Front Row - 17/02/2009

Presented by Mark Lawson. Political journalist Robin Oakley reviews Margaret, a TV drama about the last days of Margaret Thatcher's premiership. The comedian Lee Hurst has been fined for smashing a mobile phone belonging to an audience member during a stand-up gig. Comedian Steve Punt and media lawyer Duncan Lamont discuss the case, which raises questions about the ownership of material and the ways in which technology can impact on creativity. Playwright Peter Flannery discusses his new play Burnt by the Sun, which explores sexual jealousy and political backstabbing in post-Revolutionary Russia. American composer John Adams's opera, Doctor Atomic, is set in 1945 and follows the creation of the atomic bomb and the moral dilemmas it caused. The current production is a collaboration between the Metropolitan Opera New York and the ENO.