The Review Show is a British discussion programme dedicated to the arts which airs on Friday evenings at 11:00pm on BBC Two

BBC Two

BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...

. The programme features a panel of guests who review the week's developments in the world of the arts and culture.

Background

The Review Show began life as Late Review in 1994, a strand within The Late Show, an arts magazine which followed the current affairs programme Newsnight

Newsnight

Newsnight is a BBC Television current affairs programme noted for its in-depth analysis and often robust cross-examination of senior politicians. Jeremy Paxman has been its main presenter for over two decades....

. From 19 March 2000 to 18 December 2009 the review show was appended to Newsnight on Friday night as part of one programme, 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. Mark Lawson

Mark Lawson

Mark Gerard Lawson is an English journalist, broadcaster and author.-Life and career:Born in Hendon, London, Lawson was raised in Yorkshire and is a Leeds United fan. He was educated at St Columba's College in St Albans and took a degree in English at University College London, where his lecturers...

 was the programme's original main presenter from 2000 to December 2005, having previously presented the Late Review and The Late Show strands. Other presenters included Kirsty Wark

Kirsty Wark

Kirsteen Anne Wark is a British journalist and television presenter best known for fronting the BBC Two's news and current affairs programme Newsnight since 1993, and its weekly arts annexe Newsnight Review which is now relaunched as "The Review Show".-Biography:Wark was born in Dumfries to Jimmy...

, Martha Kearney

Martha Kearney

Martha Catherine Kearney is an Irish-born British broadcaster and journalist. She is the main presenter of BBC Radio 4's lunchtime news programme The World at One.-Early life:...

, John Wilson

John Wilson (broadcaster)

John Richard Wilson is a British journalist and broadcaster. He is the son of Bob Wilson, former Arsenal goalkeeper and television sports presenter.- Life and career :...

, Natalie Haynes

Natalie Haynes

Natalie Haynes is a British comedian and writer. She has been performing stand-up comedy since 1994 and was a member of Footlights at Cambridge University where she read Classics at Christ's College...

, Tim Marlow

Tim Marlow

Tim Marlow is a British writer, broadcaster and art historian. He is best known for his regular feature on Channel Five - Tim Marlow on..., an occasional series in which he looks at current art exhibitions. He has also had several other art programs, radio programs and publications...

, Kwame Kwei-Armah

Kwame Kwei-Armah

Kwame Kwei-Armah, is a British actor, playwright, singer and broadcaster. In 2005 he became the second black Briton to have a play staged in the West End...

 and Hardeep Singh Kohli

Hardeep Singh Kohli

Hardeep Singh Kohli is a British writer and radio and television presenter.-Background:Kohli was born in London and moved to Glasgow in Scotland when he was four. His parents came to the UK from India in the 1960s. The family's roots lie in the Punjab. His mother was a social worker, and his...

. Regular reviewers included Mark Kermode

Mark Kermode

Mark Kermode is an English film critic, musician and a member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He contributes to Sight and Sound magazine, The Observer newspaper and BBC Radio 5 Live, where he presents Kermode and Mayo's Film Reviews with Simon Mayo on Friday afternoons...

, Tom Paulin

Tom Paulin

Thomas Neilson Paulin is a Northern Irish poet and critic of film, music and literature. He lives in England, where he is the GM Young Lecturer in English Literature at Hertford College, Oxford.- Life and work :...

, Ekow Eshun

Ekow Eshun

Ekow Eshun is a British writer, journalist, and broadcaster. Until November 2010 he was the artistic director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, leaving before the end of his six month notice period. He is a contributor to BBC2's Friday night arts programme Newsnight Review and a...

 and Germaine Greer

Germaine Greer

Germaine Greer is an Australian writer, academic, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century....

.

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. It has the same producer as Newsnight Review, follows the same format of a chair and a panel of guests reviewing the arts, and is still presented by Kirsty Wark

Kirsty Wark

Kirsteen Anne Wark is a British journalist and television presenter best known for fronting the BBC Two's news and current affairs programme Newsnight since 1993, and its weekly arts annexe Newsnight Review which is now relaunched as "The Review Show".-Biography:Wark was born in Dumfries to Jimmy...

 and Martha Kearney

Martha Kearney

Martha Catherine Kearney is an Irish-born British broadcaster and journalist. She is the main presenter of BBC Radio 4's lunchtime news programme The World at One.-Early life:...

. The programme is normally broadcast on a Friday after Newsnight

Newsnight

Newsnight is a BBC Television current affairs programme noted for its in-depth analysis and often robust cross-examination of senior politicians. Jeremy Paxman has been its main presenter for over two decades....

, but on 19 May 2011, it was broadcast on a Thursday, with Kirsty Wark

Kirsty Wark

Kirsteen Anne Wark is a British journalist and television presenter best known for fronting the BBC Two's news and current affairs programme Newsnight since 1993, and its weekly arts annexe Newsnight Review which is now relaunched as "The Review Show".-Biography:Wark was born in Dumfries to Jimmy...

and guests discussing the future of television.