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THURSDAY 21 AUGUST
Live from the Pleasance Theatre, Edinburgh
Presented by Mark Lawson
IAN RANKIN
The best-selling author Ian Rankin joins Front Row to discuss the latest instalment of his Inspector Rebus series. In A Question of Blood, Rebus finds himself under investigation for the burning alive of a low-life psychopath, whilst the son of his estranged cousin has been killed in a school shooting.
A Question of Blood is published on 22 August by Orion, ISBN 0752851101
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HENRY ADAM AND ADRIANO SHAPLIN
Henry Adam's The People Next Door sees Nigel - a lackadaisical druggie with a touch of Frank Spencer - caught in a multi-cultural farce of crooked cops and terrorist plots. Adam and Adriano Shaplin - dramatist of Pugilist Specialist - join Front Row to discuss writing about the war on terrorism.
The People Next Door is at the Traverse Theatre until 23 Aug - telephone 0131 228 1404
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PERRIER AWARDS
Front Row discusses the all-male shortlist for this year's Perrier Comedy Award. Two-times nominee Adam Hills competes with Flight of the Conchords, Reginald D Hunter, Demetri Martin, and Howard Read and Little Howard, for the £7,500 prize.
The winners of the Perrier Comedy Awards will be revealed at midnight on Saturday 23 August
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DEMETRI MARTIN
Perrier-nominee Demetri Martin talks to Mark Lawson about the palindromic poems that have made his show the sensation of this year's festival.
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TICKET PRICES
Paul Gudgeon, director of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, responds to comments made by the Lord Provost of Edinburgh that this year's festival is over-priced, elitist and offers little for the local community.
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SEPTEMBER NOVELS COMPETITION
Each day this week five passages from different books will be read out on air. You have to guess who the five authors are by their writing style. By the end of this week all five readings will be available to see here on the website.
4th Reading
The King of Capri had been out to a party. It was just the kind of party that Kings like best. All his friends were there, and somebody had cooked his favourite food. There was royal jelly, crown of lamb, queen of puddings, buns with pearly icing, and chocolate soldiers.
The King ate much as he could but not as much as he would have liked. He had a bun in one hand, jelly in the other but, try as he might, he couldn't get all the jelly and all the bun into his mouth at once.
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3rd Reading
There is first of all the problem of the opening, namely, how to get us from where we are, which is, as yet, nowhere, to the far bank. It is a simple bridging problem, a problem of knocking together a bridge. People solve problems every day. They solve them, and having solved them push on.
Let us assume that, however it may have been done, it is done. Let us take it that the bridge is built and crossed, that we can put it out of our mind. We have left behind the territory in which we were. We are in the far territory, where we want to be.
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2nd Reading
The day she walked the streets of Silk, a chafing wind kept the temperature low and the sun was helpless to move outside thermometers more than a few degrees above freezing. Tiles of ice had formed at the shoreline and, inland, the thrown-together houses on Monarch Street whined like puppies. Ice slick gleamed, then disappeared in the early evening shadow, causing the sidewalks she marched along to undermine even an agile tread, let alone one with a faint limp. She should have bent her head and closed her eyes to slits in that weather, but being a stranger, she stared wide-eyed at each house searching for the address that matched the one in the advertisement: One Monarch Street.
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1st Reading
Every woman he dares to sleep with bears his child. So now it is Mouetta's turn. Whispering and smudging his ear with her lipstick, her breath a little sour from the garlic in her lunch, she confirms her first, his sixth pregnancy. His sixth at least. She's 'passed the urine test,' she says - an unintended play on words, which she acknowledges in the matinée darkness with half an optimistic smile. The doctor thinks she's twelve or thirteen weeks. A baby due by May. It's early days.
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BBC News - Perrier Awards
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