Sinopsis
Magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music.
Episodios
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Damien Hirst; To the Wonder
22/02/2013 Duración: 28minWith John WilsonDamien 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 film from the director who made his name with Badlands and Days Of Heaven.American-born painter R.B. Kitaj was one of The School Of London: a group of artists, which included Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, who pioneered a new, figurative art. In 1994 a Tate exhibition of his work provoked a torrent of negative reviews, which Kitaj termed The Tate War. This, coupled with the sudden death of his wife, prompted him to leave London for Los Angeles a couple of years later. He died in 2007. Now, in the first major exhibition si
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Jacksons interview; Banksy auction
21/02/2013 Duración: 28minWith 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 the austerity theme, this production - whose stars include Meera Syal, Damien Molony and Susan Brown - is performed on a bare, stripped-down stage, with minimal props. Author Bidisha gives the critical verdict.Before becoming a novelist, Chris Morgan Jones worked for one of the world's largest business investigations agency, a job he has described as part detective, part spy. He has drawn on his experience of working with Russian oligarchs, Middle Eastern governments and New York banks for his new thriller The Jackal's
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A Chorus Line: Song for Marion; new play about football pioneer Walter Tull
20/02/2013 Duración: 28minWith 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 citizens are at the heart of the action. Larushka Ivan-Zadeh reviews the film, which also stars Vanessa Redgrave and Gemma Arterton. Walter Tull, the first black outfield player to play in the top division of English football and the first black commissioned infantry officer in the British Army, has inspired a novel, and a television drama. His life is now the subject of a new play - Tull. As well as visiting the memorial to Walter Tull in Northampton, Mark talks to the play's writer Phil Vasili, director David Thacker,
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Nicole Kidman, Margaret Forster, Cloud Atlas
19/02/2013 Duración: 28minNicole 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 century. It's now been turned into a film, written, produced and directed by Lana and Andy Wachowski (of Matrix fame) and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run). The film version features a set of lead actors including Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent and Hugh Grant, who all play different roles in each of the storylines - and are sometimes almost unrecognisable under heavy make-up. Author and critic Adam Mars-Jones joins Mark to assess how successfully the film captures the spirit of the novel.Writer Margaret Forster discusse
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Paul Abbott; the art of Roy Lichtenstein; tribute to Richard Briers
19/02/2013 Duración: 28minWith 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. Abbott discusses his approach to the finale, the differences between UK and US television, and why his idea for a Doctor Who episode was turned down. The death of the actor Richard Briers was announced today. Front Row pays tribute, with an interview from 2010, in which Richard Briers considered the success of The Good Life, and the importance of light comedies in his early career.
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Simon Beaufoy; Rokia Traore and Salif Keita; novelist John Green
15/02/2013 Duración: 28minWith 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 with the war-torn country, Malian bands will open the Pyramid stage each day of the festival. Kirsty talks to Rokia Traore, and to Salif Keita, one of the earliest Malian performers to become an international star, about their new albums and the role of musicians in Mali now.The bestselling New York author John Green's latest novel The Fault In Our Stars has attracted a great deal of attention, because it deals with a young girl suffering advanced stages of cancer yet manages to be a darkly humorous read. John Green discu
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Skyfall title sequence; Picasso show; Nairobi crime fiction
14/02/2013 Duración: 28minWith 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 protagonist Mollel, a former Maasai warrior-turned-police detective. He reflects on his approach to writing about crime in Kenya.Becoming Picasso is a new exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery in London. Its focus is 1901, seen as the painter's breakthrough year, when at the age of just 19 he created the work that formed his first Paris exhibition. Becoming Picasso charts the momentous year and shows the start of many of the themes he developed later in his long career. Art critic Sarah Kent reviews.The way we watch television is ch
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Duchamp, Mark Ravenhill goes running, and actor David Oyelowo
13/02/2013 Duración: 28minWith 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 Edward, an MI5 officer doggedly on the trail of a suspected terrorist he believes is plotting an atrocity in the UK. On the line from Los Angeles, David Oyelowo discusses the appeal of drama based on the secret service.While his translation of Brecht's A Life of Galileo opens at the RSC, playwright Mark Ravenhill is training for this year's London Marathon. Mark Lawson puts on his running shoes and joins Ravenhill at an early morning training session. While on the move, Ravenhill explains the parallels between acting and r
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Mea Maxima Culpa, Ray Cooney, Marianne Elliott
12/02/2013 Duración: 28minWith 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 80, talks about creating a film version of his most successful farce, Run for Your Wife, which ran for eight years on the London stage. The film has a host of British stars in cameo roles - including Judi Dench, Cliff Richard and Richard Briers.Marianne Elliott's credits as a director include War Horse, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and most recently Simon Stephens' play Port, all for the National Theatre. She reflects on the process of directing, her theatrical family and whether she wants to run th
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Ben Affleck, Jonathan Miller and Barrie Rutter, This Is 40
11/02/2013 Duración: 28minWith 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 Rutter stage a rare revival of Githa Sowerby's Rutherford and Son, opening in Halifax, they discuss why they consider the play to be an overlooked masterpiece. They also reflect on its current relevance, a century after its first performance, as the industrial Rutherford family learn that they are on the brink of financial collapse.Ben Stephenson, the Controller of Drama commissioning for BBC TV, today announces his new season. He talks about his vision for the future, and considers the current state of TV drama on both side
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Tracey Thorn; Gael García Bernal; Warm Bodies; Show tunes
08/02/2013 Duración: 28minWith Kirsty LangTracey 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 Bernal discusses his Oscar-nominated film, No, set in Pinochet's Chile. García Bernal stars as an advertising executive hired to spearhead the "No" campaign against the military dictator in the 1988 referendum.Kimberley Walsh of Girls Aloud has just released her debut solo CD, Centre Stage, an album of classic songs from musicals. She joins a long list of diverse singers who have covered show tunes. Cultural commentator Sarfraz Mansoor discusses the various reasons artists are attracted to show tunes, and what it is they
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David Morrissey, Jake Bugg, Glam! at Tate Liverpool
07/02/2013 Duración: 28minWith 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 us Stephen Collins in State of Play and Gordon Brown in The Deal, talks about his latest venture, playing The Governor in the third season of the post-apocalyptic US zombie drama The Walking Dead, alongside fellow Brit, Andrew Lincoln.The latest film from the acclaimed Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda is called I Wish. The film centres on the adventures of two young boys as they attempt to reunite their divorced parents. Novelist M J Hyland gives her verdict.Producer Ekene Akalawu.
