Front Row - 01/07/2008

Presented by Mark Lawson. Including: Critic Bidisha gives her verdict on writer and director Tom McCarthy's new film The Visitor, in which a college professor becomes embroiled in the lives of a young immigrant couple living in New York and discovers that his life will never be the same again. Lisa Gee's six-year-old daughter Dora played one of the Gretls in the Connie Fisher production of The Sound of Music. She never went to stage school and only attended the first audition for fun. In her new book Stage Mum, Gee tells the story of the journey from an open audition to the gradual realisation that Dora had won the part. Every Summer the National Theatre's New Connections season premieres new plays, written for and about young people by the country's top playwrights. This year's writers include Moira Buffini and Timberlake Wertenbaker, both of whom Mark Lawson joins in rehearsal. He visits Timberlake and the Daydreamer Youth Theatre in Watford as they prepare Arden City for performance at the Cottesloe theatre. As the British Museum publishes its Annual Review, Neil MacGregor discusses the museum's record-breaking year, forthcoming exhibitions and why it has always relied on the kindness of strangers.