Arts on Sunday for Sunday 7 September 2008

The programme today is broadcast live from Christchurch

12:40 The Pohutakawa Tree

Lucy Orbell welcomes the return of a seminal New Zealand play, Bruce Mason's The Pohutakawa Tree.

12:50 Body Festival Preview

We preview the Body Festival in Christchurch with organiser Adam Hayward and Julia Milsom (pictured right) who's the choreographer of 'Locked' and dancer in 'Locked' and 'Hover' a Christchurch double bill in the Festival.

1:00 At the Movies with Simon Morris

Simon Morris looks at the latest exotic blockbuster - Hellboy 2, the Golden Army; And two smaller movies offer an alternative - the nostalgic Mrs Ratcliffe's Revolution, and actress Helen Hunt's debut as a director, Then She Found Me.

1:30 Mark Sarvas

Influential American literary blogger and now novelist, Mark Sarvas, a guest at the Christchurch Writers Festival.

1:40 Phil Dadson

Phil Dadson (pictured right) discusses his sonic 'body parts' art work and his new commission for the New Zealand Trio.

1:50 SCAPE

SCAPE takes over Christchurch's streets, gardens, highways and byways every two years, we meet two of the artists to find out what they have planned for next month.

Pictured below: Avon Lights - develops themes seen in the pair's previous work with movement activated sensors. The lights are situated just below the surface of the Avon River, and will be moved between a number of different locations over the duration of the Biennial. This creates a magical, almost mystical experience for passers-by who are drawn to the water's edge by what appears to be a luminescent apparition under the water.

2:00 The Laugh Track

Filmmaker Roseanne Liang shares some of her best loved comedy memories.

2:20 Theatre Review

Mike Houlihan reviews The Birthday Boy (cast pictured right), a new play by Carl Nixon at the Court Theatre in Christchurch.

2:30 Writer's Block

Novelist Lloyd Jones returns home, briefly, from Berlin and touring Writers' Festivals, and David Gregory and Coral Atkinson discuss their anthology of poetry and prose inspired by Banks Peninsula.

2:50 Hand Crafted Book Exhibition

Alan Loney is a highly respected printer of hand crafted books in Australasia. An exhibition of his work is on at the Christchurch Art Gallery as part of Christchurch Writers Week.

2:55 Theatre Review

Richard Mays reviews the latest Centrepoint Theatre production, Vigil (pictured right).

3:00 Radio Drama

Omar Sharif stars in a generational, family saga chronicling the life of a middle class family in an Egypt adjusting to the modern world at the start of the 20th century when Egypt was a British 'protectorate' . It's the first of three plays in The Cairo trilogy - dramatised from the novels of the Nobel Prize winning Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz (pictured left).