26/10/2012 The Review Show

This programme contains strong language.

Women all the way tonight. And a couple of old eejit in a pub.

James Bond is back in Skyfall, and the Bond girls are now Bond women.

Take the bloody shot. I may hit Bond. Take the bloody shot. Is The

End of Men on target. Sex in the City is so last century, girls,

written and directed by and starring 26-year-old Lena Dunham is

the comedy drama everyone is talking about. Are you asking did I

always want to have sex with men? Yes. This is Wadjda, the first

feature film made inside Saudi Arabia by a woman. Will it have an

impact on the Kingdom's conservatives. And two talking men

in a Dublin pub, Roddy Doyle's whipcracking piece of prose, Two

Pints. We're joined in the pink corner by

the economist columnist, Anne McElvoy, and Tim Samuels, the

award-winning writer, who hosts Men's Hour. We begin with a hero

who has come to embody impossible levels of pulling power, an icon of

Britishness, with Scottish linage. James Bond a bit mashed up and

whiskey-soaked, that is to the administrations of a nurse, and the

Bond girl Naomie Harris. Three months ago you lost the drive

containing the identity of every agent embedded in terrorist

organisations across the globe. made a judgment call. In Skyfall,

the future of MI6 is in jeopardy, following a botched assignment. In

her 7th appearance as M, Judi Dench has been placed at the centre of

the action for the first time, as she directs new Bond woman, Eve,

played by Naomie Harris, on her first assignment. I do not have a

clean shot. Repeat, I do not have a clean shot.

Tunnel ahead, will lose them. you get into a better position.

Negative, there is no time. Take the shot. I say take the shot.

can't, I may hit Bond. Take the bloody shot. An astonishing act of

terrorism in the heart of London forces M to relocate the agency. It

pits her against the chairman of the Intelligence and Security

Committee, played by Rarph Fiennes. Other star turns include Ben

Whishaw, as the reinvented Q, and Ashraf El-Baroudi as Bond's latest

them -- Javi re, Bardem as Bond's latest nemisis. I do hope that

wasn't for me. No, but that is. The action sequences move from

tunnels beneath London, to Shanghai skyscraper, and the wilderness of

the Scottish Highlands. With director Sam Mendes, assisted by

cinematographer Roger Deakins. At the film's heart is the

relationship between 007 and M, both displaying a new vulnerability.

007 reporting for duty. Where the hell have you been? Enjoying death.

Many are hailing Skyfall as the best Bond yet, has Daniel's Craig

latest outing as the most enduring action hero in cinema, left our

panel shaken and stirred. That 12-minute opening sequence, is

it the best Bond yet? It is hard to judge, because Bond is very hard to

separate from your childhood, and the childhood Bond you saw, are

always imbued with a mystery. This was great. This will be a huge hit.

This felt like taking very long bath of testosterone. You quite

like that? I need that. When we get to this I'm done for, and he's in

trouble as well. But it felt like a man when you came out, until the

neurosis came back. You felt a sense of Britishness, it felt this

was a Bond which fits this year. We have done the Opening Ceremony,

which felt like Britain doing what it does best, wit, irremember

regins, not trying to be American - - irreference, and not trying to be

American. It was the same sort of Bond in on the gag, not overcooking

it, as in the Opening Ceremony. What Sam Mendes needed to do was

move on the criminality, there is a different kind of evil,

cyberterrorism, did that actually feel shoe-horned in, or was it a

good new evil character in Javier Bardem? He's fantastic. He has it

all going for him, the peroxide hair, the strange teeth, his

playful way of dealing with Bond, in a sexualised way of approaching

him and trying to undermine his manhood. But I think what is

interesting about the film, and you see it when you see that clip that

you showed there of M, Judi Dench, looking over the cop fins draped in

union jacks, people will think about Iraq and Afghanistan. The

sense that you are trying to do the right thing in the world, and it

just keeps going wrong. And the evil you are fight something here,

it is there, it is everywhere, it is very hard for the Intelligence

Services to get it right. It gives them the benefit of the doubt in

terms of intent, it also says how easy it is to get everything wrong.

