Front Row - 31/07/2008

Presented by Kirsty Lang. Bridget Kendall reviews ...some trace of her, a new multimedia performance inspired by The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Katie Mitchell's adaptation uses a combination of video techniques with cameras operated by the cast live on stage. Popular but controversial science writer Richard Dawkins discusses his new three-part television series The Genius of Charles Darwin, in which he retraces Darwin's journey and his confrontations with fundamentalists and theologians. Belarus is growing increasingly repressive, yet there remain pockets of free expression. Lucy Ash reports on the clandestine Belarus Free Theatre, which survives even though its members have been blacklisted, beaten up and jailed, because it has some powerful international friends including Mick Jagger and Vaclav Havel. When it was discovered that James Frey had made up large parts of his bestselling memoir A Million Little Pieces, the scandal ripped through the international publishing world. He was vilified by his readers, his agent and on national television by Oprah Winfrey. As he publishes his first book since then, a novel, he talks to Kirsty about LA, Oprah and coming back from the publishing wilderness.