21/01/2012

Tom Sutcliffe and his guests writers David Aaronovitch and Sarfraz Manzoor and historian Amanda Vickery review the week's cultural highlights including the film Coriolanus.

Ralph Fiennes makes his directorial debut with a film adaptation of Coriolanus, playing the title role in a modern day version of Shakespeare's play. Vanessa Redgrave plays his ambitious mother who wants him to capitalise on his success as a military leader by entering the political fray in Rome.

Julie Otsuka's novel The Buddha in the Attic tells the story of Japanese 'picture brides' who travelled to San Francisco nearly a century ago to marry men who they had never met before. They try to fit into a very unfamiliar society and to remain as inconspicuous as possible, but the attack on Pearl Harbor suddenly makes them very visible and very vulnerable.

Anthony Sher stars in Nicholas Wright's new play Travelling Light, directed at the National Theatre by Nicholas Hytner. He plays a timber merchant in a shtetl somew