Front Row - 24/08/2009

Arts news and reviews with Mark Lawson. Mark Lawson talks to John Carey, who has written the first biography of Nobel Prize-winning novelist William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies. The Emmy Award-winning director, producer and screenwriter Judd Apatow has found huge box office success with comedies like Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. The former stand-up comedian has won critical acclaim as well as popular appeal. His new film Funny People, which follows the fortunes of two stand-up comics, is now being released. The writer Christopher Hampton is reported to have thought the subject of cricket too difficult to have as a theme for a feature film. But word is that Hampton has finally agreed to write the screenplay for Sam Mendes' adaptation of Joseph O'Neill's novel Netherland, about a group of British ex-pats who play cricket in post-9/11 New York. Actor and cricket aficionado Michael Simkins, author of cricket book Fatty Batter, ponders the dilemma faced by writers and filmmakers when dealing with the subject.