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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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

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Kirsty Patricia Lang

Alexander McCall Smith

Ajbage Bola

James Fritz

Luke Kennard

Adam Smith

Front Row: Alexander McCall Smith, Review of The Shallows, National Youth Theatre turning 60.

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10/08/2016

Alexander McCall Smith, Review of The Shallows, National Youth Theatre turning 60.

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Alexander McCall Smith, Review of The Shallows, National Youth Theatre turning 60.

Alexander McCall Smith on The Bertie Project, the latest in his 44 Scotland Street series.

Alexander McCall Smith talks about The Bertie Project, the latest in his 44 Scotland Street series, plus two young playwrights on how you write a play that speaks to generation Z.

This week sees the release of a lot of water in cinemas as surfer Blake Lively does battle with a great white shark in The Shallows, and inhabitants of a small Norwegian town struggle to survive a tsunami in The Wave. Adam Smith comes up for breath to offer his verdict on both. 

Alexander McCall Smith is back with his 11th instalment of his popular '44 Scotland Street series' with The Bertie Project. He reveals what happens to Bertie next, how the pressure of writing a serialised novel affects his style, and, after more than 80 books, will he ever slow down?

To help celebrate the National Youth Theatre turning sixty, two playwrights, Bola Ajbage and James Fritz, have penned plays hoping to fire the imagination of young theatre goers. They join Kirsty to explain why they've put technology and housing centre stage in a bid to speak to generation Z. 

Seas and rivers have long been a source of poetic inspiration so to continue our series where we find out what artists in residence do, we take a walk up a towpath in Birmingham with canal laureate Luke Kennard.

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