News in Picture

Tonight it is all about fantasy and reality in Newsnight and Newsnight Review.

Stranger than fiction... President Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. It has been met, in the main, by shock and incredulity. As one US political commentator said, "Perhaps next they'll start giving Oscars not to the people who have made the best movies of last year, but to the people who have the best chance of making the best movies next year."

Mr Obama says he is "humbled" by the award given by the committee for giving America "hope for a better future."

Does he deserve it? Is he a peacemaker - yet? Has he made the weather in Iran, the Middle East, Russia, North Korea, Afghanistan? Our Diplomatic Editor, Mark Urban will be looking at his record so far.

Today President Obama holds the fourth of five summits to plan the next stage in Afghanistan - whether to send more troops of not. And we will be speaking to the author of the book which is said to have the answers to the Afghan problem - read by everyone in the White House, and to PJ Crowley, assistant secretary at the State Department.

Also tonight, will we have the energy or the money to keep the lights on in 2020? Today Ofgem issued a stark warning about energy prices, saying there is a "high likelihood" of increased energy bills, citing a combination of the need to establish energy security, clean coal technology, investment in new energy sources, and further technological advances to deal with climate change. Bills could rise by as much as twenty-five per cent.

Paul Mason will analyse why this has happened and what needs to be done. And we'll be asking the government minister responsible whether they are to blame and what they intend to do to sort it out.

And then on Review at 11pm: welcome to the fantasy factory!

On the thirtieth anniversary of Douglas Adams' best selling book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy we examine how far sci-fi and fantasy have come, and why.

From the geeky fringes of a counter culture, straight into the mainstream, to multi-million dollar Hollywood deals for the best directors and writers.

Is the phenomenal success of a series like Flash Forward pure escapism, or a way of holding a mirror up to our dark times, when little of supposed reality makes sense?

We also examine the appeal of the hit film District 9, a mockumentary set in Johannesburg, in which aliens suffer a new apartheid, and are exploited by the city's violent gang culture.

I'll be joined by uber-geek turned Mr Hollywood cool, director Kevin Smith; comic genius Mark Millar - with his new geek turned superhero, Kick Ass, Eoin Colfer who has inhabited the interplanetary homemade weird-world of Hitchhiker's to write the sequel, writer and self confessed geek Natalie Haynes (minus the spots and specs) and award winning author Jeanette Winterson, who loves science, in fiction.

Together we'll discuss our voracious appetite for fantasy.

Do join me.