01/02/2013 The Review Show

On the review show tonight. In Flight, Denel Washington plays a

pilot with troubles at home and in the air. This is SouthJet 227, we

are in an uncontrolled dive, we have a jammed stabliser or

something. Tricks of the light fantastic in a dazzling show at the

Hayward Gallery. Three friends remember old times in a starry

Pinter revival. You talk of me as if I were dead. No. And London

swings, in Stephen Poliakoff's most ambitious drama to date, Dancing On

The Edge. # The dead of night

# Express Dancing around with me tonight are

the journalist, Miranda Sawyer, the novelist Dreda Say Mitchell, and

the art critic of the Independent, pilgpilgpilg. Whether it is Marty

McFly driving around in a Dell lorian, Robert Zemeckis's

characters are in extraordinary situation, his new movie Flight,

starring Denel Washington is no exception.

What's your son's name Trevor. "I love you Trevor" Blackbox.

love you Trevor, mommy loves you. OK, I have got control. Speedbrakes.

Ahhhhhh. Margaret, power. Gear up. Denel Washington has won a Best

Actor Oscar in each of the past two decades, for Training Day, and

Glory. Now, he's up for a third, as Captain Whip Whitaker in Flight.

Good morning. Good morning. souls on board. Get them tucked in,

we are ready to push. Whitaker is an experienced airline

pilot, who courageously deals with a disastrous mechanical failure at

30,000-feet. Despite his heroics, he faces a thorough investigation

into what happened, which threatens to expose him as an alcoholic and

drug user. I have known you 11 years Whip. Right. You going to

tell me you and Trina went to dinner and had two glasses of wine,

sounds like a nice restaurant, which one was that. You have to say

it was an ordinary day, it was an ordinary day, Margaret, you know me,

I was in shape to fly. You have a problem saying that? Washington is

joined on Korean by British actress, Kelly Reilly, who plays the love

interest, and by John Goodman, who plays the closest thing Whitaker

has to a friend, drug dealer, Harling. You are a hero man, you

will never pay for a drink as long as you live. Zemeckis's films have

generated estimated �4 billion over his career, his most recent movies

have majored on motion capture technology.

But can the more serious adult drama of Flight deliver the

critical success Zemeckis seems to be hoping for.

Apparently Denel Washington spend spent days, if not weeks in a

flight simulator, did you really feel he could fly that plane?

yes, it is interesting, that sequence when the plane flips

upsidedown is absolutely great. But at the same time, I must admit, I

couldn't get rid of scenes from Aeroplane in my mind at the same

time. It is a really interesting film. And it is an uneven film,

what they need to decide, it is a character study, but which road are

they going down, is it about him being an alcoholic, or are they

actually trying toe look at the character flaws that make him an --

trying to look at the character flaws that make him an alcoholic.

There were laugh-out-loud moments, when you put the oxygen mask on his

face, did you like you didn't know what it was going to be? I thought

the effort to be ambivalent was so powerful, Denel Washington is

played as this kind of hero and anti-hero at the same time, he gets

on the plane at the beginning and he's high on coke and all the rest

of it. But what I thought would have been much more interesting is

if they had suggested that maybe he wouldn't have saved so many people

on the plane if he hadn't actually been high and drunk. Because if he

had been in withdrawal as an addict, that might have made him

malfunction and kill everybody. There was an interesting idea,

there is another point in the film where drugs are not necessarily

seen to be bad, the idea was he was able to get his way through that?

thought that, as a flowback to that in the film were he's about to

prepare himself for the investigation, the final jury, he

gets trashed, and the only way he can straighten himself out is

invite his drug dealer mailt around to take coke in the situation. That

is quite interesting. Given the film, essentially, is an

alcoholic's road to redemption, to flip that, and say it is

interesting, he will go through this out of his mind but in control.

