With Mark Lawson. Dame Judi Dench, Danny Boyle and Simon Russell Beale were just some of the winners at last night's Evening Standard Theatre Awards. Despite the glamour of the ceremony, the mood was reflective, with speeches addressing proposed funding cuts to arts organisations. The night's winners reflect on the past year on stage. Clint Eastwood returns to the big screen in baseball drama Trouble With The Curve. He plays a veteran scout on a last trip before retirement. Joining him on...

With Kirsty Lang Producer and musician Brian Eno discusses his new album Lux and his new app, which allows listeners to create their own music by selecting a variety of shapes and sounds. The story behind Michael Jackson's multimillion selling album, BAD 25, is shown in a new Spike Lee documentary. A fan of Jackson, Spike Lee wanted his film to remind audiences of the talent and creativity behind a singer whose troubled life and early death has overshadowed his musical career. Music...

With Mark Lawson. When Matthew Bourne established the dance company Adventures in Motion Pictures in 1987, his pioneering fusion of contemporary dance, classical ballet, and theatre thrilled audiences worldwide, won prizes on both sides of the Atlantic, and divided critics. He discusses his new production of Sleeping Beauty and what he's learned from Strictly Come Dancing. It's exactly 99 years since the birth of composer Benjamin Britten, and next year's centenary celebrations include...

With Mark Lawson. Agatha Christie's classic murder mystery play The Mousetrap has now been continuously in performance in London for 60 years, and the first ever touring production of the show is currently on a 60 date tour. Front Row sent three crime writers - Frances Fyfield, Mark Billingham and Suzette A Hill - to see The Mousetrap at three different locations. All three join Mark to debate whether the production has aged well. The theatre director Calixto Bieito is renowned for his...

With John Wilson. Front Row reveals the shortlists for this year's Costa Book Awards. Gaby Wood of the Daily Telegraph and The Guardian's Alex Clark join John to discuss the nominations for the best first novel, novel, biography, poetry and children's book. The morning after appearing on The Royal Variety Performance, American singer-songwriter Neil Diamond talks to John about his five decades in music. Relationships, mental illness and a dance competition all come together in the film...

With Mark Lawson. Actor Derek Jacobi talks about his new TV series, Last Tango In Halifax, co-starring Anne Reid, Sarah Lancashire and Nicola Walker. He also reflects on moving away from traditional character roles, his desire to appear in a film franchise, and whether he would ever return to the role of King Lear. Crime writer Denise Mina discusses how she has worked on a graphic novel version of Stieg Larsson's best seller The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and plans to adapt all three...

With Kirsty Lang. Jimmy Page is the guitarist and founder member of Led Zeppelin. As Celebration Day, a film of their one-off 2007 reunion concert is released on DVD, Jimmy reflects on the performance, and why it's very unlikely the band will re-form. Sir David Attenborough is celebrating six decades of natural history programmes for the BBC. Charles Lagus was his cameraman in the 1950s when they worked as a two-man team on Zoo Quest. Simon King is a cameraman and film maker who's worked...

With John Wilson Ben Elton began his career as a stand-up comedian, and went on to write TV comedies, musicals and novels including Popcorn. His latest novel is Two Brothers, inspired by his family history about adopted brothers who go on to fight on opposite sides of the second world war. He reveals why this is a story he'd always wanted to tell. Danny Boyle - film-maker and impresario behind the London Olympics Opening Ceremony - joins regional theatre directors from across the UK who are...

With Mark Lawson Billie Piper stars in The Effect, a new play by Lucy Prebble about drugs trials and mental health. It's Prebble's first major new work since her success with ENRON, her play about the American financial scandal. Senior consultant neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reviews. The Heresy of Dr Dee is the latest in a series of novels about the Tudor astrologer and magician Dr John Dee by writer Phil Rickman. The novel explores the mysterious death of Amy Dudley, wife of Elizabeth I's...

With Mark Lawson. This week sees the return of The Hour, the drama set in a TV newsroom in the 1950s. The series picks up where the last one left off with ambitious producer Bel, played by Romola Garai, attempting to keep Dominic West's newsreader Hector in check, with a little help from Peter Capaldi as the new head of news. Former Deputy Director of BBC News Mark Damazer gives his verdict. A new Tate Modern exhibition takes David Hockney's A Bigger Splash and Jackson Pollock's action...

With Mark Lawson. Quentin Blake is known for his illustrations of books by Roald Dahl and Michael Rosen, as well as his work as a writer and an exhibiting artist. In his 80th year and as he publishes a new book of drawings, he reflects on how the breadth of his work, from children's books to hospital wards, makes him one of Britain's most recognized artists. Dramatist Anya Reiss, who was a teenager when her first play ran in 2010 at the Royal Court in London, has now adapted Chekhov's The...

With Kirsty Lang. Jeff Wayne has made a new version of his 1978 hit album The War Of The Worlds, now starring Liam Neeson as the narrator, stepping into Richard Burton's shoes - with Ricky Wilson, Gary Barlow and Joss Stone taking on the roles sung originally by David Essex, Justin Hayward and Julie Covington. Jeff Wayne reflects on the original appeal of HG Wells' story, and the aspects of the show he has now changed. Gregory Doran's first production since taking over as Artistic Director...

