Ben Chaplin on starring in Farewell To The Theatre

Claudia meets playwright Helen Edmundson who discusses her new play; Mary Shelley. West Yorkshire Playhouse is co-producing this nationally touring production by Shared Experience and it receives its world premiere staging on March 16th in Leeds before going on tour. Helen's recent work includes Swallows and Amazons and The Heresy Of Love for the RSC, which has just opened to fantastic reviews. Her new play sheds light on the remarkable life events that led Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein, one of the most astonishing novels in literature, when she was just 19 years old.

Olivier Award winning actress Nichola McAuliffe tells us about starring in the highly acclaimed Hull Truck production of Alan Bennett's The Lady in the Van which tells the story of Bennett's unusual neighbour - a lady who lives in a clapped out Bedford Van, parked in the playwright's front garden. The mysterious Miss Shepherd and her van move in one day - and never move out.

Actor Ben Chaplin talks about starring in the Hampstead Theatre's production of Farewell to the Theatre, a new play about Harley Granville-Barker, the visionary actor, director, producer and playwright credited with laying the foundations of modern British theatre in the early Twentieth Century.

In the 'Tour Guide's Guide To Art', Claudia chats to Bob Roe, Deputy Chairman and Trustee of Carnforth Station and Visitors Centre. No ordinary railway station, Carnforth was the setting for David Lean's classic film Brief Encounter, and having been lovingly restored at the turn of the 21st century, it now houses an exhibition dedicated to arguably the most romantic British film of all time.

Plus Estelle Lovatt reviews current art exhibitions and Alex Heminsley discusses crime literature.