It doesn't quite happen, I have to say. There was a film by -- it was

a film by AA? It was very AA. was a film about AA. For me, that

was the problem. I won't say the ending, but we ended up with a film

that could sit nicely on a True Movie channel, if you stop being an

alcoholic this can be what happened to your life. Rather than, is it

the alcohol we are talking about, or the character flaws in him that

make him take the alcohol, that is a different picture. I wanted the

darker picture with the more unambiguous, unpredictable ending,

rather than the ending I got. whole thing about LA is the

obsession with addiction any way, came through clearly. One of the

funny points about the film, what a beautiful addict is Kelly Reilly!

thought her character was really odd, actually, she's great in it,

absolutely brilliant. I have to say the start of this film is terrific,

because not only do you get this amazing kind of crash scene, you

also get her story, which is in -- incredibly dramatic as well. It is

really exciting and then goes another way. But you could have had

the whole film without her in it. To be honest, she was not that

important. She was very pretty, but her story went nowhere. And her

story went nowhere actually because she got clean. That was what I

thought was quite interesting. When you watch films, you don't really

want a story of somebody getting clean. I think AA does absolutely

fantastic work, it is a fantastic thing, but that is not actually

what we want to watch. Actually what we want to watch is addicts

going slightly nuts, and what happens. And the drug dealers, good

God God, we will see him later on, he -- John Goodman, we will see him

later on, he does a great job, accompanied the Stones music every

time? Every time he comes on he is accompanied by Sympathy For the

Devil, here he comes, offering you all these things, I thought he was

overplayed. There is a tremenduously controlled scene, and

Don Cheadle plays the barrister trying to get him out of trouble.

When I first met you I couldn't believe what a drunk, arrogant

scumbag you were. Oh really, thank you. But I did the research Captain

Whitaker, and the expert analysis, and I'm in awe of what you did. The

FAA and the NTSB, took ten pilots, placed them in simulator, recreated

the events that led to this plane falling out of the sky. Do you know

how many of them were able to safely land the plane? Not one.

Every pilot crashed the aircraft, killed everyone on board, you were

the only one who could do it. of the best performances I thought

was from him? Don Cheadle is a superb actor. He's one of those

actors who doesn't take the lead, but keeps films going. One of the

other things. One of the other things I found really great about

this, is picking up on what Miranda said about Sympathy for the Devil,

is the soundtrack. I hated it. thought it was great, the Bill

Withers song, Ain't No Sunshine When She Comes, and the "I know, I

know" and you have him clearing things out to that refrain. What is

this film for? It is a good question, going back to what you

said about the devil, it was interesting about how the language

of addiction, denial and redemption overlaps with the language of

Christianity, there is a fall in the beginning, you see lots of

people in the field praying. language of "act of God", that is

an insurance phrase. All the way through there is this qaisy

philosophical theme of free will versus...That Is an AA approach,

given there is a very pivitol point where the co-pilot says to Denel

Washington, after the crash, that maybe this was all actually to save

him, to save this great, like you say, this Jesus kind of character,

to turn his life around. That actually, in order for him to turn

his life around he has to crash a plane, everything has to go down.

Six people have to die? Just to turn his life around. Denel

Washington, this is not a film that has been Garlanded with lots of

Oscar nominations, but Denel Washington has one. What chance has

he got? -- Pretty good, with Training Day and Glory who could

forget that performance, this film was great, but I could easily

forget his performance. See for yourself, Flight lands in a cinema

near you today. The last time the review show visited lon does's

Hayward Gallery was to see a collection of invisible art. We

return for a more tangible collection, but only just. This

contains flashing imagery. And loits.

The first appraisal in the UK of light art opened in the Haywards

galley. There are free standing structures, projections and free

standing environments. Recreating some installations that haven't

been seen for decades, the exhibition showcases some of the

pee nearing works of this art -- pioneering works of this art form,

including Dan Flavin's early works and Nancy Holt's elegant holes of

light. As you enter the exhibition, you

are greeted by a Leo Villareal's Cylindar II, constructed from

almost 20,000 individual lights, performing sequences, that change

from pulsating clouds, to swarms of fire flies. The know presents works

on all scales, some crafted from the simplest of material, some

harnessing technology to create sophisticated illusions.

