As the Christmas TV schedules are finalised we round up the best festive telly. With Caroline Frost. Do live music venues need protecting from inner-city property development? We debate a proposed "Agent of Change" law to do just that. With the Rt Hon John Spellar MP and Andrew Whitaker, Planning Director of the Home Builders Federation. The young directors who brought theatre to the Jungle camp in Calais, Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, have now written a play about the experience. They discuss s...
Dec 12, 2017•34 min
An eight-part series about the legendary rivalry between Hollywood icons Bette Davis and Joan Crawford comes to BBC2 this Christmas. Matthew Sweet reviews. What makes going to the theatre or cinema a pleasurable experience and what -such as long loo queues, smelly snacks and mobile phones - can ruin a night out. Matthew Sweet stays on to discuss this with journalist Rosamund Urwin. 'Snow was general all over Ireland' wrote James Joyce, memorably, in Dubliners. Snow has been a great inspiration t...
Dec 11, 2017•32 min
Vanessa Redgrave has just been awarded the Richard Harris Award which is given to an actor for their outstanding contribution to British film. She talks to Stig about her long career in cinema and theatre. Imperium is the Royal Shakespeare Company's new six-hour production which looks at power politics in ancient Rome, which is based on Robert Harris's bestselling Cicero trilogy. The writer and classical historian Natalie Haynes has seen the production and gives her verdict. French president Emm...
Dec 08, 2017•35 min
Christopher Nolan, writer and director of Memento, Inception, Interstellar and the Batman trilogy including The Dark Knight, looks back over his career as the DVD of his most recent film Dunkirk is about to be released. Theatre critic and broadcaster Nick Ahad reviews the new all-black cast production of Guys and Dolls at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester. John Lahr, writer and theatre critic, and Dr Lynette Goddard, author of Modern and Contemporary Black British Drama, discuss the issue...
Dec 07, 2017•31 min
Portrait painter Jonathan Yeo discusses his ambitious new cutting-edge sculpture, which features in a new exhibition From Life at the Royal Academy, alongside works by Jeremy Deller, Jenny Saville and Gillian Wearing. Yeo's sculpture of his own head was created on a virtual reality headset, challenging the foundry tasked with making it to find a way of 3-D printing the digital work in bronze, never done before. Artist Anish Kapoor has created a new trophy for next year's Brit Awards. Design jour...
Dec 06, 2017•31 min
Actress Claire Foy talks about returning to play Queen Elizabeth II in series two of Netflix's hugely successful TV series The Crown. Tenor Bryan Hymel, famous for his high Cs, is in performing in both Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci in the same evening at the Royal Opera House, Covemnt Gardens. He talks about the challenges of this, and he sings live in the Front Row studio. As Powell and Pressburger's 1946 masterpiece film A Matter of Life and Death returns to the b...
Dec 05, 2017•33 min
Jake Gyllenhaal stars in Stronger, a true story of Jeff Bauman who lost both of his legs when a bomb exploded at the Boston Marathon in 2013. Ellen E Jones reviews the film that charts his recovery. Douglas Henshall discusses his role as journalist and TV news director Max Schumacher in the stage version of the 1976 Oscar-winning film Network at the National Theatre, alongside Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston who plays the troubled news anchor Howard Beale who is famously 'mad as hell' and 'not goi...
Dec 04, 2017•37 min
Italian Soprano Cecilia Bartoli and Argentinian cellist Sol Gabetta come together for an album of baroque arias, in which the voice and cello intertwine in a way they describe as Dolce Duello, a sweet duel. Founding editor Nick Logan, writer and editor Sheryl Garratt, and Paul Gorman, author of The Story of The Face, look back at the era-defining youth music and culture magazine. I Love You, Daddy is a new film by US comedian Louis CK. Due to go on general release in the US today, the film was d...
Dec 01, 2017•32 min
Sir Michael Parkinson discusses his love of jazz and big-band music, and the choices he made for a collection of his favourite songs: Our Kind of Music: The Great American Songbook. He also reflects on his years spent interviewing the showbiz A list. Hull is rounding off its year as UK City of Culture with a new adaptation of 'A Christmas Carol' by Deborah McAndrew who sets it in the port. The Royal Shakespeare Company has a new version by David Edgar, who adapted their world-famous 'Nicholas Ni...
Nov 30, 2017•32 min
Amy Sherman-Palladino, the screenwriter and director who found fame with hit show Gilmore Girls, discusses her latest TV comedy drama The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Set in 1950s New York, it's about an Upper West Side housewife who becomes a stand-up comic when her life takes an unexpected turn. As the Film Awards Season gets into full swing with Spielberg's drama The Post winning at the National Board of Review, how will the sex scandals engulfing Hollywood impact on the films lauded this year, and...
