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Front Row: Sandra Bullock; Leonard Bernstein; The most-performed plays

Sandra Bullock; Leonard Bernstein; The most-performed plays

28/10/2013

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Sandra Bullock; Leonard Bernstein; The most-performed plays

Mark Lawson interviews Sandra Bullock, who plays a medic lost in space in the film Gravity

Arts news. Mark Lawson talks to Sandra Bullock about her role in Gravity; Leonard Bernstein as revealed in newly collected letters; the most-performed plays of recent years.

With Mark Lawson.

Sandra Bullock, who won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2010, is now tipped for Oscar success again for her role in Gravity, in which she plays a medical engineer lost in space. She considers the demands of the part, which involves relatively little dialogue and the illusion of weightlessness.

Few musicians experience the success enjoyed by Leonard Bernstein, acclaimed as a charismatic conductor as well as a composer whose work includes West Side Story. Now a 600 page collection of his letters offers a chance to re-assess his life, as revealed in correspondence with family members, numerous high-profile fellow musicians and cultural figures. Nicholas Kenyon, managing director of the Barbican Centre, London, gives his verdict.

Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz and Rafe Spall star in a new Broadway production of Harold Pinter's play Betrayal - the latest staging of a work which has received several high-profile revivals since its premiere in 1978. Theatre critic Dominic Maxwell reflects on Betrayal's popularity, and discusses the plays and musicals which have enjoyed the most new productions in recent years.

Film-maker Francis Ford Coppola, director of The Godfather trilogy, has described his position now as 'like a retired businessman - but rather than play golf, I've decided to make art films instead.' As Coppola's latest film goes straight to DVD in the UK, Andrew Collins looks at the artists who have chosen to retire - but then can't resist a come-back.

Producer Timothy Prosser.

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