In the more immerseive pieces, viewers become part of the art

themselves. The Chilean artist, Ivan Navarro's piece, Reality Show,

even puts the spectator in a class case of their own. Other pieces

take advantage of the nature of perception to manipulate our ways

of seeing. There is a combination of flowing water and strobe

lighting to create an ice-like landscape in a model for a timeless

garden. So is this an exhibition which you

can quickly switch off, or will visitors experience ghost images

long after they leave. Zoe, it was interesting, at the

beginning of the exhibition it said, that vision is the most unreliable

of our senses. Did you doubt your eyes, did you think you were seeing

things not knowing you were seeing what you thought was in front of

you? Yeah, I think the curator of this exhibition calls light as a

medium which the artists work in, and immaterial, material, there is

that sense of the intanningability of light, but at the same time, the

experiences you are having, in the different installations is so

powerful and all consuming, you saw the last piece in the exhibition

there, Model for a Timeless Garden, and there is the strobe light. The

warnings for the strobe light aren't very visible, it is a real

shock to the system, I found. You see the waterfalls, there are 27

waterfalls unthe strobe. They look like strange frozen spiders, almost

coming towards you. I could only spend 30 seconds in there and I had

to leave. That is fantastic about the exhibition. There is one you go

in, you have to take your hand along the right-hand side of the

wall, move around and sit on a bench, and you look at something,

which can only be described as being in the middle of a Rothko

painting, the red absorbs you? There is aspects to the show that

is really fantastic. It is interesting to be in a show where

you are actually invited to look at something beautiful. That is a

fantastic example. You are invited to be in a environment that is

entirely beautiful. But having said that, I think a lot of the problem

I had with this show, I have seen a lot of this before, and in fancy

light showrooms, you go in and see a big chandelier and it is a bit

like that. I have seen it at concerts. Idea that you are part of

the show walking through a laser, and, really. There is one where

there is a bit of dry ice. So, the problem I had with it, on occasion,

was when it is really beautiful and it really struck me as in the piece

you mentioned, that is fine. When it is just pretty I wanted

something more. That is why I enjoyed the Jenny Hollser which has

other meanings, I found that more interesting. The Navarro, the idea

of going into that room and looking down was about Chile, wasn't it, it

was about repression? It was, it is interesting, I will pick up on what

Miranda said about the pretty. For me with this light show, there was

some light, and I thought it is the one with the flurres sant light,

the Dan Flavin work, I accident like it t I asked myself why I

didn't. I -- I didn't like it, I asked meself why, because it

reminded me of the 1970s where times were bad. I think that is

what he wants. Where as The Village People, the cubicle two, with all

the glitter, I think glitter is underrated in art, it is seen as a

trivial material, that brought back great memories of the 70s, and the

older women in my family stepping out, blinged up to the eye liner

and looking really great. It was interesting. For me, I kind of

immersed myself, it was an imminent response. There was one we couldn't

actually show, the Turrell, and also Katie Patterson's, one of the

best ones, the little room. It was exactly as moonlight would be. I

thought that had an enormous poetry to it? I love Katie Patterson's

work. She's worked with engineers on that piece to create this

lightbulb, as you say, that simulates moonlight, from a

combination of earth light, starlight and moonlight. What is

generally really interesting about her work, is while earlier artists,

maybe like Dan Flavin, were really excited by the possibilities of

working with electric light, younger artists like Katie, who is

about 30, 31, are more interested in, and kind of looking back to a

time when light pollution hadn't blotted out these natural,

beautiful phenomena, like the moon. But then she is using technology to

get that natural original effect. Sometimes I think that's why it is

hard to summerise this exhibition, essentially -- summerise this

exhibition, you have it all being about different things in terms of

artists. Things will hit people and other times missing with people.

Just because they all use art, doesn't mean they are trying to

produce the same thing. It is interesting to gather them together

n the concrete environment of the Hayward. It does show you a kind of

aesthetic that you have actually really universally, in today's

society, can you go to bars and they look like that, and they wink

at you in the same way. I think that is quite interesting to gather

it there and think, actually, even if you don't to relate to the art,

it has given awe general contemporary aesthetic that was

completely dominant. If you were to go to the Olympic Opening Ceremony,

the light shows that lighting engineers put on are art? They are,

and that was the bit where it failed for me. Just because of that.

Because I'm so familiar with some of the techniques that are used. If

you spend a whole morning in there, as I did, and you are prone to

migraine, it gets really tiring. It is quite hard work on the eyes in

the end. I quite liked, there were some that I had to come out had, I

certainly had to come out of the one you did. But the Doug Wheeler,

no sharp edges in the room, but the idea of it was untitled and

saturated, you looked and you thought your vision was changing

and the middle of getting darker. I loved the fact our eyes were

changing every second we watched that? That is an incredible piece

that. I walked up to it and couldn't work it out at all. That

is what is interesting, partly, about vision itself. That you are

filling, your eyes don't see properly, they are filling in

things all the time, they are lying to you all the time. For you to go

in and out of those pieces, the more enveloping pieces was an

interesting experience. You would say you need a break occasionally.

