Dame Beryl Bainbridge (1932 - 2010) was one of the most successful and loved contemporary novelists. Her recent novels have included An Awfully Big Adventure, Master Georgie, The Birthday Boys and According to Queenie.

'Enjoyable... there is a lack of snobbishness in the columns collected here; Bainbridge is as happy to sit through Shakespeare as she is through a farce or a muscial. She still marvels at the magic of theatre and her reviews lack the dour quality of so many braodsheet hacks... Front Row is an ideal book to gorge all at once or dip into every now and then... an idiosyncratic record of the last decade of the theatre, but also an intimate portrayal of one of our greatest writers and is perhaps as close as we will ever get to a full autobiography.' Attitude Magazine