Front Row - 12/03/2009

Presented by Kirsty Lang. The Burning Plain, written by Guillermo Arriaga, is also his first film as a director. It stars Charlize Theron as a woman damaged by tragic incidents in her early life and, like earlier Arriaga films, multiple time-shifts feature heavily. Could the critic Gaylene Gould keep up? Marianne Faithfull has collaborated with a host of star names on her new album Easy Come Easy Go, including Jarvis Cocker and Keith Richards. She discusses making music at the age of 62, working with Keith Richards again, and what she makes of her contemporaries. After decades of war and the Taliban's repression, a Pop Idol-style TV show has taken Afghanistan by storm. In a new documentary, Afghan Star, director Havana Marking follows four of the final contestants including two women who risk their lives by appearing on the show. She talks to Kirsty about how the makers of the show hope the programme will encourage people to swap guns for music, and the challenges of filming on the streets of Kabul. Kirsty examines two new editions of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat, one of the best-selling poetry books of all time. Tony Briggs and Daniel Karlin, editors of the new editions, explore translator Edward FitzGerald's contribution to English literature and the Rubaiyat's place within it.