Woyzeck, The Other Side of Hope, Handmaid's Tale, Elif Batuman, California exhibition

Saturday Review

John Boyega plays the title role in Woyzeck; an updating of a 19th century German play about a man driven mad by circumstances. How well has the Star Wars actor adapted to the stage? And has Jack Thorne - who adapted Harry Potter for the theatre - made the play relevant for today's audience? Finnish film director Aki Kaurasmaki's latest film is The Other Side of Hope - told in his trademark low key, quiet manner, it deals with a refugee arriving in Helsinki. There's a new TV version of The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel, coming to Channel 4. It's had rave reviews in the US, will it beguile our reviewers? Turkish/American writer Elif Batuman's latest novel The Idiot is set over the course of one year in a student's life at Harvard in the late 1980s. Her academic pursuits and longing for love are revealed in the novel (which intentionally shares its title with Dostoevsky) California Designing Freedom is a new exhibition at London's Design Museum celebrating the enormous range of items designed in The Golden State. It ties together the explosion in design with the hippy movement and mind-expanding drugs.

Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Louise Doughty, Giles Fraser and Maev Kennedy. The producer is Oliver Jones.