In this film everyone at the outset is in a pickle, everyone has done

something wrong. I rather like that, it is a feeling. It is

destablising? It beset politicians and the Intelligence Services and

they can't say it to us openly. you like the whole Bond film?

thought it was a very knowing film. It was brazen the way they lifted

from so many other great male- orientated films Apocalypse Now,

Jaws, Silence of the Lamb, it opens with a scene from the Great Escape.

There was moments I was nearly crying from the emotion of it. What

Anne is talking about is really how fantastic the film looks. There is

so many different scenes. Roger Deakins is cinematographer par

excellence. You are always looking at it, as well as the plot. It was

a clever thing that it was a 12 I took my 11-year-old son, and he

thought it was fantastic. The finale is Bond and the two grey

warriors. Don't give away the end. His allies are clearly of the

generation who first watched the Bond films. There are good gags

about the early gadgetry and so forth. It seems to me, but Sam

Mendes brought to this film as well, Rory Kinear and Ben Whishaw, from

the stage. He plays this wonderfully whip-smart. He's every

intern you ever wanted to get rid of in your office. He comess and

tells you are out of date, he makes you feel 20 years older than you

are. In the end he's going to play a fairly pivitol role t won't be

done with exploding pens any more. That is a great line. Did you feel

that Sam Mendes has pulled a switch into a new Bond, or will it be hard,

moving into this era, when you have a cybergeek, as your Q? It was very

believable. Every week anonymous people hack into another network,

that was totally feasible. If you look at the Iranian nuclear

programme being set back by a computer programme. That was a one-

off, or the whole idea that we will be doing cybercrime in future

Bonds? I think this has rebooted Bond T had come out of a slightly

shaky phase, it is re-rooted and re-anchored Bond and placed had him

back in Britain and who he was. With Daniel Craig he can go off and

do the lavish adventures over seas. Has Daniel Craig come better in

this one? He owns it. The last films were rom-coms with a few

stuoints. This is a cross between Peter Reid and Sid James, he looks

too rough to be a member of the British establishment. I thought

the matter of sex thing is largely gone from the film. If anything I

rather miss it, SAS we have said for years, we have had all the

pieces about the terrible treatment of Bond girls. Can we have more

glamorous sex. It is aimed at the kids, 12-year-olds. People are more

prudish, I remember seeing the Bond films very young and there was more

sex? You remember in scam diamonds are Forever, with the zip going

down the back. At 13 that was turned off. They wouldn't have been

a 12. Is a trick missed without the sex, I know it is a grown up film

with the mummy fixation. He did have sex in it. There was a

brilliant sex scene between the two male leads. It was much more

homoerotic. This film is there to set the store out to the kids

reading the young Bond books. was a nod to taking a film. This is

a new generation in love with the character. We can talk about the

fact that the film then goes to Scotland. You have concerns about

that. Is that tied into the whole British thing? The British thing

needed a bit more work, it was confused. Remember the bit when he

says nationality, and he says English, the whole rest of the film

was him to Britishness, as Tim was referring to the British cars,

slightly the Del Boy nation that makes the way in the worlding, and

is bucaneering, and some how gets through it t and Judi Dench reads

them a bit of Tennyson, in the briefing, as you do, then we move

into the Scottish last 45 minutes t even has a game keeper with the

rifle cocked over his arm. I don't know what you felt, felt you were

being slightly sent up in the parody of Scottishness to explain

he comes from a different part of the country. I did feel a bit of a

sag there. There has been an extent where Bond get flirbed out, you get

theer in row sis, struggling with the work-life balance, the

addiction, he's made into a three- dimensional character. Then you

have the new woman and she will whip himself in shape. Bond in

therapy. You heard it here first. James Bond is an alpha male, and

according to a new book with an apocalyptic tightle title there is

very few left. And men have been failing to adapt to the economic

climate, and it is the women, who are more plastic, but some of them

can't stand having to drag a useless man along with them. The

contribution to the gender debate by Jo Roswell has brought countless

column inches and brought much discussion. It draws on interviews

to chart the demise of the traditional breadwinner, a change

which has conversely benefited women, who readily adapted to their

new roles in the work place. Roswell names these new MoD --

Rosin names these new models Plastic women ska cap cardboard men.

