Front Row: Archive 2012

With Mark Lawson.Suzanne Moore reviews the Oscar-tipped George Clooney in The Descendants, directed by Alexander Payne, who made the Academy Award winning comedy Sideways. In a candid interview, author Edmund White discusses his life and work as his new novel is published.This week sees the start of three new series following members of the medical profession. Mark meets Dr Ben Allin from BBC Three's Junior Doctors and Mr Mark George, veteran of the original 1980s Horizon series Doctors to Be, to find out how the filming process has changed.As Jean Vigo's barge-set classic film L'Atalante is re-released, critic and houseboat dweller Antonia Quirke reveals why it still makes waves almost 80 years after it was made. Producer Stephen Hughes.

With John WilsonSoldiers injured in Afghanistan and Iraq are starring in The Two Worlds of Charlie F, a play in London's West End written by the poet Owen Sheers and inspired by the soldiers' own stories. John Wilson talks to Rifleman Daniel Shaw, a soldier in the Infantry who lost both legs in Afghanistan, Sapper Lyndon Chatting-Walters, a combat engineer who suffered serious spinal injury in Afghanistan and to Owen Sheers.Blues Singer and Radio 2 presenter Paul Jones pays tribute to the singer Etta James whose powerful and evocative voice has inspired audiences and singers alike, most recently Adele and Amy Winehouse cited her as an influence.Award-winning TV documentary maker Norma Percy discusses her latest project - Putin, Russia and the West - which began last night. Vladimir Putin, current Prime Minister of Russia, is the focus of the four-part series, which includes interviews with members of Putin's inner circle as well as leading figures from the West, including Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, and To

With Mark Lawson.Playwright and screenwriter Abi Morgan's recent credits include The Hour on TV and The Iron Lady and Shame in the cinema. Her TV adaptation of Sebastian Faulks' best-selling novel Birdsong begins on Sunday. She reflects on her approaches to writing for the screen and stage. Ralph Fiennes makes his debut as a film director with a contemporary version of Shakespeare's political thriller Coriolanus. Fiennes also takes the title role, with Vanessa Redgrave as his fierce mother Volumnia and Gerard Butler as his rival Aufidius. Andrew Dickson reviews.Singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen tells Mark how his new album Old Ideas was partly inspired by the responses of audiences around the world during his last tour. Mark Ellen reviews the disc, Cohen's first studio album for eight years. Antony Sher stars in Nicholas Wright's new play about the early days of cinema and the contribution of Jewish Eastern European immigrants to the Hollywood film industry. Peter Kemp reviews. Producer Philippa Ritchie.

With Mark Lawson. Madonna makes her feature film debut as director and co-screenwriter of W.E. The film intercuts the love story of Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII with a modern-day tale of a woman obsessed by Wallis. A N Wilson reviews. Chad Harbach discusses his debut novel The Art of Fielding, which took him 10 years to write and has been garlanded with praise by some of America's best-known writers. It has been reported that some cinema goers have asked for refunds on finding that the award-winning film The Artist is silent. Lawyer Duncan Lamont discusses the rights of a dissatisfied arts consumer in this and other cases. Crime writer Ian Rankin will give a reading from his first unpublished novel this weekend at the First Fictions festival, organised by Sussex University. He and crime writer Frances Fyfield, who also wrote an unpublished first book, look back on their early efforts, and how their styles have changed. Producer Claire Bartleet.

With Mark Lawson. Novelist William Boyd gives his response to a major new exhibition of landscape paintings by David Hockney, and also re-assesses the film A Bigger Splash, made in the early 1970s, which focuses on Hockney and his circle of friends at the time.In Steven Soderbergh's new film Haywire a black ops soldier seeks payback after she is betrayed and set up during a mission. Gaylene Gould reviews the film, whose cast includes Gina Carano, Ewan McGregor and Michael Fassbender . Carolina Chocolate Drops are an African-American string band, using the fiddle, banjo and jug to revive often-overlooked folk music from the Piedmont region of the American south. They discuss how they rediscover old tunes, and their approach to tradition. And in a new comic film The Sitter, Jonah Hill plays a student who is coaxed into babysitting the kids next door. Film critic Mark Eccleston considers what movies tell us about choosing the right babysitter, from Three Men and a Baby to Halloween. Producer Jerome Weatherald.

