Front Row

Monty Python legend John Cleese has adapted George Feydeau's 1892 French comedy BANG BANG for a brand-new staging at Colchester's Mercury Theatre. He talks about his enthusiasm for farce.Jay Z is to become the first rapper inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Jacqueline Springer discusses the significance and why it's taken four decades for rap to be recognised in this way.Authors Hannah Kent and Kate Summerscale discuss the process of using real court cases as inspiration for their books. Hannah's novel, The Good People, is based on a mysterious case of a 'fairy doctress' in 1820s Ireland and Kate tells us about The Wicked Boy which she based on a grisly murder in Victorian England.From Galvani and twitching frogs' legs to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; from Sci-fi to Bovril; electricity has inspired inventors, scientists and artists alike. As a new exhibition Electricity: The spark of life opens at the Wellcome Collection in London, curator Ruth Garde and Irish artist John Gerrard show us round.Present