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Cahal Dallat – Poet
Susannah Clapp – Critic
Sarfraz Manzoor – Writer

The Masque of the Red Death
The experimental theatre company Punchdrunk’s new work is The Masque of the Red Death, a journey into the macabre world of a devastated land, inspired by the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe. This site-specific work designed for Battersea Arts Centre’s Victorian Town Hall building, is perhaps best described as a ‘performance installation’. The director is Felix Barrett and it is choreographed by Maxine Doyle.

The Masque of the Red Death is at The Battersea Arts Centre in London until 12 January

The Gum Thief
Douglas Coupland’s latest book is an epistolatory novel for the 21st Century. It tells the story of the growth of an unusual friendship between two workers in dead-end jobs at a stationery superstore in Vancouver.

The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland is published by Bloomsbury

The Painting of Modern Life
This exhibition explores the influence of photographs on contemporary paintings with works by Andy Warhol, David Hockney and Gerhard Richter arranged thematically to show how the art of photography has inspired contemporary painters. Featuring 100 works from the past five decade, the exhibition seeks to demonstrate the power of painting to capture and comment on recent history.

Control
Samantha Morton and newcomer Sam Riley star in Control, a film about the life and death of Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Division. Directed by Anton Corbijin, the man famous for photographing U2, the film charts the formation of Joy Division in 1970s Macclesfield and the life of Curtis as he struggles with marrying young, having a child and coping with epilepsy.

Why Democracy?
Why Democracy? is a multi-media event on television, radio and online in more than 200 countries and involving over 40 broadcasters. At the heart of the season are ten documentaries made by filmmakers across the world.