction, does Hoeullebecq remain the "enfant terrible" of contemporary French literature? Oscar and Golden Globe nominated film "Tangerines" is a beautifully eloquent statement for peace and the futility of bloodshed over racial and ethnic division. Set in the 1992 it features two tangerine growing Estonian farmers caught up in the conflict between Georgia and Abkhazian separatists. It is directed by award winning Georgian film maker Zaza Urushadze The Ey Exhibition: The World Goes Pop at the Tate Modern shows how 60's and 70's pop art extended beyond America and Britain and dealt with more issues than consumerism, issues which include social imbalances, censorship, sexual liberation, war and civil rights. Rob Lowe and Pauline Quirke star in a new Sky 1 comedy drama "You, Me and The Apocalypse," where the characters are forced to confront imminent extinction from an 8 mile wide comet hurtling towards earth. What would you do if you were told there were only 34 days before oblivion? And Martin McDonagh's first UK play in ten years, Hangmen, receives its World Premiere at the Royal Court in London, and tells the fictional story of a rival to the well known hangman Albert Pierrepoint. How does Britain's second best-known executioner respond to the news that the British government is abolishing capital punishment?

Tom Hardy plays both Reggie and Ronnie Kray in Legend, the latest film to deal with the east end gangster twins Patrick deWitt's new novel Undermajordomo Minor is the follow-up to the Booker shortlisted The Sisters Brothers. It's a bizarre fable of sorts set in an unspecified country and time. This is England '90 is the fourth part of Shane Meadows' partly-autobiographical series. From the initial film, it has become a successful TV series for Channel 4 Rob Brydon plays a long-suffering teacher in Tamsin Oglesby's Future Conditional at London's Old Vic Theatre. It deals with the sticky business of getting your child into a good secondary school. Drawing in Silver and Gold at British Museum looks at the once-popular art of metalpoint, with works from Rembrandt, Van Eyck, Hans Holbein, Otto Dix, Holman Hunt and more.

Jonathan Franzen's latest novel Purity deals with the intrusiveness of the internet and social media though a mysterious family history and hacking and whistleblowing. People Places and Things at The Dorfman Theatre is Duncan Macmillan's latest play, dealing with addiction, recovery and an individual's identity Me and Earl and The Dying Girl, is a film which sort-of delivers what the title says. It's a teenage cancer weepy, but does it have anything new to say or a new way of saying it? Lady Chatterley returns to the small screen in a new BBC adaptation. Modern sensibilities are less likely to be offended by some aspects than others. Should we let wives and servants watch this version? We visit Dulwich Picture Gallery's permanent collection - the world's first purpose-built public art gallery founded in 1811. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Meg Rosoff, David Olusoga and Stephanie Merritt. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Benedict Cumberbatch's Hamlet has been much-anticipated and every ticket was sold out a year in advance; will our critics be dazzled or disappointed? Sensorium at Tate Britain in London is a new exhibition which aims to stimulate all our senses as we view a selection of paintings. Can they enhance or distract us from the gallery experience? Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling star in 45 Years, a British film about a couple celebrating their wedding anniversary when a long-forgotten event disturbs their happiness. Poet Les Murray has been declared by The National Trust of Australia as one of the 100 Australian Living Treasures. Now 76, he has just published his latest collection: Waiting For The Past BBC TV has begun a 4-part series The Ascent of Woman, looking at the history of women from the dawn of civilisation to the modern day. Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Tracy Chevalier, Alice Rawsthorn and Kathryn Hughes. The Producer is Oliver Jones.

In Edinburgh for The Festivals: Ian Rankin, Louise Welsh and James Runcie review Theatre de Complicite's The Encounter, Robert LePage's 887 Ex Machina, Adam Mars Jones' book about his father and dealing with Alzheimer's, Netflix's series Narcos, a new film about drug lord Pablo Escobar. And also their own selections from the rich array available in the city.

Hanya Yanagihara's novel A Little Life is an expansive novel about a group of male friends in New York. It has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015. American comic actor Amy Schumer stars in Trainwreck as a hard-living young woman for whom love turns her life around Sir John Hurt plays the title role in Radio 4's adaptation of John Mortimer's 1989 play Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell; an entertainingly dissolute life spent in old Soho. The Scandalous Lady W on BBC2 tells the story of an 18th century noblewoman whose infidelity led to a sensational public trial. Bedwyr Williams is a Welsh artist who has exhibited work at The Venice Biennale and now has a show at The Whitworth in Manchester (Museum of The Year 2015).

Controversial film Diary of a Teenage Girl deals with a 15 year old girl who looks for love and ends up sleeping with her mother's boyfriend. Abi Morgan's play 2002 play Splendour is revived at London's Donmar Warehouse - 4 women deal with an imminent civil war, separately and together Simon Parkin's book Death By Video Game looks ta the cultural significance and influence of the industry worth £3.9bn last year in the UK alone. York Art Gallery has reopened after a 3 year £8m refit. Housing the Centre Of Ceramic Art, how well does it combine old masters with new pottery? A new US TV comedy series Last Man On Earth has a central character who is a dreadful slob - why bother making an effort when you're alone on the planet? - does that make him too unappealing to like?

Patrick Marber has re-imagined Turgenev's A Month In The Country as Three Days In The Country for The National Theatre - does his version do justice to a classic of Russian theatre? There is a retrospective of the work of Richard Long at the Arnolfini Gallery in his hometown of Bristol which includes new works created from the environment. 93 year old stylist Iris Apfel is the subject of a fashion documentary by Robert Maysles. Pulitzer Prize nominated author David Gates' collection of short stories "A Hand Reached Down To Guide Me" is his first for 15 years. Is it worth the wait? British indi comedy film The Last Sparks of Sundown was made for £46,000; was it money well spent?

There's a revival of Mack + Mabel, starring Michael Ball at the Festival Theatre in Chichester. By the team behind Hello Dolly, it's a tale of the silent movie era as it began to fall apart. A flop on Broadway in 1974, how does the new production fare? Inside Out is the latest Pixar film. Set inside the head of an 11 year old girl some reviewer have praised it as the best children's film ever; will our reviewers agree? Life in Squares on BBC2, is a drama about the glamorous, bohemian world of the Bloomsbury Set and their complicated intertwining love lives and careers. Jessie Greengrass's debut work is a collection of short stories "An Account of the Decline of Great Auk, According to One Who Saw It". Is it a promising start? The Wellcome Collection in London has an exhibition by Alice Anderson - winding copper wire around everyday objects; does this process imbue them with a different significance?

The RSC's latest production is a contemporary setting of Ben Johnson's 17th century comedy play Volpone. Italian film The Wonders, is a film which won the Jury Prize at this year's Cannes Festival. It's about a family of beekeepers struggling to survive. Harper Lee is not a prolific author. Her first 'new' work in more than half a century is Go Set a Watchman. Can it possibly match the success of To Kill A Mockingbird (40 million sold) Marc Quinn's exhibition The Toxic Sublime at White Cube Bermondsey includes hanging works and enormous outsize sculptures of seashells , The BBC TV programme Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners looks at how widespread ownership of slaves was before the 1833 act to abolish it.

