BREAKING GROUND: Cast members from A Raisin In The Sun. Audra McDonald (front left), Sean Combs (front centre) and Phylicia Rashad (front right) come out for a curtain call at the end of the play in New York

Making its Broadway debut in 1959, it was the first play written by a black woman and presented by a black director, Lloyd Richards, to be produced on Broadway. The original cast was headed by Sidney Poitier with Ruby Dee and a young Lou Gosset Jr in the cast.

It is a tough family drama about an old woman who wants to use the money from her insurance pay-out to buy a decent family house in a white neighbourhood. That brings problems with racist laws of the time, but she is also challenged by the men in the family, who want to use her money to open a liquor store in the ghetto. The conflict within the family and the final outcome was seen as a microcosm of the issues that black Americans faced during the Civil Rights movement. It was made into a film in 1961 with Poitier and Dee once again in the main roles.

This new 2008 TV version features Sean "P Diddy" Combs playing the role that Poitier created and Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald and Sanaa Lathan in the main female roles.

C.I.G.A.R. Wednesday, SABC3, 20:31

Here's something specifically for the guys who love the action and great outdoors. It features a trio of men: ex-Mr South Africa, Zino Ventura; a high-flying accountant with a taste for risk, Etienne Petersen; and man-about-town Christopher Hlangani.

They become the central figures in a hedonistic, adrenaline-driven search for the ultimate thrill and luxury. The trio swim with crocodiles, test-drive Lamborghinis, race the newest and most expensive 4x4 vehicles over the toughest terrain, flirt with the various women who cross their paths, they experience freefall skydiving and race on the latest Vespa scooters. It's like the Amazing Race with the pain and setbacks - sheer escapism for armchair adventurers.

There may be some conflict between all this consumption and the tough economic times through which SA is living, but seeing how the other half live sometimes takes the edge off our daily reality.

MAD MEN Sunday, M-Net, 21:40

This artful retro drama has become a stylish hit for the thoughtful adult TV audience. It is set in New York in the early '60s, when Kennedy and Nixon were competing for the White House. The show takes a biting, satirical backward look at the radical changes of that decade.

Civil Rights, feminism and the collapse of the social culture of post-World War Two were changing the spirit of the US. It is set in a big advertising company where the main character, Don Draper, observes: "This place has more failed artists and intellectuals in it than the Third Reich." That sense of disillusionment drives the cast as they confront the radical changes of the later '60s. It's a brilliant look at how business was following a path that would ultimately lead to economic crisis.

The show's period styling is impeccable and the story lines are sharp and witty. The first two seasons of Mad Men collected a string of major awards and at this year's Emmy Awards - Mad Men and 30 Rock were the shows that won the most awards.

In season three, new technology and a shift in the powerbase of the agency is seen as a threat by the older employees. One of the men dares to step out of his closet and some of the corporate wives start to get a sense of the new feminist energy in society.