The Review Show The Review Show

On The Review Show tonight. Angry Boys, troubled men and a talking

beaver! Mel Gibson attempt as comeback with

help from a fluffy friend. Can a beaver rehabilitate Mad Max.

are you? I'm the beaver. Huge excitement in a Russian small town

when the Government inspector arrives. How do stars of TV comedy

fare in Gogol's classic play. Get him to send over his next

Bordeaux or I will break his fingers. The dead unburied in

Andrew Miller's novel, set in prerevolutionary France. Does the

stench of 18th century Paris leap off the page?

Chris Lilley plays delinquent teen, racist grans, and even blacks up in

his new mock can youmentry, Angry Boys - mockumentary, Angry Boys,

funny or just over the top. Balls, ball, I have big blackballs. Live

music from Jonathan Jeremiah. Joining me tonight are the

independent columnist, Johann Hari, the novelist and President of

English Pen, Gillian Slovo, the policy editor of the economist,

Anne McElvoy, and broadcaster and academic, Susan Hitch. It is quite

hard to imagine the pitch for this one, for a start the film will be

starring Mel Gibson, never mind the drunken racist rants or claims of

domestic abuse. The role itself, not an action hero, or comic part,

but man suffering from depression. Get this, he decides the only way

to talk to his family is via a hand puppet of a beaver. Do you want to

get better. Who are you? I'm The Beaver Walter. Gibson plays Walter

Black a chronically depressed toy executive who stands to lose his

family if he doesn't make dramatic changes, he decides to communicate

with the world through a beaver hand puppet. The Beaver is Jodie

Foster's third directoral outing, she co-stars as Walter's long-

suffering wife. It is painfully emotional film. That is the biggest

surprise, that a movie can start out with such a high concept, and

by mid-way through the film you are so invested in the characters and

moved by them, you see your own small details and tapestrys of your

life with your family through them. You completely forget that he has a

puppet on his hand. The other troubled relationship is between

Walter and his son Porter, a teenager worried he's turning into

his father. This is a joke, right. No, son. It is a fresh start.

you completely lost your mind. know it seems. I'm not talking to

you nut job, I'm talking to mom. Could the role of Walter Black be a

case of art imitating life. An acknowledgement of one of

Hollywood's biggest stars of his dramatic fall from grace. Has

Gibson now come to terms with his inner demons. It is one of the

deepest performances Mel has ever again, and the most - given, and

one of the most true he has given. That is lucky, it is an incredibly

lucky skill to have the ability to look demons in the face, and say,

you know, I'm going to do whatever it takes to kick you in the ass.

Putting his personal controversy aside, is this the right vehicle to

turn Gibson's career around. person who handed you this card is

under the care of a prescription puppet. Designed to help create a

psychological distance between himself and the negative aspects of

his personality. Please treat him as you normally would, but address

yourself to the puppet, thank you. One of the questions I would never

have thought I would have asked on television, what do you think the

point of The Beaver is? Goodness no, I think Jodie Foster thinks she

does but doesn't really. On one level we are supposed to believe it

is a prescription puppet, that turns out to be a lie. Afterall it

is not a prescription puppet, is it a useful psychological tool

nonetheless in which he's able to voice his inner thoughts in way he

can't do directly? Or is it something that is actually taking

him over, that is psychotic. I don't think the film has made up

its mind, and I think there is a problem there. Did you think it was

credible, Jodie Foster was saying after a few minutes you are

completely absorbed and overtaken? The whole film work ones whether

you believe in the existence of The Beaver. Five minutes of thinking I

can't believe in it, five minutes of thinking maybe I can. The rest

of the film thinking I would like to kill this beaver. I found it

difficult to talk about, I almost cannot believe this film actually

exists. You are sitting there watching it and you keep getting

hit by waves of incredulity and that anyone has ever made this film.

