Saturday Review - 06/02/2010

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by historian Tristram Hunt, writer Bidisha and writer and broadcaster Matthew Sweet to review the cultural highlights of the week. When Martin Amis was working on the original version of The Pregnant Widow back in 2006, he described it as 'blindingly autobiographical'. He abandoned much of that version the following year; what remains is mainly set in Italy in 1970 and explores the impact of the sexual revolution of the time. Twenty-year-old Keith Nearing spends the summer in an Italian castle with his girlfriend Lily and other friends, including Scheherazade - the object of much sexual longing on Keith's part. His callow take on sexual politics back then is also commented on from the rueful perspective of the older Keith. The 1995 Rugby World Cup, which had many of the elements of a Hollywood movie already, has been translated to the screen with Clint Eastwood in the director's chair. Morgan Freeman stars as Nelson Mandela, a new president seeking to start bridging the deep divisions in his nation. The green and the gold colours of the national rugby team are viewed by black South Africans as being synonymous with the old apartheid order, but Mandela forges a link with Springboks captain Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon) to get the whole nation behind the team as South Africa hosts the World Cup. But they don't stand a chance of actually winning it... do they? Tamsin Oglesby's play Really Old, Like 45 at the National Theatre in London is a satirical comedy based in the near future which takes the problems posed by an ageing population as its theme. The action cuts between a government research centre where increasingly sinister solutions are being proposed and the domestic lives of three siblings who are coping in very different ways to advancing age: Lyn (Judy Parfitt) has Alzheimer's and is often blissfully unaware that anything's wrong, Alice (Marcia Warren) is treating all her problems with cheerful resolution, while Robbie (Gawn Grainger) seems to lose 10 years every time he's offstage, reappearing in ever more youthful costume. Some of the most iconic images of war in the second half of the 20th century came to us via the lens of photojournalist Don McCullin. Shaped by War at the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester is the largest ever exhibition of his work to be staged in the UK. The images range from gang members in 1950s north London, through conflicts all over the globe, including Cyprus, Vietnam and Biafra, to meditative British landscapes. There are also artefacts from his his career, including a ruined Nikon camera which protected him from an AK-47 bullet when he was on assignment in Cambodia. Frank Cohen is often dubbed 'the Saatchi of the North' and selected works from his collection are currently on view at Manchester Art Gallery in the exhibition Facing East. Contemporary artists from China, India and Japan are represented, their work being typified by vivid colour and a fascination with popular and commercial culture. Pieces include The Big Kiss by Chen Lei - a fibreglass sculpture featuring a small boy balancing a polar bear on his nose - and The Skin Speaks a Language Not Its Own by Bharti Kher - a reclining, life-size elephant decorated with bindis.