With Mark Lawson. Novelist William Boyd has taken two short stories by Chekhov and turned them into his first stage play, called Longing. Starring Tamsin Greig, Iain Glen and John Sessions, Longing contains many Chekhovian themes, including long-buried emotions and a yearning for Moscow. Peter Kemp reviews. Hilary Mantel has added the David Cohen Prize for Literature to her recent success in the Man Booker Prize and the Costa Award. The biennial award celebrates an author's entire career rather ...
Mar 08, 2013•28 min
With John Wilson. Tony Parsons, Miranda Sawyer and La Roux's Elly Jackson discuss David Bowie's music and influence, in the light of his new album The Next Day. As the Victoria and Albert Museum prepares for a major David Bowie retrospective exhibition, John visits the Museum's store-rooms to see sketches, costumes and instruments, drawn from Bowie's personal archive. John's guides are designer Jonathan Barnbrook, who is involved in the exhibition and the new album artwork, and curators Victoria...
Mar 07, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. Actor Mark Strong is familiar from TV dramas including Our Friends in the North, Prime Suspect and The Long Firm, and feature films such as Green Lantern, Sherlock Holmes and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. He now co-stars in Welcome To The Punch, playing a notorious criminal alongside James McAvoy's embittered cop. He reflects on playing villains, acting in slow motion and the art of wearing wigs. Author Tash Aw discusses his new novel, Five Star Billionaire. Set in Shanghai, the s...
Mar 06, 2013•29 min
With John Wilson. Side Effects is a new psychological thriller from director Steven Soderbergh. He claims that it is his final film for cinema, in a career which began with Sex, Lies and Videotape in 1989. Rooney Mara stars as a woman who suffers unexpected side effects from medication prescribed by her psychiatrist, played by Jude Law. Antonia Quirke reviews. The American artist Chuck Close discusses his highly-detailed portraits, created from hundreds of smaller images. He explains why his ina...
Mar 05, 2013•28 min
With Mark Lawson. Sam Raimi's film Oz The Great and Powerful is an imagined prequel to L. Frank Baum's novel The Wizard of Oz. James Franco stars as Oscar Diggs, a circus magician from Kansas who encounters three witches, played by Michelle Williams, Rachel Weisz and Mila Kunis in the land of Oz. Writer Sally Gardner reviews. Composer George Benjamin and playwright Martin Crimp reflect on their new opera, Written on Skin, receiving its UK premiere at the Royal Opera House this week. Based on a m...
Mar 04, 2013•28 min
With Mark Lawson. Haydn Gwynne, Nathaniel Parker and Paul Ritter reflect on the experience of playing Margaret Thatcher, Gordon Brown and John Major respectively in Peter Morgan's new play The Audience. Helen Mirren returns to the role of Queen Elizabeth II as the play imagines the meetings between the monarch and the prime ministers who have served during her reign. As the first major UK show dedicated to the work of Yinka Shonibare opens at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, the artist discusses th...
Mar 01, 2013•28 min
With John Wilson. Robbie Williams first came to prominence in the boy-band Take That, and went on to become Britain's most popular solo male artist, selling over 60 million albums worldwide with hits including Angels and Millennium. He reveals that he still wants to be a pop star and create the soundtrack to people's lives, admits that he is thin-skinned when it comes to criticism, and claims that he reveals too much about himself in his lyrics. Producer Claire Bartleet.
Feb 28, 2013•28 min
With Mark Lawson. Director Joe Wright, whose film credits include Atonement and Anna Karenina, makes his stage debut with a new production of Pinero's Trelawny of the Wells. Described as Pinero's love letter to theatre, the play pokes fun at the cliches associated with life on the stage. Writer and comedian Viv Groskop gives her verdict. Broadchurch and Mayday are two new TV thriller series starting next week. In Broadchurch, David Tennant and Olivia Colman star as detectives in a small coastal ...
Feb 27, 2013•28 min
With John Wilson. Claire Foy stars with James McAvoy in a new production of Macbeth, set in a post-apocalyptic Scotland riven with war and climate disaster. She reflects on the challenges of bringing something new to the role of Lady Macbeth. Artist Dinos Chapman discusses his latest project - an album of electronic dance music named after a Norwegian chocolate bar, Luftbobler. Dinos explains why Kylie Minogue has made a guest appearance without her knowledge and why he may form a musical duo wi...
Feb 26, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. Sue Perkins is the writer and star of the new TV sitcom Heading Out about a gay vet who is struggling to come out to her parents. She reflects on the process of creating a character for herself to play. Richard Gere's new film is the thriller Arbitrage. He plays a hedge-fund magnate whose world falls apart on his 60th birthday, when a deal goes wrong and he desperately needs $400m to cover his losses. Susan Sarandon co-stars as his wife. Rachel Cooke gives her verdict. Twenty y...