It is the plot of American Beauty, through the imagination of Fred

West. You have a middle-aged man having a breakdown and unsufferably

twee teenagers. The tone is so odd. At times it thinks it is a commondy

or horror film or profound psychological drama. It is none of

them. The animal he speaks through should be a turkey, this is such a

disaster. Could it be that the idea of the beaver is man, male

menopause, this is his masculinity, the only way to communicate is

through the beaver which has a strong macho accent? A good try. It

is the accent is Michael Cain meets something else, they are trying to

externalise the depression and say all of this, the idea that the

depression is internal or chemical it can be dealt with pro-Zach or

getting a grip, you can't do that, I needs that is outside himself

that will articulate what he feels. Therefore, it is not going to be

him but everyone is going to have to accept it. The incredulity point

is important, the reaction of the family is unbelievable, we have a

Muppet boy who loves the beaver, have you ever tried to do anything

weird around a child, they are the most conservative on the plan the.

Then you have the cookie teenage thing, it is straight out of

American Beauty, a real waste of Jennifer Lawrence and a good cast.

There was one scene in the film that I really did think it was very

good, it is when Mel Gibson and The Beaver are on television, he, The

Beaver articulates in his mockney the philosophy behind it, it is a

complete story of a man who is having a mid-life crisis and the

justification of a middle-aged men everywhere for throwing his life

away, I thought it had a lot of power, why did you need The Beaver?

That is uncomfortably true, I don't believe in the premise, or Mel

Gibson as the depressed man, he has the tense face, he doesn't have the

slackness of somebody who is depressed. Yet I do believe in Mel

Gibson as the angry middle-aged man, I didn't need to know the events

going on in his events to believe that. I was queasy about this being

a rescue vehicle, it is a rescue vehicle by Mel Gibson by taking on

mental illness, they hope in some way to get him out of the career

crisis he has worked himself into. It is not to do with mental illness

but him. Was the performance a career rehabilitating one?

because the film isn't. His performance is. I find the things

Mel Gibson has done abhorrent, he's a great actor and film maker. If

you look at The Passion Of The Christ, it is a disgusting film and

extraordinary, and I think he's one of the most profound film makers of

our time. I think he has something incredible. I was torn, part of me

wants him to be rehabilitated, because I want to see his next film.

This is not the vehicle to do it. It does show his acting talents.

is an interesting question, how far can you distance an actor or artist

from his politics and private life? Yes, but I don't think that the

problem with this film is Mel Gibson's private life. I don't

think that's what's get anything the way there. I think the problem

with the film is, as Susan said, it just doesn't know what it is doing.

It has some really worthy things and some really whacky things, they

do not measure together. It is a very ambitious film, it is high

concept, it has been Anne tell gent Jodie Foster, whose own performance

was rather good It always it, there ising - it always is, there is a

kind of intelligence, even when she's not on the screen, we can see

her taking in stuff intelligently. It is the reaction shot that I like

of her's. I do think the film is a mess. It hasn't made up its mind

what it is. It drops into terrible sentimentality, the little boy and

the older child who suddenly comes back together with his father.

older son was interesting, isn't he a parallel to what's happening with

his father, he's also acting like a ventriloquist in his life, because

he's writing other people's essays and getting into their heads for a

speech? They may as well have flashing on the bottom of the

screen, "subtext", the recurring image of the son is him banging his

head against the wall, which is how the audience feels by the time you

get to that. The film doesn't let you get away from reminding you of

Mel Gibson and has narrative. The beaver said a great obituary you

have written for yourself. It is constantly drawing you back to

Gibson the man. Isn't it interesting that the psychotic

voice is Cockney! Let's be honest it was sometimes Cockney and

sometimes Australian. Sort of English? It is interesting.

The Beaver w its strange accent, opens across the UK next Friday.

There may never have been a better time to see funny faces off the

tele, treading the stages of London theatre, Catherine Tate is helping

David Tennant, making Much Ado About Nothing, while James Corden

is starring in The National in One Man, Two Guvnors. Meanwhile at the

Young Vic, half of The Mighty Boosh, Jean-Baptiste Baratte, meets one

third of - Julian Barratt, meets one third of Smack the Pony, in The

Government Inspector which opened last night. With news of an

imminent visit of a Government inspector to a small provincial

Russian town, the local mayor and inhabitants are sent into a frenzy

of social thought. Is he from there. Has he got a moustache. Is he very

distinguished. Is he privvy or state councillor, or a cleejic

councillor, is he a general? He's not a general.

