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

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Michael Fassbender

Neel Mukherjee

Nish Kumar

Sarah McQuaid

undefined The Pitmen Poets

Charlotte Mullins

Alex Clark

Clemency Burton-Hill

Angie Nehring

Front Row: Michael Fassbender, Love to Read, The Goldfinch, Artists who tour

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04/11/2016

Michael Fassbender, Love to Read, The Goldfinch, Artists who tour

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Michael Fassbender, Love to Read, The Goldfinch, Artists who tour

Actor Michael Fassbender on his new film, Neel Mukherjee reads Twain's Huckleberry Finn.

Actor Michael Fassbender on The Light Between Oceans, Neel Mukherjee on Twain's Huckleberry Finn, and why Carel Fabritius' The Goldfinch inspired Donna Tartt's novel.

In his new film The Light Between Oceans, Michael Fassbender takes on the role of a man who becomes a lighthouse keeper in order to escape the atrocities he witnessed in World War One. He talks about playing a decent man struggling to overcome his past and what it was like to work on a remote location in New Zealand.

As part of the BBC's celebration of reading, Love to Read, Front Row has challenged five authors to confess to a classic book they've never read - and then read it. Today Neel Mukherjee, best known for his Booker Prize-shortlisted The Lives of Others, reads Mark Twain's tale of a rebel boy and a runaway slave, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 

Comedian Nish Kumar, singer Sarah McQuaid and The Pitmen Poets discuss the tricky logistics of putting together a busy touring schedule, visiting every corner of the UK in just a few weeks. How do they choose where to appear, how many miles does it involve, and what happens when it doesn't go according to plan?

The Goldfinch, the 17th-century painting of a chained bird that inspired Donna Tartt's Pulitzer prize winning novel, is on display at the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh from today. Art critic Charlotte Mullins and literary critic Alex Clark discuss how this painting and others have sparked writers' imaginations.

Presenter: Clemency Burton-Hill
Producer: Angie Nehring.

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