American comedy film Dear White People takes a look at race relations on a US campus - between the black and white students and within each group Claudia Rankine's book Citizen deals with her own experience of everyday racism as well as the way white society deals with blackness Invisible is a new work by Oscar-winning playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz at London's Bush Theatre. It's about the effect that removing legal aid will have on the justice system - how well can she breathe life into such a potentially dry subject? Sadie Jones' has adapted her own prize-winning novel The Outcast into a 2 part drama for BBC1 - does it make prize-worthy TV? Soundscapes is a new exhibition at London's National Gallery - combining specially commissioned compositions with art works from the collection. is this a good or a ridiculous notion?

Amy is Asif Kapadia's documentary telling the story of the short life of the talented singer Amy Winehouse. We look at the launch of Apple Music - is it an exciting brand new way to explore what's out there or just another option in an already over-serviced market? Jim Shepard's novel The Book of Aron is about a young boy in wartime Poland occupied by the Nazis. Does it manage to say something new about a familiar subject? There's a revival in London of the first AIDS play: As Is. It premiered in New York in 1985 and won a TONY. What does it say about the situation today? The Joseph Cornell retrospective at London's Royal Academy allows visitors to view collages rarely seen in the UK.

Lenny Henry's career as an actor continues with Willy Russell's Educating Rita at Chichester's Minerva Theatre The first Barbara Hepworth retrospective exhibition in London for half a century has opened at Tate Britain. Does it do her career justice? Everyone's Going To Die is a small scale British dark comedy film about hitmen, relationships and reincarnation The author Joshua Cohen's latest novel is Book of Numbers about a writer called Joshua Cohen (not him) writing a biography of an internet genius called Joshua Cohen (also not him). Confused? Let us help you to make some sense. Channel 4's Not Safe For Work is a comedy about the staff of a government department which has been moved from London out to the regions as part of a money-saving exercise.

Ian 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 Jackie, out of jail and staying clean thanks to his sponsor. He might even have found a job. And of course there's Veronica, who he's loved since 8th grade. Nothing could come between them - except a hat. The Mother...With The Hat received six Tony nominations on Broadway - how will it appeal to British audiences? The Household Spirit is the follow up novel from American writer Todd Wodicka. Like his debut "All Shall be Well; And All Shall Be Well:And All Manner Things Shall Be Well," this book uses dark humour to provide insight into the human condition. Another dark comedy in a new HBO tv series "The Brink," that focuses on a geopolitical crisis and its effect on three disparate and desperate men: Walter Larson (Tim Robbins), the U.S. Secretary of State; Alex Talbott (Jack Black), a Foreign Service officer stationed in Islamabad; and Zeke "Z-Pak" Tilson (Pablo Schreiber), a Navy fighter pilot with a side business dealing prescription drugs. And Fighting History at Tate Britain in London explores 250 years of British history painting including work by artists as various as Winifred Knights and Stanley Spencer, and Rita Donagh and Jeremey Deller. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Tiffany Jenkins, Kevin Jackson and Jamila Gavin. The producer is Hilary Dunn.

London Road is a film of the groundbreaking musical play. Directed by Rufus Norris, it tells the story of a community in Ipswich recovering from a series of gruesome murders. Louis de Bernieres' latest novel The Dust That Falls From Clouds looks at the lives of those 'left behind' by the First World War Channel 4's The Tribe is applying the techniques usually used in programmes such as 24 Hours in A+E to a tribe in rural Ethiopia - lots of cameras, lots of microphones and unique access to a largely hitherto unknown community. Patrick Marber's play The Red Lion deals with non-league football, corruption and compromised integrity. A retrospective exhibition of the work of Belgian artist Carsten Holler has opened at The Hayward Gallery in London. His work is characterised by playful interactivity - will it impress or delight our reviewers? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Abigail Morris, Emma Jane Unsworth and Kerry Shale. The producer is Oliver Jones.

A brand new interpretation of the classical story The Oresteia begins a Greek Season at London's Almeida Theatre. How well does it bring an ancient story up-to-date? Czech writer Milan Kundera has just published his first novel for 12 years The Festival of Insignificance Iain Banks' 2012 novel Stonemouth about a young man returning - under a shadow - to his Scottish hometown has been dramatised for BBC1 London's Serpentine Gallery has 2 portraiture exhibitions opening - Duane Hanson and Lynette Yiadom Boakye. The film Listen Up Philip follows the life and relationships of an obnoxious young author who seeks life advice from a similarly obnoxious older writer Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Linda Grant, John Mullan and Frances Stonor Saunders. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Temple is a new play at London's Donmar Warehouse. It imagines what happened behind the scenes when the Occupy Movement took over the steps of St Paul's Cathedral in 2011. Simon Pegg stars in Man Up - an unconventional rom-com about a blind date that goes hilariously wrong. We review 2 new TV Sci-fi dramas: Humans on Channel 4 and Sense8 on Netflix - can they compete with the bigger budgets of film? Ryan Gattis' novel: All Involved is a fictionalised account of the 1992 LA riots which followed the acquittal of policemen for beating African-American Rodney King. 17 separate voices from gang members to firefighters tell their stories Ceramicist Grayson Perry has a retrospective at Turner Contemporary in Margate, it's a selection from more than 30 years of his work Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Lisa Appignanesi, Gabriel Gbadamosi and Michael Arditti. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Owen Sheers' novel I Saw A Man deals with loss, grief, guilt and attempted redemption Japanese director Yukio Ninagawa has directed Hamlet 8 times. His latest production is playing at The Barbican in London - how well does this 17th Century English play transfer to a setting in 19th Century Japan? Manchester has a brand new arts centre: Home. What will it add to to Manchester's vibrant arts scene? Francois Ozon's film The New Girlfriend is based on a Ruth Rendell novel. How does the cross-dressing of the main character - a young widower - affect his friends, male and female? Dan Snow presents Armada, 12 Days To Save England on BBC2; taking a fresh modern look at the great Elizabethan sea battle - the reasons as well as the results.

Artist Cornelia Parker's contribution to The British Library's Magna Carta octocentennial exhibition is an embroidery interpretation of the Wikipedia page for this cornerstone of the British constitution. What does it add to the commemorations? There's a new Mad Max film, "Fury Road", with Tom Hardy replacing Mel Gibson in the title role - it's two hours of more-or-less non-stop action and taken decades to reach the screen; is it worth the wait? Film director Mike Leigh is a big fan of the operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. He has been working with English National Opera on a staging of The Pirates of Penzance -how does his improvisational working style fit with the formatted world of opera? Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell was Susanna Clarke's 800 page novel of magic in 19th Century England. It's been turned into a 7-part TV series by the BBC. American novelist TC Boyle's newest work is The Harder They Come, about gun control and mental illness in the USA.

The Vote is a comedy set in a polling station on election night, performed live at the Donmar Warehouse and simultaneously broadcast on More4. Starring Mark Gatiss, Judi Dench, Catherine Tate and nearly 40 more actors, can it have a life after we announce our verdict? Bapsi Sidhwa's novel The Crow Eaters is a classic of Pakistani writing; a darkly humorous tale of a family in Lahore in the early 1900s. fans include Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi and Fatima Bhutto. What will our panel make of it? The French film Girlhood tells the story of the lives of a group of young black Parisiennes; a group notably underrepresented in French cinema. Does this film do something original with the idea? We look at a couple of works at this year's Brighton Festival on an avian theme: Dawn Chorus, humans reproducing birdsong and Murmuration looking at birdwatching and spying Grace and Frankie is a new comedy series starring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as two septuagenarians who are surprised when their husbands announce that they're gay and intend to marry each other. Image: Mark Gatiss as Steven Crosswell in The Vote, Donmar Warehouse Photo Credit: Johan Persson.

