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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

Saturday Review: Sweet Charity, Machines Like Me, Smoke and Mirrors: The Psychology of Magic, Loro

20/04/2019

Sweet Charity, Machines Like Me, Smoke and Mirrors: The Psychology of Magic, Loro

BBC Radio 4 - Saturday Review, Sweet Charity, Machines Like Me, Smoke and Mirrors: The Psychology of Magic, Loro

Sweet Charity at the Donmar Warehouse with Anne-Marie Duff, Ian McEwan's new novel Machines Like Me, Smoke and Mirrors: The Psychology of Magic at the Wellcome, Sorrentino's Loro

Josie Rourke returns to the work of Cy Coleman, who wrote the music for City of Angels; with the Broadway classic Sweet Charity. With choreography from the world-renowned Wayne McGregor, Rourke reunites with Anne-Marie Duff as Charity, and Arthur Darvill makes his Donmar debut as Oscar, for her farewell production as Donmar Artistic Director.  During Sweet Charity, multiple guest actors will play the role of Daddy Brubeck including Shaq Taylor, Adrian Lester, Le Gateau Chocolat, Beverley Knight and Clive Rowe.

Ian McEwan’s subversive and entertaining new novel Machines Like Me poses fundamental  questions: what makes us human? Our outward deeds or our inner lives? Could a machine understand the human heart?  Machines Like Me occurs in an alternative 1980s London, where Britain has lost the Falklands war, Margaret Thatcher battles Tony Benn for power and Alan Turing achieves a breakthrough in artificial intelligence.  The novel's narrator Charlie drifts through life making his money by playing the stock market when he becomes involved in a menage a trois with a difference - one of the three is one of the first synthetic humans.  It is not long before this strange love triangle inhabiting an even stranger alternate reality have to confront some profound moral dilemmas.

Smoke and Mirrors The Psychology of Magic at the Wellcome Collection in London  explores how magicians have achieved astonishing feats of trickery by exploiting the gap between what we think we perceive and what we actually perceive. Recently scientists have begun to appreciate this ability as a powerful tool for the study of human psychology. This research has emerged from an extraordinary history that stretches back to the 19th century, where a fascination with the paranormal coincided with the birth of science as a profession and the flourishing of the entertainment industry.

Italian writer/director Paolo Sorrentino’s new film Loro  - which means "them" - focuses on the controversial life of the former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi around the time of the “bunga-bunga” parties and the earthquake in L’Aquila.

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Geoffrey Durham, Naima Khan and Stephanie Merritt. The producer is Hilary Dunn.

Podcast Extra Selections:
Naima recommends Banthology: Stories from Unwanted Nations
Geoffrey recommends the Swedish fantasy film Border and movie Leave No Trace
Stephanie recommends the following Kate Atkinson 'Jackson Brodie' novels: One Good Turn, Case Histories, Started Early Took My Dog, When Will There Be Good News, Big Sky
Tom recommends the Jon Ronson podcast 'The Last Days of August'

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