Front Row - 15/08/2008

Presented by Kirsty Lang. Including: Dirk Bogarde was known principally as a star of more than sixty films and a critically acclaimed author. To a privileged few, however, he was also a prolific correspondent. A selection of his letters, beginning as Dirk and his companion Anthony Forwood start a new life in France, is published at the end of the month. Whitbread-winning author Tim Lott reviews the selection. Scottish playwright David Harrower's new work 365, in collaboration with the National Theatre of Scotland, explores what happens when children in care have to move into the adult world. In 1967, then a young art student in San Francisco, Emory Douglas joined the newly formed Black Panthers Party and was appointed the organisation's Minister of Culture. The first UK exhibition of his work opens at Urbis in Manchester in October. Douglas talks to Kirsty about his art. Kirsty reports on the Threadneedle Figurative Prize, a new award whose winner will be chosen by public vote. Kirsty explores the candidates with the help of the Mall gallery's director Lewis McNaught and art critic Anna Moszynska.