Carol Ann Duffy has adapted the 16th century morality play Everyman for London's National Theatre, with Chiwetel Ejiofor in the title role There's a new film version of Far From The Madding Crowd, this time with Carey Mulligan as Bathsheba Everdene - is it fair to compare it with the 1969 version? Empire is a TV phenomenon in the US; a tale of power and intrigue at a hip hop record label - like a black Dynasty crossed with King Lear - it has drawn unprecedented audiences and now it's come to the UK Anne Enright''s novel The Green Road tells the individual stories of a geographically-dispersed Irish family who are brought back together for a family gathering with all the pressure that unavoidably ensues A retrospective exhibition of Christopher Williams photography at The Whitechapel Gallery in London looks at the unexpected beauty and cultural resonance of commercial, industrial and instructional photography.

Toni Morrison's new novel, God Help The Child explores issues including skin colour prejudice, child abuse and justice. Eugene O'Neill's 1933 play Ah Wilderness! is one of his less-performed works. He described it as a folk comedy, is it still funny today? The British Museum exhibition, Indigenous Australians: Enduring Civilisation, looks at 60 millennia of Aboriginal life and art A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence is the peculiar Lion d'Or winning film from Sweden - is it funny? unnerving? odd? magnificent? BBC 4's Storyville series - bringing the best foreign documentaries to a British TV audience - has been going for 10 years. We review the latest: "Himmler, The Decent One", which looks at the life of Hitler's deputy through his private correspondence.

Carmen Disruption is Simon Stephens' radical reworking of Bizet's opera, exploring the place where the actor becomes the character they're playing Home From Home, a 4 hour long cinematic prequel to the 53 hour long TV series Heimat, tells the tale of a fictional rural German village from the 1840s to the 1990s. Caryl Phillips' latest novel The Lost Child reimagines Wuthering Heights through several interweaving narratives. An exhibition of the work of Sonia Delaunay at Tate Modern is designed as a radical reassessment of her importance as an artist, showcasing her originality and creativity across the twentieth Century.

Eric Ravilious was one of the finest watercolourists that the UK has ever produced. Born in 1903, he died in 1942 while on duty as an official war artist. Does a new exhibition of his work reveal his genius? In Swedish film 'Force Majeure', an avalanche during a family skiing holiday causes no physical damage but opens fissures in the happy family structure Olympic gold medallists Torvill & Dean have a new TV series: 'Ice Rink On The Estate'. They attempt to turn a group of kids from a deprived Nottingham housing estate are turned into an ice dance troupe. There are very few roles for older actresses, but in April de Angelis' play 'After Electra', the main character is 81 years. The co-writer of Peep Show, Jesse Armstrong has written his debut novel - Can a successful witty TV writer easily make the transfer?

Arthur Miller's Pullitzer prize winning 1949 play, Death of a Salesman, set in Brooklyn in New York, is one of the greatest American tragedies ever written. In a production to celebrate the centenary of Miller's birth at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford on Avon, Artistic Director Greg Doran directs Anthony Sher as Willy Loman, Harriet Walter as his wife Linda and Alex Hassel as their son Biff. How well does this production portray the darkness that lies at the heart of the American dream? Oscar nominated for The Squid and the Whale, "While We're Young" is Noah Baumbach's 8th feature film, and his second collaboration with star Ben Stiller. A comedy about the generational divide in a technologically driven age - what new insights does it provide on the perennial conflict between age and youth? Award winning novelist, biographer and poet Peter Ackroyd's turns his attention to Alfred Hitchcock in a new biography which details the director's stormy, controlling relationships with his leading ladies, as well the painstaking way in which he mastered his cinematic craft manifest in such cinema classics as Notorious, Rear Window, Psycho and The Birds. What new light can the "Master of Biography" shed upon the "Master of Suspense?" When you go to see an exhibition at the National Gallery in London you expect to see paintings. However in Frames in Focus: Sansovino Frames it is the frames themselves that are the stars of the show - one of the first times ever a UK gallery has created an exhibition (almost) purely from frames alone. What does this exhibition reveal about the art of the picture frame? And a new BBC 2 television series, Sex and The Church, explores the complex question of the church's attitude towards sex from the birth of Jesus to the present day, presented by Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch.

Sam Holcroft's new play, Rules For Living, at The National's Dorfman Theatre shows a family full of traits and ticks that define their relationships. How do we react when we're under pressure with our nearest and dearest? The Norwegian film Blind plays around with perception. The lead character loses her sight and has to reassess her relationship with the world and especially those around her. We've been watching Channel 4's coverage of the re-internment of Richard III. How fascinating can many hours of television devoted to the burying of a 500 year old corpse be? The Acts of the Assassins by Richard Beard could be boiled down to a police procedural about the deaths of Christ's apostles, but it is set simultaneously in the 1st and 21st centuries Defining Beauty; The Body in Ancient Greek Art at The British Museum looks at the development and influence of Greek sculpture, drawing on their permanent collection and many rarely-loaned works from overseas Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Kamila Shamsie, Emma Woolf and Nicholas Lezard. The producer is Oliver Jones.

The first major retrospective of Richard Diebenkorn's work for 25 years opens at London's Royal Academy. Derided by some for making abstract art popular, does this new show, which includes his figurative paintings too, restore his reputation as a serious artist? A new Channel 4 drama "Coalition" dramatises the negotiations which took place immediately after the last general election and is based on first hand research by writer James Graham, whose past work includes Privacy, Tory Boyz and the Olivier-nominated This House. With Mark Gatiss as Peter Mandelson, how much of a behind the scenes insight does Coalition give us about this historic moment in British politics? And how well does it work as a drama? A revival of Bryony Lavery's award winning play Frozen opens at the Park Theatre in London tells the story of the disappearance of a 10-year-old girl, Rhona, through three protagonists: the girl's killer, her mother and a New York psychiatrist researching why people commit such crimes. How does Frozen negotiate such a controversial and complex subject as child killers? Set on a collection of islands off the coast of Virginia, Bailey longlisted debut novel "The Shore" by Sara Taylor interweaves stories that trace different generations of the same family over the course of 150 years. In "Mommy" 25 year old Canadian director Xavier Dolan returns to the theme of mothers and sons, first explored in his debut feature "I Killed My Mother." Casting Anne Dorval as a strong, independent woman overwhelmed with the task of caring for a teenage tyrant, how does he portray the pressures inflicted by the chaotic, testosterone fuelled madness of a 15 year old boy.

