Front Row - 29/10/2009

John Wilson reports on the re-opening of Oxford's Ashmolean Museum, after a multi-million pound redevelopment. The Ashmolean in Oxford is the world's oldest public museum, dating back to the 17th century and named after its founder Elias Ashmole. These days its collection includes drawings by Michaelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, paintings by Constable and Picasso and the Anglo-Saxon treasure, the Alfred Jewel. The Ashmolean reopens after a 61-million-pound demolition and rebuilding project. John Wilson visited the museum as the builders raced to meet the deadline. Kirsty Lang talks to Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin about their book, Twitterature, in which the two US university students retell 75 great works of literature, from Shakespeare to Homer to Chaucer, through Twitter The Romanian film, Tales From The Golden Age, is a re-telling of urban myths which were popular during the regime of Ceausescu in the 1980s. Kirsty Lang and critic and broadcaster Susan Hitch discuss the long-held tradition of storytelling in Eastern European culture, and how humour was used as a way of dealing with oppression during that time. Kirsty Lang speaks to the family duo Anita and Kiran Desai to discuss the different cultural, historical and literary forces that formed their writing, making them the internationally-renowned authors they are today. Kiran Desai found fame with her novel, The Inheritance of Loss, when it won the 2006 Man Booker Prize. Her mother, Anita Desai, started writing at an early age while growing up in Mussoorie, India, and has had three of her novels shortlisted for the same prize, including In Custody. As a new website launches, offering downloadable theatre productions which have been filmed in High Definition, Kirsty Lang discusses the pros and cons of the service with Robert Delamere of digitaltheatre.com and critic Andrew Dickson.