29 November 2002

Watch the programme

This week the panel discussed:

What The night is For at London's Comedy Theatre

Gillian Anderson, best known as agent Scully, and as Lily Bart in The House of Mirth has followed Glenn Close, Nicole Kidman, Dustin Hoffman and Kevin Spacey onto the London stage.

Read the review

The Nutcracker at London's Sadlers Wells
Matthew Bourne, who so successfully reinvented Swan Lake, has reworked his 1992 interpretation of The Nutcracker, still setting act 1 not in the opulent surroundings of Clara's house, but in her bleak orphanage, and act 2 in sweetieland, and explosion of high camp that would bring tears to Julian Clary's eyes.

Read the review

8 Women

It's the late 1950's and eight women are stranded in a remote chateaux in the dead of winter - upstairs a man lies murdered, a knife in his back. So far so straight. But when the eight women who make up the ensemble are French actresses across three generations including Catherine Deneuve, Fanny Ardant and Danielle Darrieux, things become a little more high octane.

Read the review

Michael Cuesta's film L.I.E.
Brian Cox plays Big John, a serial pederast and Vietnam vet who befriends a poetry loving grief stricken fifteen year old, Howie. The film centres on these two characters who first meet after Howie takes part in a robbery at Big John's house.

Read the review

The panel were:

• Kirsty Wark
• Deborah Bull
• Adam Mars Jones
• Allison Pearson

Newsnight Review, BBC Two's weekly cultural round-up, follows Newsnight on Friday evenings at 2300 GMT.