When an exhibition of the fashion creations of Alexander McQueen opened in New York, visitors queued for up to 5 hours to get in. It's now at London's Victoria and Albert Museum; will it be such a crowd-puller Suite Francaise - Irene Nemerovski's wartime novel (discovered more than six decades after her death) was a best seller. Can it repeat its success as a film? X+Y is a film about a young maths prodigy who is on the autistic spectrum. It deals with his participation in the International Mathematical Olympiad and growing up emotionally Juliette Binoche plays the lead in Antigone at London's Barbican Theatre. Directed by Ivo Von Hove, it's caused a lot of advance excitement. Tom McCarthy's new novel Satin Island is a meditation on contemporary society that some reviewers have accused of ditching traditionally novelistic techniques like plot and character. Is it all the better for it? Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Helen Lewis, Dominic Sandbrook and Kit Davis. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Julianne Moore won an Oscar for her performance as Alice, who has Early Onset Alzheimer's disease in Still Alice. Does a great performance make a great movie? Mike Bartlett's new play Game at London's Almeida theatre raises questions about how desperate people become when they're looking for somewhere to live. Paul Whitehouse plays multiple characters in his TV series Nurse which is transferring from Radio 4 to BBC2. It deal with the travails of a Community Psychiatric Nurse and her patients. David Vann's novel Aquarium is told from the point of view of a 12 year old girl whose happy life with her single mother is thrown into disarray by a chance encounter Forensics - The Anatomy of Crime, has opened at The Wellcome Collection in London, and it looks at crime from being committed to criminal conviction. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Tracy Chevalier, Catherine O'Flynn and Craig Raine. The producer is Oliver Jones.

The Buried Giant is Kazuo Ishiguro's first new novel for 10 years, set in Arthurian England George Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman at The National's Lyttleton Theatre starring Ralph Fiennes New horror film It Follows has been a success in the US and could be a new teen creepy classic Matt Lucas' is best known for Little Britain; his new TV show is entirely devoid of catchphrases - it's a wordless series called Pompidou Sculpture Victorious at Tate Britain looks at sculpture created during Queen Victoria's reign - the innovations in style and technique Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Natalie Haynes, Jim White and Rebecca Stott. The producer is Oliver Jones.

The production of Eugene Onegin by Moscow's Vakhtangov State Academic Theatre being staged at London's Barbican sold out for a year in Russia and the international tour sells to packed-out houses The Duke of Burgundy is Peter Strickland's latest film which looks at the love affair between 2 sub-dom lesbian lepidopterists Amanda Vickery presents BBC2's Suffragettes Forever, a three part series trying to tell "the unknown story" of "Britain's longest war, the 300 year-long campaign by women for political and sex equality" The touring exhibition "Art From Elsewhere" currently in Birmingham displays some of The Art Fund's acquisitions of works by artists from overseas Peter Swanson's novel "The Kind Worth Killing" is a twisty turny thing; a thriller full of unexpected surprises. Is it surprisingly good?

Anne Tyler's latest novel 'A Spool of Blue Thread' (her 20th) follows the dynamics of an American family through several generations Indian Summers is a sumptuous drama on Channel 4 looking at life in India in 1932. It stars Julie Walters and follows the early stirrings of political opposition to The Raj Love Is Strange is a film with Jon Lithgow and Alfred Molina as a gay couple who decide to get married after being together for 40 years and their relationship is put under a strain by forces they hadn't expected Maxine Peake is in a new play at London's Royal Court. How To Hold Your Breath is about personal and political journeys History Is Now at The Southbank Centre's Hayward Gallery is subtitled "7 Artists Take On Britain" and looks at 70 years of cultural and social history.

Tom Sutcliffe and this weeks panel discuss the film Selma, which tells the story of Martin Luther King and struggle for black voting rights in 1960s America. It charts the freedom march between Selma and Montgomery in the segregated deep south, and the high price paid for democracy. Human Rights Human Wrongs is the latest exhibition in The Photographers Gallery in London. It charts, through photojournalism, how violent flash points through the world in 20th century have shaped our perception of conflict, race, empire and ourselves. The illuminations is the 5th novel by author Andrew O'Hagan, it tells the tale of Anne, a Scottish pensioner who is slipping in to the slow slide of dementia and her Grandson who is serving with the Army in Afghanistan. It explores how memory and the past are intertwined in this cross continental, generational tale. The panel also discuss comedian and artist Kim Noble's new show You're Not Alone. He uses live action, video, music and audience participation to paint a picture of darkly comic loneliness. Better Call Saul is the prequel to cult series Breaking Bad. Its from the same creator, so can it capture the magic of the original series? Presenter Tom Sutcliffe. Producer Ruth Sanderson.

Tom Stoppard's play The Hard Problem is his first new work for the National Theatre in 13 years; is it worth the wait? Paul Thomas Anderson has adapted a Thomas Pynchon novel Inherent Vice - the first time a cinema director has wrestled this famously difficult author onto the screen. How well does it work? Documentary maker Adam Curtis's Bitter Lake attempts to explain the complicated political situation in Afghanistan. It's only available on iPlayer; might this be a new way for the BBC to 'broadcast' material? If so, what might the consequences be? Joyce Carol Oates has published more than 40 novels in her five decade long career. Her latest 'Sacrifice' is based around a notorious alleged rape case in the US Christian Marclay's exhibition at White Cube in Bermondsey includes a post-pub-crawl soundscape and paintings of sound effects - turning representations of audio experiences into fine art Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Rowan Pelling, Julia Peyton Jones and Robert Hanks. The producer is Oliver Jones.

The RSC's latest production is Oppenheimer, a play about the man behind the invention of the nuclear bomb - a flawed hero, is it a flawless production? A Most Violent Year is set in New York in 1981, a year when more than 1.2m crimes were committed. JC Chandor's film follows a man trying to build up a family business in the face of alarming violence and corruption. Fortitude is Arctic noir TV. Set in an Icelandic Research Station where mysterious and untoward things start happening, the cast includes Sofie Grabol, Michael Gambon, Christopher Ecclestone and a host of other big names. Will it leave the reviewers cold? Rubens And His Legacy at the Royal Academy attempts to explore the influence of the great Flemish master on artists over the last three and a half centuries. Sandip Roy's first novel Dont Let Him Know tells the story of a young man in modern India exploring his sexual identity. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Lionel Shriver, Sophie Hannah and Francis Spufford. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown; Pedro Almodovar's film has been turned into a stage musical with Tamsin Greig as Pepa Marcos. It flopped on Broadway, now thoroughly rejigged, can it succeed in London? Reese Witherspoon is in the running for an Oscar playing Cheryl in Wild, about a woman who sets off to discover herself on a 1100 mile walk in the wilderness. Wolf Hall was first a best-selling book by Hilary Mantel, then an RSC play and now it comes to BBCTV, with Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell Adam Thirlwell is a young British writer whose third novel Lurid and Cute focusses on an ordinary egotistical young man whose life spirals out of control Bull at The Young Vic is a play about the consequences of ruthless office bullying. At only 55 minutes long it has to come out swinging, but does it land any punches?

A review of the week's cultural highlights.

