Front Row - 25/02/2009

Presented by Mark Lawson. West Yorkshire,1974: a journalist investigates a series of child abductions only to discover a shockingly brutal, corrupt and all powerful police force. So starts a trilogy of interlinking films based on David Peace's cult novels, set against the backdrop of the Yorkshire Ripper case. Journalist Ian Jack reviews the drama Red Riding. Pakistan-born author Kamila Shamsie talks about rewriting the twentieth century, from Nagasaki to Guantanamo Bay, in her new novel Burnt Shadows. Professor John Deathridge reviews director Tim Albery's new interpretation of Wagner's opera The Flying Dutchman. The French film The Class (Entre Les Murs) won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival last year, and was shortlisted for Best Foreign Language Film at this year's Oscars. The film's director, Laurent Cantet, explains why he made his fictional film in a fly-on-the-wall documentary style.