Front Row

Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

Magazines & Reviews

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

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

BBC Radio 4 FM

Front Row: Andrew O'Hagan, The Singapore Grip, Theatre at the point of no return

08/09/2020

Andrew O'Hagan, The Singapore Grip, Theatre at the point of no return

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Andrew O'Hagan, The Singapore Grip, Theatre at the point of no return

Andrew O'Hagan on his novel Mayflies. Plus ITV's new drama The Singapore Grip.

Andrew O'Hagan on his new novel Mayflies. A review of ITV's new drama The Singapore Grip. And we discuss Andrew Lloyd Webber's claim today that the arts "at the point of no return"

Andrew Lloyd Webber told MPs today that the arts are at the "point of no return". Also speaking to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee was Rebecca Kane Burton, chief exec of LW Theatres, who joins us to discuss the crisis, and Lucy Noble, chief exec of the Royal Albert Hall. Will performing venues be saved by the government's recently announced Operation Sleeping Beauty? 

Andrew O’Hagan’s latest novel, Mayflies, is the story of two young friends in a small Scottish town who spend the summer of 1986 escaping from the world of their fathers and into the freedom of a magical weekend in Manchester.  Thirty years after that, one calls the other with devastating news.  O’Hagan talks about how the novel was inspired by the joy and sadness of a real-life friendship.

A Christopher Hampton adaptation of J G Farrell’s  1978 novel The Singapore Grip starts on Sunday on ITV, starring David Morrissey, Jane Horrocks, Charles Dance and Luke Treadaway.  Set in the Second World War it tells of the fortunes of a family of rich rubber planters in the months before and during the Japanese invasion of Singapore. Actor and writer Daniel York Loh reviews.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Timothy Prosser
Production Co-ordinator: Lizzie Harris

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

Andrew O'Hagan, The Singapore Grip, Theatre at the point of no return

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4