Peter O'Toole and Jode Whittaker in Roger Michell's Venus.
Photo Credit: Nicola Dove.
Playlist
Hanif Kureishi
Matthew Sweet talks to novelist, playwright and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi about his new film, Venus, for which Peter O'Toole was this week nominated for a Best Actor Oscar.
Kureishi explains why he was driven to try and boost the reputation of two much-mocked social groups: actors and white working-class girls.
British Fascists
Last year, prompted by the release of the film V for Vendetta, Night Waves explored a submerged genre - past fantasies about the coming death of British democracy - and wondered if the new movie marked the genre's return to prominence.
Since then, fresh imaginings of a coming British dictatorship have proliferated. Night Waves talks to the authors of these visions and finds out what is frightening them most - terrorism legislation, the migration debate - or worries about environmental calamity?
Edith Wharton
And the biographer and chair of last year's Man Booker Prize judges Hermione Lee tells Matthew why she has turned her attention to the American novelist Edith Wharton.