The Full Monty highlighted the emasculating effect of the death of

industry on a set of steel works. The steries, section in the City is

a changing attitudes in women, eschewing the traditional route to

marriage and kids in favour of a career and financial security.

it when you are the only single at a dinner party and they look at you

like you are a lose, lep, whore. Rosin calls this a see-saw marriage,

a merging of the roles between care childcare and work, equally shared

between men and women. Despite the rising numbers of female college

graduates and women as sole providers of household income.

Working women take on the lion's share of chores, inflexible office

hours still rule, and the gender pay gap is still an issue. Is the

claim "the end of men", still a long way off?

I do want to ask you if you feel under attack, but first of all, is

it about the -- does the book live up to the title? The title spoils

it, it reduces it to a level of boys versus girls t should be

titled "In Praise of Women", and a title that promotes women, men

don't care. We know women are great at doing things. I don't have any

issue with the premise, I thought the book was really dated. There is

a book called Stiff, made the same point 14 years ago, with a better

narrative. This is layer, upon layer of research and acedemia, it

is so focused about the lives of college women. To be honest, it

reminded me of the days when I edited Loaded magazine, and I spent

all night being hectored at the feminist student on campus, and at

the end she asked me if I fancied a shag. Did that happen always?

Frequently it lacked charm. Actually I found it really

insulting, this was supposed to be a worldwide perspective, all the

women in countries like Cuba and China. Cuba and Russia, places

where women have always been equals in the work place. There is a film

we will talk about later, that really puts into perspective, that

this book is really about New York academic life. It seems what she

does do, a bit like, she brings anecdote to this, the worlds in

which she moves, and the corporate lawyers, the financial world, where

you do get women who are incredibly powerful, they are in the minority.

It is a real stinking piece of journalism. It selects any half

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 255 seconds

baked theory that men can't take It is the closest diagnosis to the

Way We Live Now, in terms of where I think the employment balance is

changing, and the dangers to men, particularly those who do not get

the education they are going to need. Anything to do with plastic,

I think Barbie and cardboard. thought the tone was a bit gleeful,

setting men up against women when everyone is a sort of on the same

side. Do you really think when you're female colleagues go out in

broadcasting that we do not feel... He thinks the only difference

between men and women is how women respond to shampoo adverts. That

might even be in that book, for all we know. 15 years since the first

series of the glossy sex in the City, time for Carrie Bradshaw and

company to totter off. The girls are here. They are smart, smutty,

struggling and engaging in very sticky and graphic sex. It starts

on Sky Atlantic on Monday and comes from a talented 26-year-old who

writes, directs and stars. The central character's

quintessentially middle class parents reveal they will no longer

support her group B lifestyle. more money. He tracks a succession

of humiliating episodes in her life, beginning with the tough lesson

that even as an unpaid intern, she is far from indispensable.

circumstances have changed and I can no longer work for free. I am

so sorry to lose you. I was just going to start you on Twitter. You

have just the voice for it. I am not quitting. I know that someone

was hired, so I thought... knows Photoshop. Accidental drug

taking and abortions are just some of the subjects considered fair

game for satire. You are pregnant but you don't want to be, so common

generation, and if so, who is she speaking for? If sex And The City

was super-smooth, this is rougher, isn't it? Did you have a sharp

intake of breath? I had to have a cup of tea halfway through the

You get your killer heels on and it is a great adventure and you

celebrate with your girlfriends. Your 20s are not like that, it is

the time with the messiest sex and all the wrong decisions. There was

this terrific economic insecurity, of these rather privileged girls.

And a very particular set of girls too. Life-long interns. They are

all someone's daughters. All the actresses are from a particular era.

It is a view of liberal arts college girls, it is enough to make

you send your daughters off to the Midwest to do Bible studies. It is

very, very funny. There is a lot you absolutely recognise. It is

very tightly packed in. What did you make of it? I thought it was

very clever. It is Sex in the City with Converse not Manolos, if The

Strokes had made friends, that is what it is. She will become a huge

hero for probably loads of women, women who wished they were still 24.