He has to be higher than a general. Written by Ukrainian-born novelist,

Nikolai Gogol, in 1836, when Russia was struggling to compete

economically with the rest of the world. The play uses the device of

mistaken identity to expose the towns people's greed and corruption.

News of the incognito visitor spreads fast. How young a boy?

or so, young, very beyond his years, very travelled and worldly.

Cultured, he loves to read books and scribble down his thoughts

about the Stone Age, but his cave was too dark and Baltic, he seeks

out prolonged exposure to the arts. Brown hair, black hair, long,

feathered. When a fopish civil servant turns up and is Makin for

the inspector he's enjoying the attentions of the towns people.

lost my money on the road, could you lend me $300. Absolutely.

don't like to deny myself, why should I. I won't trouble your

excellencey any further. Do you have any thoughts about the postal

service? I will write to you. Taking her talent from the TV to

the stage are many stars. Adapted by the Scottish playwright David

Harrower. This new version is as lively on stage as it is on the

page. But has it managed to stay true to the original play.

We have a real sense of the vivacity of the production there.

How do you think it captures the spirit of the original Gogol?

don't think it does, it rollicks along, very amusingly, you saw from

the clip, it is a fantastic feat of getting people on and off the stage,

the language is very cleverly adapted to modern English in the

venacular. The problem is this is an angry play, written by Gogol as

a young man, angry about the conditions in the provinces and the

random nature of power from St Petersburg. This could be anywhere,

it could be a bad day for David Brent at the Office, when

management is checking up on his paper clip quota. This moral anger

is central to Russian comedy, they have lost it here. Did they

trivialise it? There is a sense of absurdity central to Russian comedy.

With The Government Inspector you can produce two different plays out

of it, one is that naturalistic, serious, funny, maybe, but deeply

satirical and dark version. But you can also make out of it something

that is farcical and really, really absurd. The moment you choose to go

for Richard Jones as director you have gone for the absurd, he won't

do anything else with it. What I liked about it, is it really

reconsidered it properly and turned it all the way into a farce. It is

a beautifuly constructed play, dramatic mechanism it has a perfect

lock on it. So actually it is quite difficult to re-think it, even as

farce. I thought they did it well. I'm a surprised you think that

goes back to the stream of Gogol f you go back to the short story The

Nose, about a bureaucrat whose nose runs away from him. This is like

The Mighty Boosh t loses some of the political edge, I don't think

that is something that Gogol disliked, he didn't like it when

was done in a socially realist way, when he saw productions like that.

My problem is with the basic production. It is really annoying

that theatre producers keep putting TV actors without theatre

experience and aren't that good at theatre, in the big roles where

they have to carry a big vow. Julian Barratt cannot do t and it

leaves a hole at the centre of the play.

