Spike Lee's new film BlacKkKlansman is based on a true story from the 1970s. John David Washington plays Ron Stallworth the first African-American detective to serve in the Colorado Springs Police Department. Determined to make a name for himself he sets out on a dangerous mission to infiltrate and expose the Ku Klux Klan. Natty Kasambala reviews. Canadian author Esi Edugyan on her Man Booker Prize long-listed novel, Washington Black. A historical adventure, set in the early 19th century, it's t...
Aug 21, 2018•29 min
This year Sir Lenny Henry marks his 60th birthday with a special television programme with Sir Trevor McDonald. As well as performing some new sketches, he talks about bunking off school to appear in the TV talent show New Faces and how he fell in love with Shakespeare. He joins Stig to discuss a career that has spanned over four decades. In the US TV drama series Instinct, Alan Cumming stars as Dr Dylan Reinhart, writer, academic and former CIA operative, drawn into a murder investigation when ...
Aug 20, 2018•36 min
How people with dwarfism have been represented in art and culture, from Ancient Egypt to Velasquez to Game of Thrones. Kirsty is joined by Tom Shakespeare, Professor of Disability Research at East Anglia University and Richard Butchins, who has made the BBC Four film Dwarfs in Art: A New Perspective. Scottish artist Barbara Rae has travelled to the Arctic in the footsteps of the Victorian explorer John Rae. She discusses the resulting artworks currently on show in Edinburgh and the challenges of...
Aug 17, 2018•29 min
Aretha Franklin, the "Queen of Soul" known for hits like Respect, Natural Woman and Say a Little Prayer, has died in Detroit at the age of 76. Broadcaster Paul Gambaccini and music critic Kevin Le Gendre assess her life and work. Actor David Suchet, discusses taking on the role of a 90 year-old furniture dealer in a revival of Arthur Miller's The Price at the Theatre Royal, Bath. It's 50 years since Miller's play was first staged in Broadway, but it also almost 50 years since David Suchet began ...
Aug 16, 2018•29 min
Queen guitarist Brian May fell in love with 3D photography as a child and has since gone on to establish his own publishing company devoted to sharing stereoscopic work from the Victorian era to the present day. May's latest publication is a book by Professor Roger Taylor about the Scottish photography pioneer George Washington Wilson. May and Taylor discuss why Wilson's 3D photographs of Scottish landscapes and street scenes remain as captivating today as they were during the 3D boom of the 185...
Aug 15, 2018•29 min
The drag girl band Denim was Cambridge University's first drag troupe when they formed in 2010. Now, they're back in Edinburgh and for Front Row perform a song from their Reunion Tour and discuss how their drag comes with a political and uplifting message. Author Maggie O'Farrell talks about the art of writing life stories as her own memoir I Am, I Am, I Am tops the bestseller charts, structured around 17 moments in her life when death came terrifyingly close. Two new plays, Angry Alan and User ...
Aug 14, 2018•29 min
Rosie Jones, a stand-up comedian whose material plays on her experience of living with Cerebral Palsy, discusses defying expectations - both onstage and off. Her one woman show is Fifteen Minutes. Janeane Garofalo is an American actress, comedian, and writer. She began her career as a stand-up comedian and became a cast member on The Ben Stiller Show, The Larry Sanders Show, and Saturday Night Live, and has appeared in more than 50 films. She discusses her Edinburgh show, Put A Pin in That. Jenn...
Aug 13, 2018•34 min
The identity of the 'dark lady' of the Shakespeare's sonnets has mystified academics for years. As the Globe stage a new play about Emilia Bassano, one of the main candidates, Shakespearean academics Germaine Greer and Will Tosh consider how likely it is that Emilia is the dark lady and what we know about the real Emilia Bassano- a writer herself. Denzel Washington discusses starring in his first ever sequel, The Equalizer 2. He returns as the mysterious and elusive Robert McCall, who delivers v...
Aug 10, 2018•31 min
Disenchantment, Netflix's new animated series set in a fantastical medieval world from The Simpsons' creator Matt Groening is released this week. TV critic Andrew Collins and comedy writer Natasha Hodgson discuss whether the fantasy series has brought some Simpsons' magic to Netflix. Alan Garner's debut novel, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, is regarded as one of the great 20th century works of children's literature. It was inspired by the Cheshire landscape he grew up in, like many of his other ...
Aug 09, 2018•31 min
Sharks have long held a prominent place in mythology, the imagination and even religion for centuries. As The Meg, a thriller about a 75-foot-long prehistoric shark, hits cinema screens nature writer Philip Hoare and film critic Isabel Stevens discuss the ways in which sharks have been represented in the arts. How much is the cultural representation of these 400 million year old mysterious creatures of the deep a reflection of our own human fantasies and anxieties? This year the distinguished co...