Feb 25, 2013•29 min
With John Wilson Damien Hirst talks about humour in art, on the day that a limited edition of 50 signed prints of his diamond encrusted skull go on sale for Red Nose Day. Entitled, For The Love Of Comic Relief, the prints show the skull wearing a glittery red nose, and each is priced at £2500. All proceeds go to Comic Relief. To The Wonder, a new film directed by Terrence Malick and starring Ben Affleck, explores themes of love and separation. Critic Briony Hanson reviews the latest art house fi...
Feb 22, 2013•29 min
With John Wilson. The Jackson brothers are in the UK for a short concert tour. Jackie, Marlon and Tito talk about performing together for the first time in three decades and the early days of the Jackson five, when Michael was a little boy. Anders Lustgarten's new play, If You Don't Let Us Dream, We Won't Let You Sleep, considers what could happen if social care and public health were to be put completely into the hands of commercial companies, and run according to market forces. In keeping with...
Feb 21, 2013•28 min
With Mark Lawson. A Chorus Line, the musical based on the true stories of aspiring dancers, was the longest running show in the history of New York theatre. Now a major new staging of the musical has opened in London for the first time since the 1970s. Sarah Churchwell considers whether it has stood the test of time. Song for Marion stars Terence Stamp as a grumpy pensioner persuaded to take part in his dying wife's choir. In common with recent films The Exotic Marigold Hotel and Quartet, senior...
Feb 20, 2013•29 min
Nicole Kidman has taken on two emotionally challenging roles in the psychological horror Stoker and the thriller The Paperboy. She talks to Mark Lawson about her decision to take risks with the roles she chooses and why she never googles herself. David Mitchell's award-winning novel, Cloud Atlas, consists of six interweaving stories set in different times - from a slave on a 19th century ship, to a composer in 1930s England, to a clone in 22nd century Korea, to a tribe in a post-apocalyptic 24th...
Feb 19, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. The pioneering pop artist Roy Lichtenstein found inspiration in comic books and advertisements. As a major exhibition of his work opens at Tate Modern in London, writer Lionel Shriver re-assesses the art of the painter who brought the comic-strip Whaam! into the gallery. The writer and producer Paul Abbott reflects on the end of Shameless, his acclaimed TV drama about life on a Manchester estate, which first arrived on our screens in 2004. The final series begins next week. Abb...
Feb 19, 2013•28 min
With Kirsty Lang. Sixteen years ago a small British film, set in Sheffield, about a group of redundant steelworkers who decide that stripping could be a way out of their problems, became an international hit. As The Full Monty makes its stage debut, the writer Simon Beaufoy talks to Kirsty about why he wants to turn a celluloid success into theatre gold. The first artist to be announced for this year's Glastonbury festival was singer Rokia Traore from Mali. And in an intended act of solidarity w...
Feb 15, 2013•29 min
With Kirsty Lang. Skyfall, the highest-grossing Bond film of all time, is about to appear on DVD. Daniel Kleinman, the designer of the dark opening title sequence with Bond underwater after being shot in the chest, discusses his vision for the classic ingredient of every Bond film, originally established by the late Maurice Binder. Richard Crompton is a new name in crime fiction. Nairobi, where he lives, provides his location, and his first novel, The Honey Guide, introduces us to his protagonis...
Feb 14, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. The artist Marcel Duchamp is the focus of a new exhibition at the Barbican, London. The Bride and the Bachelors explores his influence on four great modern masters - composer John Cage, choreographer Merce Cunningham, and visual artists Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Critic Jackie Wullschlager reviews the exhibition and discusses Duchamp's role in contemporary art. Spooks star David Oyelowo returns to undercover duty in a new one-off TV drama Complicit. Oyelowo plays Edw...
Feb 13, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. The resignation of Pope Benedict XVI happens to coincide with the release this week of a new cinema documentary Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, which features the departing Pontiff. Alex Gibney's film charts the claims of sexual abuse made by individuals who were in the care of Catholic priests in the US, and how many similar claims from across the world made their way to the highest level in Rome. Kate Saunders reviews. Writer and director Ray Cooney, who is now...
Feb 12, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. Ben Affleck enjoyed a triumphant night at the Baftas, winning both the best director and best film awards for Argo. He talks about how he approached making a film based on a true story of a secret mission to release hostages from Iran. This is 40 is Judd Apatow's new film, billed as the 'sort-of sequel' to his hit Knocked Up. It returns to a couple played by Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann, now facing various mid-life crises. Natalie Haynes reviews. As Jonathan Miller and Barrie Rutt...