Get your light sabres out, it is there until the end of April.

Two years ago the London comedy theatre was renamed the Harold

Pinter Theatre, in honour of a man whose plays often appeared there.

In this new production of Old Times, directed by Ian Rickson, Kirsten

Scott Thomas and Lia Williams alternate the female roles of Kate

and her friend Anna. Rufus Sewell plays the possessive husband,

Deeley. Pinter explores the way we make and sometimes subconsciously

remake our memories in the context of our triangular relationship

between a married couple and the wife's best friend. Some time later

in the night I woke and looked across the room and saw two shapes.

Did he come back? He was lying across her lap, on her bed. A man,

in the dark, lying across, my wife's lap. But then in the early

morning, he had gone. Thank Christ for that. It was as if he had never

been. Of course he had been, he went to us and came once. Scott

Thomas's last stage role was in Pinter's Betrayal, also directed by

Ian Rickson, and Lia Williams is a seasoned Pinter performer too. But

this is the first time that actresses have alternated roles of

Anna and Kate in the West End. is interesting about playing both

parts is you have extra layers of knowledge about who these

characters are. Because there are things that I have seen in Kate

when Lia is playing Kate, that I hadn't, I thought I hadn't thought

about that, I integrated it into my performance. You talk of me as if I

were dead. No, no you weren't dead. You were so lively, you were so

animated, you used to laugh. course you did, I made you smile

myself, walking down the street together, holding hands, you smiled

fit to burst. She could be so animated. Animated is not the word

for it, when she smiled, I can't describe it. Her eyes lit up.

Couldn't have put it better myself. Miranda it is pretty darned

enterprising to change them around so everybody has to see the play

twice. But as has it enriched your understanding of the play and

enjoyment of it? It did. I went to see not the way round we have seen

there, the first time round, I really enjoyed t it was quite a

strange experience, I preferred it with the way we have just seen now,

with Kirsten Scott Thomas as Anna, as the interloper. The difference

is quite interesting, it is a lot stronger the second time round,

there is a lot more anger, it is very brittle. The performance, I

have to say, are pretty terrific, throughout, whatever way you get it

they are pretty terrific. The only thing I would say, the direction is

great, I thought the play didn't come out that well, I have to say.

The only way that I could really enjoy it the second time round, was

when I thought of it in a different way. So I thought actually, what

Anna was, was what Kate could have become. She didn't exist, she had

come in, and she was showcasing everything he could have been. You

could have been this fantastic person but you went off with this

man who squashed you down. From the audience's point of view, you might

have had a different response if you had seen it the other way round

first? You really might have done. The other thing that does is

emphasise the interchangability of the women, for the man. So when

they first meet, you have no idea which one he is fall anything love

with. Do you think, though, that the character Rufus Sewell's

character changes, do you see a change in him in the two

performances? I didn't particularly, I think his manic energy really,

really works, maybe that was upped slightly in the second, when

Kirsten Scott Thomas was playing Anna. I think they had a much

greater sexual chemistry, so the scenes where they are talking about

the bath, and washing the wife, and she's the invisible catalyst for

their foreplay. I think there was much more of a genuine tension

between him and Kirsten Scott Thomas. Throughout these themes,

how Harold Pinter came back to many times, which is memory, rembering,

false memory, among memories on purpose. You never knew. I thought

that was one of the best things about it, you never knew whom who

was playing games with whom? This is an interesting play, if you

think about Harold Pinter's life back in 1971, it is incredibly

turbulent. I think the main character in this is the husband,

Deeley. It is interesting in the programme, there is an extract from

Antonia Fraser, Harold Pinter's wife, it says he said to her, it is

a play where Deeley is a man defeated by women. What I did

notice for me, there was a real difference in the performance. When

Kirsten Scott Thomas sexed it up, as Anna, there is such a kind of

chemistry between her and Deeley. So I think he stops being giggley

and stumbling as I saw him in the first performance. In the second

one he's a desperate man, that is what you need to see is that

desperation, a man defeated by women. That triangle was visited in

Betrayal, but it is powerful. It is also vicious, it was one of the

reviews I read talked about the fact that you take away the other

stuff away and you are left with bullying? And anger, so much anger

in the second one. That weird element that, I think, we haven't

mentioned Lia Williams, she has a very strange energy, which I

actually think is really interesting. When she plays Kate,

show's like a child being argued over by divorced parents. It is a

very interesting element. What is so interesting is the shift in that,

is the language is the same in both, the language is very Pinteresque.

