Front Row: Archive 2012

With Kirsty Lang.Following the huge success of Matilda, the RSC has a new Christmas show for family audiences. The Mouse and His Child is based on a book by Russell Hoban, and features the adventures of two wind-up mice, a purple elephant, and Manny Rat who pursues the mice as they try to find their home. Writer Jamila Gavin reviews..Writer Robert Greene has inspired rappers such as Jay-Z and 50 Cent and attracted hard-to-reach readers, including prisoners, with his best-selling books which reveal strategies to gain influence and power. Greene discusses whether he has mellowed with his new book which focuses on obtaining Mastery.Mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli has established a reputation for releasing challenging material which doesn't follow the opera hits formula. Her latest release is Mission, an exploration of the life and work of largely forgotten Italian composer Agostino Steffani. She explains why Steffani merits revival and how writer Donna Leon became involved in the project.A caravan trip around Engl

With Kirsty Lang, Booker Prize-winning novelist Roddy Doyle talks about his new novella, Two Pints. It's a year's dialogue between two men in a Dublin pub over their pints. Beginning with the landmark Royal visit to Ireland in May 2011 and ending with the Paralympics last September, they set the world to rights and talk about the day's news.Michael Boyd's last production as Artistic Director of the RSC is an adaptation of Pushkin's Boris Godunov. Theatre critic Andrew Dickson reviews the play and assesses Boyd's tenure. The Staves are three singing sisters from Watford. They grew up singing harmonies around the kitchen table at home, and are on a sell-out UK tour. Jessica, Emily and Camilla Stavely-Taylor tell Kirsty how it all began. Peter Mullan stars as Brighton crime-boss-turned-entrepreneur Richie Beckett in a new four-part Channel 4 TV drama The Fear, which chronicles the disintegration of a criminal mind. Crime writer Dreda Say Mitchell gives her verdict.Producer Penny Murphy.

With Mark Lawson. Daniel Radcliffe and John Hamm star in A Young Doctor's Notebook, a new four-part TV comedy drama based on a collection of short stories by the celebrated Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov. Including graphic scenes, the series is partly based on the author's experiences as a young country doctor working at the dawn of the Russian Revolution in 1917. Leading neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reviews.Oliver Sacks' seminal 1985 book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat described some of the most intriguing case histories he encountered through his work in neurology. Sacks discusses his latest book Hallucinations, a collection of mind-altering episodes experienced by his patients and himself. The Danish director of Festen, Thomas Vinterberg, has returned to the controversial subject of child abuse for his latest film. The Hunt is the story of a primary school teacher who is accused of exposing himself to one of his pupils and is subsequently ostracized by his friends and community, even though there is n

With Mark Lawson.Bryan Ferry discusses The Jazz Age, a new album of instrumental versions of his greatest hits including Love Is The Drug, Virginia Plain and Avalon.Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong are the writing duo behind Channel 4 comedies Peep Show and Fresh Meat. In the week that Peep Show began its eighth series and the current series of Fresh Meat ends, they reflect on their unusual collaborative methods and the perils of getting to know the actors too well.Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes and Robbie Coltrane star a new film adaptation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, directed by Mike Newell. Rachel Cooke reviews. Producer Stephen Hughes.

With Mark Lawson.Dame Judi Dench, Danny Boyle and Simon Russell Beale were just some of the winners at last night's Evening Standard Theatre Awards. Despite the glamour of the ceremony, the mood was reflective, with speeches addressing proposed funding cuts to arts organisations. The night's winners reflect on the past year on stage. Clint Eastwood returns to the big screen in baseball drama Trouble With The Curve. He plays a veteran scout on a last trip before retirement. Joining him on the journey is his daughter (Amy Adams) and the pair bond as they share the crucial talent spotting decisions that her father's entire career will be judged by. Larushka Ivan-Zadeh gives her verdict. The winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year is announced today, from a varied shortlist which features cycling, the Isle of Man TT races, squash, Ironman, running, cricket and football. Each of the shortlisted authors discuss their subjects and the chair of the judges, John Inverdale, assesses the current state of spor

