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Front Row: The Mousetrap at 60, Calixto Bieito on Carmen, New Russian Art

The Mousetrap at 60, Calixto Bieito on Carmen, New Russian Art

21/11/2012

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, The Mousetrap at 60, Calixto Bieito on Carmen, New Russian Art

The Mousetrap at 60; Calixto Bieito on Carmen; contemporary Russian art.

As The Mousetrap turns 60, Front Row sends three crime writers to see it; radical Catalan theatre director Calixto Bieito on Carmen; and an exhibition of contemporary Russian art.

With Mark Lawson. 

Agatha Christie's classic murder mystery play The Mousetrap has now been continuously in performance in London for 60 years, and the first ever touring production of the show is currently on a 60 date tour. Front Row sent three crime writers - Frances Fyfield, Mark Billingham and Suzette A Hill - to see The Mousetrap at three different locations. All three join Mark to debate whether the production has aged well.

The theatre director Calixto Bieito is renowned for his radical productions of classic operas. His version of Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera opened with a row of singers on toilet seats, trousers down. As his sexually-explicit production of Carmen opens, Bieito reveals how travels to Morocco, seeing his first bull fight and the plight of women in Spain fed into his vision of Bizet's very popular opera - and the relevance of Henrik Ibsen's unusual pet.

A new exhibition of contemporary Russian art at the Saatchi Gallery showcases work by emerging young artists. Gaiety is the Most Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union: Art from Russia, charts their response to the break-up of the Soviet Union. Author and former Moscow correspondent A.D. Miller discusses what the work tells us about politics and society in a changing Russia.


Producer Ella-mai Robey.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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