Saturday Review - The Simpsons as American folklore; Belle; British folk art at Tate Britain; In the Light of What We Know
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.
Published on Saturday, 14th June 2014.
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