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Arts news and reviews with Mark Lawson.

Actor James Earl Jones discusses his role in Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - opening in London following a sell-out run on Broadway - and his legacy as the voice of Darth Vadar in Stars Wars.

In a Front Row exclusive, the shortlist for the Costa Book Awards 2009 is announced live on the programme. Michael Prodger, literary editor of the Daily Telegraph and Alex Clark, critic and former Man Booker Prize judge, discuss which books are in the running for each of the awards and who has been nominated for the coveted Novel and Biography awards.

2009 Costa Novel Award shortlist:

Penelope Lively, Family Album
Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
Christopher Nicholson, The Elephant Keeper
Colm T贸ib委n, Brooklyn

2009 Costa Poetry Award shortlist:

Clive James, Angels Over Elsinore
Katharine Kilalea, One Eye'd Leigh
Ruth Padel, Darwin: A Life in Poems
Christopher Reid, A Scattering

2009 Costa Biography Award shortlist:

Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius
William Fiennes, The Music Room
Simon Gray, Coda
Caroline Moorehead, Dancing to the Precipice

2009 Costa First Novel Award shortlist:

Rachel Heath, The Finest Type of English Womanhood
Peter Murphy, John the Revelator
Raphael Selbourne, Beauty
Ali Shaw, The Girl with Glass Feet

2009 Costa Children's Book Award shortlist:

Siobhan Dowd, Solace of the Road
Mary Hoffman, Troubadour
Patrick Ness, The Ask and the Answer Chaos Walking: Book Two
Anna Perera, Guantanamo Boy

Debbie Isitt and Tim Firth discuss the appeal of the nativity play to writers. Martin Freeman and Ashley Jensen star in Isitt's Nativity!, while a new theatre production of Tim Firth's Flint Street Nativity is to open in Edinburgh.

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