I identified with her mother. The sort of intolerance of seeing these

girls who actually, they want the authority of adulthood, but not the

responsibility or the jobs to pay for it. The scene when the mum just

loses it, and says "I want a fucking Lake House, she's playing

you, she as an expert player", that is the moment I came in. Would you

spend time in the company of the women? I would try to snog Marn irk,

and crash and burn there. I would like to hang around with Hannah.

Hannah for me transcended the genders. The others were more

updated versions of Sex in the City, Hannah felt there were male traits

there, she belonged to a linage with woody Alen. And Norah Ephron

and Tina Fey. She was the breakthrough character, the one you

could relate to, the awkwardness, ridiculous things. If you can

relate to her mum. Hannah is Lena Dunham, whose series this is, this

is her worrying about being really fat. Ra, rara. I think your stomach

is funny. I don't want my stomach to be fun. Three or four pounds you

can lose that. I don't lose it from my stomach, it is from my face.

Have you tried a lot to lose weight. No I don't, because I have other

concerns in my life, I apologise. It does push the envelope, doesn't

it. One thing I found a bit lacking, there are no credible male

character in there. You have the Emo boyfriend who is a bit odd

caricature, there is the really sapy poi friend, there is a guy who

won't sleep with virgins. The female characters have authenticity.

She has had made it easy to like her ahead of everyone else in the

programme. She's not an obvious role MoD. She's dumpy, she has bad

tattoo, she doesn't dressle well, she hasn't got a job -- dress well,

she hasn't got a job. There is abortion, rape, a lot of dark

stuff? It is not just the dating world, is it, or the celebration of

the female flesh, which I really liked. The thing about the men,

which I think she has a serious point to make is the porn culture.

It transcends the half boyfriend, who can't be bothered if she's

there or not, unless they are having sex, and imposes his

pornographic fantasies on her with no desire on her part. What worries

about that, it will come in the future, I'm sure, her insecurities

are allowing her to be manipulated. It is clever she's doing it now,

you need a big fightback? She does need a big fightback, or have we

come to the point where the freedom to have sex with you who you like,

you ought to then. They seemed to be having free-wheeling sex all the

time. There is probably a subliminal pressure on that

generation of being offered a hook- up and having to take it. What do

you feel about that, all the neurosis and the obsessions of the

early 20s, the fact that the men are all crap, it might get better.

In order for this to drive forward, it just can't be about sex? It will,

there relationships will develop, they will get older, their work

relationships will change. I think she is laying the seeds of

something which, if she plays it right, and if she doesn't get too

distracted from the multimillion pound book deals. She has a book

deal of �3.25 million for her advice book. She has done something

not dissimilar to when I launched Loaded, she sees what women are

perceived to be about, and created a programme about what her friends

are like. She has open the door of how a lot of women are. They are

girls that go to work after spending a night to have sex. They

haven't gone home to put expensive suits on and done themselves up.

They are quite like women really are. What about the whole idea that

it's going to have to develop and change and there's going to have to

be big storylines, they can't be interns forever, is my point?

don't think it needs big storylines. They live in a self-obsessed New

York, Brooklyn frame of mind, it is the microstories that make up your

life. You don't need the overarching plots. People like and

can relate to the microstories and self-obsession, it will run this

one. And the hierarchy of social network, it was face book, and then

something else, oh my God you could speak to somebody, but that doesn't

happen often? It feels to me more like a snapshot, has the urgency of

a snapshot at the moment. I'm not sure that the characters the

interrelations as an ensemble will work. She of right in the hierarchy,

is it Facebook, tweet them, text them, and calling someone is a big

deal. From sexually liberated Brooklyn to the conservative

kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A country where cinema is officially banned.

On several counts, a new film from a female Saudi director, a first

full-length feature shot there. This is the deceptively simple tale

of Wadjda, who want to buy a bike. Wadjda is the bright, bold ten-

year-old schoolgirl at the sender of Haifaa Al-Mansour's film. Wadjda

pits herself against the constraints of the conservative

society in which she lives, and becomes a rebel force to be

Wadjda forms a strong bond with a young boy in her neighbourhood, and

watches him enjoy a level of freedom that she can only dream of.

