06/06/2012 - a podcast by BBC Radio 4

With Mark Lawson,

Woody Allen has allowed his life and creative process to be documented on-camera. With unprecedented access, filmmaker Robert Weide followed the notoriously private film legend over a year and a half; discussing topics including his creative choices and response to his critics, the split with Mia Farrow and reveals that when he finished Manhattan he didn't like the film and didn't want it to be shown. Antonia Quirke assesses what we learn about the prolific film maker.

American writer Richard Ford's new novel Canada opens in the vast landscape of Great Falls, Montana, in the 1950s, where a young solitary child Dell Parsons' world is turned upside-down when his parents commit a bank robbery. Richard Ford discusses the background to the book, and why readers usually have a five-year wait for his next novel.

Two comedies with women in the starring roles are coming to our television screens. Dead Boss was co-written by and stars Sharon Horgan as a woman who has been falsely imprisoned for murdering her boss. Sally Phillips takes the lead in Parents, a sit-com about returning back to the family home, with her own teenage children. Rebecca Nicholson reviews.

And, the novelist Joanne Harris and Professor Roger Luckhurst pay tribute to the author of Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury, whose death has been announced.

Producer Claire Bartleet.

Further episodes of Front Row: Archive 2012

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