Birdman starring Michael Keaton is director Alejandro G Inarritu's first comedy and is hotly tipped for Academy Awards - does it live up to the hype? 10 04 by Ben Lerner is the poet, essayist and novelist's second work of fiction which probes the reality of his own life and in doing so raises questions about the nature of fiction and truth itself. Golem is staged at the Young Vic by the 1927 theatre company and combines performance and live music with handcrafted animation and film to create magical filmic theatre. Inspired by Gustav Meyrink's The Golem published in 1915 - the play's message challenges our current obsession with technological gadgets. Crisis is a new television drama on UKTV's Watch Channel starring Gillian Anderson and revolving around a mass kidnapping of a group of teenagers on a school bus. In this case the teenagers are the children of America's rich and powerful elite. And Kentucky Route Zero, an innovative point and click computer game in 5 acts which employs storytelling techniques as well as graphics to involve the game player in the process of the narrative itself. How entertaining is it to play and how different is it to what has gone before?

London's V+A Museum has just reopened the Weston Cast Court, which houses life-size plaster casts of statuary and artefacts from around Europe. It includes the museum's largest items, can it draw their largest crowds? Larry Gelbart's City of Angels is revived at London's Donmar Warehouse. A musical about the golden age of Hollywood, it garnered awards galore 25 years ago in its original run, will this production be a winner? Tim Burton's new film Big Eyes is about 1960s housewife Margaret Keane whose paintings of waifs with enormous dark eyes were wildly commercially successful, but her husband claimed all the glory until she decided to make a break for fame in her own right. Small Books: We look at 3 works of extremely short fiction. Hanif Kureishi, Haruki Murakami and AN Wilson all have stories to tell, that they feel are best-suited to new diminutive formats. The BBC has remade EF Benson's Mapp and Lucia in sumptuous style; is it a new classic?

Treasure Island is The National Theatre's seasonal offering at The Olivier, full of pirates, parrots and seaspray. How does it play to the various audiences who come to the theatre at Christmas time? Electricity is a film starring model turned actress Agyness Deyn whose character deals with her epilepsy as she tries to find a community to be a part of. Charlie Brooker is back with a one-off feature-length Christmas special edition of Black Mirror on Channel 4. It's a worrying look at a future world that may be closer to our present world than we expect. It's guaranteed to inject some darkness into the joviality of Christmas Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Robert Olen Butler's latest novel is The Hot Country; a historical thriller set in Mexico in 1914 with a hardbitten journalist as hero The V+A has an exhibition of Dolls Houses - from 1670 to 2001. They're a world of wonder in miniature. How do they reflect the society of the children for whom they were made? Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Deborah Bull, Neil Brand and Misha Glenny. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Jason Reitman's latest film Men Women and Children is a lighthearted look at the way the internet has become woven into everyone's existence for good or bad; the pitfalls, the temptations and the endless possibilities. Hope is a new play by Jack Thorne at London's Royal Court Theatre. It's a dark comedy about a cash-strapped Labour council trying to balance its books and do the least harm in the face of cuts. William Blake is the subject of a major exhibition at the Ashmolean in Oxford. He was a printmaker, painter and revolutionary poet of the prophetic books, and this show attempts to reveal how he acquired and developed his skills and also to show his legacy. HBO's new series 4 part mini series , Olive Kitteridge is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and stars Frances McDormand in a tale of marital affairs, mental illness, intrigue, crime and tragedy in a small New England town. Acclaimed novel End of Days by German author Jenny Erpenbeck explores a multi-narrative story of a family whose destiny could spiral in many directions. Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Charlotte Mendelson, Kate Mossman and Michael Arditti. The producer is Oliver Jones.

William Gibson's novel The Peripheral is set in 2 dystopian futures filled with drugs, 3D printers, high-tech surveillance and various legally dubious practices. When readers are immersed in a complete universe of newness, how do they orientate themselves? Netflix newest production is an epic adventure series (10 x 60 minutes) telling the story of Marco Polo; full of spectacle, does it have substance or is it an Oriental Game of Thrones? London's Gate Theatre is staging Chimera - a play about DNA, genetic inheritance and kitchens Tate Modern's exhibition Conflict Time Photography looks at the relationship between photography and sites of conflict over time - eschewing chronological arrangement, it is displayed instead according to how soon after the event the photograph was taken - from moments to a century later. Concerning Violence is a documentary that deals with the struggle for independence of former colonies - how can they free themselves from the yoke of oppression? Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Bidisha, Jim White and Alice Jones. The producer is Oliver Jones.