Abdullah rides a bicycle, an activity forbidden to young women

and girls, for fear it will ruin their virtue. Owning a bike becomes

the ultimate symbol of freedom for She observes her parents'

relationship disintegrating, due to her mother's inability to bear her

husband a son. Does the film's release mark a turning point for

female artists in the Middle East, or is it an assault on Saudi

Arabia's patriarchal society? Tim, were you absorbed by the story

itself, or more the fact that what you were watching was an

extraordinary feat any way? first half I was thinking, this is

amazing, it has been shot and directed by a woman in a country

where women can't drive or travel, people are flogged when they are

rape victim, it is, ordinary this film has been shot there. It is a

bit slow, yeah. But by the second half it had switched, and I thought

this is a really lovely film. It is funny, it is witty. The girl jokes

about, if I get to heaven will I get 70 bicycles instead of 70

virgins. The parents are threatening to marry her if she

doesn't behave. It stood alone for me as a good film. But set against

the context of Saudi Arabia and what the director would have been

up against, it was all the more special. James you have this

wonderful character, Wadjda, who Yanar Mohammed herself tund up for

the auditions in her -- turned up for the auditions in her Converse

and she had attitude? I think you are being too polite, I think you

are letting the fact that it is important for the women who made

the film and politically that the first half is really dreery. It is

not a 90-minute film, Anne is nodding, it was really dull. There

were lots of long, lingering shots on stairwells and concrete things,

when you get that out of the way, it is a really sweet film. I didn't

know that some of the things you said about Saudi women, I didn't

know they weren't allowed to drive. It needed editing, really. It is a

40-minute play. The thing is, you can see films in Saudi Arabia, they

will show this on television, so the message will get across.

Saudi Arabia you can see films in secret film clubs at the moment.

This has a number of releases around the world, and maybe on the

television, and lots of people go to Bahrain to watch stuff for the

weekend. Didn't you like the idea of the story unfolding, that you

really got to know the wee girl and her mother and their circumstances?

I would have started with the little boy chasing the girl around

the street. How the relationships in the second half of the film

become really full, and there is a deep meaningful message. The first

half was a documentary, you are here is an amazing glimpse into the

landscape and the bleakness, and the institutional misogyny of Saudi

Arabia and the drama kits in. bicycle is the metaphor for free

and everything, in the ironic conversation of before, when she

falls off the bike her mother is, oh no, you have damaged your

virginity, and these girls in New York are all about losing it. James

is perfectly rise about the pacing ts an experience you want them to

get on with it. When you think about the constraints to have the

film made, it has a made for television feel. What she's

pointing out, the one thing I had had forgotten I ever knew, that

these girls are not only suffering, they are not only repress, they

have spirit, they want to do things. We come up with the kind of wheezer.

She's a hustler, she moves things around. That time when you were 10,

11, 12, she thinks she knows how to get it, she will win the Koran

contest. For me the film came to light, and the beauty of the Koran,

that she has to learn to sing to win the money for the bike that

she's not allowed to have, and it was the use of the Koran to impose

these things on the women t gave the film heart. You talk about the

fact that the first 40 minutes you think are so exorderry, the

landscape we had never seen -- extraordinary, the landscape we had

never seen. When you look at the performances, these are complete

engenues, they might have seen a little bit of TV, you think of the

Iran yeen balloon using children to make films a lot. She commanded the

film, she commanded the film. actress, the young actress was

extraordinary. She almost had a slight high school American

attitude. Had her Converse been real Converse instead of fake

Converse, you could see her in high school, evolving into one of the

people in Girls. The fact is when she gets to puberty her life will

shut down even more? Saudi Arabia is a bleak place, someone was

beheaded there for sourcery, this is the first year women were

allowed into the Olympic, women will be allowed to drive. The money

for the film was given by one of the members of the Saudi Royal

Family. It is opening up. Some of the stuff was surreal, budge

together girls, don't let the devil through you, at school. I found

that informative, I didn't know it was like that. It is often through

culture change is made, it there a definite change, with the Olympic,

driving next year, they are allowed to vote in municiple elections?

