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LATEST PROGRAMME |
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THURSDAY 01 APRIL
Presented by Mark Lawson
GILLIAN ANDERSON
The actress who became famous as an alien-hunter in The X-Files returns for a London stage appearance. it’s doubtful that Gillian Anderson encountered a plot quite as odd as the one in Rebecca Gilman’s play The Sweetest Swing In Baseball. Previous plays by this young American writer including Spinning Into Butter and Boy Gets Girl,combine strong narratives with commentary on political and sexual attitudes.
The Sweetest Swing In Baseball feels more abstract like the all-black canvases painted by New York artist Dana, played by Anderson. Critical contempt and commercial failure for this show lead Dana to attempt suicide. Admitted to a psychiatric ward, her medical insurance only covers ten days treatment unless her shrink belives that she’s truly batty. So she pretends to be a batter, the black baseball star Daryl Strawberry.
A recovering alcoholic and a sedated psychopath help her pose as a victim of multiple personality disorder.
Matt Woolf of Variety magazine saw the play at the Royal Court in London.
The Sweetest Swing In Baseball runs at the Royal Court Theatre in London until 15th May.
 Listen to the review
GOTHIKA
Gothika, directed by Matthew Kassowitz, opens in the UK tomorrow, follows the more conventional artistic psychology of employing multiple personality disorder as a plot-device in a horror movie. The twist in this one, is 'psychologist, heal thyself.' Oscar winner, Halle Berry plays top criminal shrink Dr Miranda Grey, who ends up in one of her own cells after waking up to discover that she has murdered her husband following an encounter on the road with a ghostly young girl.
Halle Berry as Dr Miranda Grey ends up as in-mate alongside her former patients, struggling to remember what happened. Jenny McCartney, film critic of The Sunday Telegraph discusses.
Gothika certificate 15 opens around the UK tomorrow.
Listen to the interview
VIOLIN MAKING
This week in London a violin-making competition has been taking place at the Royal Academy of Musical as part of a festival honouring the late Yehudi Menuhin. In a sort of Radio 3 version of Pop Idol, one of the instrument-makers was eliminated each day as they competed to make the best copy of a Lord Wilton Guarneri De Jesu violin once owned by Menuhin.
Tommy Pearson followed the competition to see which bow would take the final bow.
The winning copy will perform on Sunday at the Royal Academy of Music in London a piece specially written for it.
The Genius of the Violin Festival is on at the Royal Academy of Music and Drama, until April 4th and some concerts from the festival will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
Listen to the item
PETER ACKROYD
Whereas most writers stumble from book to book, Peter Ackroyd has always planned ahead like an opera singer. In the 1980s, he signed a then-unprecedented ten-book deal to produce novels and biographies over a decade.
The fiction included Hawksmoor and English Music while there were biographies of Charles Dickens and William Blake. Now Ackroyd has begun another ten-book deal for a series of short biographies of significant Britons which begins this week with a short life of Geoffrey Chaucer and will continue with JMW Turner, Isaac Newton and Marry Shelley.
Ackroyd, has also just completed a full-length biography of Shakespeare and explains what gets left out in a truncated biography of Chaucer.
Listen to the interview
AIR AMERICA
Air America Radio, a new radio station has launched as a liberal answer to the right-wing shock-jocks which fill the U.S air-waves. Writer and critic Joe Queenan listened in.
Listen to the interview
BUSY GALLERIES
Do you find art galleries and museums too crowded? Do the crowds put you off going to some exhibitions? Or do you enjoy the bustle of busy galleries and enjoy sharing the exhibits with others?
This week we'll be discussing how museums and galleries monitor and control visitor numbers and we'd like to hear your views. Email us at frontrow@bbc.co.uk
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