London's Wellcome Institute has a new exhibition entitled The Institute of Sexology which it describes as "a candid exploration of the most publicly discussed of private acts". How will our reviewers tiptoe gently around the explicit nature of what's on show? What We Do In The Shadows is a New Zealand vampire comedy film about a group of bloodsucking flatmates (a 'dracumentary' if you will) - who does the washing-up in the house of the undead? Behind The Beautiful Forevers is David Hare's new play at London's National Theatre, based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Pulitzer Prize winning author Katherine Boo. It deals with life death and hope in a Mumbai undercity Robert Edric is an acclaimed British novelist whose latest book explores the life of Branwell Bronte - brother of the more famous sisters - whose life couldn't match theirs. Legacy is a new Danish TV police programme. What is it about the Scandi Noir genre that keeps on gripping UK audiences? Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Helen Lewis Pat Kane and Amanda Craig. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Rose Tremain's latest book is a collection of short stories called The American Lover; how does her shorter fiction compare to her full length work? Benedict Cumberbatch plays the WWII cryptographer and code-breaker Alan Turing in The Imitation Game. Also starring Kiera Knightley, it tells the tale of the team of British maths geniuses who cracked the Nazi's Enigma Code. How successfully does it breathe new life into the biography of a private and secretive man? Roy Williams' new play Wildefire, directed by Maria Aberg, opens at London's Hampstead Theatre. It deals with 'the precarious world of modern policing'; how does a good copper stay good when her world turns nasty? British artist Allen Jones is probably best known for three works he created 45 years ago; Hat Stand, Table and Chair. A new exhibition at London's Royal Academy is a look back at his career - including pop art from the 60s, through figurative sculpture to his painted steel sculptures. But do accusations that his early work demeans women still hold sway in the more broadminded 21st century? Michael Palin returns to a British TV series for the first time in 2 decades in Remember Me on BBC1; a supernatural thriller set in Yorkshire - who is to blame for a series of mysterious deaths? Razia Iqbal's guests are Elif Shafak, Patrick Gale and Miranda Carter. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Peter Carey's latest novel, Amnesia follows a disgraced Australian journalist hired to write the life story of a hacker activist who has raised the hackles of international governments because she wrote the code that unlocks prisons around the world. Carey is has twice won The Booker Prize, is this another winning work? DV8 Physical Theatre Company's new show "John" tells the tale of a man who grows up in an extremely abusive family and who- as an adult - finds comfort and company in gay saunas. There's a lot of vivid descriptions of what goes on - how will the audience at London's Lyttleton respond to such explicit depiction of gay sex? Christopher Nolan's new film Interstellar stars Matthew McConaughey as a former NASA astronaut whose job is to save the human race from extinction...not an simple subject, even for such an accomplished director. The Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace has an exhibition called Gold, which displays some of Her Majesty's astonishing artefacts around that theme. Is it a dazzling success? Puppy Love is the latest project from Joanna Scanlan and Vicky Pepperdine (who made the award- winning Getting On comedy series set in a hospital geriatric ward). This deals with the world of canine training; is it a bit of dog's breakfast? Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Giles Fraser, Susie Boyt and Antonia Quirke. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Nightcrawler is a movie about the ambulance-chasing camera crews who film at the site of traffic accidents, shootings etc and sell the footage to TV stations for their news bulletins. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, we see him begin his nightcrawling career, but will it make a good man turn bad? 'Tis Pity She's a Whore is being staged at London's Globe Theatre. Written in the early 1600s by John Ford, the plot includes incest which made it extremely controversial at the time. And it was so controversial in fact that it wasn't revived in London until 1923. How will 21st century London audiences respond? Richard Ford's new book Let Me Be Frank With You is a collection of short stories all featuring the same main character: Frank Bascombe who has appeared in Ford's previous work. He's getting older and returns in all his imperfect glory, dealing with the mess of life. The Queen recently opened the latest gallery at London's Science Museum. It's called The Information Age and it's the first permanent gallery dedicated to the history of information and communication technologies. How have they managed to bring Translatlantic cable-laying to life? BBC1's latest World War 1 drama, Passing Bells follows the lives of two young recruits, one English, one German as they take part in and are affected by the conflict. Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Linda Grant, Emma Woolf and David Benedict. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Grayson Perry's new exhibition at London's National Portrait Gallery is called "Who Are You". Through pots and paintings, a hijab and tapestry it explores the nature of identity. Brad Pitt's latest film Fury follows a tank crew towards the end of WW2, when a rooky soldier joins the grizzled old conflict-hardened team in the hell of war. London's Young Vic Theatre plays host to Dance Umbrella 2014. We'll be reviewing Harlem Dream - a work by young British choreographer Ivan Blackstock in which The Harlem Renaissance collides with hip hop. Norwegian writer Per Petterson's 2003 novel Out Stealing Horses won critical acclaim. His newest 'I Refuse' has been hailed as a masterpiece in Norway - what will our panel make of the newly published English translation? And every parent's nightmare - a child disappears on a family holiday - is the plot of BBC1's new drama The Missing, which stars James Nesbitt. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Blake Morrison, Natalie Haynes and Judith Mackrell. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Here Lies Love is David Byrne and Fatboy Slim's disco musical that tells the life story of the former First Lady of the Philippines Imelda Marcos, from poverty to the Presidential Palace. Is she a suitable subject for a musical? Gia Coppola is the grand-daughter of Hollywood titan Francis Ford Coppola and her debut film Palo Alto has just been released in the UK. Does this film show the kind of promise that she might have what it takes as a director to match her aunt Sophia or even her grandfather? David Attenborough's ninth 'Life' series begins on BBC1 this week. Life Story follows animals from all over the world on their journey through life. Can Sir David breathe new life into an established and much-loved format? US surgeon and writer Atul Gawande's latest book Being Mortal is about how to make the process of dying as good as possible. Have we lost sight of the needs of the patient in the last moments of their life; trying to make them live longer rather than better? To celebrate 25 years since the fall of The Berlin Wall, The British Museum's major new exhibition 'Germany: Memories of a Nation' tries to encapsulate 600 years of German history. Which items should be included to reflect the vitality of one of Europe's most important nations. Razia Iqbal is joined by Alex Preston, Abigail Morris and Cahal Dallat. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Phyllida Lloyd's all-female production of Henry IV at The Donmar Warehouse. '71, a film about a young British army soldier who becomes separated from his unit while on patrol during The Troubles in Belfast. Gotham is a new series on Channel 5 that explores that city in the days before Batman. Our novel is Lila by Pulitzer-winning Marilynne Robinson; the third part of her Gilead trilogy. Tracy Emin's latest exhibition of drawings, paintings and bronze work at London's White Cube. Razia Iqbal is joined by Naomi Alderman, Marika Cobbold and Ekow Eshun. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Kristin Scott Thomas plays the title role in Electra at The Old Vic. It's a millennia old play in a modern translation by Frank McGuinness and directed by Ian Rickson. David Fincher's film version of Gillian Flynn's best seller Gone Girl stars Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike. Howard Jacobson's Booker-nominated novel J imagines a dystopian world where a Holocaust-type event might happen again. Gothic Imagination at The British Library explores 250 years of a public predilection for horror and terror. BBC4's new Australian drama The Code deals with a corrupt government dealing ruthlessly with cyber skulduggery. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Stephanie Merritt, Dea Birkett and Sarfraz Manzoor. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Tom 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 with the darkness of German history and considers the complex relationship between art and spirituality. Thomas Ostermeier, artistic director of Berlin's SchaubÃ1/4hne's Theatre, launches the Barbican's International Ibsen season with a potent adaptation of An Enemy of the People, catapulting Ibsen into a modern world of environmental and financial crises and involving direct participation from the audience. Pawel Pawlikowski's award winning film Ida is his first set in his native Poland - he left Warsaw aged 14 - and explores the relationship between a novice and her magistrate aunt in 1960's Poland struggling to come to terms with its recent history. And Transparent is a new ten part series from Amazon, which was greenlighted after a pilot was aired on line garnering positive viewer feedback. Directed by Jill Soloway (writer and producer of Six Feet Under), whose own father came out as transgender, this dark comedy, starring Jeffrey Tambor as Mort / Moira, is not directly autobiographical, but is heavily influenced by her own experiences. What impact is the consumption of TV on demand and via the internet having on the kind television drama currently being produced?

Tom Sutcliffe and guests Rosie Boycott, Simon Jenkins and Maria Delgado discuss the cultural highlights of the week, including The Riot Club based on Laura Wade's controversial stage play Posh and which fictionalised the riotous behaviour of Oxford's notorious Bullingdon Club, which David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson have all been members of. Enda Walsh's new play Ballyturk at the National Theatre has been compared to Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot and stars Cillan Murphy, Mikel Murfi and Stephen Rea. Mr Mac and Me is the 8th novel from Esther Freud, a blend of fact and fiction it recounts the time spent by the architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh in a small fishing village in Suffolk through the eyes of a 12 year old boy. Constable, the Making of a Master, is a new exhibition at London's V&A, which presents his work for the first time alongside the Old Masters whose work he copied so fastidiously, and also features the two version of his most famous painting, The Haywain, side by side. And The Driver, a new three part series on BBC One, starring David Morrissey and written by Danny Brocklehurst is the story of an ordinary man who - because of family mystery, frustration with his job and his life - makes a terrible decision.

