With Mark Lawson. The Hunger Games : Catching Fire is the second adaptation of Suzanne Collins' runaway bestselling trilogy of novels. Jennifer Lawrence is Katniss Everdeen in the post-apocalyptic state of Panem, where the Hunger Games are a televised fight to the death between teenagers. Rosie Swash gives her verdict. The realities of the modern political world come under scrutiny in Michael Ignatieff's new book Fire and Ashes: Success and Failure in Politics. The Canadian academic, writer and ...
Nov 18, 2013•29 min
With Kirsty Lang. Borgen is the Danish political drama that became an unexpected hit for the BBC when the first series aired in 2012. Now back on our screens with the third and potentially final series, creator Adam Price discusses why it was so important for the central character of the Prime Minister to be female and why Danish television has taken the world by storm in recent years. Jason Manford's career has taken him from stand-up to prime time presenter to singer, after winning TV talent s...
Nov 15, 2013•28 min
With Mark Lawson Author Donna Tartt discusses her long-awaited third novel, The Goldfinch. Like her previous books, The Secret History and The Little Friend, The Goldfinch has taken Tartt a decade to write. The plot centres around the theft of a priceless painting, the goldfinch of the title, which is stolen from a museum after a horrific bombing in the opening chapters. Donna Tartt talks about the long gestation period for her novels, and how studying Greek tragedy informed the book's structure...
Nov 14, 2013•29 min
John Wilson talks to the fashion designer Paul Smith, on the eve of a major exhibition of his work and influences at the Design Museum, London. Natalie Haynes reviews The Counsellor, a film about drug dealers on the US / Mexico border, starring Cameron Diaz, Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt and Penelope Cruz, with an original screenplay by Cormac McCarthy. As the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Richard II, starring David Tennant, is streamed live to cinemas across the UK tonight, Lorne Ca...
Nov 13, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson, The composer Sir John Tavener died today. Famous for his choral pieces The Lamb and Song for Athene - which was sung at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales - and for The Protecting Veil, for cello and orchestra. Nicholas Kenyon discusses his life and work. Plus a recent Front Row interview with Tavener himself. Curtain: Poirot's Last Case will see David Suchet making his final appearance as Agatha Christie's iconic Belgian detective. Crime writers Dreda Say Mitchell and Nat...
Nov 12, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. Bryan Adams - best known as a musician and singer songwriter - also works as a professional photographer. For the past five years, Adams has been taking photographs of British war veterans who have suffered life changing injuries. The series of photographs has been published in a new book "Wounded: The Legacy of War". Bryan Adams discusses working with injured soldiers and his aim to show the effects of war. Mark interviews the Chinese pianist Lang Lang, as he releases a new di...
Nov 11, 2013•29 min
With John Wilson. Anita Lasker-Wallfisch survived Auschwitz by playing the cello in the Auschwitz Women's Orchestra. After the war she joined the English Chamber Orchestra and her son is the renowned cellist Raphael Wallfisch. On Sunday they both take part in a concert in Vienna marking the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht. Anita Lasker-Wallfisch's reflects on her time in the prison camp, described in her memoir Inherit the Truth, which is republished this week. Gary Barlow discusses why it has...
Nov 08, 2013•29 min
With Kirsty Lang Kirsty talks to actors Matthew Macfadyen and Stephen Mangan as they play the roles of Jeeves and Wooster in a new stage version of one of P G Wodehouse's much-loved books. The architect Frank Gehry, whose Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles feature the undulating metallic curves for which he has become known, opens a new exhibition of his work this week. Frank Gehry discusses his new sculptures, a series of artworks based on fish, a recurrent ...
Nov 07, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. Zadie Smith discusses her new story The Embassy of Cambodia which is 69 pages long, and focuses on Fatou, a young African immigrant in Willesden, north-west London, who flees hardship in her own country only to face a different set of challenges in her new life. Lady Gaga's third album Artpop is released in the UK next week. Gaga's recent performance on The X Factor to promote the album attracted hundreds of complaints about its explicit nature. Meanwhile Lorde, a 16-year-old f...
Nov 06, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. Seduced and Abandoned is a new documentary made by the actor Alec Baldwin and the writer/director James Toback. The film was shot in Cannes and depicts the difficulties faced by filmmakers trying to find funding for their projects, with contributions from Ryan Gosling and Diane Kruger. Ryan Gilbey reviews this movie about the movie business. In Doctor Who's 50th anniversary year 11 authors have been commissioned to write short stories about the 11 Doctors. It was announced toda...
