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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

Gillian Slovo

John Mullan

David Benedict

Oliver Jones

Saturday Review: Van Gogh, Mondrian, Nicholson Baker, Hotel, The Dirties

Mondrian, Van Gogh, Nicholson Baker, Hotel, The Dirties

07/06/2014

Van Gogh, Mondrian, Nicholson Baker, Hotel, The Dirties

BBC Radio 4 - Saturday Review, Van Gogh, Mondrian, Nicholson Baker, Hotel, The Dirties

Tom Sutcliffe chairs sharp, critical discussion of the week's cultural events with guests.

Tate Liverpool's Mondrian and His Studios, walk around Van Gogh's London, Nicholson Baker's novel Travelling Sprinkler, Polly Stenham's play Hotel, Canadian indie film The Dirties.

The Dirties is a Canadian indie film about a couple of friends planning to make a film about a Columbine-style school massacre, where the bullies will be made to pay for what they've done. It begins to dawn on one of them that his best friend might actually be hatching a bloody murderous revenge.

The main character in Nicholson Baker's latest novel "Travelling Sprinkler" is a poet who has fallen out of love with writing poems. Trying to become a songwriter, we see his personal life woven into his lyrics.

The work of Dutch artist Piet Mondrian is characterised by geometric compositions using blocks of primary colours. A major new exhibition at Tate Liverpool looks at how his work evolved as he moved from studios in Paris and London to New York.

Did you know that Vincent Van Gogh lived and worked in London? His job was at an art dealers in Covent Garden and he lived in Brixton. A new audio walk "At the Crossroads with Vincent" explores turning-points in life through the perspective of Van Gogh's letters to his brother Theo. It's non site-specific and anyone can be take part anywhere in the world. Is it enjoyable? Informative? Enlightening?

Hotel is the fourth play from Polly Stenham, whose debut was staged at The Royal Court when she was only 19. It focuses on a dysfunctional family on holiday at a flash hotel in a poor country and has strong echoes of Shakespeare's The Tempest. How important is it to know the source to appreciate this play?

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Gillian Slovo, John Mullan and David Benedict. The producer is Oliver Jones.

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