Destiny: the most expensive video game ever produced has just been released - a perfect excuse for us to explore the rich and diverse world of gaming. Pride is a lighthearted film about lesbian and gay groups from London who supported miners during the 84 miners' strike - leading to an unexpectedly harmonious and fruitful relationship. What would America be like after a Rapture-like event when 2% of the population will be taken into heaven and the rest are left behind? The Leftovers is a TV series that considers a post-rapture-like USA. Ali Smith's new novel is called How To Be Both - 2 complimentary self-contained stories that can be read in either order. Horst was a German American fashion photographer whose work is featured in a new exhibition at London's Victoria and Albert Museum. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Kevin Jackson, Barb Jungr and Catherine O'Flynn. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Ian McEwan's new novel The Children Act deals with a young man who is suffering from leukaemia and the conflict between his parent's wishes and the authority of the State in the form of a high court judge. Little Revolution is a play by Alecky Blythe concerning the London riots of 2011 using a script drawn from verbatim interviews Watermark is a film by photographer Edward Burtynsky about the world's most precious resource: H2O. There's a finite amount and it's getting more and more difficult to protect and access. Secrets, a new mini drama series on BBC1 begins with a play starring Olivia Colman and Alison Steadman about a mother who discovers she's dying of cancer and her relationship with her daughter. Bernd and Hilla Becher were a German husband and wife photographic duo who specialised in impartial pictures of industrial structures - conventionally unpretty but given a formalist beauty Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Mark Ravenhill, Liz Jensen and Kamila Shamsie. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Martin Amis' latest novel The Zone of Interest deals with the Holocaust, but has riled some critics because of its light tone. Pitcairn is Richard "One Man, Two Guv'nors" Bean's new play dealing with the aftermath of The Bounty. The Moth is a public storytelling event that started in America and is now coming to the UK to coincide with a book collection of stories. Obvious Child is a romcom film about abortion which has incurred the wrath of pro-lifers in the US; can it be a suitable topic for a humorous film? BBC TV's new series the Secret Life of Books examines original texts, manuscripts, letters and diaries to uncover the story behind the creation of six classic books. Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Tiffany Murray, Inua Ellams and Michael Arditti. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Saturday Review comes from the 2014 Edinburgh Festivals: National Theatre of Scotland's production of a new history play looking at the Scottish Stuart kings - we've been to see James II. Front is a multilingual, multi sensory theatrical experience telling the stories of the First World War. Marion Cotillard's new film, directed by The Dardennes brothers is Two Days One Night; in order to try and save her own job, a woman has to persuade her work colleagues to forgo their annual bonus. The shameful history of colonisation and racial exploitation is explored in Exhibit B, a 'show' that has caused consternation and extreme - sometimes physical - reactions amongst those who have visited it. Sarah Waters' new novel The Paying Guests is set in 1920s London when a mother and daughter who find themselves in reduced circumstances, take in tenants leading to complicated repercussions. Tom Sutcliffe's guests this week are Lesley McDowell, Sophie Cooke and Kerry Shale. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Joseph O'Neill's previous novel Netherland received rapturous attention. His new book The Dog is a story of a New York Lawyer who accepts a job working for a rich college friend in Dubai, but he realises it's a very complicated role he's expected to play. Robin Wright plays a version of herself in The Congress; a live action/cartoon crossover movie directed by Ari Folman (Waltz With Bashir). But where does the fantasy end and reality begin? Jezebel is a comedy by the Dublin-based Rough Magic Theatre Company in which a couple try to spice up their sex-lives with an awkward threesome which has unforeseen consequences. Match Of The Day is celebrating its 50th birthday and we've been watching a TV programme marking this anniversary. Andrew Marr's Great Scots - Writers Who Shaped a Nation is his tribute to three writers who helped to create the modern Scottish identity through their work and lives.

Kevin Elyot's 'My Night With Reg' was originally staged in 1994 and was the first British gay play to win a wide West End audience as well as several theatre awards. it's now being revived at London's Donmar Warehouse. How well does it stand up 2 decades later? ''Wakolda' is a film which tells the story of an Argentinean family who unwittingly shared their house with the Nazi war criminal Joseph Mengele Auschwitz's "Angel of Death" without realising who he was. As part of Radio 4's' commemorations of the centenary of the outbreak of World War 1, their biggest ever drama commission Home Front' has just hit the airwaves. It's a mammoth undertaking 500 episodes, 150 hours of dialogue The actor Kevin Eldon has written a mock-biography of his 'cousin', Paul Hamilton, a rather deluded uninspiring poet who doesn't let his own inadequacies stop his ambition and self-belief. The Art and Science of Exploration is an exhibition in The Queen's House in Greenwich of some of the work created by artists who accompanied Captain James Cook on his voyages around the globe in 18th Century. Their job was to produce scientific records and imaginative responses to the new unfamiliar territories that they encountered. Razia Iqbal is joined by Jake Arnott, Emma Woolf and Kathryn Hughes. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Gillian Anderson returns to London's West End theatre, playing Blanche Dubois in Tennessee Williams' 1948 play A Streetcar Named Desire. Michel Gondry's Mood Indigo is one of his typically fantastical films, starring Audrey Tatou as a young woman who discovers a flower is growing inside her lungs. Packed full of extraordinary images, is it a collection of moments or a good film? Secret Cinema is the new immersive form of cinema, staged in unconventional settings, encouraging the audience to dress up in clothing appropriate to the movie, their latest production is the 1985 classic Back To The Future. It can be expensive to stage and attend, but is it worth it? Philip Hensher's new novel The Emperor Waltz threads together several stories from different times and locations, dealing with how an idea gains a hold in wider society. A new Italian TV drama series - Gomorrah - looks at the mafia. It's been an enormous hit in Italy but has this once-toxic subject matter become less controversial nowadays or does it still shock viewers? Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Natalie Haynes, Susannah Clapp and Patrick Gale. the producer is Oliver Jones.

Helen McCrory is playing Medea in a new production at London's National Theatre - it's a new take on the Greek tragedy; how can one make a play written 1700 years ago resonate today? Nicolas Cage's new film Joe is a gritty blue collar tale of poverty and misery in rural Mississippi. It shows his gentle side rather than a raving onslaught; might this be a chance for viewers to reassess the way his acting has been heading? The BBC's commemoration of the centenary of WW1 continues with a series Our World War, which imagines what our view of it would be like if the soldiers had modern recording technology like headcams. DBC Pierre's novel Breakfast With The Borgias is the story of a man isolated in a rather shabby guesthouse desperately trying to contact his girlfriend, who vividly discovers the truth behind Sartre's maxim that "Hell is other people". The Imperial War Museum in London has just reopened after a multi-million pound refit - making major structural changes and opening a new WW1 gallery. Has it been money well spent? Tom Sutcliffe's guests this week are James Walton, Susan Jeffreys and Kit Davies. The producer is Oliver Jones.

