In this week's programme presented by
Hardeep Singh Kohli :
THE PANEL:
Paul Morley |
Germaine Greer |
Lionel Shiver |
Kwame Kwei-Armah
Comment on this programme
Jindabyne
The Australian director Ray Lawrence has followed his 2001 film Lantana with another quiet tale of miscommunication, Jindabyne.
Stewart (Gabriel Byrne) and Claire (Laura Linney) are an expat couple settled in the New South Wales country town of Jindabyne.
Tom is their young son, who struggles to learn to swim and is fearful of the lake that borders the town.
Water, however, bewitches Stewart. He sets off, with three friends, for their annual fishing trip; on their first night they discover the body of a girl floating in the river, obviously and brutally killed.
Too late to trek back to their truck, they tether her to a branch. They fish, and eat, and report her after another night in the bush.
The wives, and the town, cannot understand how they failed to return immediately. Stewart and his friends cannot explain. Claire in particular searches for a reason why her husband has behaved so reprehensibly.
What remains is a failure to understand and failure to want to understand; a need for explanation and a fear of uncovering that within the still waters of Jindabyne.
Jindabyne is adapted from Raymond Carver's short story So Much Water So Close to Home, which was also adapted as part of Robert Altman's film Short Cuts. The panel discuss.
CERTIFICATE 15
JINDABYNE OPENS AROUND THE COUNTRY ON 25TH MAY
Falling Man
By Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo (Americana, White Noise, Underworld) is known as a chronicler of life in late 20th and early 21st century America so it was perhaps only a matter of time before he wrote about 9/11.
Falling Man opens with lawyer Keith stumbling, covered in blood and ash, from the wreckage of the Twin Towers.
Instinctively he heads to his ex-wife Lianne's apartment and begins to re-make his life with her and their son Justin. Lianne is already troubled by her father's suicide and mother Nina's failing grip on life.
In the aftermath of the attacks she holds onto the Alzheimer's support group she runs, where patients write and rewrite their lives, as a way to make sense of things.
Meanwhile Justin and his friends scour the skies for terrorists and performance artist the Falling Man drops silently from bridges and buildings across the city.
DeLillo does not shy away from writing about the attacks themselves, including chapters from the point of view of one of the terrorists, but the novel focuses on how New Yorkers can continue to live and the refrain of 'after' - one day after, ten days after, four months after, two years after the attacks - rings through the work.
Other novels treating the events of 9/11 have had a mixed critical reception including Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Jay McInerney's The Good Life. Will the panel agree over this one?
FALLING MAN IS PUBLISHED BY PICADOR ON 17TH MAY
Vernon God Little
Young Vic Theatre, London
Following on from its success in 2003, taking both the Booker Prize and Whitbread First Novel award, Vernon God Little has recently received another more dubious accolade, topping a poll of books readers find impossible to finish.
Now the difficult challenge of adapting Vernon's first-person narration for the stage has been taken on by Tanya Ronder in a production directed by Rufus Norris at the Young Vic.
Colin Morgan, still at drama school and making his professional stage debut, takes the role of Vernon, a 15 year old whose best friend Jesus has just been on a rampage, killing 16 of their classmates before killing himself.
Suspected of being an accessory to the massacre, Vernon is hauled in to be interrogated by Sheriff Pokorney (Nathan Osgood) and Deputy Vaine (Penny Layden).
As the media in the shape of sleazy reporter Eulalio Ledesma (Mark Lockyer) descends on Martirio, Vernon flees to Mexico before being brought back to face trial by TV.
The cast of nine which plays multiple roles also includes Joanna Scanlan as Vernon's self-obsessed mum, Lorraine Bruce as Betty/Pam, Mariah Gale as Ella/Taylor and Andrew Clark as Abdini/Mr Pelayo.
Norris has successfully tackled seemingly-difficult to adapt stage productions before with Tintin and Festen, but with the tragic Virginia Tech massacre still fresh in our minds is the Young Vic's production timely or tasteless?
VERNON GOD LITTLE CONTINUES AT THE OLD VIC, LONDON UNTIL 9TH JUNE
Gavin and Stacey
BBC THREE
Better known as Myfanwy - the barmaid to Dafydd's "only gay in the village" in Little Britain and Timms in Alan Bennett's The History Boys, Ruth Jones and James Corden have now put their considerable talents together to write Gavin & Stacey a new six-part romantic comedy for BBC Three.
Essex-boy Gavin, played by Matthew Horne and Welsh-girl Stacey, played by Joanna Page have been conducting a six-month phone romance but now it's time for them to meet.
Produced by Steve Coogan's company Baby Cow, the show features a cast of comedy royalty.
Alison Steadman plays Pam, Gavin's mum, Rob Brydon plays Bryn, Stacey's uncle, Larry Lamb is Michael, Gavin's dad and Melanie Walters is Gwen, Stacey's mum.
The writers are also taking the roles of Gavin & Stacey's best friends with Corden playing Smithy and Jones playing Nessa.
The guest stars are no less fabulous with Julia Davis and Matt Lucas making cameo appearances.
James and Corden have proved their comic talents on screen before but what will the panel think now they've put pen to paper?
GAVIN AND STACEY STARTS ON BBC THREE ON SUNDAY 13TH MAY AT 9PM
Don't forget that you can watch Newsnight Review online via this website. The programme is available in broadband from 1200 BST on the Saturday after originally broadcast for one week.
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