16/11/2012 The Review Show

On The Review Show tonight: The return of Rebus. Ian Rankin

brings his whisky-swilling, vinyl- spinning detective back from

retirement. But is there still life in the old curmudgeon?

The Master. It looks like director Paul Thomas Anderson's take on

Scientology. A must-see or just cult viewing? I am a writer, a

theoretical philosopher, but, above all, I am a man, just like you.

Death in all its manifestations in a remarkable exhibition at Wellcome

Collection. And Full English. Has Channel 4 found Britain's answer to

Family Guy? This is my chance to On the panel tonight are the writer

and critic Hannah McGill, the novelist Alex Preston, and the art

historian James Fox. Like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle before him,

Britain's most successful living crime writer Ian Rankin has brought

his most popular character back. John Rebus wasn't exactly dead, but

he is certainly out of cold storage for Rankin's 28th work of fiction.

Though, as he told Alan Yentob in last week's Imagine, he only knew

that the new book would feature Rebus when he found himself typing

his name on page two. Over the previous 18 books of the

series, Ian Rankin aged his leading man in real time, following John

Rebus out of retirement. In Standing In Another Man's Grave, he

has joined the Cold Case unit. The hero of his last two books, Malcolm

Fox, pops up here, too, and takes a dim view of Rebus's return and his

effect on his former partner, She picked up the coffee. John

Rebus was the loosest of cannons. No constabulary had room for that

any more. He warned her that Rebus's proximity might damage his

chances of promotion. The action takes us north of the capital. The

furthest he's been from an Edinburgh pub. Hints of what

political sentiment are sewn into the story as Rebus journeys north.

He reflects on Scotland and its future. He remembered Siobhan

Clarke's words. It's an odd little country hard to fathom. She accused

of coming over all defensive. In fact, he had agreed with her. A

nation of 5 million cowered together. Clinging to the notions

of community and shared history. Changes to the leader retirement

age of mean that Rebus could have a new lease of life in the force.

reason he retired is that in real time he would be 60. Now he's able

to work until he is 67. There is potential for seven more years of

Rebus books. Ian Rankin says he would only revive Rebus's career

only if there was something serious to say. I'll be hanging on his

every word? We have some very big Rebus fans. But the possibility of

seven more years of Rebus. Was it a risk to bring him back? I found it

fascinating. Unlike the rest of the country, I had never read a Ian

Rankin novel and I spent the last two weeks immersing myself in

Markham Fox and Rebus. Internal affairs? Rebus doesn't play by the

rules and Malcolm Fox is the rules. I thought that Rebus is a fantastic

character like Raymond Chandler. A hard-boiled detective.

Unfortunately, this novel did not work for me in the way some of his

earlier ones did. Even the first one, noughts and crosses, I thought

they were incredibly well constructed. Fiercely groping. This

one, in the documentary he describes this novel is a bit

random and not interesting. I'm afraid that's how I felt about it.

Is that how you found it? I read the back of the book which was

gushing. Some body described him as a mystery writer of. But it's not

really a mystery novel. I like that about it. For me, it was very

evocative of what I imagine the real police work to be like. Plod,

plod, plod, go down a blind alley, have a suspicion, it's all very

nasty. There's not a lot of glamourous possibilities. It's very

fitting to the character that Rebus is, someone quite depressed. He

basically does not like life. is different is that a crime does

not appear early. You feel that Ian Rankin is getting back into the

Rebus groove again. It seemed to be more of a character a novel about

Rebus, this is how he has changed. Rather than the crime of being the

most important thing. I'd only ever seen Rebus on television a day

spent most of the book trying to get Ken Stott out of my head. One

thing which surprised me was how slow the novel was. It wasn't until

page 215 when the crime gets discovered. For a crime thriller,

there wasn't much crime and there wasn't there but role, either.