Aug 08, 2018•29 min
The mezzo-soprano Dame Sarah Connolly is an opera star, singing the big roles at La Scala, The Met, Glyndebourne and the Royal Opera House. Her latest project is much more modest yet very ambitious; 'Come to Me in My Dreams' is a CD of songs and poems, mostly English - Shakespeare, Blake, Housman - set by composers all of whom studied or taught at the Royal School of Music. She talks to Morgan Quaintance about the attraction of simply singing, how she found the material - which includes two sett...
Aug 08, 2018•31 min
Craig and Charlie Reid, better known as The Proclaimers, are live in the Front Row studio playing the title track of their new album Angry Cyclist. They discuss passing the 30 year landmark as professional musicians, seeing their music inspire a theatre production and a film, and why the idea of an angry cyclist seemed for them the perfect way of capturing the current political mood. Two new productions inspired by Gulliver's Travels open this month in Bolton and Edinburgh. Their respective dire...
Aug 07, 2018•34 min
The Artist's Way is a creative self-help book that has sold over 4 million copies and garnered dedicated fans around the world. As part of Front Row's Inspire season we speak to its author Julia Cameron who explains the philosophy behind her 12 week programme and answers listener's questions. Stephen Mangan stars as an online therapist in new Channel 4 comedy Hang Ups, loosely based on US series Web Therapy starring Lisa Kudrow. Mangan, co-wrote and produced the series, which also features Kathe...
Aug 06, 2018•31 min
Yesterday we launched our new season Inspire. Today we ask the key question: what is inspiration? The poet Kei Miller, the composer Philip Venables, the novelist Stella Duffy, the artist Aowen Jin and the philosopher Julian Baggini join Front Row to share their thoughts on the line between a magical moment and hard graft. On Monday Aurora Orchestra return to the BBC Proms to perform Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony entirely from memory. We're joined in the studio by the orchestra's principle cellis...
Aug 02, 2018•29 min
We explore the natural landscape as artistic inspiration from three locations around the country. Writer Tracy Chevalier and artist Gayle Chong Kwan join John Wilson in Epping Forest to discuss why forests and trees have sparked ideas for them, composer Brian Irvine and broadcaster Marie-Louise Muir consider the art made about the sea and coastline from Helen's Bay, County Down and poet Kenneth Steven and critic Hannah McGill explore lochs, mountains and islands as a theme from the shore of Loch...
Aug 01, 2018•33 min
Melvin Burgess, who's been dubbed the Godfather of Young Adult fiction, talks about his new book The Lost Witch about a teenage girl who discovers she has magical powers. A record-breaking 3.6 million people watched this year's Love Island final. That's more viewers than were watching BBC One, BBC Two or ITV in the same time slot. Journalist and critic Alix O'Neill discusses the show's cultural impact. In Thursday's Prom concert at the Royal Albert Hall Milŏs Karadaglíc will give the world premi...
Jul 31, 2018•34 min
Chris Dunkley, for many years television critic of the Financial Times, discusses the impact and ongoing popularity of Dad's Army, which was first broadcast fifty years ago this week. Music streaming platforms have reported a rise people aged under 30 listening to jazz, with the genre's new sound also being produced by musicians in that age group. Music journalist Teju Adeleye and jazz musician Emma-Jean Thackray discuss why young people are responding to jazz now more than ever, if jazz was les...
Jul 30, 2018•33 min
New film Iceman was inspired by Ötzi, the prehistoric man who was found perfectly preserved in the ice in the Ötztal Alps in 1991. Dubbed "The European Revenant" the characters speak in an extinct language which isn't subtitled. We review with film critic Hannah McGill and survival enthusiast and Costa Children's Book Award winner Katherine Rundell. A recent Parliamentary meeting addressed the issue of mental health and the performing arts as statistics show that there is a higher than average r...
Jul 27, 2018•29 min
Fran Ross was a gifted African-American author who died in 1985. Her novel Oreo, written at the height of the Black Power movement, tells the rollercoaster story of a black-Jewish girl's quest for her white father using Greek myth, slang, Yiddish, puns, made-up words and Ross' own extraordinary imagination. The novel sank without much trace but Man Booker-Prizewinning author Marlon James, who's written the introduction to a new edition, claims its time is now. As the Mercury Prize shortlist is r...
Jul 26, 2018•30 min
Andre Holland is perhaps best known for his role as Kevin, the chef (and love interest) in the Oscar winning film Moonlight. Now he is in Britain playing Othello at Shakespeare's Globe in a production also featuring Mark Rylance as Iago. He tells Kirsty Lang how, unlikely as it might seem, his southern American accent fits the iambic pentameter of Shakespeare's lines perfectly. The arrival of artists in rundown areas invariably signals that gentrification is on its way with those very same artis...
