Front Row: Archive 2013

With Mark Lawson

Breathless is a new prime-time period drama from ITV set in a London hospital during the early sixties. The programme follows the lives of a group of doctors and nurses and, like Mad Men and The Hour, combines period glamour with historical social commentary. Neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reviews.

Le Week-End stars Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan as a middle aged couple who embark on a trip to Paris to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary, with less than romantic results. The comedy is the latest collaboration from writer Hanif Kureishi and director Roger Michell. Jenny McCartney reviews.

The conductor John Eliot Gardiner discusses the life and music of JS Bach, who he regards as the greatest composer. Gardiner's book, which he has spent the last decade writing, presents an "unsanitised" version of Bach, revealing his brutalising schooling, his brushes with the law, and the difficult conditions in which he wrote such masterpieces as The St Matthew Passion and the B Minor Mass.

Producer Stephen Hughes.

With John Wilson.

Sitar player Anoushka Shankar discusses her latest album, Traces Of You, which features vocals from her half-sister, the singer Norah Jones. The album was influenced by the death of her father, the legendary sitar player Ravi Shankar, and explores the cycle of life. Anoushka Shankar explains how the worldwide outcry following the death of a young woman who was gang raped in India, led her to reveal that she too was sexually abused as a young girl.

Truckers is the new TV drama by Made In Dagenham writer, William Ivory. Set in Nottingham, each episode tells the story of one character: starting with Stephen Tompkinson as a driver dealing with the breakdown of his marriage. The series also stars Ashley Walters (Top Boy) and Sian Breckin (Tyrannosaur). Matt Thorne reviews.

In a rare interview, artist Frank Auerbach talks in detail about his approach to his work, explaining that he goes to his studio every single day, without ever taking a day off, because he enjoys it so much. He also points out that, although he is seen as an abstract artist, he actually paints exactly what he sees in front of him...

Producer Rebecca Nicholson.

With Mark Lawson.

Saoirse Ronan was only 13 when she was Oscar and BAFTA nominated as Best Supporting Actress for her role in Atonement. Since then, she has starred in The Lovely Bones, Byzantium and The Host. Now, at 19, she heads the cast of Kevin MacDonald's film How I Live Now, based on Meg Rosoff's book about children caught up in a third world war. She reflects on the transition from child to adult actor, dealing with death on set and the possibility of running for US President.

Handbagged, a new play from Moira Buffini, explores the relationship between Margaret Thatcher and the Queen during political events of the 1980s. Stella Gonet and Fenella Woolgar play older and younger versions of the former Prime Minisiter while Marion Bailey and Claire Holman play the older and younger Queen. Novelist Justin Cartwright gives his verdict.

The exhibition, Shunga: Sex and Humour in Japanese Art, at the British Museum, focuses on sexually explicit paintings, prints and illustrated books from Japan from 1600 - 1900, and examines why they became taboo in the 20th century. Writer and novelist Bidisha reviews

As Michael Symmons Roberts wins the Forward Prize for a book of poems each with a self-imposed limit of 15 lines, Front Row reflects on size restrictions in art - with Ian Christie on film, David Hepworth on music and Cathy Rentzenbrink on literature.

Producer Nicki Paxman.

With Mark Lawson.

David Tennant and RSC Artistic Director Gregory Doran discuss their forthcoming production of Richard II. Tennant talks about switching accents and the difference between working on the stage and screen. Gregory Doran reveals his techniques for making Shakespeare understandable, why he won't change words and how he copes with his dual role of managing the RSC whilst directing his own plays.

The analysis and control of human sexuality are the focus of a new film and a TV drama series. The film Thanks for Sharing, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Mark Ruffalo and Tim Robbins, is set in the world of recovering sex addicts, whilst the series Masters of Sex stars Michael Sheen as the pioneering sex researcher Dr William Masters. Advice columnist Bel Mooney gives her verdict.

Bill Bryson, whose bestselling books includes Notes form a Small Island and A Short History of Nearly Everything, discusses his latest work, One Summer: America 1927. Covering a period of just a few months in 1927, the book explores how events including Charles Lindbergh's non-stop flight from New York to Paris, a sensational murder trial and the President's shock decision not to stand for re-election gripped America and shaped its future. Bill Bryson discusses how concentrating on a snapshot of history gave him insights that might elude other biographers and historians.

Producer Olivia Skinner.

With Mark Lawson.

The film Sunshine on Leith follows two young soldiers struggling to re-adjust to life in Edinburgh after returning from Afghanistan. Based on a stage musical drawing on songs by The Proclaimers, it stars Jane Horrocks and Peter Mullan. Larushka Ivan-Zedah reviews.

Actor Adil Ray discusses his TV sit-com Citizen Khan, as it returns for a second series. Ray, who plays self-appointed Muslim community leader Mr Khan, talks about getting into character and addresses criticisms of the show - including complaints that it was offensive.

Art Under Attack: Histories Of British Iconoclasm is the first exhibition to explore the history of physical attacks on art in Britain, from state-sanctioned destruction of religious works during the Reformation, to defaced portraits in Jake and Dinos Chapman's series, One Day You Will No Longer Be Loved. Artist John Keane gives his verdict.

After receiving the award for Scottish Crime Book of the Year, Malcolm Mackay talks about the inspiration for his novels. Born and still living in Stornoway, in the Outer Hebrides, Mackay explains how he came to start writing a trilogy about organised crime in Glasgow.

Producer Nicki Paxman.

With Kirsty Lang.

