jeffrey brown has our look. >> brown: there they were, the happy young couple: prince harry and his americande-to-be meghan markle, offering the world the prospect of another royal wedding of pomp and spectacle. and what do queen elizabeth and prince philip, harry's grandparents, think of the couple? >> they look marvelous together. >> they do. they're an attractive pair. >> brown: claire foy is, of course, not the queen of england, but she plays her on tv, in the popular and highly acclaimed netflix series, "the crown," just starting its second season. it's a behind-the-palace-walls, fiction-that-feels-real portrait of the windsors, beginning with the young elizabeth becoming queen at age 25 in 1952. >> what's wrong with my name? >> long live queen elizabeth. >> brown: what was the key to getting her right? >> not trying to get her right, i think. i just never tried to play up to an idea that anyone else might have of her. we've been fed that, we know who that is, we all know who the queen is from what we see, and all the images that we have, and what she said. >> brown: the queen as icon,

jeffrey brown has the story. ♪ ♪ >> brown: when the members of the alexandria, egypt ceremonial bandsrael for a performance, it was immediately clear something is wrong. they were expected in the city of petah tikva-- with a "p." >> ♪ that's petah tikva with a "p"! ♪ >> brown: but through a mistranslation, have come to the sleepy desert town of bet hatikva, with a "b." where dina, owner of the one tiny cafe, lets them know there's not a lot going on. >> ♪ welcome to nowhere >> brown: the new musical "the band's visit," set in 1996, is about missed opportunities. crossed signals. little and big things, like love, that do and, more often, don't happen. and it's connecting with audiences and critics alike. the "new york times" called it a "musical for grownups." ♪ ♪ at sardi's restaurant in times square, we talked with members of the production team, including actress katrina lenk, who stars as dina. >> i think it's about loneliness, and our choice to remain lonely or to not be lonely when an opportunity comes around. it's about taking little risks. and it's also about how music, and ar

jeffrey brown is back with a conversation he recorded about some songs you may know, and many you may. >> brown: and we take a look and listen to some of the highlights of the year in popular music. joining me are two music critics ann powers and mikael wood of the "los angeles times." glad to have you back. let me start with you, ann, a couple of top choices of the year. >> definitely the critics' favorite is damn by kendrick lamar. it's the los angeles' rapper's fourth album, highlights more of his amazing flow, amazing rhyming skills. the production is really great. it tells a cohesive story about kind of like fallen virtue and redemption and struggle. ♪ my resume two millennium ♪ a better way of making them is defending them ♪ ♪ i meditate -- >> personally the kesha album rainbow is at the top of my list. kesha emerged several years ago as a pop star, a comedic heroin. she has for a long time been involved in a court case with her exproducer dr. luke over alleged sexual misconduct. this album is her coming back to the forefront. it's really just, like, overflowing with great songs

jeffrey brown has this latest addition to the newshour bookshelf. >> brown: it's a story of one youngman and a much larger system in crisis. at age 15, michael allen was convicted of attempted carjacking. he was charged as an adult and spent almost 11 years in prison. what led to that moment and what followed ending in his murder at age 29, is told in a highly personal memoir titled "cuz." author danielle allen was michael's cousin, she's a classicist and political scientist at harvard university. and welcome back to you. >> thank you jeff. >> brown: you clearly set out to write about someone you knew and loved, but also to frame him within this larger national issue is that a fair way to put it? >> it is. my cousin had this tragic life. i had to understand why, what had happened to him, why did he end up dead, why was he in prison for so long? and i knew that digging into that story would help me also understand what has happened so many young men, particularly african american young men in this country in the last 20 years. >> brown: as we fill in his story it's a very particular ti