Nov 29, 2017•37 min
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',...
Nov 28, 2017•33 min
Yesterday saw the announcement of the death Rodney Bewes, the actor most fondly remembered playing the aspirational Bob in the BBC sitcom The Likely Lads. His co-star from the series James Bolam talks about working with Bewes in one of sitcom's most famous double-acts and the supposed feud between the two. As Gilbert & George celebrate 50 years of living and working together, Kirsty visits them at their Spitalfields home and studio to discuss their career, a new exhibition called The Beard P...
Nov 28, 2017•31 min
Soprano Joyce DiDonato on tackling the vocal pyrotechnics of Rossini and why she's bringing opera to the inmates of Sing Sing, New York's maximum security prison. Puppets are currently centre stage in three theatrical productions in the UK - Pinocchio at the National Theatre, The Grinning Man in the West End and The Tin Drum on tour. We speak to Toby Olié, in charge of puppetry on Pinocchio and Tom Morris, director of The Grinning Man who, as co-director of War Horse, changed the way puppets are...
Nov 27, 2017•36 min
Benjamin Clementine performs live from his second album I Tell a Fly. He tells us why an experimental concept album felt like the right way follow up to his Mercury Prize winning 'At Least For Now'. Dominic Dromgoole on his year long Oscar Wilde season in London's West End, and Franny Moyle on the influence of the women in Oscar Wilde's life. David LaChapelle is the celebrity photographer of choice for leading fashion magazines. His first job was working as a photographer for Andy Warhol in New ...
Nov 24, 2017•37 min
Inua Ellams on his acclaimed play Barber Shop Chronicles, which explores masculinity from the perspective of the barber's chair, both in London and Africa. Tennis champion Billie Jean King's show match against notorious chauvinist Bobby Riggs in 1973 is the subject of a new film Battle of the Sexes, starring Emma Stone and Steve Carell. Mark Eccleston reviews. Briony Hanson discusses Godless, Netflix's first western miniseries, starring Jack O'Connell, Jeff Daniels and Michelle Dockery, in a rol...
Nov 23, 2017•31 min
A new Modigliani exhibition at Tate Modern shows the most extensive display of the Italian Jewish painter and sculptor's work yet seen in the UK, including 12 of his famous nudes. Sarah Crompton reviews. Front Row reveals this year's Costa Book Awards shortlists. Critics Alex Clark and Toby Lichtig comment on the writers chosen in the five categories: novel, first novel, poetry, biography and children's fiction. The overall prize-winner will be announced on Front Row on 30 January 2018. Actor Jo...
Nov 21, 2017•32 min
Priscilla Presley talks about life with Elvis and 40 years of looking after his legacy, as she takes part in a concert tour with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, who accompany Elvis Presley's voice live. Cate Blanchett plays 13 characters each reciting a different artist's manifesto in her new film, Manifesto. We talk to Cate and director Julian Rosefeldt about translating what was an art installation to a traditional linear film. But, what is an art manifesto? Art critics Richard Cork and Jack...
Nov 20, 2017•35 min
Fenella Fielding's most famous moment is in Carry on Screaming as she reclines seductively on a couch in a red velvet dress, asks Harry H Corbett "Do you mind if I smoke?" and steam billows. The line gives the title to her memoir, co-authored with Simon McKay. On her 90th birthday, she reminisces about playing Hedda Gabler, being a foil to Morecambe and Wise... and that Carry On moment. The painter Gluck (1895-1978) is now regarded as a trailblazer of gender fluidity, famous for her fashion as w...
Nov 17, 2017•32 min
Noel Gallagher, former songwriter and guitarist for Oasis, discusses his new album Who Built The Moon? He tells us why he chose to go solo after the break-up of the band and discusses his ongoing estrangement from his brother Liam. There are tanks on the streets of Harare, from there Togara Muzanenhamo talks about the life, and role, of the poet in Zimbabwe today. He reads poetry inspired by the farm where he lives and works. Surrealism is very much thought of as a European art movement but a ne...
Nov 16, 2017•34 min
Robert Pattinson on his new film Good Time, set in the streets of Queens as the consequences of a bank robbery entangle his character Connie in a violent web of swift, provocative responses and lies. It's a million miles from Twilight and he talks about his choice of films since his role in the hugely successful franchise. Poet Ian McMillan has written libretto for the first opera to be performed in a South Yorkshire accent, including local dialect. We speak to Ian and the tenor Nicholas Sales, ...