of the things I picked up was the crime is so minor. Minor to the

structure. A terrible crime. The antagonist, the greater villain, we

won't reveal, is almost inconsequential. Ian said he did

not decide who the villain was until the end. Page 273. Rebus is

so deeply ingrained with the underworld of Edinburgh, all the

real villains are his mates. That's fascinating and I love that. What

is interesting about the way that he writes Rebus now is that it is

like a method acting of. I always picture Ian up rather than Ken

Stott. The tension in the book is that what he does in the previous

two novels is set up his new hero, Mark, Fox, and then we have Rebus

back and you think, Malcolm Fox, I don't like him. Maybe he did not

like writing him -- Malcolm Fox. One thing which is charming about

him is that Rebus has these little things he likes, vinyl records, and

correct people's grammar. The other thing in this book is, he is the

hard-boiled detective, but, actually, he puts social media into

it is a clever way. It's all about profiling and using a mobile phone

to show part of the crime scene. I think he worked on that very hard.

So often with novelists have a certain age, taking on the internet,

it's like William Hague wearing a baseball cap. Here, it is

incredibly well handled. Ian Rankin is very good on it Twitter. Showing

the way the mobile phone, and having a camera with you, you can

have it. It's changed our lives. And how much young people used to

go to, and the idea of the older man getting into this youngsters

world force of the young woman, she reminded me of the new cue in Sky

He travels through Scotland. He is saying something about Scotland.

One of the great characters in the novel is the motorway running

through Scotland and it's a way of thinking through ideas of what

Scotland is about to. It's a sinister road. The death of ready

McRae, she always believed she would be buried under it. It's the

anonymity of the motorway, and the loss of these women. It's like all

the people who disappear. Young women who disappear. It's not a

sentimental, at all. There is a deep feeling of sadness. You know,

the idea the mobile phone is supposed to connect everybody but,

in this case, it's another sign of loss. We are in the middle of

November and Ian will have to start on the 2nd January with his new

book. How does he do it? Watching a documentary, that was amazing.

Living alongside him. The fact he can at knock this thing off in a

couple of months. Strong dialogue, as well. Is it going to be another

Rebus book? I wanted to stick at Rebus. I didn't realise he was so

old. I wanted to go on longer. the time he reaches 67, he can go

on to infinity. Get the book now for Christmas. With credits that

include Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, and Magnolia, director

Paul Thomas Anderson has never shied away from working at

emotional or historical frontiers. With the release of his sixth

feature film, starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Pheonix,

he now shifts his attention to the emerging spiritual factions of

The Master is set in the wake of World War II and follows Freddy

Quell, unable officer transition in from the military to civilian life.

Played by Joaquin Phoenix, he is trapped in a storm of his own a

volatile emotions and dogged by alcoholism. One day, he regains

consciousness in an unfamiliar boat. His life changes when he's

introduced to Lancaster Dodd. a writer, a doctor, a nuclear

physicist, a philosopher. Above all, I am a manner, just like you.

the self-appointed leader of the spiritual movement called The Cause

and claims to have discovered how mankind cannot rise beyond its base

animal nature. Paul Thomas Anderson's research into this

movement in the post-war era has clearly informed his script and

there are parallels with the early history of Scientology. Likewise,

the character of Lancaster Dodd appears to take evidence from its

founder, L Ron Hubbard. Science, by definition, allows for more opinion.

Otherwise it's the will of one man which is the basis of a cult. The

he becomes a lieutenant to the movement, Freddy Quell, and takes

criticism from inside his own family. He's making this up as he

goes along. You can't see that? makes his post or aspiration and

post-traumatic stress with a plausible alternative religion. But

is the master likely to wow the It's hard to talk about this film

without centring on Joaquin Phoenix at's incredibly physical

performance and also Philip Seymour Hoffman, a dominant figure. Had you

any idea what you're watching? was extremely divided about this

film having seen it because it was very beautiful and the performances,

particularly Joaquin Phoenix, was staggering. The set pieces were

mind-boggling but, on the other hand, I found it really boring. I

wasn't very moved by it. I think the reason was, I don't think the

film went anywhere. It had a brilliant first hour and other two

protagonists met and the characters did not develop. Their relationship

didn't develop. For me, it was a film I admired greatly but I didn't

enjoy it. Did you get a sense you started to watch Joaquin Phoenix,

who was so damaged, and he kept on being damaged, and also of his

performance was so mesmeric, it is almost watching a car crash.

disagree. There was a certain static us about it. At a conversion.

