Holly Hunter talks about her four-decade career in Hollywood, including her Oscar winning performance in The Piano, her role as a TV journalist in Broadcast News, and returning to voice Elastigirl in the blockbuster animation, Incredibles 2. The National Theatre of Wales is marking the 70th anniversary of the NHS with a season of new plays performed across Wales. Samira talks to Peter Cox, writer of the The Stick-Maker Tales, about a shepherd in the Elan Valley, and Kully Thiarai, Artistic Direc...
Jul 10, 2018•29 min
The acclaimed composer and conductor, Oliver Knussen, has died aged 66. He began composing at just six years-old and as well as continuing to write music, went on to conduct around the world and in 1994 he was made a CBE. He was perhaps best known for the operatic adaptation of the children's classic Where the Wild Things Are. Mark Anthony Turnage and Roger Wright pay tribute. A reimagining of the iconic Australian novel, Picnic at Hanging Rock, begins on BBC2 this week. The six episodes explore...
Jul 09, 2018•29 min
Live from Dublin, Seamus Heaney's wife and daughter, Marie and Catherine Heaney, talk to the writer Sinéad Gleeson about 100 Poems, a selection of the poet's work chosen by his family. The book runs the gamut of Heaney's writing life, yet is a personal collection, with poems of love for his wife, children and grandchildren, his parents and relatives. A favourite of Seamus Heaney's poems is The Rain Stick which ends with the words, "Listen now again." That's the title of a new exhibition which dr...
Jul 06, 2018•32 min
Rob Brydon, Daniel Mays and Adeel Akhtar were among the actors spending long hours in swimming pools last summer rehearsing for, and shooting, the new British film Swimming With Men, based on a true story about a group of male synchronised swimmers competing in the world championships. Stig Abell reports from the set at Basildon swimming pool, which was masquerading as Milan, the venue for the finals. Laura Wade, the playwright behind Posh and the stage adaption of Tipping the Velvet, discusses ...
Jul 05, 2018•34 min
Actor Emily Mortimer on a new film adaption of Penelope Fitzgerald's The Bookshop, about a widow who decides to open a bookshop selling subversive literature in a small seaside town in 1950s England. She also tells Samira about her role in the upcoming Mary Poppins sequel. The 50th year of the Man Booker Prize is celebrated this weekend with a festival at London's South Bank. Literary Director Gaby Wood joins novelist Linda Grant and publisher Arifa Akbar to discuss the history of and issues sur...
Jul 04, 2018•29 min
When Haifaa Al Mansour released Wadja in 2012 she became Saudi Arabia's first female director of a feature film. She has now directed her first English-language film - a biopic about Mary Shelley. Al Mansour talks why she wanted to make a film set in 19th-century England about the teenage creator of Frankenstein and how much film-making has changed in Saudi Arabia since her debut film six years ago. Based on the debut novel of Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl), Sharp Objects is a new HBO drama series st...
Jul 03, 2018•35 min
Maxine Peake discusses her new stage play, Queens of the Coal Age, which dramatizes the incident in 1993 when, armed with wet wipes and nicotine gum, Anne Scargill led a group of women to occupy Parkside Colliery in protest against pit closures. The acclaimed dancer and choreographer, Gillian Lynne, has died aged 92. Best known for Cats and The Phantom of the Opera, she worked on more than 60 shows on Broadway and in the West End. Elaine Paige, Cameron Mackintosh and choreographer Arlene Phillip...
Jul 02, 2018•33 min
Winner of five Tony Awards, Fun Home is a ground-breaking new musical about a lesbian girl coming out, based on Alison Bechdel's autobiographical graphic novel. Briony Hanson reviews the UK premiere at London's Young Vic theatre. Remarkably, Fun Home is the first Broadway musical with a lesbian protagonist. But are queer women underrepresented in drama in general? Briony is joined by theatre director Hannah Hauer-King to discuss the visibility and portrayal of lesbian characters in theatre, film...
Jun 29, 2018•34 min
A Japanese-themed edition of Front Row as the Oscar-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, whose scores include Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence and The Last Emperor, talks to Stig about being inspired by nature, and how he came back from treatment for throat cancer to write the music for The Revenant. The editor of The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories, Jay Rubin, tells how he curated the selection and reflects on his career as one of Haruki Murakami's main translators. And Junko Takekawa, Senior A...
Jun 28, 2018•31 min
Bartlett Sher's adaption of The King and I won four Tony Awards during its run on Broadway and is transferring to London this month. The American director was highly praised for his updating of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, which is set in 19th century Siam but has been criticised for sexism and orientalism. Bartlett Sher discusses taking on this classic musical for a modern-day audience. Writer and critic Olivia Laing, known for her non-fiction writing about art, sexuality and cities, di...
