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Guests:
Novelist Dreda Say Mitchell
Journalist Anne McElvoy
Historian Tristram Hunt

Gran Torino
In what is reported to be his last onscreen performance, Clint Eastwood directs himself as a cantankerous old racist whose Dirty Harry-like approach to local hoodlums draws him into an unexpected friendship with his Vietnamese neighbours. So is this twist on Eastwood’s old persona a fitting climax to one of the great Hollywood careers?

Gran Torino is on general release now, certificate 15.

Lenny Henry plays Othello
In 2006, Lenny Henry made a pair of documentaries for Radio 4 in which he tackled his Bard-phobia. The process was so successful that, by the end of the second programme, he was seriously contemplating a Shakespearean debut. The panel went to Leeds to see how he fared as Othello – one of the toughest roles in British theatre.

Northern Broadsides' production of Othello continues at the West Yorkshire Playhouse until 14 March, and then visits Scarborough, Coventry, Bath, Kingston-upon-Thames, Newcastle and Halifax.

Van Dyck and Britain
The panel visit Tate Britain to see some spectacular propaganda for the absolute monarchy of Charles I - the Flemish painter Van Dyck’s portraits of the King and the members of his court. As portraits, these may be magnificent, but as propaganda they arguably contributed to the rebellion against the monarchy that was to sweep the King from power soon afterwards.

Van Dyck and Britain is at Tate Britain in London until the seventeenth of May.

I Am the West
The British Muslim Forum and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office have backed a series of nine adverts, aimed at young Pakistanis, as part of a campaign to deter those who are potentially vulnerable to radicalisation. The ads feature a range of British Muslims talking about their lives, and declaring themselves both British and Muslim. But how persuasively made are these 30-second films?

The I Am the West adverts start screening in Pakistan in Urdu and Pashtu from 23 February. English language versions will be available to watch at IMIB.

Their Finest Hour-and-a-Half
Lissa Evans, one-time producer of Father Ted and The Kumars at Number 42, sets her new novel amid the Blitz in 1940. An ill-assorted group of thespians and media types attempt the down-at-heel task of making an uplifting movie about Dunkirk…

Their Finest Hour-and-a-Half by Lissa Evans is published by Doubleday.

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