If they progress. These tricks that they use, the phoney religion which

has been set up which they cause -- called The Cause, it's all out

taking someone vulnerable, giving them a fake love, breaking them,

and then winning their love. The way scientology works, you then ask

them for money. But does not come up in this film because the Joaquin

Phoenix character isn't financially powerful. His films are quite hard

to get in to immediately. His films are all very long, quite distant

and order. They don't be the automatic... There Will Be Blood

was fantastic. There's 20 minutes with no dialogue at the beginning

of a There Will Be Blood. The lead character is not lovable. No, but

the difference between them is you go on a journey with the character.

Did you? His films are work like avant garde novels. The problem

with this is that are being in a cult isn't interesting for the here

we have a man who has written about it. And I have attended several. I

thought that, soon as you get to the end, the beginning was

brilliant, we sought during the war they had a clear sense of their

purpose in life, their direction, comradeship, they were thrust out

into this world and suddenly they are a Lola. Beautifully shot. It is

shot so beautifully. The idea things were coming back in after

the war. There is no sense of things moving forward for that the

characters do not develop. The film has no plot. I could have walked

out for 40 minutes during the What about the relationship between

Lancaster Dodd and his wife? That is not plot. I felt that Joaquin

Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman eclipsed each other. Joaquin

Phoenix is amazing, he lost a lot of weight for the part, he has his

chiselled face, he looks weird, but he is doing it -- overdoing it a

bit. He always has one performance that is a bit over-the-top. Tom

Cruise in Magnolia, you know. And Joaquin Phoenix, his face is

incredible, but every time you see his body, you saw it in that clip,

he has this weird... He has obviously decided that is his

thing! You have to believe in the relationship between Joaquin

Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman. That is every film about men,

father and son. There Will Be Blood was a father-something, and for me

the relationship did not work. What summed it up was this strange

lowish to Britain at the end, totally unexplained. There is a

lack of emotional climax. I think he is being slightly perverse, and

this film has been made at side of the commercial sector, so it does

not had the pressure of... He said, I want to make this hugely

expensive film, incredibly difficult but they win Oscars.

Larry Ellison's daughter may this. If somebody came to me and said, I

am Paul Thomas Anderson, I have got Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour

Hoffman, I would give him a check. This is what happens when artists

do not have to respond to commercial pressures. It did not

satisfy you because it does not respond to a traditional trajectory.

I thought, it just happened to me, I did not have an extreme reaction

except for enjoying it while I was watching it. I actually prefer

films without plot, but they need to do something to me, take me on a

journey with the characters. think it took me somewhere that it

did not take you. I think this film was made on 65 mm stock, I was

lucky to see a 70 mm print, and that is very rare these days.