With Kirsty LangProducer and musician Brian Eno discusses his new album Lux and his new app, which allows listeners to create their own music by selecting a variety of shapes and sounds.The story behind Michael Jackson's multimillion selling album, BAD 25, is shown in a new Spike Lee documentary. A fan of Jackson, Spike Lee wanted his film to remind audiences of the talent and creativity behind a singer whose troubled life and early death has overshadowed his musical career. Music journalist Jacqueline Springer reviews.The Coen Brothers have written the screenplay for an updated version of the 1966 Shirley MacLaine and Michael Caine classic film, Gambit. The American director of this new release is Michael Hoffman - whose last film was the Oscar-winning The Last Station, about Leo Tolstoy. He discusses working with Colin Firth, Cameron Diaz and Alan Rickman, and the challenge of making a film whose roots lie in classic British film and TV comedy.This week sees the release of the film, Nativity 2: Danger In Th

With Mark Lawson. When Matthew Bourne established the dance company Adventures in Motion Pictures in 1987, his pioneering fusion of contemporary dance, classical ballet, and theatre thrilled audiences worldwide, won prizes on both sides of the Atlantic, and divided critics. He discusses his new production of Sleeping Beauty and what he's learned from Strictly Come Dancing.It's exactly 99 years since the birth of composer Benjamin Britten, and next year's centenary celebrations include numerous concerts, operas and broadcasts. But the events of recent weeks have renewed the focus on Britten's friendships with adolescent boys, a subject covered in biographies and documentaries - although there is no evidence of criminal behaviour. Singer Ian Bostridge, Jonathan Reekie of Aldeburgh Music and writer Martin Kettle reflect on Britten's current reputation. The American actor John Lithgow takes the title role in The Magistrate, in a new National Theatre staging of Pinero's farce about a respectable man caught up in a

With Mark Lawson. Agatha Christie's classic murder mystery play The Mousetrap has now been continuously in performance in London for 60 years, and the first ever touring production of the show is currently on a 60 date tour. Front Row sent three crime writers - Frances Fyfield, Mark Billingham and Suzette A Hill - to see The Mousetrap at three different locations. All three join Mark to debate whether the production has aged well.The theatre director Calixto Bieito is renowned for his radical productions of classic operas. His version of Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera opened with a row of singers on toilet seats, trousers down. As his sexually-explicit production of Carmen opens, Bieito reveals how travels to Morocco, seeing his first bull fight and the plight of women in Spain fed into his vision of Bizet's very popular opera - and the relevance of Henrik Ibsen's unusual pet.A new exhibition of contemporary Russian art at the Saatchi Gallery showcases work by emerging young artists. Gaiety is the Most Outstand

With John Wilson.Front Row reveals the shortlists for this year's Costa Book Awards. Gaby Wood of the Daily Telegraph and The Guardian's Alex Clark join John to discuss the nominations for the best first novel, novel, biography, poetry and children's book.The morning after appearing on The Royal Variety Performance, American singer-songwriter Neil Diamond talks to John about his five decades in music.Relationships, mental illness and a dance competition all come together in the film Silver Linings Playbook - starring Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro. After losing everything, and spending 8 months institutionalised, Pat Solitano (Cooper) returns to his family home with the goal of remaining positive and being reunited with his wife. Antonia Quirke reviews.Producer Rebecca Nicholson.

With Mark Lawson.Actor Derek Jacobi talks about his new TV series, Last Tango In Halifax, co-starring Anne Reid, Sarah Lancashire and Nicola Walker. He also reflects on moving away from traditional character roles, his desire to appear in a film franchise, and whether he would ever return to the role of King Lear.Crime writer Denise Mina discusses how she has worked on a graphic novel version of Stieg Larsson's best seller The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and plans to adapt all three volumes of the Millennium Trilogy - each in two parts.Jake Gyllenhaal stars in police drama End Of Watch. Based around the patrol teams in one of LA's toughest neighbourhoods, South Central, the film chronicles the day-to-day work of Gyllenhaal and his partner (Michael Peña). Naomi Alderman reviews.David Gilmour's concert DVD is being released as an App. Beck's forthcoming work, Song Reader, is to be released in the form of 20 new songs available only as online sheet music. Neil McCormick, author and the Daily Telegraph's chief r

With Kirsty Lang.Jimmy Page is the guitarist and founder member of Led Zeppelin. As Celebration Day, a film of their one-off 2007 reunion concert is released on DVD, Jimmy reflects on the performance, and why it's very unlikely the band will re-form.Sir David Attenborough is celebrating six decades of natural history programmes for the BBC. Charles Lagus was his cameraman in the 1950s when they worked as a two-man team on Zoo Quest. Simon King is a cameraman and film maker who's worked with Attenborough more recently. They consider the huge changes in technology in making wildlife programmes.Suranne Jones and Tom Ellis star in The Secret of Crickley Hall, a new TV adaptation of a novel by James Herbert. Natalie Haynes reviews the programme.Producer Ellie Bury.

