12/05/2012

Tom Sutcliffe and his guests writers Miranda Sawyer and Ekow Eshun and historian Kathryn Hughes review the week's cultural highlights including Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel Bring Up The Bodies is the sequel to Hilary Mantel's Booker Prize winning historical novel Wolf Hall. It is 1535 and Thomas Cromwell is Henry VIII's chief minister, trying to serve the king's interests following the break with Rome. The Rest Is Silence is dreamthinkspeak's deconstruction of Hamlet, performed in a warehouse in Shoreham-by-Sea as part of the Brighton Festival. Directed by Tristan Sharps, the action takes place behind perspex screens which surround the audience on all four sides. Tim Burton has joined forces with Johnny Depp again for Dark Shadows. The film is based on a popular US television series which ran from 1966 to 1971. Turned into a vampire and imprisoned in a locked coffin by a jealous witch in the 18th century, Barnabas Collins is finally released in 1972 and returns to his ancestral mansion in a New England fishing town to rebuild the family's fortunes. Still with Brighton, Sea of Voices is an interactive walk along the Brighton seafront devised by Invisible Flock as part of the Brighton Festival. And artist David Batchelor has produced a special commission for the Festival - Brighton Palermo Remix - an installation in an unmodernised Regency townhouse. He is also showing some of his other work in the basement of an adjoining property and another piece - Skip - in the middle of Bartholomew Square. In Arts Troubleshooter on BBC2, presenter Michael Lynch tries to guide cash-strapped arts organisations to a more secure future. In the first part he visits Northern Ballet in Leeds just after they find out that their Arts Council grant is to be cut by 15%. Producer: Torquil MacLeod.