Front Row - 22/03/2010

Emma Thompson returns to the role of the supernatural Nanny McPhee in the sequel to 2005's hit film. This time Nanny McPhee uses her powers to help a young mother struggling to run the family farm while her husband is away at war. Kate Saunders reviews. Australian playwright and screenwriter Andrew Upton discusses his latest project with the National Theatre, a new version of Mikhail Bulgakov's The White Guard; and the Australian theatre he co-runs with his wife, actress Cate Blanchett. The big success story of last night's Olivier Awards is the triumph of 28 year-old American playwright, Katori Hall, whose play The Mountaintop was the surprise winner of Best New Play - beating tough competition from Enron, Jerusalem, and Red. The play follows Martin Luther King on the night before his 1968 assassination, and - as Katori Hall explains to Kirsty Lang - she was inspired to write it by a family story about her mother. Kirsty talks to the Booker shortlisted author Mick Jackson about The Widow's Tale, a novel written in the voice of a recently bereaved woman who runs away from home and confronts the secrets in her past. There have been a spate of cover album releases so far this year, Alexis Petridis reviews offerings from Craig David, Sharleen Spiteri, Peter Gabriel and The Hot Rats, a group made up of Supergrass members Gaz Coombes and Danny Goffey.