They move slightly different, they are slightly doing the same thing,

in one performance somebody ends up on the floor, in the other

performance they don't. They do move very differently. I think the

sceney is very good. That is hilder Gard Bretler. Just the way the

furniture is positioned, it gives distance between the character.

saturated colours of it, they were depressing n a way. It has that

weird, you know that play where Hell is other People, the Satre.

You only exist as other people see you or remember you, who are you

within this kind of triangle. And that, I found, very interesting. I

think if you imagine, if you imagine Anna as all the dreams that

got away t becomes more interesting. Sticking with the language point,

when Pinter says himself, ordeal deal says himself, that you used

the word "lest" I haven't heard that word used for years. It is in

another line. It is playing with language. Pinter is all about the

text and language. This is the problem, if the performances don't

work out, they are not going to work out. I think Pinter can be

very unforgiving for actor. So for me, the second time round, within

I'm listening to it, I heard so much more of the performance,

didn't you just? Than the timing, it worked for me. It is three

people in a room talking for 80 minutes, it doesn't feel like it,

but that is what it is. It is extraordinary, when Kirsten Scott

Thomas undergoes the transformation with the wig, and how she becomes

funny. I have never seen her in that kind of comic role, she's very

good at the enuit of the board, the housewife, she was really funny,

picking out the way they talk about, when she gives the speech and she's

enjoying the fact in the past that her and her girlfriend had their

own sandwiches. It is just utterly bizarre. Her body language is

betraying what she's actually saying, which is quite mundane, but

she's talking about, rembering a one-night stand. It is highly

sexualised. There is a really interesting part, when there is a

line, "you are nearly 40", the first performance it sound like an

insult and all the audience laughed. The second performance, it is

stunning, it is electricity, just that one line. Old Times runs at

the Harold Pinter Theatre until the 6th of April. Go once or twice.

For many, the 1930s Britain image conjures up country houses, the

country struggling through tough economic times, we see little of

this in Stephen Poliakoff's new BBC Two series, Dancing On The Edge.

Set in London this five-part drama, draws on the relatively unknown

stories of the black, mostly American jazz musicians, who

company turd the attention of the high society crowd, with their --

captured the attention of the high society crowd with their

intoxicating new sounds. The story focuses upon the rise to

fame of the Louis Lester Band. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays the quietly

confident Londoner, Louis, and there is the journalist Stanley,

who promotes the band in his magazine Music Express. The band

shook the room with their intensity, and showed the music could appeal

to a larger audience than it presently enjoys. You are home-

grown I was born here. He has lost his birth certificate. It has gone

missing, I need to find it. Dancing On The Edge is an ensemble piece.

Along said the suave Antony Head, John Goodman plays the enigmatic Mr

Masterson, and Mer Smith the hotel owner, Mr Schlesinger. I met Albert

yesterday, he could absolutely not believe that I had coloured

musicians staying in this hotel. Just down the road at the Savoy

Theatre, people are walking out of Othello even as we speak, because

of the coloured actor, Robeson, is kissing his Desdemona.

Poliakoff wrote and directed the whole series, which runs to six

hours. A commission that's relatively unheard of in British

television. Set in an age when racist attitudes would have been

the norm, the series explores the unlikely relationships formed

between black jazz musicians and the aristocracy in 1930s Britain,

revealing a progressive attitude that was perhaps ahead of its time.

# Wind blows round the steeple # Mm empty world and sleepy people

# I lie awake. Dancing On The Edge is a period

drama that tackles an extraordinary time of change in British history,

do its themes of economic depression, immigration and an

obsessive celebrity culture, still resonate today.

