Front Row - 24/03/2009

Presented by John Wilson. A musical of the The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert has arrived on the London stage with Jason Donovan and Australian actor Tony Sheldon among the cast boarding the lavender bus named Priscilla. Colin Paterson reviews. Globe-trotting presenter Alan Whicker talks to Mark about celebrating 50 years in front of the camera. In two new programmes, he retraces his steps, catches up with past interviewees, and reflects on how the world has changed - for good and for bad - over the last six decades. Jonathan Ross and Eastenders' June Brown are among the nominations for this year's British Academy TV awards. Time Out's TV Editor Gabriel Tate discusses the line-up. Author and musician Amit Chaudhuri's latest novel, The Immortals, is set in the city of his birth, Bombay. It tells the stories of Shyam, Mallika and Nirmalya, whose lives are all touched in some way by music. Chaudhuri is a trained singer in the North Indian classical tradition and he talks to Mark about the role his life-long passion for music played in writing The Immortals.