Jun 27, 2018•33 min
Michael Jackson as a visual icon is the subject of a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery which brings together artists inspired by the global star. Art critic Ekow Eshun joins Todd Gray - Michael Jackson's personal photographer at the time of Off The Wall and Thriller - to discuss the star's relationship with his own image. An American podcast, which explores the way humans use music, has investigated the use of pop music by so-called Islamic State to spread terror. John Wilson talks...
Jun 26, 2018•28 min
Forty years after forming, two of the original members of the iconic New Romantic band Duran Duran, Roger and John Taylor, talk about their time in the music industry and reveal what inspires them to keep making music together. The annual Bradford Literature Festival is a relatively new addition to Britain's literary landscape, but its junior status hasn't stopped it getting coups such as this year enticing Kate Bush to pay tribute in a public art installation to Emily Brontë. Five years on from...
Jun 25, 2018•34 min
Australian writer Tim Winton discusses The Shepherd's Hut, his first novel in five years. Set in the parched landscape of his native Western Australia, the young protagonist Jaxie attempts to flee from his abusive father on a journey that takes him to some dark and challenging places. England: Poems from a School is a anthology of poems that has just been published. They were written by school children aged between 11 and 18, most of whom come from migrant families who have settled in the UK. Th...
Jun 22, 2018•33 min
James Corden, who is bringing his Late Late Show to London, talks to John Wilson about the challenges of presenting a live daily topical show, how he'd like to act again on stage, and what Alan Bennett thought of Gavin and Stacey. As part of Radio 4's Four Seasons, Raymond Antrobus reads his poem to mark the summer solstice and discusses his new collection inspired by his experience of living with deafness. Michael Ellis, Minister for Arts, Heritage and Tourism discusses the Government's new £20...
Jun 21, 2018•32 min
The American photographer and former model Lee Miller had a leading role in championing Surrealism in Britain in the 1930s, which is the focus of a new exhibition at the Hepworth Wakefield. The show's curator Lauren Barnes, and Lee Miller's son Antony Penrose, consider her fascination for Surrealism and the artists involved, including Man Ray, Max Ernst and Salvador Dalí. Singer Kate Nash discusses dealing with fame after the success of her debut album Made of Bricks and the mega hit single Foun...
Jun 20, 2018•37 min
Caitlin Moran talks about writing her second novel, a characteristically candid and comic account of a young woman's misadventures in 1990s London at the height of Britpop. How to Be Famous, the follow up to Moran's 2014 debut How to Build a Girl, centres around an instance of revenge porn and its protagonist Dolly's novel means of fighting back. Superstars Beyoncé and Jay-Z, now billed collectively as 'The Carters', unexpectedly released their first collaborative album Everything is Love over t...
Jun 19, 2018•35 min
Snatches is a series of eight monologues celebrating the lives of women over the past 100 years, to be broadcast on BBC Four. The director, Vicky Featherstone, tells Kirsty Lang about her ambition for the project and we hear from writer Theresa Ikoko in whose episode a woman celebrates her 100th birthday as, outside her window, a revolution ignites. Stuart Robertson, Director of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society, joins Kirsty from Glasgow with the latest on the consequences of the fire at th...
Jun 18, 2018•34 min
The V&A's latest exhibition includes 13 artworks by the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, but far more of her colourful skirts, blouses and pieces of jewellery because Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up concentrates on Kahlo's greatest creation - the artist herself. Design critic Corinne Julius considers what it reveals about the famous modern Latin American artist and our attitude to her. When we think of John Keats, we mostly think of Odes, Grecian Urns, Nightingales, and Autumn - we certainly don...
Jun 15, 2018•29 min
Ocean's 8 is the latest in the Ocean's heist movie franchise - but this time with an all-female gang starring Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett. Does the twist work? Larushka Ivan-Zadeh reviews. As the World Cup kicks off the team strips are attracting as much attention as the scores: the new Nigeria home kit sold out minutes after its release. Simon Doonan, fashion commentator and soccer obsessive, talks about his favourite World Cup outfits and why some kits are such a hit. Pianist and compose...
Jun 14, 2018•35 min
After discovering that he was almost exactly 150 years younger than Charles Dickens, comedian Eddie Izzard set himself the task of reading all of Dickens' works aloud. The first to be turned into an audiobook is Great Expectations. The stand-up discusses his love of Dickens and the unique challenges that come with reading the author's work. Guitarist and singer Wilko Johnson is about to release Blow Your Mind, his first album of new material in 30 years, and the first since recovering from a may...