# The dead of night # Express

It has all things that Poliakoff loves, it is 1930s, country houses,

aristocrats, trains. Does he lose them in the right way? The last

thing I saw of Poliakoff was a play that Tracey Ullman was in, I

thought it was a drama school student had written it. This is

great, it is really seductive. All the way that you want this

television to be. So everybody's really good looking, the clothes

are absolutely gorgeous, the music is really great. It takes you on a

slow journey, but quite an interesting one. It is an

interesting time in English his treatment one of the things I

thought was really lovely at the beginning, is you associate jazz

with America, of course, especially black jazz. To have it taken over

and put in aristocrats house, it is perfect television. I completely

disagree, I absolutely hated this. I would have turned it off after 30

seconds if I hadn't been reviewing it. I just found, I don't know, I

find the sort of fetishisation of this old image of the aristocracy

that they are privilegesed and maybe lazy but they are glamorous,

who cares. I find that difficult to stomach. What is interesting about

it, is that there's an element where that is undermined. So there

is couple of scenes, where what you get is these posh aristocrats

saying they are really liberal, I don't know if you have noticed we

are really liberal because we love you, out there, there are lots of

people out there that aren't like us. I think that is resonant, very

true in society today, that you have that. It is interesting, I

think I'm a bit in the middle here. I was really interested in

Poliakoff doing this, because I think it is such an interesting

period. It is interesting because it is this notion of jazz coming

from America. If I'm not wrong here, I think they will have based the

life on The Edge Of Love character on Leslie Hutchinson, Hutch, from

Grenada in the Caribbean. I think one of the things that's missing

for me, I'm like Miranda, I love it, but I'm wondering about the

musicians, they file like they are just musicians at the moment, and

reacting to other people. Are they going to become fuller people. Will

we find more about their back story, really? Obviously the women Angel

and Wuummi, are featured, but the rest of the band, they are there.

They are like instruments. And you can fairly say that none of the

white characters are unexplored, at all? Not really. So I'm interested

about that. I'm interested in the whole thing about in drama, in

British drama and tele, why have we so many black actors fleeing this

and going over to the states, because, I think, they get real

parts. This is great this drama, but once again it is about using

black actors to explore ethnicity and "race". It is interesting if

you compare it with Flight were it is unmentioned. You didn't notice

who was black and who was white. This is the nature of the story

isn't it. The central performance of Chiwetel Ejiofor is

extraordinary, and Poliakoff knows how stunning his performance is,

and he holds these images of him beautifully? I have to say, even if

you're not interested in this story, to be honest, if you are a straight

woman you are fine, you have two really hot leads, being hot. And

speaking as a journalist, and particularly a music journal is,

you have a music journalist being really cool. This never happens!

Racism is threaded throughout the performance. Here is Chiwetel

Ejiofor talking about what actually happened. You can imagine this

absolutely did happen. You must have had to deal with a lot of

prejudiced people. Of course, yes, and you never know where it is

going to come from either. Sometimes it is the people you

don't expect. I remember bumping into a table when I was coming off

the stage and the couple nearest to me, the lady was covered in jewels,

but she was very young, charming looking, and both of them, this

couple started wiping their cuttlery, with their nip kins, even

though I wasn't anywhere -- napkins, even though I wasn't anywhere near

them, and they changed them just to be sure. That is very revealing.

Very simply done, very low-key. was a soapbox moment for me.

Soapbox, all of a sudden I thought what's happening to this drama, and

then after that you get Antony Head talking, and goes into this big

long speech about racism. And I thought, stop, stop. It is just not

there. The problem with it is the musicians are too deferential, they

are too grateful for this royal and aristocratic patronage, I know

maybe this will change as the series progresses, we have only

watched the first two episodes. But I would have loved there to be some

tension in their acceptance. There was, but. What is interesting with

that, there is still an ambiguity about whether the guy who wants to

be the patron did try to find his birth certificate. He wanted him

away. He had no trouble in actually dismissing him. The scene we have

seen I agree is soapboxy, the reason is works actually the acting.

There is a kind of layer that is given by these great actors, that

are basically saying this is soapboxy, but actually you can tell

this man is going to let them down, lock at him, he will let them down,

he's being really liberal and you are great being my lovely friend.

You know later on he will walk off and do something else. In terms of

performances, singing, phenomenal. I thought so. Angel Coulby.

disagree, I love that kind of music and music of that period. In order

to believe in the hype around this band, the music had to be

completely outstanding. And I just don't think, I thought it changed

into muzak. I think there were really good performances in it.

thought she was great, Angel. of the young women. And Wummi as

well. Wasn't it great to see a whom who looked like a woman on screen.