With John WilsonBen Elton began his career as a stand-up comedian, and went on to write TV comedies, musicals and novels including Popcorn. His latest novel is Two Brothers, inspired by his family history about adopted brothers who go on to fight on opposite sides of the second world war. He reveals why this is a story he'd always wanted to tell.Danny Boyle - film-maker and impresario behind the London Olympics Opening Ceremony - joins regional theatre directors from across the UK who are meeting at the National Theatre to raise concerns about their funding and the potential cuts they may soon face. Creating art on a computer is commonplace now, but in the early days of computing, it was quite unexpected. As new solo shows of work by pioneering computer artists Ernest Edmonds and Manfred Mohr open this week, Catherine Mason, author of A Computer in the Art Room, discusses how they created a new area of art in the 1960s and changed the way that computers are viewed.As Silver Linings Playbook is released in cin

With Mark LawsonBillie Piper stars in The Effect, a new play by Lucy Prebble about drugs trials and mental health. It's Prebble's first major new work since her success with ENRON, her play about the American financial scandal. Senior consultant neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reviews. The Heresy of Dr Dee is the latest in a series of novels about the Tudor astrologer and magician Dr John Dee by writer Phil Rickman. The novel explores the mysterious death of Amy Dudley, wife of Elizabeth I's favourite Lord Robert Dudley. Phil Rickman explains his fascination with Dee and why self-publishing is a temptation he's keen to resist.Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart star in Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part 2, the final instalment in the globally successful vampire film franchise. Larushka Ivan-Zadeh gives her verdict.Death: A Self Portrait is a new exhibition with more than 300 works - from images by Rembrandt and Goya to a chandelier made from 3000 plaster-cast bones - which confront our mortality. Dr Sarah Jarvis consid

With Mark Lawson. This week sees the return of The Hour, the drama set in a TV newsroom in the 1950s. The series picks up where the last one left off with ambitious producer Bel, played by Romola Garai, attempting to keep Dominic West's newsreader Hector in check, with a little help from Peter Capaldi as the new head of news. Former Deputy Director of BBC News Mark Damazer gives his verdict.A new Tate Modern exhibition takes David Hockney's A Bigger Splash and Jackson Pollock's action painting Summertime as its starting point, and surveys modern art movements which claimed that the making of art is as important as the art itself, whether it's Yves Klein painting nude models blue and imprinting their figures on rolls of paper or Niki De Saint Phalle shooting her paintings with air rifles. Lionel Shriver delivers her verdict. Dramatist Nick Dear's new play is the story of poet Edward Thomas, scraping a living in the Hampshire countryside in the winter of 1913. He meets the American poet Robert Frost and as thei

With Mark Lawson.Quentin Blake is known for his illustrations of books by Roald Dahl and Michael Rosen, as well as his work as a writer and an exhibiting artist. In his 80th year and as he publishes a new book of drawings, he reflects on how the breadth of his work, from children's books to hospital wards, makes him one of Britain's most recognized artists.Dramatist Anya Reiss, who was a teenager when her first play ran in 2010 at the Royal Court in London, has now adapted Chekhov's The Seagull. She and actor Matthew Kelly, who stars in the production, discuss the new version, and reveal why one of the play's most famous lines has disappeared. A new TV series examines how Adolf Hitler managed to persuade millions of people to support his vision for Europe that led to the deaths of 60 million people. Historian and documentary maker Laurence Rees is the writer and producer of The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler, and he explains his theories.Producer Stephen Hughes.

