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The Mary Rose Museum; David Mamet's Race; more vampires in Byzantium

Tom Sutcliffe and guests discuss the cultural highlights of the week, including the 拢27m Mary Rose Museum opening in Portsmouth's Historic Dockyard, and David Mamet's Race.

Tom Sutcliffe and guests, Ellah Allfrey, Misha Glenny and Kevin Jackson, discuss the cultural highlights of the week including the 拢27m Mary Rose Museum opening in Portsmouth's Historic Dockyard and David Mamet's Race

In the UK premiere of David Mamet's play, "Race," starring Jasper Britton and Clarke Peters - known to television audiences from "The Wire" - Mamet sets out to write a play which explores racial tension. Mamet himself says, "Race, like sex, is a subject on which it is near impossible to tell the truth." A playwright who likes to shock, most famous for his Pullitzer Prize winning play Glengarry Glen Ross, how close does he get to providing a truthful analysis in this play which explores one of contemporary society's most controversial themes, both in the UK and in the US.

The new 拢27 million Mary Rose Museum opens in Portsmouth's Historic Dockyard, showcasing the Tudor ship in a unique hot box. The Mary Rose is the only sixteenth century warship on display anywhere in the world, and the museum displays 19, 000 Tudor artefacts found on board King Henry VIII's favourite warship as well as bringing to life those who worked on board. Described by David Starkey as the "British Pompeii," the exhibition also documents the amazing story of the Mary Rose's 1982 rescue from the sea bed.

"Money, The Unauthorised Biography" by Felix Martin sets out to answer the question: "What is Money and how does it work?" Martin argues that the conventional answer - that people once used sugar in the West Indies, tobacco in Virginia and dried cod in Newfoundland, and that today's financial universe evolved from barter - is not just wrong, but dangerous. So what is the true nature of money, and how crucial is our understanding of it to our economic recovery?

And ITV's answer to Channel 4's "91热爆lands" is "The Americans" - set in 1980s America, when the Cold War is in full swing, it follows the lives of Soviet agents posing as an all-American family. It's written by Joseph Weisberg, who himself worked for CIA in the 90s, and is inspired by a real life incident in 2010 when the FBI discovered 10 undercover agents who had been living nationwide for over a decade.

Producer: Hilary Dunn.

Available now

45 minutes

Race

聽continues at Hampstead Theatre, London聽until 29 June 2013.

Byzantium

Byzantium is in cinemas nationwide from 31 May 2013, certificate 15.

The Americans

begins on ITV on 1st June 2013 at 10 pm.

Money: An Unauthorised Biography

Money:聽 An Unauthorised Biography is written by Felix Martin and published by Random House.

The Mary Rose

The new聽museum opens its doors聽on 31st聽July 2013 in Portsmouth.

Broadcast

  • Sat 1 Jun 2013 19:15

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