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Saturday Review

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Sharp, critical discussion of the week's cultural events, with Tom Sutcliffe and guests

Presenter Tom Sutcliffe and guests offer sharp, critical discussion of the week's cultural events

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Tom Sutcliffe

Kit Davis

David Benedict

Louise Doughty

Sarah Johnson

Saturday Review: Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries and A Midsummer Night's Dream

Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries and A Midsummer Night's Dream

21/09/2013

BBC Radio 4 - Saturday Review, Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries and A Midsummer Night's Dream

The Luminaries, and Sheridan Smith and David Walliams in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Eleanor Catton's Booker-shortlisted The Luminaries, Australia at the Royal Academy, and Sheridan Smith and David Walliams in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is the latest star-studded production in the Michael Grandage season at the Noel Coward theatre in London. Starring Sheridan Smith and David Walliams, one of its aims is to bring a fresh audience to Shakespeare. 

Eleanor Catton's novel The Luminaries is on the Man Booker shortlist. At 27 she's the youngest ever writer to be in that position. It's an intricate account of extraordinary interwoven happenings around the goldfields of 19th century New Zealand. 

Australia at the Royal Academy is a major new exhibition: some work has never travelled to the UK before, including Sidney Nolan's iconic Ned Kelly pictures. It foregrounds the work of many Aboriginal artists including Rover Thomas and Emily Kame Kngwarreye and offers both a historical survey and a showcase for contemporary work.

InRealLife is Beeban Kidron's new documentary posing the question of what the internet is doing to our young people, taking in the free availability of online porn, cyberbullying and the nature of the corporations behind the search engines. 

And The Wrong Mans is James Corden and Mathew Baynton's new comedy for BBC2 - it's aiming for American production values with some very British laughs as a county council employee gets taken for someone very different indeed.

Kit Davis, David Benedict and Louise Doughty join Tom Sutcliffe.

Producer: Sarah Johnson.

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