Saturday Review - 04/07/2009

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by novelists Deborah Moggach and Adam Mars Jones and writer Antonia Quirke to discuss the cultural highlights of the week - featuring gangsters, nudity and excessive spinach consumption. Michael Mann's latest film Public Enemies follows 1930s bank robber John Dillinger on his final, 14-month crime spree. Dillinger, played by Johnny Depp, is pursued by Christian Bale's Agent Melvin Purvis from the newly formed FBI. Amongst the epic shootouts, there's also time for some love interest with Marion Cotillard. David Cross is a retired newsreader and the main character in Justin Cartwright's novel To Heaven By Water. Since his wife's death, many of the certainties which bound David and his children together seem to have evaporated and he's left to feel his way through an unfamiliar landscape. Contains adultery, a lost dog and rampaging elephants. New Connections is the National Theatre's annual season of plays by established writers written for and performed by schoolchildren, with two different plays each night. Between them, our reviewers saw A Handbag by Anthony Horowitz, The Dummy Tree by Conor Mitchell, Trammel by Michael Lesslie and Dirty Dirty Princess by Georgia Fitch. Channel 4 are encouraging you to grab a pencil and paper and draw a model who will conveniently pose for you. Life Class: Today's Nude is trying to bring life drawing to the masses. Tutors include John Berger, Gary Hume and Maggi Hambling. It's part of a project by Artangel which has also seen free life classes taking place in cities across Britain. Our reviewers grasped their pieces of charcoal and took up the challenge. The Serpentine Gallery in London has just opened Jeff Koons first major British show in a public gallery. Popeye Series is the title and the spinach guzzling matelot crops up in several large paintings. Elsewhere, perfect recreations of children's inflatable beach toys struggle through metal grids, step ladders and plastic chairs.