Let's have more women like that. What Poliakoff manages to do so

brilliantly is location, lovely country houses, and the look of the

thing. It looked like something you wanted to watch but not Downton

Abbey? It is interesting to compare it with Downton Abbey, the

relationships between the servants and masters were really

contemporary, everybody was really nice to each other. They really

were liberals in a way, they possibly wouldn't have been, they

definitely wouldn't have been at the time. I think maybe I'm just

incredibly excited because I'm seeing a Poliakoff that I enjoy. I

hope that what will happen is these relationships, that seem so liberal,

and so great, are going to be shattered, particularly by the fact

that the war is coming, and they think fascism is on the rise, that

something will happen to shatter this, and it won't be what we think.

I sincerely hope so, Dancing On The Edge starts on BBC Two Monday night.

Try to catch it. The desire to settle in Britain is clearly one of

its theme, those days around 150,000 people take citizenship

tests in the UK ever year. Candidates had expect to have a

good knowledge of British history, culture and tradition. This week,

the Government published a new edition of Life In The Untited

Kingdom. A book which claims to contain everything you need to know

to pass the test. Does the guide paint a picture of Britain that we

would recognise? The new book is described by the

hoves as "essential reading" for migrants, who have a good command

of English, and who hope to make a permanently in the UK. -- life

environmently in the UK. A previous edition of the guide contained what

the hoves called mundane information, on timetables for

trains and water metres. This has been striped away. Now it

concentrates on culture traditions and the people who have put the

"great" into Britain. The role call runs from Shakespeare to Morecambe

and Wise, Coronation Street, The Beatlesles, and Monty Python making

appearances. Included too are examples of British engineering,

scientific discovery, and our history, from the Stone Age to the

present day. The book aims to show how Britain has evolved, and to

encourage participation in British life, but do its references provide

a rounded and accurate picture of the UK in 2013.

Zoe, it was a ripping read? No. It is surreally bland. It is like the

British Government is doing a ethnografy on itself. But you would

-- ethnography on itself. You would think Britain is the most boring

place on earth. You can go camping and get something called an

allotment. We have people coming over only to eat Yorkshire pudding,

nothing else. It is by zafrplt I was very interested, it was

teaching me a lot of things about the Stone Age I had no idea about.

It is a cross between a Ladybird book and a driving test book. I

wanted to keep it for my seven- year-old, if he ever needed to look

stuff up. We were just talked about Harold Pinter, the theatre section?

It is a disgrace. It is terrible. It literally says all we have is

musical theatre and pantomimes. Andrew Lloyd Webber. And for music,

all we have in modern music is the Rolling stones and the Beatles.

What is interesting with the music is, two pages are about classical

music, the rest is truncated into lists in a page. I think it is

interesting when you look at this book, we can use words like "bland"

and dismiss it. You have to really look at the messages here. For

example, the language. There is one section about the 1970s, and the

politics in the 1970s, and the Labour Government, it talks about

strikes created, prob blems between the -- problems between the

Government and trade unions, and the opposing page, Margaret

Thatcher. It talks about Margaret Thatcher's social reform, she does

reform, Labour Governments creates problems, that is the problem with

bland books, you can dismiss them, but look at the hard language that

is used and where. Does it say anything about it and us? It hangs

on about the war. Domestic violence? It is, there are elements

that are interesting. They essentially say to people you know,

female genital mutilation is not on. Although there has never been a

prosecution, they don't add. What I think is more interesting about

this, is why are people coming here? The last ten years the amount

of foreigners coming to live here has gone up by 66%, there are three

million more people, why? If you read this it doesn't contain why,

it is about the education, the tolerance is mentioned, education

and the vibrancy of our culture which is not mentioned at all.

mentioned. Life life, but not as you know it, is available in all

good book shops, they sell more entertaining versions I'm sure.

Thank you to my guest. Next year there is a selection with Anthony

Hopkins as Hitchcock, and a new exhibition of Glam, at Tate

Liverpool. The BBC Folk Awards took place in Glasgow on Wednesday night.

This is the finale, featuring Dougie Mc Clean, and an all-star

line up singing his song Caladonia. # I don't know if you can see

# The changes that have come over # In these last few days

# I've been afraid # That the mind drifted away

# So I have been telling old stories

# Singing songs # That make me think about where I

came from # That's the reasons

# Why I seem # So far away

# Today # Let me tell you that I love you

# That I think about you all the time