With John Wilson, A job centre and a local government Health and Safety department are the settings for two new sitcoms. ITVs The Job Lot stars Russell Tovey (Him & Her) and Sarah Hadland (Miranda). Ben Elton has written the BBC's The Wright Way, which stars David Haig. Viv Groskop reviews. Ian Gillan and Ian Paice, long-standing members of the band Deep Purple, discuss their forthcoming album Now What?! The heavy metal pioneers also talk about their Smoke on the Water 70s heyday, multiple l...
Apr 19, 2013•29 min
With John Wilson. Matt Damon's new film, Promised Land, based on a story by Dave Eggers, focuses on fracking - extracting gas by fracturing rock layers. Damon plays Steve Butler, an executive sent to a rural town to gain drilling rights, who comes into conflict with an environmental campaigner. The film reunites Damon with Good Will Hunting director Gus Van Sant. Natalie Haynes reviews. Radio 3 and Proms Controller Roger Wright reveals highlights of this summer's BBC Proms season - including Mar...
Apr 18, 2013•27 min
With Mark Lawson. On 3 April 2011, the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was arrested at Beijing airport. He disappeared for 81 days and on his release the government claimed his imprisonment related to tax evasion. Howard Brenton's latest play is based on an account of conversations with Ai, in which he told the story of that imprisonment. Howard Brenton discusses the creation of the play, and also the DVD release of his memorable but never repeated 1986 noir BBC series Dead Head. William McIlvanney's L...
Apr 17, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson, David Baldacci is one of the best-known writers of crime thrillers: his books are regularly bestsellers, and have been translated into more than 45 languages. A former Washington Attorney, Baldacci finds inspiration in stories shared with him by FBI agents. He reflects on the explosions which left three people dead at the end of the Boston marathon. Tate Modern displays the first major UK exhibition of the Lebanese artist Saloua Raouda Choucair. Born in 1916, Choucair studied u...
Apr 16, 2013•26 min
With Mark Lawson. Front Row reveals the Best of Young British Novelists, as selected by Granta magazine, and featuring 20 writers under 40. The prestigious list, which was first published in 1983, is released once a decade: the class of 1983 included Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie and Rose Tremain. The editor of Granta John Freeman and writer A L Kennedy, who was selected in both 1993 and 2003, unveil the new list and reflect on their judging process. The White House is the setting for the action f...
Apr 15, 2013•26 min
With Mark Lawson Director Oliver Stone's latest project is an ambitious ten-part TV documentary series called Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States. He's teamed up with writer Peter Kuznick to look back at events that at the time went under-reported, but that shaped America over the 20th century. Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick discuss the challenge of such a large undertaking and the inevitable controversy that it has attracted. First Position is a film about the ballet world. It sh...
Apr 12, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. Dominic Cooke is leaving London's Royal Court Theatre after seven years as Artistic Director. He looks back at his often controversial tenancy and discusses his final production, The Low Road by Bruce Norris. And in the week that Nicholas Hytner announced the date for his departure as Artistic Director of the National Theatre, Kenneth Branagh, Marianne Elliott, Sam Mendes and Kwame Kwei-Armah reveal where they stand as potential contenders for the top job. Michael Dobbs, who wa...
Apr 11, 2013•26 min
Writer and poet Maya Angelou, who has just celebrated her 85th birthday, reflects on her life and career, in conversation with Mark Lawson. She discusses her six volume autobiography, which began with I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, a book which is now taught in schools around the world. Dr Angelou is frank about her extraordinary life, family and the issue of race in modern America. Producer Penny Murphy.
Apr 10, 2013•26 min
With John Wilson. Sarah Brightman became a household name when her group Hot Gossip had a number 1 hit with I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper. She went on to perform in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals Cats and The Phantom of the Opera, eventually marrying Lloyd Webber. Aptly enough her latest project is a trip into space, and she discusses her plans for the journey and the album it has inspired. The Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado has just opened his new exhibition, Genesis, at the...
Apr 09, 2013•26 min
With John Wilson. Tamara Rojo is the artistic director of the English National Ballet. This is her first season in charge of a company, after years as principal ballerina at the Royal Ballet, where she danced all the major roles. She talks to John about her vision for the ENB. The film The Place Beyond The Pines, an epic story of fathers and sons, crime and punishment, stars Ryan Gosling as a motorcycle rider and bank robber whose sins are visited upon his only child. Antonia Quirke delivers her...