Did you feel the performances were as bad as that? I think there were

wonderful performance, some of it was Amanda Lawrence Lawrence, she

used her body in the most amazing way. I thought Julian Barratt felt

uncomfortable on the stage, it improved as it went on. As long as

he was talking it was all right. When I was listening he didn't know

how to hold himself, that was the problem. Something about the play I

found interesting, I have always thought of as the mayor as the one

person in the town who has a kind of moral conscience, who does

understand what's happening, and this production made him into a

torturer, by the way it came to the end. I thought that took away a

kind of a feel to Julian Barratt's performance, who has gone on record

as saying we can't be too sympathetic to the mayor because

then we won't laugh at him. I don't think so, I think we could have

laughed at him and been sympathetic. I saw it the night after you,

perhaps he improved enormously in the 24 hours. I found him awkward

and uncomfortable in his skin. In way that when I saw it, contributed

to the character. That this was a mayor who is uneasy any way with

what he's doing so, when he has the stress dream, if it is a dream,

when the terrible thing happens to him it is bringing out the fears he

has any way. He's not very comfortable with himself. I know

you like this bit better than I did, of course there is absurdity galore

in Gogol, if you run it like that for the whole duration for the play,

you make it hard for the mayor and the imposter, they have to keep

going at the same pace and delivery for a long time. It is wearing, if

you lose the seriousness, you lose that kind of variety. This is a

play, which is so badly received, and is seen as so critical that

Gogol is forced into exile. So, yes, there is the absurdity, yes it is

meant to be farcical, and funny. But the seriousness of purpose, and

everything that it says it part and parcel of the work. It is a play

constantly revived, it speaks to something of our age at a time of

MPs' expenses and corruption. Nabakov thought it was the worst

play ever written t harsh on Chekov, it is a good translation by David

Harrower. There are beautiful moments of pathos, I think it works

best with them. When one of the people in the town just begs the

person he thinks is the Government inspector, when he goes back to St

Petersburg, to say in a town out in the stick there is a man called Bob

Chinsky, he wants the officials to know he exists. Where it is

prefiguring the Russian history to come worked well. They weren't too

loaded. I thought the hints of it, it reminded me of the Dostoevksy

novel The Devil, which anticipates so clearly the nightmare that is on

its way. Before leaving it, we should talk about the way it is

staged. Extraordinary design, and a joy to watch? It is gorgeous.

Everything works, the sound, and the sight and the colours in it. I

think, I also think we have to mention, Khlestakov, Kyle Soller,

who was like a maniac imp, with more bounce than I have ever seen

anybody on a stage. He was literally jumping on the ground, on

the sofas 0 - and on to bookshelves. And also from Do you know McKeekin?

But it was also like thank Kyle Soller was like the death of

Chaterton, he was the boy with red hair and instead of dying

consumptionively, he was bouncing on sofas. Didn't he remind you of

Ange, doing these movements. It has been four years since the

Australian comedian, Chris Lilley last appeared on screen in the

critically acclaimed mockumentary, height height. This year he

returned - Summer Heights High. This year he returned playing a

eclectic collection of characters in Angry Boys. Comedy from the

southern Hemisphere, has given us some much-loved characters, from

Barry Humphreys Dame Edna, to Kath & Kim. Look and me Kim. Chris

Lilley, stand-up comedian, added to this collection, with Summer

Heights High, which ran on BBC Three in 2008. Lilley played a

remarkable range of characters in an Australian High School.

Including spoilt schoolgirl Jamie. Oh my God. And self-deillusional

drama theatre Mr G. I just perform for the kids for a whole lesson, to

give them a benchmark of how things are done. So they can see someone

at a professional industry level, and how they handle the performance

side of things. However, his latest series, Angry Boys, gives the

mockumentary a more cutting edge. Featuring controversial characters

like Gran, the less than PC prison guard. You are a light skin, I know

you're an Aborigine, but a light skin. And twin delinquent, Danal

and Nathan Sims, who first made an appearance in Lilley's debut series,

We Can Be Heroes. He never wants to talk, he reckons if he does he

sounds like a full Plastic, and he reckons we always laugh at him, and

we do. Hey Nae, say "my name is Nathan and I'm a big deaf spas".

Danal is a big deaf spas. This premiered in Australia last

month to rave reviews and high ratings. Viewing figures for later

episodes have declined. As Lilley's humour takes ever darker turns, has

he pushed the boundaries of the mockumentary. # Balls, balls

# I got big Blackballs

# Let me show you Very much Chris Lilley's work,

playing all these characters, writing, producing, co-directing,

it shows great versatility in this, I suppose. There are really three

masters of this mockumentary style, or this new form of sitcom, Ricky

Gervais, Larry David and Chris Lilley. It is a strange thing where

it is both comedy of extreme social awkwardness, tinged with real

sadness. It take as while to set those things up. If you watch the

first episodes of any of their shows it take as while to get going.

For those new to it, it would seem odd. Summer Heights High is one of

the best comedies of the past ten years. He hasn't done what Ricky

Gervais did after The Office, he's gone for more of the same thing. It

feels odd, but will grow into something great. Did you admire the

technical skill in this I admire the technical skill but I hated it.