With John Wilson. Clint Eastwood's new film as a director focuses on J Edgar Hoover, the first head of the FBI. Leonardo DiCaprio takes the title role in J Edgar, which shows Hoover at various stages of his controversial career. Jonathan Freedland reviews.Lord Smith discusses his review of the British film industry, A Future for British Film, published today. It offers 56 recommendations, including a British Film week, funding from TV companies and audience testing for new film releases. Director Roger Michell, whose films include Notting Hill and Venus, offers his perspective. Front Row announces and talks to the winner of the 2012 T S Eliot Prize for Poetry, announced this evening. Now in its 19th year, the prize offers £15,000 for the best collection of poetry, as chosen by a judging panel who are themselves poets. Michael Kiwanuka has won the BBC's Sound of 2012 poll, an accolade previously awarded to Jessie J and Adele. The singer-songwriter reveals how he discovered his sound and why he grew up in a hou

With John Wilson Screenwriter Heidi Thomas, whose credits include Cranford, discusses her forthcoming TV adaptation of Jennifer Worth's best-selling memoir Call The Midwife, set in the East End of London in the 1950s. John talks to the trumpeter Alison Balsom, twice-winner of the Female Artist Of The Year award at the Classic Brits, whose latest CD showcases 20th century works for trumpet, including a piece written for Alison by the composer James MacMillan Publisher Jamie Byng tells the story behind The Last Holiday, the posthumous memoir of singer-songwriter Gil Scott-Heron In a year where arts organisations around the UK are calling for volunteers for a range of projects, Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller explains why he's advertising for people to help with his own installations, which include a fully-functional cafe. Producer Rebecca Nicholson.

With Mark Lawson. Artists Jonathan Yeo and John Keane have both painted the portrait of Tony Blair - the former in an official commission in 2008, and the latter in an unofficial series of new paintings which depict Blair at the Chilcot Inquiry. The artists discuss what they found looking into the face of the former Prime Minister. Sculptor Antony Gormley has teamed up with choreographer Hofesh Shechter for Survivor, a new musical work which features 150 amateur drummers, audience participation and live video projection. They explain how they divided up the creative work and how Shechter's artistic anger informed the piece.As a cinema joins forces with chef Leigh Rowley to offer film-goers a meal while watching their movie, popcorn historian Andrew F Smith discusses the long history of eating while gazing at the big screen.The chain of bookshops originally founded by Tim Waterstone has decided to drop the apostrophe in its name. Linguistics expert David Crystal considers this decision, and assesses whether it

With John WilsonHistorian Thomas Asbridge discusses his forthcoming three-part TV series about the Crusades, which considers the medieval holy war from both the Christian and the Muslim perspectives.Scottish singer-songwriter Emeli Sande has won the Brits Critics' Choice for 2012 - a prize for new talent, with previous winners including Adele, Jessie J and Florence And The Machine. She reflects on her unusual career path - she studied medicine and neuroscience before entering the music business full-time.Early in 2011, photographer Guy Martin travelled to Egypt and Libya to record the unfolding Arab Spring. This project was cut short, when he was seriously injured in a rocket attack. Two of his colleagues, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Tim Hetherington and photojournalist Chris Hondros, were killed in the same attack. Now images Guy produced up to that point are on show, and he reflects on the experience of working under fire.Gentrification is having an unexpected effect on Hollywood, as it's running out of dark

With Mark Lawson. Writer-director J C Chandor discusses his acclaimed feature directorial debut Margin Call, about an American investment bank during the financial crisis, starring Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons and Demi Moore. The writer and former cricketer Ed Smith reviews a TV documentary by former England cricket captain Freddie Flintoff about depression in sport. Scottish composer Anna Meredith discusses her new piece, entitled Hands-Free. It's written for the National Youth Orchestra but uses no instruments, involving instead clapping, body-percussion and beat-boxing. David Quantick tucks into the long history of songs featuring food - from Oliver, via The Beatles and Bob Dylan, to reggae, ska and beyond. Producer Timothy Prosser.