jeffrey brown profiles a choreographer who is lighting up the stage in new york this holiday season. >> brown: for tap dancing phenom michelle dorrance, the most important thing you need to know about her art form is this: >> you dance to create music, tap dance is the dance of creating music. >> brown: that means we, the audience, watch and listen. and for dorrance, the sounds she seeks guide the movement. >> in order to get this sound, i have to move my body this way, so the look of tap dance is often because we needed a hard toe, or a heel, or a toe drop. and because of these particular nuances, our body had to do this to execute that sound, and that's where the dance comes from. its when people say to us, "oh, i get it, it's music." and you're like, "yes, that's what drives us." >> brown: since founding her company, dorrance dance, in 2011, michelle dorrance has helped lead a renaissance in tap, gaining attention for her own exuberant, athletic style-- arms, head and feet in motion. she's choreographed full-length dances for her group, including "e.t.m.: double down," where the f

with the recent release of a book on the life and words of mandela, jeffrey brown has a special edition of the newshour bookshelf from johannesburg, south africa. >> brown: four years after his death, nelson mandela remains the larger-than-life symbol of historic change in south africa, the man who led a liberation movement against the white apartheid regime from prison before being released in 1990. now comes a new look at the political struggle that followed and mandela's five years as president of a newly democratic nation. >> i took on the project because i believed in the man, number one and i respected him, but much more importantly i felt that his words needed to be heard far and wide. >> brown: mandla langa, best known in south africa as a novelist, worked from drafts mandela himself wrote toward a never-finished memoir of his presidential years. the result is "dare not linger"" partly mandela's words, partly langa's, presented as a sequel to mandela's 1995 memoir "long walk to freedom," which sold some 14 million worldwide. for mandla langa, this was personal: an activist in an

tonight, jeffrey brown showcases the best of tv and video. >> trying to pin down the best tv of the year more difficult in this age of streaming and unlimited channels for a flavor of the year we turn to a pair of critics who somehow try to keep up with it all. eric deggans and jen chaney. she writes for "new york magazine"'s pop culture site vulture, welcome to both of you. eric, one on your list was "the deuce" from hobb. >> it was done by david simon creator of "the wire" and it's a detailed look of how the porn industry grew from becoming this sort of illegal venture in the 1970s around times square to a more legitimate business controlled by the mob. franco gets attention based on actual people at the center of this. i was transferred by maggie jillen hall who does an amazing job of playing a prostitute who decides to change her fortunes by becoming a director in porn films as porn is transforming from something sold illegally under the counter in brown paper bags in book stores to something you can see in peep shows and movie inerts and buy openly in book stores. >> brown: let's ta

jeffrey brown continues our own look tonight with the year in feature films. >> brown: and it's timee again to look at some of the year's finest work and perhaps some you didn't know that you can now check out. a subjective take, of course, from two film critics who have back from time to time, ann hornaday of "the washington post" and mike sargent of wabai new york, critic of the film circle. welcome back. >> thank you. >> brown: "mud bound" a new one. mike, why tid you like it? >> for a lot of reasons. mud bound is compared to a modern day grapes of wrath. it's comparable to that but definitely a film that characters or goes over a chapter in american history that's glossed over in a lot of ways. it touches upon a great many great important subjects, especially, you know, blacks in the military, you know, being poor, being in the south, and i have to say it's a testimony that didn't have to cost a lot of money, it's a small film that has a much, much bigger significance. i happen to think that dee reeves is a fantastic talent. i think she will be one to haveo have -- she will be no

thanks. 54 go live 6:30 >> sreenivasan: finally, in the latest addition to the newshour bookshelf, jeffrey brownmines the wild west that was miami beach where cocaine cowboys played and died. >> brown: al pacino's gangster snarl in the film "scarface," the oh-so-cool undercover detectives in "miami vice," the popular culture images of miami in the 1980s when cocaine drug lords helped make it the murder capital of america. the real life story is told in the new book "hotel scarface." author roben farzad is a business journalist, host of "full disclosure" on npr one and occasional contributor to this program and it's nice to talk to you roben. >> so nice to... >> brown: we usually talk about economics, but here we are. why this subject? why did you want to go look at this story? >> my heart has been with this in the 22 to 23 years since i left miami to go to college. when cocaine came to town it was so ridiculously profitable, it was so seductive, it made people do such crazy things in the name of money and power and bloodlust that you had something approximating a failed state by 1981 in miami. >

