09/06/2012

Tom Sutcliffe and his guests novelists Dreda Say Mitchell and Deborah Moggach and writer Paul Morley review the week's cultural highlights including Ben Drew's film iLL Manors.

Ben Drew (a.k.a rapper Plan B) makes his directorial debut with the film iLL Manors. Ed and Aaron are small time East London drug dealers and the film weaves various interlocking narratives around them and others eking out a hand-to-mouth existence in a dangerous and morally hazy environment.

Martin Amis's novel Lionel Asbo is also set on a London estate where deprivation and criminality are rife. Lionel is the pitbull-owning uncle of Des - a teenager with higher aspirations. But while Des attempts to break free via education, Lionel moves into the precarious world of instant celebrity and notoriety after a lottery win.

Gregory Doran's production of Julius Caesar at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford relocates the action to a modern African state. Jeffery Kissoon is Caesar with Paterson Joseph as Br