Apr 08, 2013•29 min
With John Wilson. John travels to Amsterdam to visit the Rijksmuseum, re-opening after a decade of renovations. The 19th century building - home to Rembrandt's masterpiece The Nightwatch - not only has a new Asian Pavilion and restored galleries, but also the display of its collection has been transformed: visitors can now see the 8,000 exhibits chronologically, following the story of 800 years of Dutch art and history. Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical) and Selena Gomez (Wizards Of Waverley ...
Apr 05, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. Richard Bean's play One Man, Two Guvnors, a re-working of A Servant of Two Masters, has proved one of the biggest theatrical hits of recent years. His earlier play Smack Family Robinson - a dark comedy about the family of a well-to-do drug dealer - now receives a new production starring Keith Allen and Denise Welch. Richard Bean reflects on drugs, gags, and being labelled a right wing playwright. Actress Olga Kurylenko, who reached a global audience in the James Bond film Quant...
Apr 04, 2013•28 min
With Mark Lawson. Julian Barnes won the Man Booker Prize in 2011 for his novel The Sense of an Ending, following the award the same year of the David Cohen Prize for lifetime achievement, which celebrated his work including Flaubert's Parrot and A History of the World in 10 and a Half Chapters. However, during this period of public recognition and spotlight, Barnes was privately grieving after the death of his wife, the literary agent Pat Kavanagh, from cancer in 2008. His new book Levels of Lif...
Apr 03, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. The film A Late Quartet stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Christopher Walken as members of a world renowned string ensemble, struggling to deal with illness, ego and lust on the cusp of their 25th anniversary. Composer Michael Berkeley reviews. Front Row announces the ten contenders for the £100,000 Art Fund Prize for Museum of the Year 2013. Judges Stephen Deuchar and Bettany Hughes discuss the shortlist, and how they compare large scale building projects with public outreach p...
Apr 02, 2013•29 min
Kirsty Lang reports on how British culture is hoping to find new markets and audiences in China. Cultural exports heading east range from musicals such as Mamma Mia!, which aims to fill newly-built theatres, to films, where producers have to negotiate a system of quotas for foreign movies, and success is not always predictable. Kirsty also speaks to singer Mary-Jess Leaverland, whose singing career was launched after she won a Chinese TV talent show, and to architect Chris Wilkinson, from the pr...
Apr 01, 2013•28 min
A rare interview with writer Anne Tyler, who talks to Mark Lawson in her home in Baltimore. She reflects on her approach to writing novels, including Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, Digging to America and The Accidental Tourist. She discusses her interests and influences, and her 20th novel, which she's currently writing. Producer Penny Murphy.
Mar 29, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. Film-maker Penny Woolcock reflects on how she took to the streets of Birmingham with members of rival gangs, in an attempt to resolve long-standing and often violent divisions between them. Her documentary, One Mile Away, follows on from her film 1 Day, a fictional account of criminal gangs in the same location. Singer-songwriter Michael Bolton has sold more than 50 million records and won multiple Grammy awards in a career spanning 25 years. More recently he's reached a new yo...
Mar 28, 2013•28 min
With Mark Lawson. The art of storytelling, from earliest writings to today's TV soaps, is the subject of a new book Into the Woods: A Five Act Journey Into Story by John Yorke. Yorke has been Head of Channel 4 Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production, overseeing programmes including Skins, Shameless, EastEnders, Spooks, Casualty and Omagh, as well as The Archers on Radio 4. He discusses what lies behind our fascination and hunger for stories, and what makes a story work. As the latest theatr...
Mar 27, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. Playwright John Logan is also known as the writer of award-winning films like Gladiator, Skyfall and Martin Scorsese's The Aviator. This week he returns to the London stage with Peter And Alice, based on a real-life meeting between the people who inspired two classics of children's fiction, Alice In Wonderland and Peter Pan - Alice Liddell Hargreaves and Peter Llewellyn Davies, played by Judi Dench and Ben Wishaw. Kristin Scott Thomas stars in Francois Ozon's latest film, In th...
Mar 26, 2013•28 min
With John Wilson. Danny Boyle - director of Trainspotting, 28 Days Later and Slumdog Millionaire - this week releases his first film since his Olympic opening ceremony last year. In Trance, starring James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson and Vincent Cassel, an art auctioneer who has become mixed up with a group of criminals, joins up with a hypnotherapist to recover a lost painting. Mark Eccleston reviews. Keeping Britain Alive: The NHS in a Day is a new eight part series filmed over on one day across the...
