Saturday Review - Woyzeck, The Other Side of Hope, Handmaid's Tale, Elif Batuman, California exhibition
Download Woyzeck, The Other Side of Hope, Handmaid's Tale, Elif Batuman, California exhibition
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.
Published on Saturday, 27th May 2017.
Available Podcasts from Saturday Review
We are not the BBC, we only list available podcasts. To find out more about the programme including episodes available on BBC iPlayer, go to the Saturday Review webpage.