With Kirsty Lang.Jeff Wayne has made a new version of his 1978 hit album The War Of The Worlds, now starring Liam Neeson as the narrator, stepping into Richard Burton's shoes - with Ricky Wilson, Gary Barlow and Joss Stone taking on the roles sung originally by David Essex, Justin Hayward and Julie Covington. Jeff Wayne reflects on the original appeal of HG Wells' story, and the aspects of the show he has now changed.Gregory Doran's first production since taking over as Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company is a Chinese play called The Orphan of Zhao - which dates from 4th Century BC and has been described as the Chinese Hamlet. The production generated some debate, covered on Front Row, as the cast includes few Asian actors. Front Row sent critic Andrew Dickson to see the play, as it takes to the stage.Crime Stories is a new daily TV drama, which follows two detectives as they spend their day in a police station talking to witnesses and suspects connected to a particular crime. The dialogue is p

With Mark Lawson, Alan Bennett's new play People stars Frances de la Tour as a former model living in her family's crumbling stately home. The comedy, staged at the National Theatre, focuses on the future preservation of the house, with options ranging from a heritage site to location hire for a porn film. Writer Kate Saunders reviews.Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov - whose books include Death and the Penguin - talks to Mark about how he was almost seduced by the Writer's Union into being an official writer in the old Soviet Union, why his books might not be considered Ukrainian literature by some, and how he was helped by the protection mafia while trying to sell his books on the streets of Kiev.Director Michael Winterbottom's latest film Everyday was filmed over five years and portrays a family living through a prison sentence, with John Simm as the prisoner and Shirley Henderson as his wife. Their children are very young at the start of the story, but visibly age in the course of the film. Writer and critic

With Mark Lawson.In a rare interview, acclaimed director Michael Haneke talks about his most recent film, Amour, which won the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Festival. Haneke, whose previous films include Funny Games and The White Ribbon, discusses how he works with actors, and the films he has turned down. Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, 9 to 5 The Musical and Our Boys are just three of the many current stage productions featuring actresses and actors who have to cry on stage. Actors Laurence Fox, Mariah Gale and Natalie Casey discuss the art of acting tearfully, and Christian Burgess from the Guildhall School Of Music And Drama reveals how he teaches crying. Full English is a new animated TV comedy series aimed very much at adults, and broadcast late at night. Writer Stephen Armstrong joins Mark to consider adult animation past and present.The celebrated American composer Elliott Carter has died at the age of 103. In tribute, there's another chance to hear his thoughts on his education, and his views on contempora

With Mark Lawson.Anna Friel returns to the stage in a new production of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, with a cast which also includes Ken Stott, Laura Carmichael and Sam West. Writer and performer Viv Groskop reviews.In 1964, a devoutly Christian Shropshire schoolteacher co-launched a Clean Up TV campaign - and it turned her into a media star. Mrs Mary Whitehouse wrote letters of complaint to programme-makers, politicians, pop stars and playwrights. A selection of her correspondence, preserved in the archives of her National Viewers And Listeners Association, has now been published. Its editor Ben Thompson discusses her targets and the reactions to her attacks.Chris O'Dowd stars as a talent scout in The Sapphires, an Australian film about four Aboriginal women who form a group - Australia's answer to The Supremes - and whose first gig is to travel to Vietnam in 1968 to sing for the troops. Kate Mossman reviews.The Charles Dickens novel Nicholas Nickleby receives a modern makeover in a new TV adaptation, where pennil

With Kirsty Lang. As the longer, American version of The Shining is released in the UK for the first time, a new documentary about the film's obsessive fans is also in cinemas. Room 237 documents the various theories about Stanley Kubrick's horror classic and what it really means. Jon Ronson, the director of Stanley Kubrick's Boxes, gives his response to the documentary and the longer version of The Shining.Lucy Kirkwood is one of the UK's most high-profile young playwrights. Her new play NSFW examines society's attitudes to women's bodies through daily life at men's magazine Doghouse and women's publication Electra. Lucy Kirkwood explains why the subject appealed to her and what she makes of the 'political playwright' tag.Colm Toibin, whose award-winning novels include Brooklyn and The Master, discusses his new novel The Testament of Mary, which explores the life of Mary, mother of Jesus, in her old age.Some Girls, a new TV drama series, focuses on a group of 16-year-old girls who play on the same school foo