Maybe I'm not the person for mockumentary. I didn't enjoy it at

all. There is a very basic problem of imitation here. If you imitate

people who are bored, most of the time, boring, racist, offensive,

the problem in the end is not that they are racist and offensive, that

is contextualised, you can read that sat teirically, sometimes I

wonder - satirically, sometimes I wonder why, I'm bored. I would go

between the two, I thought it did get better. The second episode felt

much more alive to me than the first episode. Did it make me laugh.

It is not exactly my thing. I laughed actually, the less PC it

was, the funnier I found it, but I didn't even find it that funny. I

like the character of Gran, in way. Gran is the racist prison guard, we

saw there dividing the young boys into dark and light skined? And who

keeps guinea pigs and has a game with the boy goch cha, where she

tells one of them he's about to be released and then says gotcha. That

turned dark for me and I liked S Mouse. He said, I'm really radical

because I have puct situation, in the middle of - puct situation in

the middle of my name. In the second episode with S. Mousse, I

thought was funny. It worked - S Mouse.

It was very, very funny, and it also took that apart. I thought

that worked very well. You saw then the effect that it had back on the

hopeless crowd back in Oz. On the anti-PC point, I think one should

say it is fairly broad stuff. very BBC Three, you have to have

just come in from the pub to watch it. That is probably what most of

the audience will have done. I thought it got less funny when they

repeated these very anti-PC joke, whether they were about race or

masturbation, or body parts. Because the first time you go, oh,

they said, that the second time it is like they said that before. Why

do I have to be amused another time. Is there a risk with some of the

anti-PC jokes, whether they are racist or joke about the deaf twin,

that so. Audience will be thinking that is fatastically ironic, others

will think that is very funny because he said the word "spas".

The crucial question is who is the joke on, it is never on the deaf

brother, it is the idiot brother laughing at him. That is the strain

going through comdee. You can't judge comedy by the reaction of the

stupidist members of the audience, if you think about Alf Garnett

people always misunderstood the characters. If you compare it to

Jim Davidson, blacking up, or little Britain, where the joke is

on the weaker character, that is not the case here. You would have

to be really quite dumb to misread this as laughing at the deaf person,

that never happens. Part of my objection to it is the sense of

waste. When you see Chris Lilley acting, really acting as Gran, for

example, you Israel yois that Chris Lilley is, I think, possibly -

realise that Chris Lilley is, I think, possibly the best actor we

have seen tonight. Better than the puppet! Better than Mel Gibson and

Jodie Foster, he's a real shape shifter actor and needs better

material. What about the Australian working-class, here we have had a

big debate about chavs the demonisation of the working-class a

new book out what do you make that have? If you were watching this in

Australia, there might be an why theity with the cull tue, and you

may join in - Identifying with the culture, we may join in watching it.

We're watching it from here, but here from here the joke is on the

working-class Australians. That is profoundly wrong f you look all the

way through Chris Lilley, the joke in Summer Heights High, there is a

rich girl the joke is on, and an incredibly sympathetically

portrayed poor kid. It would be patronising to exempt one

particular group of people from his school of mockery. I think it is

true, if you look at S. Mouse, is he's a rapper who is pretending to

be street, smack your elbow, and his father is on there saying, look

at our house, we are rich. He comes from the middle-classes. I thought

that worked wonderfully well. I thought that the working-class

characters were less successful for me, because I really felt too

uncomfortable with those twins. I felt it was quite repetitive. It

didn't seem to move on. In that way, I don't think it worked for them.

What do you think about the grenre of mockumentary, we have seen so

many now over the years, is it reaching the end of its time?

wonder, if we still made the time capsules, if they did one now it

would be full of mockumentary. They would thinking S. Mouse we have to

look him up. Chris Lilley is new to me. Lots said, lots of flaws and

icky bits, but it is really good. Even if it is the last one on the

planet, I'm sticking with it. is another chance to see the first

two episodes of Angry Boys on BBC Three, later tonight in fact. And

the next two episodes premier on Tuesday.