The romantic comedy Austenland, based on a novel of the same name, centres on a single 30-something American woman who travels to Britain to visit a resort where the Jane Austen era is recreated, hoping to find her very own Colin Firth version of Mr Darcy. Critic Viv Groskop - who was born a stone's throw away from Chawton, where Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice - reviews.

Stephen Poliakoff, writer of Caught On A Train and Shooting The Past, reflects on his controversial debut TV drama Hitting Town, which was made in 1975 and is released on DVD for the first time. Written when he was 23, the TV play made headlines when Mary Whitehouse campaigned for it to be banned, appalled by its storyline about a brother and sister who embark on an incestuous affair. Poliakoff reveals his own sister's reaction to Hitting Town and his other incest drama Close My Eyes.

Australian author Hannah Kent's debut novel Burial Rites tells the story of the last woman executed in Iceland. Set in the winter of 1829 and including real court documents, the book combines Nordic noir with cold case fiction. Kent describes how she first heard about the story when visiting Iceland as a teenager and what drew her to write about the case a decade later.

Artists Elmgreen and Dragset have turned five former textile galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum into an apartment belonging to a fictional retired architect, using objects from the museum's collection alongside items from antique markets. Kirsty and architecture critic Hugh Pearman visited the apartment to see if they could decode its secrets.

Producer Jerome Weatherald.

With Kirsty Lang.

Atlantis is the new family drama from the BBC, aiming to fill the Saturday night slot vacated by Merlin and Doctor Who. The action takes place in the mythical city of Atlantis and features Mark Addy as Hercules and Juliet Stevenson as the Oracle. Natalie Haynes reviews.

Michael Morpurgo is one of our best known and most prolific children's writers. On the eve of his 70th birthday and with a writing career spanning nearly 40 years, he has witnessed a huge shift in the profile of the children's writer, in part aided by the Children's Laureate award he devised with his friend Ted Hughes. He reflects on the reasons for the shift and the impact on his career of the War Horse phenomenon, as it became a play and then a film.

The final shortlisted author in the BBC National Short Story Award 2013 is Lavinia Greenlaw, who'll be discussing her entry We Are Watching Something Terrible Happening. Love and science collide in the chaos of a disintegrating relationship, a civil war and the trajectory of meteorites. The story will be read on Radio 4 tomorrow afternoon at 3.30.

A new film by Margarethe von Trotta explores Hannah Arendt's experience of covering Adolf Eichmann's war crimes trial for the New Yorker. This became the basis for her most famous work Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Shahidha Bari reviews the film.

Producer Ellie Bury.

With Mark Lawson

Comedian and actor Johnny Vegas - real name Michael Pennington - talks to Mark about dropping out of seminary school before embarking on a career in stand-up comedy and how his drunken persona threatened to take over entirely. His autobiography Becoming Johnny Vegas takes a candid look back at the person behind the persona.

This week sees the publication of Solo in which a 45-year-old James Bond, haunted by his memories of his service at the D-Day landings, is sent from 1960s London to help end a war in the fictional African state of Zanzarim. William Boyd discusses how he went through the Fleming canon to learn about the UK's most celebrated spy, writing him from a modern day perspective which meant dealing with his 70-a-day cigarette habit and ferocious drinking, plus why he includes a recipe for Bond's salad dressing.

The next writer in Front Row's series of interviews with the contenders for the BBC National Short Story Award 2013 is Lucy Wood, whose story is about a group of ghosts that watch over a Cornish house and its changing inhabitants. Notes from the House Spirits is broadcast tomorrow at 3.30pm on Radio 4.

Producer Ella-mai Robey.

With Mark Lawson.

The artworks competing to occupy Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth in 2015 and 2016 were unveiled today. Shortlisted artists Marcus Coates and Liliane Lijn discuss their designs, along with Ekow Eshun, chair of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group, who make the final decision about which two artworks will be successful.

Stephen King publishes a sequel to his 1977 novel The Shining today. The boy Danny Torrance has grown up, but has he managed to escape the legacy of his alcoholic psychopathic father? Rachel Cooke reviews Doctor Sleep.

Lionel Shriver is the latest writer in our series of interviews with the contenders for the BBC National Short Story Award 2013. Her story called Prepositions is set around events during 9/11 and takes the form of a letter between two women. Prepositions is broadcast on Wednesday at 3.30pm on Radio 4.

Alfred Brendel, one of the world's greatest pianists, retired from playing in public in 2008, although at the age of 82 he still performs his own poems and is about to take part in a poetry and music event with his son, the cellist Adrian Brendel. They reflect on their artistic relationship and what it is like to perform together as father and son.

Producer Dymphna Flynn.

With Mark Lawson

Hugh Jackman returns to our cinema screens this week, starring alongside Jake Gyllenhaal in the thriller Prisoners, about a man who takes the law into his own hands when his young daughter goes missing. Jackman discusses his latest role, a far cry from playing Jean Valjean in Les Miserables.

The Wrong Mans is a new TV comedy drama written by and starring James Corden and Horrible Histories' Mathew Baynton, about two office workers who accidentally get entangled in a criminal conspiracy. Rebecca Nicholson reviews.

The next writer in Front Row's series of interviews with the contenders for the BBC National Short Story Award 2013 is Lisa Blower, whose story is about a disastrous family trip to Barmouth. You can hear her story tomorrow afternoon (Tuesday).

Last night the Netflix drama House of Cards became the first internet streamed programme to win an Emmy Award, as its director David Fincher picked up Best Director of a Drama Series. And Breaking Bad, also available on Netflix, won Outstanding Drama Series. Mark talks to Ted Sarandos, head of content for the video on demand service, about the change in how we consume entertainment.

Producer Timothy Prosser.