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Front Row: Elvis Costello; Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan

Elvis Costello; Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan

28/10/2010

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Elvis Costello; Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan

John Wilson interviews songwriter Elvis Costello, and comedians Rob Brydon & Steve Coogan.

John Wilson talks to songwriter Elvis Costello, as he releases his new album National Ransom, and interviews comedians Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan about their new TV comedy series.

With John Wilson.

Elvis Costello discusses his new album National Ransom, which combines topical themes of financial meltdown with depictions of historical people and places. He reflects on the process of song-writing and the tension in his work between the caustic and the lyrical.

Men Should Weep, by the Scottish playwright Ena Lamont Stewart, has just opened in a new National Theatre production. Written in 1947 and set during the Depression of the 1930s, the play tells the story of a large and impoverished working class family living in the Gorbals in Glasgow. Almost ignored by the theatre establishment of her day, will this staging bring Ena Lamont Stewart further out of the shadows of theatrical history? Bidisha gives her verdict. 

Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan discuss their new BBC comedy show The Trip. Directed by Michael Winterbottom, the series shows what happens when Steve invites Rob on a road trip around the North of England to review restaurants - but where does fiction end and reality begin?

Producer Philippa Ritchie.

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