Nov 15, 2017•31 min
Dee Rees talks about her new film, Mudbound, which explores the racial divide in 1940s Mississippi. As questions continue to be asked of The Old Vic's theatre board in light of the Kevin Spacey allegations, we discuss the role of the board in British theatre with Rt Hon Ed Vaizey MP, former Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries and current board member of the National Youth Theatre plus Malcolm Sinclair, President of Equity, and theatre critic Lyn Gardner. Pussy Riot's Mar...
Nov 14, 2017•36 min
Annette Bening discusses her role as Oscar-winning actress Gloria Grahame in Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, the story of the real-life romance between Grahame and a struggling young actor from Liverpool. As the Music Managers Forum celebrates 25 years with its annual Artist and Manager Awards tomorrow, John looks at what makes a good music manager and how the role has changed since the '60s - with Ed Sheeran's manager Stuart Camp, Regine Moylett and Niamh Byrne who look after Gorillaz and Bl...
Nov 13, 2017•36 min
Sheridan Smith is a comic actor (The Royle Family, Gavin and Stacey), a serious dramatic actor (Flare Path, The Moorside, Dustin Hoffman's film Quartet) and a star of musical theatre, from Bugsy Malone when she was 16 to Funny Girl. Now she has released her first solo album. She talks about the songs she has chosen and her career so far. The acclaimed actor Maxine Peake has written a play for Hull Truck and Hull City of Culture celebrating the life of a woman who dramatically fought for conditio...
Nov 10, 2017•31 min
Hollywood star Christian Slater and director Sam Yates discuss David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Glengarry Glen Ross, in which Slater is currently starring. Professor Marston and the Wonder Women is a film based on the true story of William Moulton Marston, his wife and his mistress who created Wonder Woman. It explores the creation of the female super hero as well as their poly-amorous relationship which saw them shunned by society. Film critic Karen Krisanovich reviews. As more allegat...
Nov 09, 2017•30 min
Hugh Grant explains how his early career in repertory theatre has helped him play faded actor Phoenix Buchanan, the villain in Paddington 2. Stephen Fry talks about his new book Mythos, a retelling of the Greek myths, and why he finds the tales of the gods, monsters and mortals of Ancient Greece so appealing. The two lead characters in the new cinematic release Call Me By Your Name are gay, yet the actors who play them are straight. This is part of a tradition in film from Brokeback Mountain and...
Nov 08, 2017•30 min
Toby Jones, Mackenzie Crook, the Louvre in Abu Dhabi plus film director Yorgos Lanthimos
Nov 07, 2017•29 min
Kenneth Lonergan, who recently won an Oscar for the screenplay to his film Manchester By the Sea, talks to Kirsty Lang about adapting E.M. Forster's Howards End for television. Hannah McGill discusses the acclaimed film The Florida Project, in which a young mother struggles to provide for her daughter while staying at a motel near Disney World. As two exhibitions curated by artists open in Belfast and York, Front Row brought together Jill Constantine, curator and Head of the Art Council Collecti...
Nov 06, 2017•29 min
Novelists Joanne Harris and Jonathan Coe discuss their latest books which are both fairytales. Coe's The Broken Mirror is a modern fable with a political message while Harris' A Pocketful of Crows is based on traditional folklore. Director Luca Guadagnino talks about his acclaimed film Call Me By Your Name, a gay love story set in the Italian sun in the 1980s, starring Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer. As Catalonia's independence dispute with Spain shows no sign of resolution we look at Catala...
Nov 03, 2017•35 min
The actor and comedian Josie Lawrence is currently tackling Bertolt Brecht in a production of Mother Courage and her Children at Southwark Playhouse in London. She discusses the morality of Mother Courage with Samira and explains why the part was at the top of her theatrical bucket list. In the wake of Prue Leith revealing the Bake Off winner, TV Times journalist Emma Bullimore looks at the lengths TV programmes go to in order to keep their reveals under wraps. As A Bad Moms Christmas and Daddy'...
Nov 02, 2017•31 min
To coincide with the publication of a book which collects all her artwork from the past decade, Tracey Emin comes into the Front Row studio to look back at that prolific period which saw her represent Britain at the Venice Biennial. Twenty-five years after publishing The Ice House, the first of her many highly successful crime novels, Minette Walters discusses her historical fiction debut, The Last Hours, set in a medieval Dorsetshire village during the start of the Black Death. Paul Gauguin's t...
Nov 01, 2017•32 min