Nov 05, 2013•28 min
With Mark Lawson, including an interview with critic and writer Hermione Lee about her new biography of Penelope Fitzgerald, who published her first novel at the age of 60, and won the Booker Prize with her book Offshore at the age of 63. With the news of a massive find of Nazi looted art in a Munich flat this weekend, Mark speaks to art critic Bill Feaver and Head of Collections at the Berlin Jewish Museum Inka Bertz about the connection to the 1937 "Entartete Kunst" - the Degenerate art exhibi...
Nov 04, 2013•29 min
With Kirsty Lang. The British rapper Tinie Tempah became a global sensation in 2010 with his debut album, winning the 2011 Brit Award for Best British Breakthrough Act. As he releases his second album, Demonstration, Tinie reflects on his fear of selling out, his support for the royal family and why he mentions Prince Harry, Jeremy Clarkson and Stephen Fry in his songs. Rosie Boycott reviews the Chilean film Gloria, which stars Paulina Garcia as a divorced woman in her late 50s who goes in searc...
Nov 01, 2013•28 min
With John Wilson. David Beckham talks about being a photographic muse - and of what's it's been like, living his life in front of a camera-lens. Singer-songwriter Graham Nash found fame with The Hollies and then with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. He's just published his memoirs and reflects on his upbringing in Salford and how his childhood was affected by his father's prison sentence. He also describes the unique harmonies created through his friendship with David Crosby and Stephen Stills - ...
Oct 31, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. Joan Collins on her new memoir, picking the wrong husbands, not giving away her age, and why she wasn't the first choice for the now iconic role of Alexis Colby in Dynasty. The first major UK exhibition of 17th Century artist Giovanni Castiglione is opening this week at Buckingham Palace. Castiglione led a turbulent and violent life, but he was an innovative artist who invented the technique of monotype which is still used by artists such as Tracey Emin, whose works can be seen...
Oct 30, 2013•28 min
With Mark Lawson, Susan Stroman, the American theatre director and choreographer whose productions include the multi-award winning The Producers, talks about her new musical, The Scottsboro Boys. With music and lyrics by Kander and Ebb (Cabaret, Chicago), The Scottsboro Boys is based on the true story of a group of black teenagers in Alabama wrongly accused of rape, whose case became a milestone in the history of US civil rights. Short Term 12 is a drama set in a foster home for at-risk teenager...
Oct 29, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. Sandra Bullock, who won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2010, is now tipped for Oscar success again for her role in Gravity, in which she plays a medical engineer lost in space. She considers the demands of the part, which involves relatively little dialogue and the illusion of weightlessness. Few musicians experience the success enjoyed by Leonard Bernstein, acclaimed as a charismatic conductor as well as a composer whose work includes West Side Story. Now a 600 page col...
Oct 28, 2013•28 min
With Kirsty Lang Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir Eat, Pray, Love spent nearly 200 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list and was made into a film starring Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem. Elizabeth talks to Kirsty about returning to fiction for her new book The Signature of All Things, a story which spans the 18th and 19th centuries and sees its heroine, botanist Alma Whittaker, travel from Philadelphia to Tahiti and Amsterdam in search of answers, adventure, and love. James Corden stars as Bri...
Oct 25, 2013•28 min
With Kirsty Lang. From Here To Eternity is given the musical treatment by Sir Tim Rice, the lyricist who gave us Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita, with Pop Idol contestant Darius Campbell in the role of Sergeant Milt Warden, memorably played by Burt Lancaster in the film adaptation. Critic Jason Solomons delivers his verdict. Earth, Wind And Fire, the American group behind hits September, Let's Groove and Boogie Wonderland in the late '70s, have just released their first studio album in eight ye...
Oct 24, 2013•28 min
With Mark Lawson. Dame Judi Dench discusses her role in the new film Philomena, in which she plays a 70-year-old Irish woman who is looking to trace her son, taken away from her when she was a teenager. She discusses portraying and meeting the real Philomena Lee, and working with Steve Coogan, who co-scripted and co-stars in the film as Martin Sixsmith, the man who helped Philomena find her child. Honoré Daumier was a French printmaker, sculptor and painter whose work offered a social commentary...
Oct 23, 2013•29 min
Mark Lawson presents a special programme from Derry~Londonderry, UK City of Culture 2013. This year's Turner Prize for contemporary art is on show in Derry~Londonderry and features artists Tino Sehgal, Laure Prouvost, David Shrigley and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. David Shrigley and Laure Prouvost discuss their work and critic Philip Hensher delivers his verdict on the show. Derry-based writer Jennifer Johnston was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for her novel Shadows on Our Skin. Her Three Monologu...