Feb 11, 2013•28 min
With Kirsty Lang Tracey Thorn is best known as one half of Everything But the Girl, the band she formed with her partner Ben Watt while they were still at University in the early 1980s. Now semi-retired from music, the singer has written a memoir about her career in the music industry, Bedsit Disco Queen. Tracey Thorn talks to Kirsty Lang about her ambivalent attitude to fame and how she was so shy as a teenager that she auditioned to be the singer in a band from inside a wardrobe. Gael García B...
Feb 08, 2013•29 min
With John Wilson. Glam! at Tate Liverpool is an exhibition re-assessing the pop styles and sounds of the early 1970s. The writer and former vintage clothes boutique owner Flic Everett joins John to discuss whether Glam! shines. Jake Bugg started playing guitar and singing at the age of 12, and five years later he was performing at Glastonbury. Last October, his debut album entered the charts at the No. 1 spot. He reflects on life in the fast lane. David Morrissey, the Liverpudlian actor who gave...
Feb 07, 2013•28 min
With Mark Lawson. Harry Hill has returned to stand-up comedy after years fronting the television show he created, ITV's TV Burp. He discusses how stand up has changed since he was last on the comedy circuit, his attachment to his oversized collars, working on X Factor the Musical and launching a giant inflatable sausage on stage. The actor John C Reilly, best known for We Need to Talk about Kevin and his Oscar-nominated performance in Chicago, talks about starring in Wreck It Ralph, an animated ...
Feb 06, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. Anthony Hopkins plays "the Master of Suspense" in a new film which looks at how Hitchcock made one of his best known films, Psycho, and explores his relationship with his wife Alma, played by Helen Mirren. Novelist and Hitchcock aficionado Nicholas Royle reviews. Antony Sher discusses Richard III, gay marriage and taking the lead in satirical play, The Captain Of Köpenick. Described by its author, Carl Zuckmayer, as a German fairy tale, the story shows how an ex-convict shoemak...
Feb 05, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. Terry Jones and his son, director Bill Jones, discuss working together on the film A Liar's Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python's Graham Chapman. Based on recordings made by Chapman, the animated film also includes the voices of fellow Pythons Terry Jones, John Cleese, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam. Chiwetel Ejiofor talks about his role in Dancing on the Edge, the new TV drama from writer and director Stephen Poliakoff, in which he plays a 1930s jazz band leader. ...
Feb 04, 2013•28 min
With Kirsty Lang The actor Charles Dance is best-known for playing quintessential Englishmen and villains. He reflects on his latest TV role as an ageing former rock-band manager, compares the experiences of working on both sides of the Atlantic, and looks back on his career. A giant white pet robot and malfunctioning computers feature in In the Beginning Was the End, the latest site-specific production by the theatre company dreamthinkspeak. In the past they have performed in a vast disused dep...
Feb 01, 2013•28 min
With Kirsty Lang. It's been eight years since Lesley Garrett stepped on to the opera stage. Television, West End musicals and Strictly Come Dancing have been occupying her instead. Now she's back with Opera North, the company she began her career with, in a new production of Poulenc's one woman opera La Voix Humaine. She reflects on playing a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and sets a challenge for contemporary opera composers. Feast is a new play created by writers from Cuba, Brazil,...
Jan 31, 2013•28 min
With Mark Lawson Rowan Atkinson takes on his most serious role yet as the eponymous hero of Simon Gray's play Quartermaine's Terms. Atkinson and director Richard Eyre discuss the challenges of such a quiet and sedentary part, and why audiences who turn up expecting to see Mr Bean quickly adapt to the tone of the play. Hilary Mantel was announced last night as the winner of the £30,000 Costa Book of the Year award for her novel Bring Up the Bodies. She discusses her golden year, having already wo...
Jan 30, 2013•28 min
With Mark Lawson. Light Show at the Hayward Gallery in London is the first survey of light-based art in the UK and brings together artworks from the 1960s to the present day, from 22 artists including Dan Flavin, Olafur Eliasson and Jenny Holzer. Lighting designers Paule Constable and Patrick Woodroffe give their response to the works on show. Paul Kildea discusses his biography of Benjamin Britten, which has already made the news when he claimed that the composer's death was hastened by syphili...
Jan 29, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. Kristin Scott Thomas and Lia Williams star in a new production of Harold Pinter's play Old Times, in which three characters are locked away in a secluded farmhouse and reminisce about their early days together in London. The two actresses discuss the play and how they are addressing the challenge of alternating roles during the show's run. The one-time Dada artist Kurt Schwitters fled the Nazis, was interned at a camp in the Isle Of Man, and spent the rest of his life after the...
Jan 28, 2013•29 min