A new exhibition of work by Russian painter Kasimir Malevich at London's Tate Modern follows his career from early representational work through his cubo-futurist phase, to his creation of the concept of supremacism and back to figurative art. It is grand in its scale and vision and ambition, but will it be packing in the visitors this summer? There's another revival of Oscar Wilde's The Importance Of Being Earnest, with an all-star cast including Nigel Havers and Martin Jarvis. What devices can make this 120 year old much-venerated comedy funny to a modern audience? Filipino film Norte; The End of History is more than 4 hours long and loosely based on Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and it has been hailed as a masterpiece by many critics as it has been shown on the major festival circuit. There's new US TV sitcom called Silicon Valley, revolving around the lives of a bunch of internet start-up nerds. It's the work of Mike Judge (Beavis and Butthead, Office Space, King of the Hill) and it's already been nominated for 5 Emmys David Flusfeder's John The Pupil is a novel that purports to be a long lost diary of a 13th century monk and his companions as they journey from England to deliver a package from their Friar to The Pope in Viterbo Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Paul Morley, Kate Williams and Amber Jane Butchart. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Richard Linklater's latest film, Boyhood, was filmed over 39 days over a period of 12 years, so the actors and characters on the screen age in real time. When production began, the lead actor was 6 and it follows him dealing with life's ups and downs as he progresses towards adulthood. Linda Grant's new novel Upstairs At The Party is the tale of a group of friends at a northern university in the 1970s and how their lives are changed by a personal catastrophe Intimate Apparel is a play by African American playwright Lynn Nottage at London's Park Theatre. Set in 1905, it tells the story of Esther, a 35-year old African American seamstress who moved from North Carolina to New York City to seek her fortune and her relationships with the city's upper crust and lowlife alike. BBC 3's People Just Do Nothing is a comedy set in a London pirate radio station and its cheerfully deluded team of enthusiastic idiots. A new exhibition at SOAS in London chronicles the role of Sikh soldiers in The First World War. Indian soldiers made up one-in-six of the ranks of the British Empire forces, but their role has now been largely forgotten. Sarfraz Manzoor is joined by Cahal Dallat, Louise Doughty and Antonia Quirke. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Great Britain at London's Lyttleton Theatre is written by Richard Bean and directed by Nicholas Hytner (the team that was behind the wildly successful 'One Man Two Guvnors'). Starring Billie Piper as an unscrupulous tabloid newspaper editor who is right in the middle of a web of corruption involving phone hacking, politicians the press and the police It's half a century since the Beatles made their big screen debut with A Hard Day's Night. It was considered a lightweight thing by many when it was released cost £180,000 and made many millions just in its opening weekend and has been hailed as one of the best rock and roll films of all time Jimmy McGovern's reputation as a TV dramatist is second to none; Accused, Cracker, The Lakes, and many more. His work is renowned for dealing with social issues and his latest addresses what he sees as the injustice of the law of joint enterprise. The iceberg. Marion Coutts has written a book about the diagnosis from cancer and death of her husband Tom Lubbock. Is it more a work of art than a diary? July sees the 8th Liverpool Biennial, 'an exhibition about our habits habitats and the objects images relationships and activities that constitute our immediate surroundings'. What does that actually entail? How does it manifest itself around the city? Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Helen Lewis, Giles Fraser and Paul Farley. The producer is Oliver Jones.

Cold in July is a film starring Michael C Hall set in 1980s America, telling the story of a man who kills an intruder in his home and then begins to think the local police might not be telling the truth about the victim. Richard Flanagan's novel The Narrow Road To The Deep North is a depiction of the appalling conditions endured by Australasian POWs in Japan during World War 2. Told in flashback, the main character remembers the men with whom he worked on the construction of the Thai-Burma railway. Dennis Hopper is best known as a unique edgy film actor - Easy Rider, Blue Velvet, The Last Movie and many more, but an exhibition at The Royal Academy in London looks at his photographic work. He was in the thick of the changes happening in 1960s America and his photos captured a nation evolving. Maggie Gyllenhaal stars in a TV drama The Honourable Woman, playing a British spy involved in middle east politics Idomeneus at London's Gate Theatre is a reimagining of the Greek myth about a returning hero who makes a promise to the gods and is then faced with a dreadful ultimatum. But what would happen if he doesn't follow what's expected of him? This production offers alternative outcomes.

The Fault In Our Stars, starring Shailene Woodley, is the screen adaptation of John Green's best selling young adult novel of the same name about a pair of love struck teenagers both of whom are terminally ill with cancer. Brought together at a cancer support group the pair embark on a pilgrimage to Holland to meet the author of a book on dying. Green himself was a hospital chaplain and the story is based on an actual encounter with a dying 16 year old girl. Following on from the huge success of The Cuckoo's Calling a second novel from Robert Galbraith - aka JK Rowling. Featuring private investigator Cormoran Strike it merges an old fashioned detective story with Jacobean tragedy, whilst providing insight into literary London, a grisly murder and a page turning plot. Comedian and actor David Schneider's new play Making Stalin Laugh - at the JW3 Community Centre in London - tells the story of the Moscow State Yiddish Theatre which in the 1920s was one of the most respected in the world. Chagall designed for them, Prokofiev, Stanislavski and Eugene O'Neill all saluted them. By 1952 the surviving members of the troupe had all been purged - executed by Stalin on the same day in August. Making Stalin Laugh tells their story, with at its centre the most celebrated Yiddish actor of his generation, Solomon Mikhoels. Making Colour at London's National Gallery is the first ever exhibition of its kind in the UK and was developed from the National Gallery's own internationally recognised Scientific Department's work into how artists historically overcame the technical challenges in creating colour. As well as paintings it includes objects such as early textiles, mineral samples and ceramics and shows the huge impact the development of synthetic paint had on major art movements such as Impressionism. And The Human Factor: The Figure in Contemporary Sculpture brings together major works by 25 leading international artists who have fashioned new ways of using the human form in sculpture over the past 25 years. Featuring work from Jeff Koons, Mark Wallinger and Yinka Shonibare, exhibits include two re-imaginings of Edgar Degas's famous Little Dancer Aged Fourteen and in a work by French artist Pierre Huyghe a live beehive adorns a cast in concrete of a beautiful reclining nude woman.

Mr Burns at London's Almeida Theatre is a play about an America without electrical power, the end of everything in contemporary USA - when the TV programme The Simpsons has passed into folklore. How do we reframe our understanding of fables? Folk art has often been neglected in the story of British art but a new exhibition at Tate Britain attempts to set that right with a range of items from pictures woven from human hair to ship's figureheads and quilts made by Crimean prisoners. British film Belle explores racial attitudes in 18th Century aristocratic circles through the story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the illegitimate mixed race daughter of a Royal Navy officer. Brought to England to live with his uncle The Lord Chief Justice, she became inadvertently involved in the campaign to abolish slavery. In the Light of What we Know is the debut novel by Zia Haider Rahman that deals with betrayal, revenge, love faith science and war through the relationship between two men across Kabul, New York, Oxford, London and Islamabad. And we look at how the British newspapers are dealing with the World Cup - not the matches and the scores but their depiction of the host country and the preparations, the atmosphere, the heat, the possible unrest... anything and everything bar the results. Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Elif Shafak, Charlotte Mendelson and Barb Jungr. The producer is Oliver Jones.

The Dirties is a Canadian indie film about a couple of friends planning to make a film about a Columbine-style school massacre, where the bullies will be made to pay for what they've done. It begins to dawn on one of them that his best friend might actually be hatching a bloody murderous revenge. The main character in Nicholson Baker's latest novel "Travelling Sprinkler" is a poet who has fallen out of love with writing poems. Trying to become a songwriter, we see his personal life woven into his lyrics. The work of Dutch artist Piet Mondrian is characterised by geometric compositions using blocks of primary colours. A major new exhibition at Tate Liverpool looks at how his work evolved as he moved from studios in Paris and London to New York. Did you know that Vincent Van Gogh lived and worked in London? His job was at an art dealers in Covent Garden and he lived in Brixton. A new audio walk "At the Crossroads with Vincent" explores turning-points in life through the perspective of Van Gogh's letters to his brother Theo. It's non site-specific and anyone can be take part anywhere in the world. Is it enjoyable? Informative? Enlightening? Hotel is the fourth play from Polly Stenham, whose debut was staged at The Royal Court when she was only 19. It focuses on a dysfunctional family on holiday at a flash hotel in a poor country and has strong echoes of Shakespeare's The Tempest. How important is it to know the source to appreciate this play? Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Gillian Slovo, John Mullan and David Benedict. The producer is Oliver Jones.