Van Gogh, Mondrian, Nicholson Baker, Hotel, The Dirties

Available for over a year

The Dirties is a Canadian indie film about a couple of friends planning to make a film about a Columbine-style school massacre, where the bullies will be made to pay for what they've done. It begins to dawn on one of them that his best friend might actually be hatching a bloody murderous revenge. The main character in Nicholson Baker's latest novel "Travelling Sprinkler" is a poet who has fallen out of love with writing poems. Trying to become a songwriter, we see his personal life woven into his lyrics. The work of Dutch artist Piet Mondrian is characterised by geometric compositions using blocks of primary colours. A major new exhibition at Tate Liverpool looks at how his work evolved as he moved from studios in Paris and London to New York. Did you know that Vincent Van Gogh lived and worked in London? His job was at an art dealers in Covent Garden and he lived in Brixton. A new audio walk "At the Crossroads with Vincent" explores turning-points in life through the perspective of Van Gogh's letters to his brother Theo. It's non site-specific and anyone can be take part anywhere in the world. Is it enjoyable? Informative? Enlightening? Hotel is the fourth play from Polly Stenham, whose debut was staged at The Royal Court when she was only 19. It focuses on a dysfunctional family on holiday at a flash hotel in a poor country and has strong echoes of Shakespeare's The Tempest. How important is it to know the source to appreciate this play? Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Gillian Slovo, John Mullan and David Benedict. The producer is Oliver Jones.