Jun 13, 2018•33 min
Timothy Spall discusses his new film Stanley, A Man of Variety, in which he plays every character on screen. It follows Stanley, the only inmate in a failing insane asylum, as he wrestles with the voices in his head which take the form of classic comedy stars such as George Formby and Noël Coward. 30 years ago today, a concert to celebrate the 70th birthday of Nelson Mandela was staged at London's Wembley Stadium and broadcast to an audience of 600 million around the world. It was at this event ...
Jun 11, 2018•35 min
Pieter-Dirk Uys, a leading satirist in South Africa, has spent his career poking fun at politicians. In a new show, The Echo of a Noise, he looks back at his life. As audience members, how does our relationship with the arts change as we age and in what way is that represented by the industry? Journalist and presenter Joan Bakewell and former Chairman of the Arts Council Christopher Frayling discuss the different ways in which older people consume the arts and the issues that it raises. Gaël Fay...
Jun 08, 2018•34 min
Rupert Everett discusses his life-long passion for Oscar Wilde as he directs, writes and stars in his film The Happy Prince. Framed around Wilde's short story of the same name, the bio-pic focuses on Wilde at the end of his life, from his release from prison to his death in poverty in Paris three years later. Abir Mukherjee's creation of detective Sam Wyndham, a British officer who finds himself in Calcutta in the 1920s, and his sidekick 'Surrender-Not' Bannerjee, won him a £10,000 publishing de...
Jun 07, 2018•31 min
Front Row announces the winner of the £30,000 Women's Prize for Fiction, 2018, and talks to her about her winning novel. Sunderland indie rocker and songwriter Nadine Shah performs live in the studio and talks to John about the importance of musicians taking a political stance. Critic Rhianna Dhillon reviews the latest outing of the Jurassic Park franchise which sees the return of Chris Pratt and Dallas Bryce Howard. A forest has been planted in Norway with a specific purpose, to supply paper fo...
Jun 06, 2018•34 min
The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition opens on 12th June. It has been held every year without interruption since 1769 providing a platform for emerging and established artists. This year it is co-ordinated by Grayson Perry with the theme "Art Made Now". Art historian Jacky Klein joins Stig to review the exhibition. Shebeen is a new play set amongst the Caribbean community in 1950s Nottingham. Inspired by the Windrush generation and written by local playwright Mufaro Makubika, the drama deals with ...
Jun 05, 2018•32 min
Playwright David Edgar is 70 this year. He was 20 in 1968 coming of age, in Bob Dylan's words, when 'there was music in the cafes at night and revolution in the air'. In a revolutionary move for him David Edgar is taking to the stage himself in the latest of his many theatre pieces. In his one man show, Trying it On, Edgar reflects on the political eruptions of his lifetime and his engagement with them. Why did some revolutionaries embrace Thatcherism? What has his generation achieved? Viv Alber...
Jun 04, 2018•31 min
Orlando Bloom swaps Middle-earth and the high seas for a Texas trailer park in his first West End production in over a decade, Killer Joe. He talks about playing Joe Cooper, a policeman turned assassin, employed by a family at their wits end to kill their mother for a cut of her life insurance money. Is death, the 'last taboo', finally being broken down by the arts? We consider the recent glut of writing and performance about grief with Cariad Lloyd, whose podcast Griefcast, in which she talks t...
Jun 01, 2018•32 min
The £23m Weston Tower and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Galleries at Westminster Abbey will be opening to the public next month. Architecture critic and historian Tom Dyckhoff gives his response to these two new additions to the abbey church, the site of all royal coronations since William the Conqueror in 1066. Why are so many British writers setting their stories in the countryside at the moment? From the second series of the BBC comedy drama This Country, to plays including Barney Norris's Nigh...
May 31, 2018•31 min
Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen star in the rom-com Book Club which makes its older cast the heart of the story. But does it make good use of such stellar talent? Angie Errigo reviews. Singer-song writer Angélique Kidjo performs live from her new album Remain In Light, which re-imagines track-by-track the original post-punk band Talking Heads' landmark album. She talks about making the album and why she wants to take Rock back to Africa. As Roseanne, the top rated A...
May 30, 2018•33 min
French director François Ozon discusses his latest film L'Amant Double, a psychological thriller in which a young woman falls in love with her secretive psychiatrist. Patrick Heron, the British artist and critic is celebrated in a new retrospective exhibition at Tate St Ives. Heron played a major role in the development of British post-war abstract art exploring the Cornish light and colour in the landscape surrounding his home. Curator Andrew Wilson and artist Susanna Heron, Patrick's daughter,...
May 29, 2018•31 min
