29/09/2012

Tom Sutcliffe and his guests stage designer Es Devlin, novelist Kamila Shamsie and academic and critic John Mullan review the week's cultural highlights

Alan Ayckbourn's play A Chorus of Disapproval is being revived by Trevor Nunn at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London. It stars Rob Brydon as Dafydd ap Llewellyn, director of an amateur operatic company attempting to stage The Beggar's Opera. Ashley Jensen is his downtrodden wife Hannah who becomes rather interested in newcomer Guy (Nigel Harman).

In Leos Carax's film Holy Motors Denis Lavant plays Monsieur Oscar - a man who cruises Paris in the back of stretch limo, going from appointment to appointment where he plays roles such as a banker, a beggar woman and an irate father, but who the audience is remains unclear. The film also features Edith Scob as his driver, Eva Mendes and Kylie Minogue.

Two new books take on the challenge of explaining modern art, one for readers who may be too young to have seen much of it - What Is Contemp