Front Row - 02/07/2009

Arts news and reviews with Kirsty Lang. Jo Brand, Vicki Pepperdine and Joanna Scanlan reveal how they researched, devised and performed Getting On, a three-part comedy drama about nursing the elderly for BBC 4's old age season, Grey Expectations. Beardyman is a beatboxer who combines his vocal skills with a comic approach, performing routines in the guise of everything from a television cook to a nutty professor. He tells Kirsty how he is using pioneering technology to create new ways of beatboxing, and performs live in the studio. The current pop charts are awash with young British female artists: Little Boots, Florence and the Machine and La Roux are all fronted by women and have albums out now. Kirsty is joined by music critic Alexis Petridis to review the albums and examine the trend for female domination of the top twenty. Dinosaurs are making a comeback to earth in a new arena spectacular touring Britain, starting in Glasgow. Inspired by the BBC television series 'Walking with Dinosaurs', the show involves fifteen life-size animatronic dinosaurs representing ten different species sharing the stage with a human narrator, who plays a palaeontologist called Huxley. Writer Denise Mina saw the show.