Andrew Miller is one of those authors who seemed to relish an

historical challenge, his first two novel, Ingenious Pain and Casanova,

are both set in the 18th century. The most recent money, Morning

Glory, takes place in Japan on the - One Morning Like A Bird, takes

place in Japan. For book number six, Pure, he returns to the 18th

century to set a story in prerevolutionary Paris.

"my Lord, I have made an initial examination of both the church and

the cemetery, and see no reason to delay the work your Lordship has

entrusted to me. It will be necessary to recruit at least 30

able bodied men for the cemetery. It is a book set in Paris a few

years before the revolution. It concerns a cemetery in the centre

of par bri, the mid-18th century was poisoning the entire

neighbourhood, and indeed that side of the city.

So my novel, my story is about a young engineer, who comes from the

provinces, sets about the destruction of the cemetery, and

the church. He is, in a sense, The revolution is very much present

in the wings of the book. This is a city before the storm. In its last

moments of a way of life that was coming soon to an end. Black

letters on the cemetery wall, tall, ragged, unignoreable letters

extending from the cemetery door. Fat kings, slut Queen, beware,

Beche is digging a hole big enough to bury all Versailles. Set in mid-

18th century, and I say there is much that a reader can connect with.

It is a time of, I don't know, banks and tourism and police, and

police force, and hotels and postal services and whatever. It is the

beginnings of a polite society, beginnings of new ideas about how

we might be, what a society should "a year of rape, suicide, sudden

death, of friendship too, of love. So Gillian, starting point for this

is an extraordinary real life event, the excavation of a cemetery. The

whole book is infused, in way, with decay? It is, and it is also

infused with the period where it is. Andrew Miller is very good at

evoking the period, and making you feel that you are inhabiting it,

and the stink of it. And the world of it. But I did, I have to say, I

thought there was something slightly odd about this book, in

the sense that, at the same time as I thought it was extremely well

written, and there are wonderful scenes in it, I also thought,

reading it in the weak way, talking about women's writing has a

sentimental sense of society, I actually thought this book had a

sentimental sense of society. And part of the reason I thought that

was the women characters. That, you know, apart from the crazy ziinggit,

who was my favourite character, the daughter of the landlord that this

engineer is staying with, and who acts in way that nobody understands.

There was theer who with the heart of gold, there was the - the whore

with the heart of gold, there was the young girl who looks after her

grandfather and everybody else. And the landitey who looks after the -

landlady who looks after the artist. Did you think the women characters

were stereotypical? Some where, but actually I had more time for them

than you did. Partly because I think a lot of this book is about

what you can do with rationality and what you can't do with

rationality. And yes, it's gender divided, but we have the engineer

as the very spokesperson of the active person of an 18th century

rationality that works. It is one of the interesting things about

this novel, it is one of those rare novels which is about work and

about effective work, all these things happen, rape, murder mayhem,

you name it, but the cemetery gets cleared. The women don't speak, but

they have a presence that is very important to the balance. This idea

runs right through the book, the contrast between rationality, the

ideas of the enlightenment, and religion, the church, mad priests

lurking in the background? It is murder, mayhem and metaphysics, one

thing I really liked about the book, is he takes the novel of ideas

seriously. You never feel that someone is acting or speaking in

way only to be there for rationalism. What is so great about

the story is he starts out as the engineer, the rational man, as he

digs down into the bones, and there is the past and religiosity comes

back at him, and comes back at his whole ideals. In the end his

identity is unwound, he cannot really relate his rationalism to

what he has been doing, he's hyperrational thinking it doesn't

matter. Digging up a few bones at the beginning of the story, what

could go so wrong, it all goes so wrong, it is incredibly cleverly

controlled, very touching. This whole idea of being pure,

maintaining a moral position in the mid of this decay shows to be

impossible? He has done something startling impressive, he has taken

a historical event, and made it intellectually and emotionally

alive, by using this metaphor that prefigures the revolution. We

talked about the revolution talking about the democracy of the dead.