Oct 22, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. Writer Susan Hill is now probably best known for her ghost story The Woman in Black, which became a long-running play and a major film. Her new novel Black Sheep is set in a mining village, and like many of her books, it's full of emotional claustrophobia, isolated characters and set at an unspecified time in the 20th century. She reflects on her long career and her approach to fiction. The Corrupted, a major new Radio 4 drama series, plots the course of one family against the ...
Oct 21, 2013•29 min
With John Wilson. Following in the footsteps of Homer's Odyssey, Morrissey's Autobiography has been published as a Penguin Classic. The singer takes readers through his childhood in Manchester, The Smiths' success and subsequent court battles, insights into personal relationships - and unexpected stories, including an invitation to appear in Friends. Philip Hoare, a winner of The Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction, reviews. Director Clio Barnard, who won acclaim for The Arbor, her portrait of ...
Oct 18, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. The film Prince Avalanche is a tale of two men (played by Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch) who, as they spend a summer painting the traffic markings on a country highway, share a journey of self-discovery. Novelist M J Hyland reviews. Mark visits a Luton primary school, as the children get to see a Frank Auerbach painting, on loan for the day. The work came from the Ben Uri Gallery as part of the Masterpieces in Schools programme, a partnership between the Public Catalogue Foundatio...
Oct 17, 2013•29 min
With John Wilson. Sir Paul McCartney talks about his latest album (called New), he sets the record straight regarding his relationship with John Lennon, and admits that he finds it difficult to say "I love you". The legend of a lost city of gold in South America captivated Europeans for centuries. A new exhibition at the British Museum unravels the myth of El Dorado - it was a man, not a city, and "The Golden One" was covered in powdered gold as part of a ritual. Rachel Campbell-Johnston reviews...
Oct 16, 2013•28 min
With Mark Lawson This morning it was announced that Rufus Norris will succeed Nicholas Hytner as the new director of the National Theatre. Norris, who has been associate director of the National Theatre for two years, where he directed the Amen Corner and London Road among other productions, will take over from April 2015. Rufus Norris talks to Mark Lawson about his future plans. As Sir David Jason, the star of Only Fools And Horses, Open All Hours, The Darling Buds of May, and A Touch of Frost,...
Oct 15, 2013•28 min
With Mark Lawson. In one of his final films, the late James Gandolfini stars alongside Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Seinfeld) in Enough Said. The pair play two single parents whose romance runs into problems. Sarah Crompton reviews. The singer-songwriter Tori Amos has written a new musical for the National Theatre, in collaboration with the playwright Samuel Adamson. The Light Princess is adpated from a fairy tale, with a new feminist twist. Tori Amos and Samuel Adamson discuss their partnership and how...
Oct 14, 2013•28 min
With Kirsty Lang. Julian Fellowes, the creator of Downton Abbey, has adapted Romeo And Juliet for the big screen, inserting his own blank verse in the process. Andrew Dickson, the author of The Rough Guide To Shakespeare, delivers his verdict. Booker Prize-winning novelist Penelope Lively, now in her 80s, discusses the impact of ageing and the fallibility of memory as her memoir Ammonites and Leaping Fish is published. The Bridge was a Scandi TV drama about a body found on the bridge between Den...
Oct 11, 2013•28 min
With Mark Lawson. Tom Hanks reflects on saying no to film offers, playing real people, and his latest role in Captain Phillips, which depicts the ordeal of Richard Phillips, captain of a cargo ship taken hostage by Somali pirates in 2009. Captain Phillips is directed by Paul Greengrass (United 93, The Bourne Supremacy). It was announced today that Alice Munro has been awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature. AS Byatt and Hermione Lee discuss the Canadian author, who writes short stories rath...
Oct 10, 2013•29 min
With Mark Lawson. Two major exhibitions of portraits open this week. Elizabeth I and Her People, at the National Portrait Gallery, focuses on paintings of the queen and her courtiers, as well as merchants, soldiers, artists and writers, offering insight into the rise of the 'middling sort' or middle classes in late 16th Century England. The National Gallery's Facing the Modern has portraits from early 20th Century Vienna by Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt and lesser known female artists showing how t...
Oct 09, 2013•29 min
With John Wilson. Front Row is live from the BBC National Short Story Award ceremony, where the chair of the judges, Mariella Frostrup, announces the winner of the £15,000 first prize, and we hear from the winning writer. The Beatles biographer and historian Mark Lewisohn discusses the first in his trilogy of books about the band, Tune In , which ends in 1962 as they're about to release their first single Love Me Do. The work is a weighty tome, running to 960 pages, and examines their lives week...
Oct 08, 2013•28 min
