Newsnight Review 7th November 2008
Here's John Wilson with details of tonight's Newsnight Review.
Join me for Newsnight Review at 11pm when my guests - Ian Rankin, Julie Myerson and Sarfraz Manzoor - will be discussing age and wisdom, guilt and humility and dynastic struggle.
King Lear
Pete Postlethwaite's turn as Shakespeare's mad monarch has been billed as one of the starry highlights of Liverpool's year as European Capital of Culture. It's also a sort of homecoming for Postlethwaite who - despite being born in Warrington - is regarded by many in the city as an honorary Scouser. In the foyer of the Everyman Theatre on Hope Street, there's a 1970s photograph of the rep company in which he's pictured alongside the likes of Julie Walters, Alan Bleasdale and Willy Russell. This week he returned to the Everyman as a Hollywood star, three decades older and with a massive specially-grown beard.
Alastair Campbell
To misquote King Lear, a man more sinned against than spinning? The former No.10 communications chief may want us to think so - he's written a novel about guilt and humility. No, really. All In The Mind tells the story of a top psychiatrist, Professor Martin Sturrock, who's in need of the sort of counselling he dispenses so brilliantly to his patients.
Easy Virtue
Old English manners are challenged by loud-mouthed modernity in this feisty new version of an early Noel Coward play. Director Stephan Elliott - best known for The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert - has given the piece a musical twist, with Cole Porter classics sharing the soundtrack with jazz-age versions of Car Wash and Sex Bomb. Hollywood starlet Jessica Biel is glamorous American racing driver Larita, Ben Barnes is her foppish new husband; as the family matriarch, Kristin Scott Thomas is on hand to raise her eyebrows with haughty disdain at the vulgarity invading her corner of England. And the dog gets what he deserves.
The Devil's Whore
Peter Flannery created a masterpiece with his television series Our Friends In The North. Fans of Tosker and co. may well recognise the themes of fractured friendships and shifting political allegiances played out in Flannery's new Channel 4 drama The Devil's Whore. Set during the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell (The Wire's Dominic West) and his more radical friend Thomas Rainsborough (Michael Fassbender from new film Hunger) vie for power as they plot a republican England. John Simm is a mercenary who begins to follow his morals, not just the money. Andrea Riseborough plays the fictional character Angelica Fanshawe, who has visions of the devil.
The Review pundits will be here with their verdicts at 11. Do join us.
John
Comment number 1.
At 7th Nov 2008, JadedJean wrote:None of this has anything to do with the news/current events or news review - it's just promotion/advertising of topical commercial media usually via even more subjective, shallow, 'opining' (gossip) than one gets from the 'political panel' on Newsnight proper.
That's just a personal opinion of course.
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Comment number 2.
At 7th Nov 2008, JunkkMale wrote:Alastair Campbell, followed by Easy Virtue and The Devil's Whore.
Nice one, guys.
There is a book to sell, too, right?
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Comment number 3.
At 7th Nov 2008, barriesingleton wrote:NEVER MIND THE CENTRE OF GRAVITY - FEEL THE EDGE!
Surely the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ should give the abrasive, gobby, 'edgy' Mr Campbell his own show - at an inflated salary? I believe there is a slot coming vacant?
That's if we really need another zero.
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Comment number 4.
At 8th Nov 2008, JadedJean wrote:EDGY SPARKLE
barrie (#3) One might have thought that they'd appreciate that one can't really do economic apocalypse (loss of income/savings/equity) and the wonders of theatrical hyperbole, spin and atonement at the same time without some loss of credulity.
I sometimes forget, this is the entertainment business.
Maybe Newsnight Review should invite on the programme to give it a bit of 'edgy sparkle'?
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Comment number 5.
At 8th Nov 2008, barriesingleton wrote:WELL, APART FROM CONFUSION, MISERY, WAR, POLLUTION AND OVERPOPULATION - WHAT DID GOD EVER DO FOR US?
I read the link JJ (he's edgy as razor wire). I still reckon its FUNDAMENTALLY down to Mankind being a synapse too far.
Give us fire and we burn down forests for easy food; make vessels for fermentation; smelt ores that require mining; dig coal to replace wood; extract oil and gas; boil water for industrial energy; invent the internal combustion engine - rocketry and explosives.
Give us agriculture and we end up with tower blocks and Tescos.
Give us the wheel and we go travel-wild.
Give us appetites and we drive ourselves mad, going to extremes.
Now we have the genome, and the game is almost up.
I won't mention money. . .
The Ape Confused by Language has built-in failure - WHILE THE WEATHER HOLDS. As far as I know, Robert Ardrey said it first.
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