Clearing out a graveyard is brilliant metaphor for that. He

take it is and makes it so vivid, he doesn't patronise the past or

make you feel a moment when he's displaying his research, you never

feel a moment when the characters become sieveers for the ytdz, even

- siefers for the ideas, and it is a brilliant novel. You have a sense

of the impending French Revolution and there are various moments in

the book, the action of the miners and you get a sense of the tumult

going to be unleashed? You get it from the graffiti coming up around

the city, and through the strangeness of the miners who don't

even speak the same language, stuck in the graveyard doggedly digging

up bones. You have the feeling that something is about to blow. I was

sorry that something didn't blow a little more and sooner in the book

for me. I sometimes felt that it had quite a lilting rhythm, which I

admired, I wanted a bit more disruption at some point. I liked

the excavation, that we worked our way through it. Pure by Andrew

Miller was published this week. Once again, our own angry boy, Will

Gompertz, has about out and about on our behalf. After Venice last

week, he stayed closer to home for a look at what to expect from the

London 2012, Cultural Olympiad, which you haven't noticed has been

running for three years already. So, just 413 days until the 2012

Olympics, which, of course, is jolly exciting. But perhaps not as

exciting as the last three years of the British Cultural Olympiad, we

have been really enjoying that, haven't we? Haven't we?

Cultural Olympiad? I don't know. Ifrpblgt I don't know what is the

Cultural Olympiad. What does this man think of the Cultural Olympiad?

The Cultural Olympiad. What is that? I don't think I have heard of

the Cultural Olympiad. What do you mean?

OK, so awareness of the Cultural Olympiad is clearly pretty low. The

arts have always been part of the modern Olympics, up until the early

19th century there were medals handed out for painting. We had an

arts competition' V & A. This time we thought we would go large, and

spent �18 million on a four-year cultural Olympiad. It is fair to

say we have established the first three years of the four-year

Cultural Olympiad, and it has failed to capture the public

imagination. The organisers have a new plan to do a new festival on

June 21st, which they say will be the UK's biggest-ever festival. To

celebrate the finale of the Cultural Olympiad. I think we are

talking about the Festival of Britain here. It means there will

be a royal Shakespeare festival, and a Pinobaust season, fantastic.

It looks good, what about my new found friends at the national

gallery what do they want? Justin Bieber, marry me!

Fish and chips, I like fish and chips. A few famous faces.

Different bands, classical music as well as pop and rock. Tribunal

music, or just mud tribal music, not just mainstream. Clint Eastwood

or John Wayne. I definitely fancy Robbie Williams. Robbie Williams.

As an American I don't know about British writers. Shakespeare.

Modern art or anything like that. That painter, the guy he painted

the ceiling. A space simulator. Michael anglo-. He's dead!

Who do you pick for the Olympiad? At a time when arts organisations

are being cut, they should have put it in the pot so organisations

doing great work didn't close. idea is to get things out of London

and around the country, it is great idea. London theatre is in

fantastic phase, lots of good writing, fantastic writers, I hope

they get some on the road and get them out.

Well, that's almost all for tonight. Remember you can catch up with all

things review on the website. And the team here are primed and ready

for The Tweets. My thanks to Gillian and Susan, and Anne and

Johann, and the latest addition to our film, The Beaver. Most obedient

of our panel. Suzy Klein will be here with highlights of the

Edinburgh International Film Festival. We end with music from

Jonathan Jeremiah, his new single, Heart of Stone.

# I've been feeling # Like you messed me around

# I've been hurting # But there's no way out

# I've been hurting # But there's no way out

# If' been reeling # I've been reeling since the day

you left # Now I'm wandering

# I'm wandering # I say I'm wondering how

# You've no regrets # I've been wondering how

# You've no regrets # You got a heart of stone

# You got a heart that feels so cold

# But I'm not letting go # I'm just letting you know

# You got a heart of stone # I've been thinking

# I've been thinking since you put me down

# I've been better # I'll be better

# I'll be so much better # Off without

# I'll be better # Better

# Off without # I'll be better better

# Off without # Oh yeah

# You got a heart of stone # You got a heart that feels so

cold # I'm not letting go

# I'm just letting you know # You got a heart of stone

# You got a heart that feels so cold

# I'm not letting go # I'm just letting you know

# You got a heart of stone # You got a heart that feels so

cold # I'm not letting go