Front Row

Author Percival Everett on his novel Dr No; Director Pravesh Kumar on his film Little English; the new Yeats Smartphones poetry trail in BedfordAward-winning US novelist Percival Everett on his surreal new book, Dr No – in which unlikely heroes and uber-wealthy super villains chase after a box containing absolutely nothing.Pravesh Kumar has been running a theatre company for over two decades and last year received an MBE in the New Year Honours List for services to theatre. As he makes his debut as a filmmaker with romantic comedy Little English - centred on a British South Asian family living in Slough - he discusses the importance of nuanced portrayals and overturning stereotypes.It’s a century this year since W. B. Yeats won the Nobel Prize in literature for his poetry, ‘which…gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation.’ This is marked by a new guided, smartphone app trail around places where he lived and that influenced him early in life. It is narrated and with poems read by Oscar nominated actor C