Late Review (1994 - 2014) Culture & Arts Review (30m)
(A.K.A: Artsnight, Newsnight Review, Review, The Review Show)
The Review Show is a British discussion programme dedicated to the arts which ran, under several titles, from 1994 to 2014. The programme featured a panel of guests who reviewed developments in the world of the arts and culture.
History
The Review Show began as Late Review in 1994, a strand within The Late Show, an arts magazine which followed the current affairs programme Newsnight, airing on Thursday nights. On 19 March 2000, it moved to a peak time Sunday evening slot within the Art Zone strand, and the title shortened to Review, before moving to Friday nights from 23 February 2001 where the review show was appended to Newsnight, and renamed Newsnight Review.
Newsnight Review was a consumer survey of the week's artistic and cultural highlights which appeared on Friday evening's edition of Newsnight. The programme featured a chair and a panel of three invited guests who would review a selection of books, plays, films and exhibitions.
Presenters and guests
Mark Lawson was the programme's original main presenter from 2001 to December 2005, having previously presented the Late Review and The Late Show strands.
Other presenters included Kirsty Wark, Martha Kearney, Tom Sutcliffe, John Wilson, Natalie Haynes, Tim Marlow, Kwame Kwei-Armah and Hardeep Singh Kohli.
Regular reviewers included Allison Pearson, Mark Kermode, Tom Paulin, Tony Parsons, Ekow Eshun and Germaine Greer.
Name change
As part of the BBC's commitment to moving programmes out of London, it was announced in 2009 that Newsnight Review would end and be replaced by The Review Show, produced from Glasgow. The final edition of Newsnight Review was aired with an hour-long special with a review of the year on 18 December 2009.
The Review Show was launched on 22 January 2010, with the same producer as Newsnight Review, and following the same format of a chair and a panel of guests (normally three) reviewing the arts, and still presented by Kirsty Wark and Martha Kearney.
As of March 2013 The Review Show was moved to BBC Four and reduced to a monthly, rather than weekly, broadcast. The duration of each episode was increased to an hour.
The final episode of the show was aired on 30 March 2014
Release date: January 20, 1994 - 30 March 2014 (United Kingdom)
Also known as: Late Review (1994–2000), Review (2000–01), Newsnight Review (2001–09)
Presented by: Mark Lawson (1994-2005), Kirsty Wark (2002-2013), Martha Kearney (2006-2014)
Network: BBC Two (1994–2013), BBC Four (2013–2014), BBC World News (2013–2014)
Genre: Culture & Arts, Talk Show
Country of origin: United Kingdom
Production company: British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Television
Directed by: Amanda Crayden
Runtime: 55 minutes
Language: British English
"Very enjoyable Arts Review programme"
"This is an important programme to have on TV... it may seem like academics and commentators 'speaking above' the level of regular television or life, but frankly, why shouldn't there be a place for this? So much of television seems positively afraid of disclosing any intelligence or thoughtfulness; this is a welcome step aside from the screaming, noise and 'hi jinks' of much TV."
"Some panellists are more to my taste than others. Mark Kermode is excellent; not perhaps as academic as some, but deeply knowledgeable in the field of Film and always provides a brisk, contrasting style of debate. It might be nice to see the likes of Richard Jobson more often as well; he is quite a pugnacious critic of films."
"I cannot agree with the previous reviewer concerning Tom Paulin; the man is in effect the star of the show with his languid, drawn-out manner and sublime cantankerousness! And it's certainly not true that he is always negative; he can often praise some pretty surprising things. His academic style is appropriate considering he is a lecturer in English Literature at Oxford University, as well as being a poet. I think it's good that we have such contributors on TV... a shame perhaps that they are so clearly confined to niche programmes like this and to the under-appreciated haven of BBC4."
"Wil Self and Bonnie Greer can give interesting views; as can Germaine Greer... I seem particularly to remember an almighty row she had with Paulin over a Bloody Sunday documentary or dramatisation; whenever Paulin touches the subject of Northern Ireland (just on the recent modern "Canterbury Tales", he said of a performance: "James Nesbitt doing the honest Ulsterman, all that fake Ulster sincerity, some of us know so well") things do tend to get quite fiery. When a subject really arouses Paulin's ire, he has been known to use very outspoken language... a loose cannon? I certainly don't think that passionate views should be necessarily tempered where relevant."
"Paul Morley comes across very well, a sharply intelligent and quite droll cultural critic; it's a shame really that there's so little musical analysis on the show as compared to the other Arts, as Morley is one of the pre-eminent figures in (popular and otherwise) music criticism - from his days at the NME in the early 1980s to his recent tome "Words and Music"."
"It's fairly typical that he takes a TV drama say - like "The Deal" - and applies amusing popular culture and musical analogies. Always illuminating and opinionated; which this show is at its best. Will Self as many might imagine is very suited to this sort of programme; perhaps sometimes straying from relevance but often having very incisive contributions. Natasha Walter is a good example of a panelist with feisty opinions, but not quite the overbearing quality of Germaine Greer."
"So, I'm particularly always glad when Morley, Kermode or Paulin are on. Less so, I'm afraid for some other occasional guests; Ian Hislop is trenchant in a slightly closed-minded 'man on the street' manner sometimes. Michael Portillo - a surprising recent addition - has seemed a similar outsider figure to the academia and critic's circle that it often is. His contributions are I suppose an interesting contrast, yet it's too early to say whether he'll be an irritating figure such as Hislop. Rosie Boycott is perhaps one of the more ubiquitous of the panellists I dislike; mealy-mouthed, really very self-satisfied and staid style; again like Hislop, she comes from a non-Arts journalist background."
"Miranda Sawyer too can sometimes be annoying, though slightly less so than Boycott. Perhaps some of the panellists are a little too bland - there are quite a few I can't really remember, writing this article - but generally at least most have something of worth to say. It might be an idea I think for a broader array of lesser-known faces, from the academic world or from writing to be given a go, in place of some of the less insightful panellists."
"Main presenter Mark Lawson does the job effortlessly; a polite, bespectacled and genial host, gently guiding the discussion and providing contadictory points of view where needed. Kirsty Walk - she of that inimitable Scottish dialect - a presenter of Newsnight proper, quite often takes the chair; while not quite as assured and deft in this area as Lawson, she shows enthusiasm and handles things effectively."
"Overall, this programme is a delight to watch for those of us interested in the Arts. I do not think that one can be expected to be anything like an expert in all of the Arts that NR covers, yet if you go in with an open mind, you may learn quite a lot. That is the benefit of having experts and keen intellects discussing such subjects. It is clearly all for the better of the show as television that it has regular panelists who can be as entertaining and erudite in their own different ways as Tom Paulin, Paul Morley, Bonnie Greer, Will Self and Mark Kermode. This is a relaxed and likeable "Newsnight Review" of the week's Arts, and I always tune in to watch it, either on TV or via the internet when I'm at University."