Mar 25, 2013•28 min
With John Wilson The Broadway hit musical The Book Of Mormon has opened in London. The show is a satirical tale of Mormon missionaries visiting a Ugandan village threatened by a brutal warlord. Book, lyrics and music are by Trey Parker and Matt Stone - creators of the animated comedy, South Park - and Robert Lopez, composer of Avenue Q. Grace Dent reviews. Comedian Lee Mack, writer and star of TV sitcom Not Going Out, talks about surviving the death of British sitcom, the perfect gag-rate and fi...
Mar 22, 2013•29 min
With John Wilson. Maverick violin virtuoso Nigel Kennedy talks about his admiration for Fats Waller, Dave Brubeck, Ravi Shankar and Bach - all of whose music features in his new album. And he reveals an unexpected side-effect of wearing Jimi Hendrix's old bandana during a live performance. The Village is a new TV drama series with an epic ambition: to chart the life and times of one English village across the 20th century. Starring John Simm, Maxine Peake and Juliet Stevenson, the story centres ...
Mar 21, 2013•28 min
With Mark Lawson. Alan Bennett has been a feature of British cultural life for over 50 years, first as an actor in Beyond the Fringe and later as a dramatist, screenwriter and diarist, creating theatrical smashes such as The Madness of King George, The History Boys and most recently People. As a double-bill of his autobiographical plays, Hymn and Cocktail Sticks, arrives in the West End of London, he reflects on how it feels to see himself being portrayed on stage, and the influence of his paren...
Mar 20, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson In the film Compliance, a police officer phones a fast food restaurant and tells the middle-aged manageress that a young employee is accused of stealing. He asks her to detain the girl until the police arrive. She complies. As the situation develops, in near real time, it becomes uncomfortable to remember that the film is based on real events. Jenny McCartney reviews. Writer and producer Kay Mellor discusses the return of her TV drama The Syndicate, which stars Alison Steadman a...
Mar 19, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. Conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner discusses his fascination with Bach as he prepares to lead a nine hour marathon of the composer's work at the Royal Albert Hall. In mid-rehearsal, Gardiner explains his attempt to convey the rock and roll of Bach. He also talks about his forthcoming 70th birthday, working with apprentices and the music that saps his energy. Jack the Giant Slayer stars Nicholas Hoult as Jack, a young farm hand who must enter the land of the giants to rescue Prin...
Mar 18, 2013•28 min
With Mark Lawson. Michael Waldman is a TV documentary maker who has gained unprecedented access to the royal family to make Our Queen. The programme follows the Queen during 2012 as she celebrates her Diamond Jubilee and observes the usually secretive meetings she hold with the Prime Minister. He explains how he gained access and what he learned about the royal family. Beyond The Hills, an award-winning film from Romanian director Cristian Mungiu, is based on a true story about a suspected case ...
Mar 15, 2013•29 min
With John Wilson. Gustavo Dudamel, the young Venezuelan conductor of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, has become one of the most high-profile classical musicians in the world. He returns to the UK this week as Musical Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, to perform a series of concerts. Dudamel discusses the residency and his work advocating music as a way to enrich children's lives. Producer Jerome Weatherald.
Mar 14, 2013•28 min
With John Wilson. Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum is the British Museum's giant examination of daily life in the cities destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79. John takes an advance peek at the exhibition ahead of its opening with curator Paul Roberts. A new prize for literature in English by writers from around the world is being launched at the British Library today. John meets one of the founders of the new prize, Andrew Kidd and one of the authors supporting the award, Kami...
Mar 13, 2013•28 min
With Mark Lawson. Edmund de Waal, author of the bestselling memoir The Hare with the Amber Eyes, reflects on finding novels written by his grandmother, Elisabeth. She grew up in Vienna, and escaped when Hitler's troops marched into Austria on 12 March 1938, 75 years ago today. Her novel The Exiles Return examines the stories of five exiles returning to Vienna after World War II, and is now being published for the very first time. The Paperboy is the latest film from Lee Daniels, the director of ...
Mar 12, 2013•28 min
With Mark Lawson Stephenie Meyer is the author of the phenomenally successful Twilight series. The latest of her young adult books to be adapted for the screen is The Host. She reflects on how the success of the films affected her writing and why despite inspiring the 50 Shades series, she has never read it. Steve Carrell and Jim Carrey star as rival Vegas magicians in The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. Critic Mark Eccleston assesses the film's power to amaze. Simon Starling became one of the Turn...
Mar 11, 2013•29 min
