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Saturday Review

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

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

Tom Sutcliffe

Mark Ravenhill

Paul Morley

Maev Kennedy

Oliver Jones

Saturday Review: The Scottsboro Boys; Arcade Fire; Russell Banks' short stories

The Scottsboro Boys; Arcade Fire; Russell Banks' short stories

02/11/2013

BBC Radio 4 - Saturday Review, The Scottsboro Boys; Arcade Fire; Russell Banks' short stories

The week's cultural highlights, including Kander and Ebbs' musical The Scottsboro Boys.

A review of the week's cultural highlights, including Kander and Ebbs' musical The Scottsboro Boys, the new Arcade Fire CD, and Judi Dench as Philomena.

The new musical from Broadway composers John Kander and Fred Ebb tells the story of a group of 9 young African Americans who- in 1931 - were imprisoned on trumped-up rape charges. They've previously created singing Nazis (Cabaret), loveable mobsters (Chicago) and created the ultimate love song to a city (New York, New York). Have they turned a historical miscarriage of justice into a hit musical?

Philomena is a film starring Judi Dench as the mother of an illegitimate child born in 1950s Ireland and then put up for adoption without her knowledge. Steve Coogan is the investigative journalist who - 50 years later - helps her in her attempt to track him down. It's based on a real life story, but does a potentially sentimental story make a sentimental film?

Arcade Fire is a Grammy winning Montreal band whose 4 albums in 9 years have been gaining more and more critical and popular acclaim. Their latest Reflektor, features a brief contribution from one of their most famous fans, David Bowie, alongside tribal drumming and sounds for "people who've never even heard The Beatles". Is this album a triumph of hype over substance, or further development in the evolution of one of indie rock's great hopes?

Before American author Russell Banks began his writing career he worked as a plumber, and his work always retains a grounding in the real world. Many of the works in his latest collection of short stories are set around his real life in New York and Florida. Do they enhance his reputation and resonate with his heart and soul?

Channel 4's new documentary series about patients at the London's Maudsley Hospital has a controversial title; Bedlam. 1 in 4 of us suffers from a mental health problem, and for the first time TV cameras have been allowed unprecedented access to wards and patients at The Maudsley, but how can it avoid being voyeuristic or making the situation even worse?

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by dramatist Mark Ravenhill, critic and writer Paul Morley and writer Maev Kennedy.

Producer: Oliver Jones.

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