大象传媒

Tom Sutcliffe and his guests novelists Gillian Slovo and Michael Arditti and writer Ekow Eshun review the week's cultural highlights including A Delicate Balance.

James MacDonald's production of A Delicate Balance by Edward Albee at the Almeida Theatre in London stars Penelope Wilton and Tim Piggot-Smith as Agnes and Tobias - a middle-aged couple who share a home with Agnes's alcoholic sister (Imelda Staunton). The couple's lives are knocked off balance when their daughter returns home and their friends Harry and Edna turn up in flight from some existential dread.

The aftermath of the 1971 Bangladeshi War of Independence provides the setting for Tahmima Anam's novel The Good Muslim. Maya and Sohail are siblings who have both played their part in the ideological struggle, but their ways of dealing with the disappointments and betrayals that come with their new nation set them at odds.

Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's film A Screaming Man is another human drama played out against the background of a civil war. Adam and his son Abdel live in Chad's capital city N'Djamena. Adam (Youssouf Djaoro) is a former champion swimmer who takes great pride in his job as a hotel pool attendant, but when he is usurped by Abdel (Diouc Koma) his instinct for self-preservation has tragic consequences.

The 大象传媒4 documentary This Green and Pleasant Land explores the development of British landscape painting from the 18th century to the present day. Contemporary artists including Ralph Steadman, John Virtue and the film-maker Nick Roeg augment this history by responding to the work of their predecessors who looked at and recorded the British countryside.

Holburne Museum in Bath is the former home of Sir William Holburne and contains his extensive collection which comprises a wide variety of items from majolica and porcelain to silverware and paintings by artists such as Gainsborough and Stubbs. The museum has just reopened after an 拢11m renovation which includes a new extension that provides more space to display the collection and also a temporary exhibition room. The opening exhibition is Peter Blake's A Museum For Myself.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.