Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

Front Row

Magazines & Reviews

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music

BBC Radio 4 FM

Kirsty Lang

Juliet Stevenson

Mike Carlson

Willy Vlautin

Ahren Warner

Gillian Clarke

Dymphna Flynn

Front Row: Juliet Stevenson; The Armstrong Lie

Juliet Stevenson; The Armstrong Lie

28/01/2014

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Juliet Stevenson; The Armstrong Lie

Arts news with Juliet Stevenson in Beckett's Happy Days, and documentary The Armstrong Lie

Arts news, including Juliet Stevenson in Beckett's Happy Days, documentary The Armstrong Lie reviewed, American writer Willy Vlautin, and poets in residence in zoos.

Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong is the subject of Oscar-winning documentary-maker Alex Gibney's latest film, The Armstrong Lie. In 2009 the film-maker, whose previous documentaries include Taxi to the Dark Side and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, set out to make a film about Armstrong's comeback year after a four-year retirement from the sport, but found himself with a bigger story in the wake of his doping confession on Oprah. Michael Carlson reviews.

Juliet Stevenson stars as Winnie in Samuel Beckett's play of resilience and self-reliance, Happy Days, at the Young Vic. Juliet tells Kirsty about her reservations in playing this major role, seen by some as the female Hamlet, and about the challenges of acting when submerged from the neck up.

In American writer Willy Vlautin's new novel The Free, a young member of the National Guard is returned home after suffering serious brain injury as a result of a roadside bomb in Iraq. The Free charts his slow recovery and the struggles he faces in a country which seems not to care. Vlautin discusses his novel and the dispossessed who feature so much in his work and his songs.

The poet Ahren Warner, who recently took up his position as poet-in-residence at London Zoo, joins Gillian Clarke - who had a similar role at the Museum of Zoology in Cambridge - to discuss the experience of writing from nature, and the inspiration it can bring.

Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

BBC Radio 4

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

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Front Row

Juliet Stevenson; The Armstrong Lie

Contributors

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4