Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power; Three Thousand Years of Longing; Nick Drnaso; the Edinburgh Festivals

Published: Sept. 1, 2022, 7:23 p.m.

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Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power is a prequel and in keeping with the epic scale of Tolkein\\u2019s books and their film versions it doesn\\u2019t begin a two years before The Hobbit but two thousand. Sci-fi novelist Temi Oh and film critic Tim Robey review the Amazon Prime series. They also consider the merits of another millennia spanning work, George Miller\\u2019s film Three Thousand Years of Longing. It\\u2019s a radical departure for the director of the Mad Max films; an adaptation of a short story by A. S. Byatt staring Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba, who plays a djinn \\u2013 a genie. So, it should be good\\u2026but is it?

Samira Ahmed talks to Nick Drnaso, whose Sabrina was the first graphic novel to be selected for the Booker Prize longlist. In his new one, Acting Class, ten strangers come together in the class run by the mysterious John Smith, who is possibly a charlatan. His students, all very different, share one uniting need, for change.

The lights went out on the final performances of this year\\u2019s Edinburgh Festivals on Monday. It\\u2019s being said that there were fewer people attending fewer shows and that prices, especially of accommodation, were prohibitive. And then the binnies went on strike and the elegant streets of Scotland\\u2019s capital were strewn with rubbish. So, Pauline McClean, BBC Scotland\\u2019s Arts Correspondent wonders, were the festivals successful? Does there need to be some change?

And, marking Mikhail Gorbachev\\u2019s death, a poem from The Poetry of Perestroika, a pioneering anthology made possible by his reforms.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed\\nProducers: Yasmin Allen and Julian May\\nProduction Co-ordinator: Lizzie Harris

Image: taken from Acting Class by Nick Drnaso, published by Granta

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