Front Row - 29/10/2008

Presented by John Wilson. Singer Tony Christie talks about being painfully shy as a child, how he manages his on and off-stage personas, the resurrection of his career and returning to his South Yorkshire roots for his new album, Made in Sheffield. The new opera For You is the latest collaboration between the Booker Prize-winning novelist Ian McEwan and the composer Michael Berkeley. Writer and critic Adam Mars-Jones gives his thoughts, having seen the world premiere of this story about the creative and personal turmoil in the life of an ageing maestro. Architect Rafael Vinoly gives John Wilson a guided tour of his first building in Britain, Curve, a transparent theatre in the centre of Leicester. Historian and writer Tristram Hunt reviews Taking Liberties: The Struggle for Britain's Freedoms and Rights, a new exhibition of rarely-seen objects and documents that have helped to define the political and social landscape of modern Britain.