Front Row: Archive 2011

Mark Lawson talks to playwright Arnold Wesker as the National Theatre revives his 1959 play The Kitchen, which is set in a West End restaurant where many nationalities work together. The 79 year old playwright reflects on his career and expresses his frustration that despite constant revivals of his famous plays, such as Roots and Chicken Soup with Barley, nobody will produce his new work.Norwegian mockumentary Troll Hunter plays with fairy-tale myths and explores what happens when three student film-makers accidentally come across the last remaining Troll Hunter. Writer Tibor Fischer reviews.Crime novelist Val McDermid discusses the twists and turns in the relationship between criminal profiler Tony Hill and DCI Carol Jordan in her 25th novel The Retribution. In this book chilling serial killer Jacko Vance is out of prison and desperately seeking revenge. When Edward Gardner picks up the baton at the Albert Hall this Saturday night, he will be the youngest conductor since Henry Wood himself to conduct the La

With Mark Lawson. David Hockney this morning announced a major new exhibition of his landscape works, which will open at the Royal Academy next January. The show will focus on his home county of Yorkshire, where he has recently spent six years painting, photographing, filming and creating artworks on his computer tablet. Hockney discusses his love of nature and the landscape in Yorkshire and Los Angeles where he also lives.Mark Kermode is known for his straight-talking approach to films and the way the film industry operates and this forms the basis of his new book The Good, the Bad and the Multiplex: What's Wrong With Modern Movies? He's live in the studio to discuss the latest cinematic bêtes-noires.Too Big To Fail is a new TV drama about the 2008 financial meltdown in the US, based on the book by Andrew Ross Sorkin, and starring James Woods, William Hurt and Cynthia Nixon. The BBC's economics editor Stephanie Flanders discusses the art of creating drama from a crisis.Producer Claire Bartleet.

With Mark Lawson. Stella Rimington, chair of judges for the Man Booker Prize 2011, discusses this year's shortlist of contenders: Julian Barnes, Carol Birch, Patrick deWitt, Esi Edugyan, Stephen Kelman and A D Miller. Leading British film maker Ken Loach celebrated his 75th birthday this year. His first film Kes is re-released in cinemas this week and the British Film Institute is celebrating with a season of his films, including Cathy Come Home, Land and Freedom and Looking For Eric. Ken Loach talks to Mark about film, censorship and having his children follow in his footsteps.The latest play by the award-winning debbie tucker green is inspired by the process of truth and reconciliation in countries from South Africa to Bosnia and Northern Ireland. Writer Kamila Shamsie reviews. Producer Nicki Paxman.

With John Wilson.Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender star in a new film version of Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte's much-adapted book. Kathryn Hughes reviews.Alexander Masters, author of the award-winning Stuart: A Life Backwards, explains how he found the subject of his second book living directly below him. The Genius in My Basement focuses on the mathematical genius Simon P Norton, who collects bus timetables and lives on a diet of tinned fish. Damon Albarn recently led a group of British music producers to the Democratic Republic of Congo to make an album with Congolese musicians in Kinshasa. Damon came to Front Row along with two of his musical collaborators in the Congo, producers Kwes and Orlando Higginbottom, aka TEED. Can contemporary art help ease Ireland's economic woes? As the first ever Dublin Contemporary festival is launched, John asks Jimmy Deenihan - Arts and Heritage Minister in the Irish government - what he hopes to get in return for 2 million Euros of taxpayers money invested in the projec