jeffrey brown spoke to author robin benway recently at the miami book fair, about her new young adult novel, "far from the tree." >> brown: so this is a book about... i mean, in one way, it's about adoption. but it's about more than that, clearly. about family and family ties. how did you come to think of it? >> it was actually a song lyric that inspired a very basic idea. >> brown: a song lyric? >> yeah, a song lyric. i was in a costco parking lot and i was desperate for ideas, and i had just told my publisher, "i'm so sorry, i don't have any ideas, you'll have to wait a while." and they were lovely, and very fine with that. and i heard a song while i was in a parking lot, and i was just immediately was like, "this book is about adoption." and that's how-- >> brown: what was the song? >> it was a florence and the machine song. ♪ ♪ i've heard it a thousand times before and i've heard it a thousand times since, but for some reason, that alchemy of that day and that parking lot just made me think of adoption, and a biological mother maybe putting her daughter up for adoption and hoping

jeffrey brown has this latest addition to the newshour bookshelf. >> brown: it was an unusual internationalenomenon. the six volume, 3,600 page series titled "my struggle" was an unusual form, dubbed an autobiographical novel. in it, norwegian author karl ove knausgaard wrote in great an intimate detail of his life. now comes a new book titled "autumn," written as a letter to his unborn daughter with short essays describing the world she'll be born into. karl ove knausgaard joins me now. welcome to you. >> thank you. >> brown: so after this enormous undertaking of the six volumes, you write a more quiet book, letters and thoughts to your daughter. were you trying to narrow things down? >> very much so. i mean "my struggle" is very much about my interior life and about psychology and relations and inner turmoil and i just lifted my gaze and wrote about the opposite which is what's outside of my and what's in the world. and at the same time we expected a child and i just wanted to write about the simple things, the simple pleasures of life and the world to her. >> brown: what did you want to

jeffrey brown has this second look from the "newshour bookshelf." >> brown: as a neurosurgeon, paul kalanithi used to dealing with life-and-death issues. he was, by his own account, a driven man, who studied literature and philosophy before turning to medicine, earning five degrees along the way. he was near completion of a rigorous residency at stanford when, at age 36, he got a diagnosis of lung cancer. >> five years down the line, i don't know what i will be doing. i may be dead. i may not be. >> brown: he would live just 22 months more, and in that time have a child with his wife, lucy, and write an indelible memoir, "when breath becomes air." >> he had thought maybe he would have a long career as a neurosurgeon or a scientist and then maybe a writer. >> brown: he had planned on all this, right? >> that's right. he said, you know, "i think i may be years into my retirement now, at age 36. and so what do i want to do?" and the answer was write. >> brown: lucy kalanithi is also a doctor. the two met at yale medical school, and were married nine years before paul's death in 2015. >> he was s

brown, thank you very much. i want to bring in our legal team. jeffrey toobin, michael zelton, and former virginia attorney general cam cushanelly. the fact that flynn is now cooperating, what stands out to you in these filings? >> it's hard -- there have been so many discrete facts. let me point to one of them. when james comey was fired, he testified afterwards about his contacts with the president, president trump. his constant requests to limit the investigation, you know, show your loyalty. but on february 14th, it was the most extraordinary contact between trump and comey. there was a meeting in the oval office, and trump shoed away the vice president, the attorney general, and it was just man-to-man with -- with comey. and what does donald trump say? he says, i want you to go easy on michael flynn. flynn's a good guy. leave flynn alone. today, we learned maybe why he was doing that, because flynn knows a lot about the misconduct that was going on in the white house. and the fact that he was trying to cover up for flynn is really i think an incredi