Increasingly, film-makers are using digital media, and go back to the

greatest and of medium is just wonderful to watch. The Master went

on general release today. The only certainty in life is death, but for

that reason we often shy away from it as a subject. A new exhibition

of artwork and artifacts at the welcome collection explores our

complex and often contradictory attitudes towards death and

immortality. If you're of a nervous disposition, you might want to look

The exhibits come from the diverse collection of a former antique

print dealer from Chicago, Richard Harris, who set out to capture the

essence of death through its iconography. The Western world

including England and the US certainly are afraid of death and

do not want to have it as part of our conversation in any way, shape

or form. My wife and I attended the Day of the Dead in Mexico, and it

was an eye-opening experience, to be part of it. They go to the grave

sites and bring food that the deceased loved, they bring food and

While one room reflects rituals and remembrance around the world,

another displays disturbing We see it on the television

sometimes, and it seems so far away, but when you stand in front of this

print, it can be more visceral and strike you in a more personal

fashion, what the results of war really can be. There are scores of

skulls and skeletons on show, but while much of the exhibition is

morbid and macabre, other works show a different aspect to death

which can lift the spirits. People say, Richard, you are so ebullient,

smiling and happy about things, how can you be collecting a subject

like that? And I think the other aspect of death is that he sees the

day, you know, make the most of each of your days of living on the

Well, you know, the Wellcome Collection, to have put this on

after Brain, to have such an all- encompassing focused exhibition,

did it change the way you thought about death? A bit just fitted in

exactly what my thinking about death. Going to Mexico around the

Day of the Dead celebrations, it was very dear to my heart. I saw an

engraving that I had sent as a postcard to my father, so I

immediately went, I belong here! Of all the rigours you have put the

true for the Review Show, this is something I am starry eyed about,

it is just beautiful. In amongst it, there are the most extraordinary

collections, but early on you realise, what a collector he is,

where he has found this stuff, and this is just a fraction of his

exhibition at Chicago. Indeed, and he has assembled this over quite a

short period of time, 12 years, and in the catalogue he says, thanks to

his wife Barbara for patience and understanding. When you see the

collection that he has obsessively assembled over the past 12 years,

Barbara Harris does have the patience of a saint! Apparently she

has told him to stop. I think it is great because you might say he is a

magpie, but he has collected notions of debt from practically

every culture, Japanese, Indian... That is what is so wonderful. I was

terrified about singers, I am a huge hypochondriac, so scared of

dying, but he was there, and he just kind of took me around and

kept saying, I just want it to be uplifting. The thing that is

comforting about it is how universal so many of the images are,

the dance macabre, a medieval chronicle up to the pictures from

Japan, the Tibetan sketches, the Day of the Dead in Mexico. We are

all terrified by this stuff, I think everyone else's! But dealing

with it through art in the same way. You talk about the Durer, but in

the images of war, you have got two collections which are extraordinary,

the coir as well. You have got three extraordinary anti-war

gestures, the greatest in Western art, all together in a single room,

absolutely fantastic. I thought what was remarkable about that room,

it is the first time when death is not just seen as something that

comes upon us, it is something we do to each other, we are implicated

in this political process. Even though this is a small fraction of

his collection, a lot of which is in storage, which is tragic, he

needs a building to put it in, but it takes you through the personal

impact of it, it is very emotional, and it brought tears to my eyes and

made me laugh. But it shows you how death is used, and there's also a

real feeling of taste, you can see what he likes. You see what the

curator likes, Kate Ford. Mexican artist took photographs and

then put the death masks on. This is an extraordinary human being, he

has put together this amazing thing out of personal curiosity. He is

not even making money from it, it is to his great credit, and that of

the Wellcome Trust and their extraordinary approach to these

exhibitions which are partly scientific, partly social, not

cloistered away. And it is a free exhibition. And it is free. What I

found the most disturbing thing, knowing that he committed suicide

in the end, you get a progression of death from someone like Ray

Jackson. I think probably... A portrait of myself in 1960, this

was a man born in 1860, not looking for at Well! He is so brilliant,

totally under-appreciated. Even the simple thing of a portrait on one

side and his skull on the other, it is something about coming to terms

with the idea that we all have one of them. There is a great tension

in this exhibition, virtually all of these objects are meditations on

the inevitability of death, but making them is a gesture towards

immortality, producing something that will outlive us and the

permanent marker. That is the whole idea, but looking at a collection

put on for us, it is extraordinary, I have never been anywhere where I

have seen so much about death in one space. It is still so taboo. A

lot of people will miss out on it. You used the word morbid, and I was

talking to Kate Ford, the curator, and I said the word is the wrong

word, because death is something we have to live with and carry around,

and once you are had a big bereavement, you learn that it does

not go away. What is lovely about this is that you feel sad and a bit

gross-out at times, but it is also a celebratory in its humour. Some

of the things are very poignant. seemed to me somehow an image of

the whole exhibition, because here is... Particularly the skull with

the monkey perched on it, something you holding your hand, a little bit

of death you carry around with you. And the opposite of that is this

massive extraordinary chandelier. Which reminded me of the cap which

encrypt in Rome, this idea of using the bones, having them in the room

with you. An amazing thing! that is one of three he bought!

