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|  | |     | | FRIDAY NIGHT
* Bollywood style is gradually permeating Hollywood, already its influence is evident in films such as Baz Lurhman’s Moulin Rouge. A new film festival, ImagineAsia celebrates South Asian Film and will screen 300 films over the next eight months. One of the highlights of the festival is the re-release of Mother India.
Mother India, first released in 1957, has been described as Bollywood's Gone With the Wind, with its epic landscape drenched in red, gold and bright blue, its dramatic effects of flood and fire and the relentless trials for its heroine.
Bollywood queen Nargis stars as a young wife, Radha, who works the land with her husband and children. She grows old battling against poverty, treachery and dishonour.
Mother India is on at cinemas in London, Ilford and Bradford from on Friday 3 May. Mira Nair’s latest film Hysterical Blindness also has it British première on Saturday 4 May at the NFT and she’ll be delivering the Guardian Interview afterwards. The ImagineAsia festival continues until November.
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* The Beano, first published in 1938, has some new characters from this week. Alongside Dennis the Menace, the Bash Street Kids and Minnie the Minx a group of extreme sports dudes, The Hot Foot Crew, have now surfed, skated and mountain-biked their way into the comic institution. They’re not the only newcomers. Earlier this year, Robbie Rebel (Nobody Tells Him What to Do) arrived with his mini-skirted, midriff-baring mum - and the same old jokes. But is there any point in an anachronism like the Beano attempting to keep up with the times?
The Beano is published every week by DC Thompson.
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* Work other than writing can provide income, material, or simply discipline for an author. Cold Water, a novel published this week, is set in the nocturnal world of Manchester’s dive bars, which is where the author, Gwendoline Riley, has worked. Front Row talks to Gwendoline and fellow novelists Louise Doughty and Magnus Mills about how the day job influenced their subject and style.
Gwendoline Riley’s book, Cold Water, is published by Cape. Magnus Mills’ latest novel Three To See The King is published by Flamingo and Honeydew by Louise Doughty is published by Simon and Schuster.
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* After more false starts than Michael Coulthard the Wembley Stadium project is back on. Apparently. Front Row asks Paul Finch, editor of Architectural Review, what will Britain's biggest public buiding project since the Dome mean for British architecture?
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* Irish theatre is dominated by two Dublin venues, The Abbey and The Gate. Gates of Gold, a new play opening this week, tells the history of one of them. Writer and critic Declan Kiberd considers the old rivalries between the Dublin theatres.
Gates of Gold by Frank McGuinness is at The Gate Theatre in Dublin until 8 June.
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ON NEXT WEEK'S PROGRAMME
A review of the new Matisse-Picasso exhibition at Tate Modern, an interview with journalist Michael Crick about his new Alex Fergusson book, and a review of the latest return of The Likely Lads, played this time by Ant and Dec.
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