Saturday Review - 20/03/2010

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by writer David Aaronovitch, historian Kathryn Hughes and comedian David Schneider to review the cultural highlights of the week. Glenn Ficarra's film I Love You Phillip Morris is based on the true story of con man Steven Russell, who met and fell in love with Morris when he was serving a jail sentence for insurance fraud. Russell's multiple escapes and attempts to fraudulently spring Morris from jail finally resulted in him being handed a 144 year sentence of which he has currently served the first nine. Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor are the star-crossed lovers. In Lionel Shriver's novel So Much For That, Shepherd Knacker is about to fulfill his dream of using the money he has salted away from years of work to buy a new life on a tropical island. But then his wife is diagnosed with cancer and she can't afford for Shep to give up the health plan that goes with his job. Shriver addresses the shortcomings of the American health system with barely concealed rage and lays bare the indignities of illness and dying. Jeremy Irons plays the Lear-like figure of Colm in Dennis Kelly's play The Gods Weep. In this RSC production at the Hampstead Theatre in London, Colm is a powerful industrialist who announces that he is stepping down as CEO and dividing his global empire between two of his senior executives. The resulting turmoil descends into civil war with Colm becoming a diminished and increasingly remorseful figure. The extraordinary story of John Darwin - the man who supposedly went missing in 2002, only to walk into a police station in 2007 claiming to be suffering from amnesia - is dramatised in BBC4's Canoe Man. Bernard Hill plays Darwin who co-opts his wife Anne (Saskia Reeves) into playing her part in the deception, which involves using the insurance money to buy property in Panama and letting their two sons think that their father is dead. Quilts 1700 - 2010 is the Victoria and Albert Museum's first major exhibition devoted to the craft and art of British quiltmaking. It features around 70 quilts including some by contemporary artists including Grayson Perry and Tracey Emin and some works specially commissioned for the exhibition. Some of the pieces on display were conceived purely for beauty or utility, while others are more didactic or commemorate historical events, such as a quilt from 1805 which shows George III reviewing his troops and other patriotic scenes.