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Comedian Harry Hill and Hollywood actor John C Reilly
06/02/2013 Duración: 28minWith 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 film about an arcade game character. He explains how, unlike most animated films, the actors started with the dialogue and the animators created the characters based on their mannerisms.James McAvoy is about to take to the stage as Macbeth at the age of 33, and Simon Russell Beale will play King Lear next year at the age of 52 - but are they too young to take on these roles? And should Juliet always be played by a teenager? Front Row considers the optimum age for leading Shakespearian parts.Producer Nicki Paxman.
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Hopkins as Hitchcock, Ice Age, Antony Sher
05/02/2013 Duración: 28minWith 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 shoemaker manages to impersonate an officer and as a result gains money and power.Novelist Michelle Paver, creator of a fantasy series set in the pre-agricultural Stone Age, joins Mark to discuss the British Museum's exhibition of Ice Age sculpture, ceramics and ornaments.World-renowned Swiss architect Peter Zumthor has been named as recipient of the 2013 RIBA Royal Gold Medal. He talks to Mark about his work and why it was so useful that his own father was a cabinet-maker.Producer Rebecca Nicholson.
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Terry and Bill Jones, Chiwetel Ejiofor, I Give It a Year
04/02/2013 Duración: 28minWith 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. He also reflects on previous roles, which include Othello on stage. The new TV series Being Eileen continues the story of the dysfunctional Lewis family, first seen in the one-off Christmas drama Lapland. Chris Dunkley looks back at the tradition of turning one-off dramas into long-running series.The film I Give It A Year is the directorial debut of Dan Mazer, co-writer of films including Borat and Bruno. Unlike traditional rom-coms, the story unfolds after the wedding, with Rafe Spall and Rose Byrne playing newly-weds b
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Charles Dance, author John Green, French cinema's forgotten man
01/02/2013 Duración: 28minWith Kirsty LangThe 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 department store, and an underground abattoir. The performance takes place in a series of tunnels and offices underneath Somerset House in London. Tristan Sharps, the artistic director of dreamthinkspeak, walks us through the labyrinth of tunnels and the technology that lies within.Rene Clement was once dubbed the French Hitchcock, his war-time drama Forbidden Games won the Oscar for best foreign film in 1952, the BAFTA for best film from any source and the top prize at the Venice Film Festival. His thriller Plein Soleil is
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Lesley Garrett, British Sea Power and House of Cards
31/01/2013 Duración: 28minWith 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, America, Britain and Nigeria, and directed by Rufus Norris. It explores the Yoruba culture and what happened to it after slavery created a far flung diaspora. British writer Gbolahan Obisesan and director Rufus Norris discuss the genesis of the project.A new DVD From the Sea to the Land Beyond is a lyrical portrait of Britain's coastline from 1901 to the present day. The film travels through both World Wars, into peacetime and the modern age, and is all drawn from the BFI National Archive. The coast is explored as a pla
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Rowan Atkinson on stage, Costa winner Hilary Mantel, and Samuel West
30/01/2013 Duración: 28minWith Mark LawsonRowan 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 won the Man Booker Prize for the same novel.Samuel West discusses his role as King George VI in Roger Michell's film Hyde Park on Hudson. Also starring Bill Murray as Franklin D Roosevelt, the film focuses on the weekend in 1939 when the King and Queen visited Roosevelt in an attempt to persuade America about the threat of World War II.Nicholas Hytner, director of the National Theatre, reveals his plans for the Theatre's 50th birthday celebrations, and hints at when he will end his tenure, which began in 2003.Producer Jero
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Light Show; the life of Benjamin Britten; Port reviewed
29/01/2013 Duración: 28minWith 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 syphilis.Playwright Simon Stephens' new play, Port, opens at the National Theatre this week. Directed by Marianne Elliott, it tells the story of a family in Stockport. We first meet 11 year old Racheal, and six-year-old Billy in 1988, and the play follows them over the next 13 years of their lives. Peter Kemp reviews.Producer Ellie Bury.
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Kristin Scott Thomas and Lia Williams; Kurt Schwitters exhibition
28/01/2013 Duración: 28minWith 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 war in a barn in the Lake District. As his work goes on show in a major new Tate exhibition, novelist Iain Sinclair delivers his verdict.Two films by the off-spring of famous directors are about to reach our cinemas. Chained is a psycho-drama directed by Jennifer Lynch, daughter of the man who gave the world Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, David Lynch; Antiviral is a futuristic satire on celebrity culture helmed by Brandon Cronenberg, the son of Videodrome and Crash auteur David Cronenberg. Ryan Gilbey discusses whether so