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Episode details

Radio 4,28 Nov 2017,30 mins

Chinese characters on TV, Actor James Franco, Sports Book of the Year

Front Row

Available for over a year

We discuss the portrayal of Chinese characters on TV with Shin-Fei Chen, co-creator of BBC Three's Chinese Burn, and writer and theatre director David Tse Ka-Shing. The William Hill Sports Book of the Year, the world's richest and longest-running prize for sports writing, was awarded earlier today to Andy McGrath for Tom Simpson: Bird on the Wire. Kirsty reports from the ceremony where she talked to the authors of the seven books on the shortlist - whose subjects include 'swimming suffragettes', Muhammad Ali and the cyclist Tom Simpson - and speaks to the winner of the £29,000 prize. James Franco on why he stayed in character throughout directing and starring in The Disaster Artist, which tells the story of 2003 cult film The Room - often described as "the Citizen Kane of bad films" - and its enigmatic filmmaker Tommy Wiseau.

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