Front Row - 30/04/2009

Graham Coxon discusses the influence of English folk musicians such as Bert Jansch, John Martyn and Nick Drake on his new solo album The Spinning Top and, as he reunites with Damon Albarn to rehearse for the Blur reunion concerts, Graham shares his hope that the band will record a new album. Mike Figgis talks about his series of short films which focus on conversations with the people of Liverpool about works of art in the Tate Collection. Figgis has taken four works from the Tate's Collection into unusual locations around the city, inlcuding a hardware shop, where he has filmed the reactions of the public. Works featured in the project include Marcel Duchamp's Fountain and Carl Andre's 144 Magnesium Square. Filmed throughout 2009, Figgis' short films will be displayed alongside the works in the display at Tate Liverpool and screened on Channel Four as part of the 3 Minute Wonder series. Critic David Benedict reviews Rookery Nook at the Menier Chocolate Factory. Directed by Terry Johnson, who directed the Olivier award winning La Cage Aux Folles, this eighty year-old farce by Ben Travers tells the story of newly married playboy Gerald Popkiss who finds himself in a compromising situation. The UK currently has eighteen arenas for live music concerts, and Leeds wants to bring that number up to nineteen by building its own. But neighbouring city Sheffield isn't happy about the idea. How has a plan for a new arena caused a dispute between these two Yorkshire cities? Following the news that a judge quoted from Philip Larkin's poem, This Be The Verse, when summing up a divorce case, poet Paul Farley offers suggestions for other members of the judiciary who wish to add appropriate poetic touches to their legal judgments.