have had the shock of their life, the extremism, and the Wahabyism,

they are balanced between their role as the bank rollers of the

Middle East, but also the place where they have embraced

fundamentalism. This film has sneaked out into the gap. I don't

think it can change Saudi Arabia overnight or any time soon, it is

great contribution. Wadjda will be released in cinemas in the spring,

put it in your diary. Finally this evening, to a new book from Booker

Prize winner Roddy Doyle, which eavesdrops on two men putting the

world to rights over a drink. Roddy Doyle is probably best known for

his Boca that was turned into the smash hit film, The Commitments.

you not get it, the Irish are the blacks of Europe, and Dubliners are

the blacks of Ireland, and the north side Dubliners are the blacks

of Dublin, so say it once, say it loud, "I'm black and I'm proud".

has penned nine acclaimed novel, including the Booker Prize winner,

Pady Clarke HaHaHa. In Two Pints he brings a series of two

conversations of two men in a Dublin pub, and their musings on

news stories between 2011 and Which desert? The fucking sandy one,

ask fucking Peter O' Toole. James, did you get to read there

through in a oneer. To read it all in one go is to spoil it. You do

not want it all in one go. This is a one-a-day, it is really hard not

to, you pick the momentum up, you start laughing. It is like reading

a daily cartoon, it is three boxes of a cartoon strip. It is really

funny, there is through the bottom of the glass view of the idiot

philosopher. It is not a two-pint book, it is when you have drunk

yourself back soberer, you spent all night talking rubbish and it

starts to make sense. It goes from the end of the Celtic Tiger to

MaeveBinchy's debt. Its about affording Magnums rather than

Cornettos, and if you can't afford the Magnu it's over. If you are

going to ration it or make cuts at the BBC, put a camera in a pub in

Ireland and get the best context. How long would you be awake for?

was thinking it was the half pint book, I was happy to sample a bit

of it, and then I thought that's enough of that, thank you very much.

He was shoe horning in any news story just to get a line out of it.

He has a fantastic ear for dialogue, you could hear it there. It sounded

like a draft of dialogue written for a much better work by the

author. It is so good. You thought why are you wasting your time with

this. It is like walking into a conversation. For men it is a

perfect representation of a certain part of a fantastic night out.

what end. A conversation you won't remember

in the morning is the answer? Last of the Summer Wine meets

trainspotting. In real life these guys are smarter and then they come

over in this. That is the funny bit. They try to get a one-downmanship

on what they know which is funnier? Did you believe them as characters?

I didn't think they had had any life. They are real people. As

someone who edits a lot of copy, you can read the ones where he has

an ear for dialogue, some of them are real things he has heard. Other

things are he has set himself the discipline to responding to a big

news story every week, you can tell the ones where he has had to make

the dialogue up. The humour is so acute. Whitney Houston's death,

when his wife takes all the money out of the Credit Union to go to

Whitney's funeral? And still there a fortnight later. The one with a

storyline, he has made them up. The ones that come out of nowhere, when

they decide who they are going to vote for in the euro elections,

they won't vote for mart again McGuinness, because he won't --

Martin McGuinness, because he won't exploit the money. There is all the

Sinn Fein stuff. There is one gag about the grandson Damien, who gets

weirder and weirder pets, magic realism off key. It worked best

when it is really a satire about the way in pubs, people in pubs

talk about world events, that was very, very good. The euro cry Isis,

the way people talk -- crisis, the way people don't understand what is

going on but discuss it in the pub. If it is a little thing like

Damien's weird pets, who gives a toss. Do you? Find out, Two Pints

is published next week. Thank you very much to my two guests tonight.

Next Friday, as the US presidential election approaches I will be

joinedly Lionel Shriver and others to review one of the greatest

novels from one of America's chroniclers, Tom Wolfe, and look at

an Obama documentary drawing huge audiences in the states. We're

playing out tonight with our own music and what could be more apt

for the theme of gender in tonight's show, than a classic clip

from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which is back in cinemas for

Hallowe'en, from all of us, good night.

# I'm just a sweet transvestite # From transsexual transvainia

# I'm just a sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvenia

# So come up to the lab # And see's what on the slab

I see you shiver # With antica-pation # But maybe