Saturday Review - The Danish Girl, War and Peace, Deutschland 83, Angela Clarke Follow Me, Fallout 4 and Her Story
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.
Published on Saturday, 2nd January 2016.
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