With Mark Lawson, Alan Bennett's new play People stars Frances de la Tour as a former model living in her family's crumbling stately home. The comedy, staged at the National Theatre, focuses on the future preservation of the house, with options ranging from a heritage site to location hire for a porn film. Writer Kate Saunders reviews. Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov - whose books include Death and the Penguin - talks to Mark about how he was almost seduced by the Writer's Union into being...

With John Wilson. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood reflect on life in The Rolling Stones, as they prepare to return to the stage next month. It's now 50 years since the band's first performance, and they discuss at their early shared love of the blues, the experience of rehearsing and performing, and the future. Producer John Goudie.

With Mark Lawson. In a rare interview, acclaimed director Michael Haneke talks about his most recent film, Amour, which won the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Festival. Haneke, whose previous films include Funny Games and The White Ribbon, discusses how he works with actors, and the films he has turned down. Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, 9 to 5 The Musical and Our Boys are just three of the many current stage productions featuring actresses and actors who have to cry on stage. Actors Laurence...

With Mark Lawson. Anna Friel returns to the stage in a new production of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, with a cast which also includes Ken Stott, Laura Carmichael and Sam West. Writer and performer Viv Groskop reviews. In 1964, a devoutly Christian Shropshire schoolteacher co-launched a Clean Up TV campaign - and it turned her into a media star. Mrs Mary Whitehouse wrote letters of complaint to programme-makers, politicians, pop stars and playwrights. A selection of her correspondence, preserved...

With Kirsty Lang. As the longer, American version of The Shining is released in the UK for the first time, a new documentary about the film's obsessive fans is also in cinemas. Room 237 documents the various theories about Stanley Kubrick's horror classic and what it really means. Jon Ronson, the director of Stanley Kubrick's Boxes, gives his response to the documentary and the longer version of The Shining. Lucy Kirkwood is one of the UK's most high-profile young playwrights. Her new play...

With Mark Lawson. Actor John Goodman discusses his latest role in Argo, Ben Affleck's film about a high-risk cinematic solution to the Iranian hostage crisis in the late '70s, which is based on a true story. Secret State is a new TV adaptation of Chris Mullin's novel A Very British Coup. Gabriel Byrne stars as the Deputy Prime Minister thrown into the limelight when his boss disappears. Political journalist Andrew Rawnsley reviews the programme. Orhan Pamuk was awarded the Nobel Prize in...

With Kirsty Lang. Rust and Bone, Jacques Audiard's follow-up to his award-winning prison drama A Prophet is an earthy romantic fable about the unlikely relationship between a bare-knuckle boxer and a trainer of killer whales. Marion Cotillard, the star of Rust and Bone, talks to Kirsty, and critic Sandra Hebron reviews the film. Steven Tyler and Joe Perry from Aerosmith discuss their album, Music From Another Dimension. The band members talk about working with Julian Lennon and Johnny Depp,...

With Mark Lawson. The film The Master is an impressionistic tale of an American war veteran who drifts into a cult led by a charismatic writer. Paul Thomas Anderson's follow-up to There Will Be Blood is partly inspired by the activities of novelist and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, and the director even invited Scientologist Tom Cruise to a personal screening. Lionel Shriver, author of We Need To Talk About Kevin, delivers her verdict. Seduced By Art is the National Gallery's first...

Mark Lawson interviews the American writer Tom Wolfe, as he publishes a new novel, Back to Blood, which is set amidst the wealth, sex and crime of contemporary Miami. It's now 25 years since Wolfe published his first novel, the controversial best-seller Bonfire Of The Vanities, and his new book is also a dissection of racial tension in urban America. The writer reflects on what, if anything, has changed in the intervening years. In a wide-ranging conversation, Wolfe also discusses political...

With Mark Lawson Dramatist Jez Butterworth talks about the pressures of following on from the success of his play Jerusalem, which starred Mark Rylance. His new play The River stars Dominic West and is being staged in a very small theatre. Jez Butterworth explains the choice of venue, and the unusual ticketing arrangements introduced to cope with demand. Doctor Who and Sarah Jane Adventures writers Russell T Davies and Phil Ford have created a new action thriller, Wizards vs Aliens. In the...

With Mark Lawson. Mark Gatiss stars as King Charles I in Howard Brenton's play 55 Days, which focuses on the period culminating in the trial and execution of the monarch, as Oliver Cromwell takes control. Peter Kemp reviews. Cartoonist and writer Posy Simmonds, whose creations include Tamara Drewe, discusses Mrs Weber's Omnibus - a collection of the newspaper comic strips she began in 1977 and continued for more than a decade. The strips centre on three middle-class, middle-aged school...

With Mark Lawson. Thomas Keneally, who won the Booker Prize for Schindler's Ark, discusses the inspiration for his new novel The Daughters of Mars. Set in 1915, the book focuses on two Australian sisters who join the war effort as nurses, bringing a guilty family secret with them. Keneally talks about his technique of taking historic subjects and showing them from an individual perspective. Dan Stevens, best known for his role as Matthew Crawley in ITV's Downton Abbey, is making his first...

With Kirsty Lang. When poet Sharon Olds' husband told her he was leaving her, she took out her notebook and started writing. Her new volume, Stag's Leap, charts the death of that marriage in a collection of poems now shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize for Poetry. Sharon Olds is known for being a poet of the personal, and she joins Kirsty to discuss her latest revelations. A black female lead character is a rare sight in television, which is why Scandal - a new drama from the US about...