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Front Row: World Book Night; Mark Ravenhill; Winning Words at Olympic Park

World Book Night; Mark Ravenhill; Winning Words at Olympic Park

23/04/2012

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, World Book Night; Mark Ravenhill; Winning Words at Olympic Park

Shakespeare's sonnets in World Book Night books; Winning Words at Olympic Park.

John Wilson visits the Olympic Park to see the finished Winning Words poetry project; Shakespeare's sonnets on World Book Night; and new film Marvel Avengers Assemble.

With John Wilson. 

Last year on Front Row poetry publisher William Sieghart announced that a line from Alfred Tennyson's Ulysses would be displayed prominently on a wall in the London Olympic Village. Now the wall, which is part of the Winning Words poetry project, has been finished. John visits the Olympic Park with William Sieghart and artistic commissioner Sarah Weir as they see the completed wall for the first time.

On Shakespeare's birthday, Front Row focuses on his sonnets. 

Now in its second year, tonight's World Book Night sees 2.5 million books given away as part of an international initiative to encourage people to make reading a part of their lives, including prisons, hospitals and homeless shelters. Each of the books in the UK will include a Shakespeare sonnet, selected by poet Don Paterson. He and writer Meg Rosoff discuss how the sonnets fit with the chosen titles. 

Playwright Mark Ravenhill reads his new sonnet, commissioned by the RSC, to celebrate Shakespeare's birthday and the official opening of the World Shakespeare festival. He also discusses the challenges of writing it.

Naomi Alderman reviews the week's big multiplex release, Marvel Avengers Assemble, starring Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson and Mark Ruffalo. 


Producer Jerome Weatherald.

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