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Front Row: Kenneth Branagh and his new Shakespeare biopic, Lavinia Greenlaw on writing poetry about dementia

05/02/2019

Kenneth Branagh and his new Shakespeare biopic, Lavinia Greenlaw on writing poetry about dementia

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Kenneth Branagh and his new Shakespeare biopic, Lavinia Greenlaw on writing poetry about dementia

Kenneth Branagh on his new film All is True, and Lavinia Greenlaw's poetry about dementia.

Kenneth Branagh on his new Shakespeare biopic All is True; Lavinia Greenlaw on writing poetry about her father's dementia; and critic Anna Leszkiewicz on what to watch on TV

Kenneth Branagh directs and stars in new William Shakespeare biopic All is True alongside Judi Dench and Ian McKellen. Kenneth Branagh tells us why he focused on the playwright’s last years - when he returned to Stratford to a difficult marriage, scandal involving both his daughters, and to finally face his grief for his son Hamnet who had died years before. 

The poet Lavinia Greenlaw’s new collection includes a remarkable sequence that chronicles her father’s dementia, called The Sea Is An Edge And An Ending. She closely observes his, ‘disappearance into the present tense,' like a scientist watching a process unfold, in poetry which is very moving. Lavinia talks about these and the other poems in her new book The Built Moment, which offer possibilities in the face of loss.

Plus we round up the best of TV each week, starting today. TV critic Anna Leszkiewicz gives her verdict on Channel 4’s Pure, based on Rose Cartwright’s memoir about having a type of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder which means she has extremely explicit intrusive sexual thoughts; BBC Four’s Safe Harbour, an Australian drama which follows the fallout after a group of friends on holiday come across a boat of refugees sinking in the Timor Sea; and Sky’s lavish German language series Das Boot - a sequel to the classic war film.

Presenter: Stig Abell
Producer: Emma Wallace

Main image: Kenneth Branagh
Photo credit: Getty Images

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