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Front Row: Bruce Willis in Looper, Ashley Jensen, BBC Short Story author

Bruce Willis in Looper, Ashley Jensen, BBC Short Story author

25/09/2012

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Bruce Willis in Looper, Ashley Jensen, BBC Short Story author

Mark Lawson reviews Bruce Willis in Looper, plus Extras actress Ashley Jensen on stage.

Mark Lawson has the verdict on Bruce Willis in Looper, plus Ashley Jensen, best known for Extras, discusses her new stage role, and BBC Short Story contender Adam Ross.

With Mark Lawson. 

In the new sci-fi thriller Looper, time-travel exists, but is illegal and only available on the black market. Organised crime bosses send their victims into the past, to be murdered by a Looper - a hired gun. Bruce Willis plays a successful Looper who is sent back in time to assassinate his younger self, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Writer Matt Thorne reviews.

Ashley Jensen, best known for her TV roles in Extras and Ugly Betty, talks about working with Ricky Gervais, relocating to Hollywood, the appeal of her Scottish accent and returning to the stage in Alan Ayckbourn's A Chorus of Disapproval, with Rob Brydon and Nigel Harman. 

The phrase Plan B has entered current debates about the economy - but it's also a London musician, it appears in the title of the latest Van Morrison album and it's the name of a Hollywood production company. Craig Leyland from the Oxford English Dictionary discusses the origins of the phrase, and its many re-appearances.

This year - in celebration of the Olympics - the BBC's National Short Story Award has become an International Short Story Award. Front Row has been interviewing the 10 authors shortlisted for the £15,000 prize. Tonight American novelist Adam Ross discusses his story, In The Basement, to be broadcast tomorrow at 3.30pm.



Producer Claire Bartleet.

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