Front Row - 19/05/2009

Annette Crosbie returns to television comedy in Hope Springs, starring alongside Alex Kingston and Ronni Ancona as a hotelier in the Scottish Highlands who gets embroiled with a gang of criminals. Mark Lawson talks to Annette about her long screen career in classics such as Edward the Seventh, One Foot in the Grave and the cinema release Calendar Girls. Singer Mary Hopkin - who made her name in 1968 with Those Were the Days on the Beatles' Apple label - discusses talent shows, Eurovision and her new album, which features songs from her own archive. Playwright Wallace Shawn stars alongside Miranda Richardson in his explicit new play, Grasses of a Thousand Colours, at the Royal Court Theatre in London. The director is Shawn's long time collaborator and My Dinner with Andre co-star Andre Gregory. Adam Mars-Jones reviews. Matthew Boulton was one of the country's most significant inventors, entrepreneurs and industrial pioneers. He spent most of his life in Birmingham and to commemorate the 200th anniversary of his death, the city is hosting exhibitions which celebrate the technological advances he helped develop. Matthew Boulton And The Art Of Making Money focuses on his role as the father of modern coinage; Matthew Boulton: Selling What The World Desires explores both his commercial interests and partnerships, and his personal love of design, landscape gardening and fashion. Mark Lawson assesses Boulton's life and work with writer and historian Jenny Uglow, author of The Lunar Men, and Dr Richard Clay, curator of The Art Of Making Money.