Main content

The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, Anselm Kiefer, An Enemy of the People, Ida

Tom Sutcliffe and guests review Hilary Mantel's The Assasination of Margaret Thatcher, Ibsen's An Enemy of the People, an Anselm Kiefer retrospective, Ida and Transparent.

Tom Sutcliffe and guests Lisa Appignanesi, Ryan Gilbey and Denise Mina discuss the cultural highlights of the week including two times Booker winner Hilary Mantel's new book of short stories "The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher," in which she turns her gaze away from Tudor England to the challenges of the recent past.

The first major of retrospective of German artist Anselm Kiefer in the UK opens at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. From mythology to the Old and New Testaments, Kabbalah, alchemy, philosophy and the poetry of Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann, Kiefer's work wrestles with the darkness of German history and considers the complex relationship between art and spirituality.

Thomas Ostermeier, artistic director of Berlin's Schaub脙1/4hne's Theatre, launches the Barbican's International Ibsen season with a potent adaptation of An Enemy of the People, catapulting Ibsen into a modern world of environmental and financial crises and involving direct participation from the audience.

Pawel Pawlikowski's award winning film Ida is his first set in his native Poland - he left Warsaw aged 14 - and explores the relationship between a novice and her magistrate aunt in 1960's Poland struggling to come to terms with its recent history.

And Transparent is a new ten part series from Amazon, which was greenlighted after a pilot was aired on line garnering positive viewer feedback. Directed by Jill Soloway (writer and producer of Six Feet Under), whose own father came out as transgender, this dark comedy, starring Jeffrey Tambor as Mort / Moira, is not directly autobiographical, but is heavily influenced by her own experiences. What impact is the consumption of TV on demand and via the internet having on the kind television drama currently being produced?

Available now

45 minutes

Ida

Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski, Ida is in cinemas from Friday 26 September, certificate 12A.

The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher

The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by Hilary Mantel is published by Fourth Estate.

Anselm Kiefer

An exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, is on display from 27 September until 14 December 2014.

An Enemy Of The People

A version by Florian Borchmeyer,聽 by Henrik Ibsen聽is at the聽Barbican in London until Sunday 28 September, and then聽moves聽on to the Belfast Festival, 23-25聽October 2014. 聽

Transparent

Series 1 of Transparent is released on Amazon Instant Video.

Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Tom Sutcliffe
Interviewed Guest Lisa Appignanesi
Interviewed Guest Ryan Gilbey
Interviewed Guest Denise Mina

Broadcast

  • Sat 27 Sep 2014 19:15

Subscribe to the Saturday Review podcast

Sign up to the Saturday Review podcast for the latest and past episodes to download.

Podcast

Gallery