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Front Row: Saoirse Ronan, The Book People goes into administration, How to paint babies

18/12/2019

Saoirse Ronan, The Book People goes into administration, How to paint babies

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Saoirse Ronan, The Book People goes into administration, How to paint babies

Saoirse Ronan on playing Jo March in Little Women, indie publisher calamity, babies in art

Saoirse Ronan on playing Jo March in Little Women, impact of The Book People going into administration and how to paint babies

Saoirse Ronan stars as Jo March in Greta Gerwig’s new film adaptation of Little Women. The Irish actress, who’s tipped for an Oscar for the role, discusses how the film draws out the connection between Jo and her creator Louisa May Alcott, if Jo and Laurie would work as couple today and her frustration at Greta’s lack of Golden Globe nominations for the film.

The Book People, the online and pop-up bookseller, went into administration yesterday just a week before Christmas, putting almost 400 jobs at risk. One of its suppliers, Galley Beggar, the small publisher responsible for the careers of Eimear McBride and Booker short-listed Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann, is now also threatened because the publisher had advanced 8000 copies of it to the retailer, for which it has not yet been paid. Today Galley Beggar launched a crowdfunding campaign to help raise £40,000 to enable it to continue trading. Galley Beggar publisher Sam Jordison tells us more.

As preparations to celebrate Christmas gather pace, art critic Louisa Buck, art dealer Jana Manuelpillai and portrait artist Caroline de Peyrecave look at the depiction of babies in art from medieval times and ask why so many artists seem to get it wrong.

And we pay tribute Kenny Lynch, the entertainer who was one of the few black British pop singers to find fame in the '60s. His death was announced today at the age of 81.

Presenter Stig Abell
Producer Simon Richardson

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