would like one in my dining room! Because the exhibition is free, you

can afford to buy the book, the whole thing is stunning. The whole

thing is absolutely stunning, if you get a chance to go to Death: A

Self-Portrait at the Wellcome Trust. The animated sitcom Full English,

on Channel 4 on Monday, has been touted as Britain's answer to the

senses and Family Guy. Meet the Johnson family, a fairground there

in which review the state of the nation, satirising the television

The series was created and written by Harry and Jack Williams, the

brothers behind the BBC Two comedy, and the characters and sets are by

the artist and illustrator Alex Scarfe, who has followed in the

footsteps of his father Gerald. cannot believe our own daughter is

too embarrassed to have asked there... The cast list includes The

IT Crowd's Richard Ayoade, Kayvan Novak from Facejacker, and Daisy

Haggard from Green Wing. This is my chance to shine! The first episode

takes aim at Britain's Got Talent, it's more outrageous acts, and of

course its best-known judge. massive pile of steaming... You

were awful and you are out. You So all the ingredients are in place,

but does Full English satisfy the appetite for home-grown satire, or

Where his money? Is she playing The Americans have delivered The

Simpsons and Family Guy. This is the attempt to get back in the game.

Isn't it strange there hasn't been at a British equivalent given the

success of The Simpsons and Family Guy? Maybe it's because they had

such success, but this is not the Simpsons. I think I enjoyed it more

than anybody else. It is very much the palate we are talking about, be

disarmed but Ted. -- Beavis and Arteta. I was pretty down on the

first episode. I went back and watch the first episode of Family

Guy, and it was finding its feet. It wasn't anywhere in the year as

the joyous with what it did back then for some I think this is the

sort of thing, if you gave it time, it could grow into something which

could stand up against the American shows. The writing would pick up?

They need to get a writer. They need a miracle. This was like

watching a particularly unfunny episode of banana Mamma. I did not

laugh once. The jokes were stupid and crude. The targets were so

obvious for some it just felt such a deliberately cynical thing. Here

was a great opportunity of putting down a marker for British animation.

We have great animators, brilliant animators. How these people got to

make this, it's nothing to do with Family Guy and The Simpsons. We are

dignifying it all that it is a rip- off of the monkey dust. It was

before about 10 years ago. Sorry, BBC Three. It is very reverential

to monkey dust. It brings the same characters back. But without any

hope jokes. No punchlines. There was a great possibility of a thread,

the gap year. You want to leave them out there rather than bring

them home of. Why is the first episode so weak? It's not like you

have got to do the shoots. defended a little bit, I felt that

the level of darkness they went to, having Princess Diana and a topless

Jade Goody... Easy targets. Shagging the Queen. It is low blows

for teenagers. They want to watch something their parents would be

shocked by it. I'm a being shocked by it being so bad, not subversive.

It's perfect audience is a 13-year- old boy yet it's going out at night

time. When I was 13, I wasn't up late. It needs to have more

satirical stuff. More political force up why is it about bad TV?

is bad TV about bad TV. To take the mickey out of Simon Cowell... These

reality shows are over. What I thought was interesting about the

second episode, interesting could be overstating it, but better about

the second when a comet didn't try to take on a theme up. I felt we

were living alongside their lives. The references to homosexuality and

the lazy use of the word gay, please stop doing that. Let's hope

that there will be more animation. There's loads of animators about

but it needs to be funny. From the Creation and the transmission, it

needs to be faster. It could open up an opportunity by being

commissioned. Animation used to be expensive to do, but now it is not.

Maybe this will encourage the idea, maybe people will see it and think

they can do better than that. That's a good thing. It was

slightly better the second time. almost laughed in the second

episode. You're easily pleased. Let's hear from more animation. You

can see episode two of Full English on Channel 4 on Monday night.

That's all from us for tonight. Thanks to Alex Preston, Hannah

McGill and James Fox. Jools Holland's joined by Ellie Goulding

and Foals among others on Later after the lottery. Next week,

Martha will be here to look at Stephen Fry's return to the West