With Mark Lawson.Oscar-winning film-maker Steven Spielberg discusses his new adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's book War Horse. Andrew Collins reviews the audio version of cultural theorist Marshall McLuhan's most famous work. The Medium Is The Massage is a mash-up of musings, music and bizarre effects and is re-released 40 years after it first assailed the ears of the general public.Archie Burnett discusses his collection of Philip Larkin's complete poems, which is considerably larger than the slim volumes that the poet published in his lifetime. Mark Lawson finds out if he has unearthed any lost treasures.Producer Katie Langton.

Kirsty Lang reports on how puppets have entered the theatrical mainstream. She speaks to Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones of the Handspring Company, who made the puppets for the international theatre hit War Horse and to Joe Wright, director of the films Atonment and Hanna, whose new cinema version of Anna Karenina features puppets in a central role. Wright says all his films are influenced by growing up in a puppet theatre - the Little Angel Theatre in London. Kirsty pays a visit and meets Joe's mother, Lyndie Wright, who founded the theatre in 1961 with her husband John Wright. She also discovers an unexpected link between the Little Angel and the award-winning War Horse puppets. Producer Philippa Ritchie.

With Mark Lawson. Two new TV comedies, both with a central female role, begin tomorrow. Stella is a comedy drama written by and starring Ruth Jones as a single mother living in the Welsh valleys. New Girl stars Zooey Deschanel as a teacher who moves into an apartment with three single men, after breaking up with her boyfriend. Rachel Cooke reviews.In the third of three reports on the art of following up a great success, film director Tom Hooper, who won an Oscar for The King's Speech, discusses his next project - a big-screen version of the musical Les Miserables. Annette Bening and Naomi Watts star in the film Mother and Child, which focuses on women whose lives are profoundly affected by adoption. Antonia Quirke reviews.American writer Padgett Powell is not afraid of experimentation. Every single sentence in his novel The Interrogative Mood is a question, and he followed this with You & I, a book written entirely in dialogue between two unnamed people. He discusses his move away from what he describes a

With Mark Lawson. Actor Michael Fassbender is hotly-tipped for Oscar nominations this year, which will be welcome reward for shooting six films in the last 20 months, three of which are about to open: Shame, directed by Steve McQueen - his former collaborator on the Irish hunger-strike film Hunger - Haywire with Steven Soderbergh, and A Dangerous Method with David Cronenberg. Fassbender discusses the challenges of the quick succession of demanding roles. Cellist Julian Lloyd Webber and violinist Tasmin Little discuss the music and reputation of the composer Frederick Delius as the 150th anniversary of his birth approaches. In the new TV drama series Eternal Law, the daily life of a York law firm is mixed with the magic of angels. Samuel West and Ukweli Roach star as Zak and Tom, angels working as lawyers, with strict instructions to help humans without getting emotionally involved. Matt Thorne reviews.How do you follow up a smash hit? In the second of this week's series, One Man, Two Guvnors writer Richard Be

The category winners of the Costa Book Awards 2011 are announced live on Front Row by the awards' director Bud McLintock. Literary editors Gaby Wood and Will Skidelsky give their response to the winners of the five categories - novel, first novel, biography, poetry and children's book. The winner in each category receives £5,000, and one of the five winning books will then selected as the Costa Book of the Year, announced on 24 January, receiving a further £30,000.Multi-award winning writer Tony Marchant discusses his new drama Public Enemies about the relationship between a convicted murderer recently released from prison, played by Daniel Mays, and his probation officer, played by Anna Friel, who is returning to work after being suspended after a shocking crime was committed by an offender under her supervision.Mark Lawson is joined by Ralph Steadman and Posy Simmonds in paying tribute to Ronald Searle, the British cartoonist best known for creating the fictional girls' school St Trinian's, who died today a

John Wilson talks to musicians including Kate Bush, Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, Nick Mason of Pink Floyd, Ray Davies of The Kinks and Nile Rodgers of Chic, as they re-visit old recordings, re-assess the out-takes left in the vaults and consider why some tracks - and even complete albums - lie unreleased for years. Producer John Goudie.

It's the Boxing Day Quiz, as question-master Mark Lawson poses cultural brain-teasers to test the knowledge of two teams.Historian Antonia Fraser, actor Dan Stevens and crime-writer Mark Billingham compete against playwright Roy Williams, comedy performer and writer Natalie Haynes and actor Michael Simkins.Producer Claire Bartleet.