Jul 25, 2018•35 min
Playwright Patrick Marber and actress Indira Varma on Exit the King, Marber's adaptation for the National Theatre of the Romanian absurdist drama by Eugène Ionesco, in which Varma stars as Queen Marguerite alongside Rhys Ifans' King, about to make his final exit. John talks to Nick Drnaso, the first graphic novelist to be longlisted for the Man Booker prize, and critics Arifa Akbar and Toby Lichtig comment on the longlist as a whole. For the full list see below. Poet Tony Walsh, whose poem This ...
Jul 24, 2018•34 min
John Hurt as Artist is a new exhibition in Norfolk which reveals a less well-known side of the actor who died last year. Sir John Hurt's widow Anwen discusses the mainly figurative paintings and drawings which mostly relate to the actor's off-screen life, but also include self-portraits of him in prosthetic make-up for his role as John Merrick in The Elephant Man from 1980. Ian McKellen is playing King Lear in the West End and recently Anthony Hopkins played him on television. Accompanying Lear ...
Jul 23, 2018•32 min
American footballer-turned-opera star Morris Robinson is returning to the Proms this weekend to perform as the bass soloist in Mahler's epic Symphony of a Thousand. He sings live and discusses his extraordinary move from the football stadium to the opera house. Sitting around of an evening with friends, a bottle of wine, discussing a good book - that's the cosy image of the Book Club. But the Richard and Judy Book Club is now exclusive to WH Smith, Fern Britten's is partnered with Tesco and Harp...
Jul 20, 2018•32 min
The Lehman Trilogy at the National Theatre is an epic new play directed by Sam Mendes, which tells the story of the American banking dynasty from its humble beginnings in Alabama to its bankruptcy in the 2008 crash. John talks to Simon Russell Beale, Adam Godley and Ben Miles, who play the founding Lehman brothers and many other characters too. As the 100th Now That's What I Call Music album is released, John discusses the extraordinary success of the hits compilation series and examines its cul...
Jul 19, 2018•31 min
Alan Bennett's new play Allelujah! is set in the geriatric ward of a Yorkshire hospital threatened with closure. It follows a singing, dancing choir of quick-witted elderly patients whose problem is not that they are ill so much as they have nowhere to go. Alan Bennett and director Nicholas Hytner discuss working together and how Alan manages to take on big themes - English identity, education and now the NHS - without being, he says, a "political" writer. Blenheim Palace is housing a major exhi...
Jul 18, 2018•33 min
Sacha Baron Cohen's return to TV is Who Is America?, a new series in which he dupes figures such as Sarah Palin and Bernie Sanders into giving interviews to him, heavily disguised with prosthetics. TV critic Boyd Hilton reviews. As the decision is taken to rebuild the Glasgow School of Art after its second devastating fire, Sally Stewart, Head of Architecture at the school, discusses the latest plans for the celebrated Charles Rennie Mackintosh masterpiece. Photographer Anita Corbin discusses he...
Jul 17, 2018•29 min
Pierce Brosnan discusses his long and varied career which began as an artist, as he reprises the role of Sam Carmichael in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again - with less singing this time. The Irish government has recently announced a new arts strategy and funding of Euro 2.billion Euros in a programme called "Investing in Our Culture, Language and Heritage. Journalist and Art Historian Robert O' Byrne, Dr. Annie Doona, Chair of Screen Ireland, and Catherine Heaney, Chair of the National Museum of Irel...
Jul 16, 2018•31 min
Grime has been on an epic journey from subculture to explosive phenomenon. John speaks to presenter DJ Target, writer of Grime Kids, and to music journalist Dan Hancox, writer of Inner City Pressure. They discuss Grime as music of protest and how it evolves in a rapidly shifting landscape. Agnès Varda on her life as a legendary film-maker of the Nouvelle Vague, and her work as an artist as her first commission in the UK for the Liverpool Biennial goes on show. It's Friday the 13th so what better...
Jul 13, 2018•34 min
Torchwood and Broadchurch star Eve Myles returns to our screens in the Welsh-noir series Keeping Faith. The drama centres around a working mother, Faith Howells, as she deals with the personal and professional fallout of her husband's mysterious disappearance. Originally broadcast in Welsh on S4C, an English language version is now being shown on BBC One after breaking viewing records on BBC Wales and the BBC iPlayer. Lyricist Bernie Taupin talks about his extraordinary partnership with Elton Jo...
Jul 12, 2018•31 min
Theatre criticism has been in the dock recently after a reviewer was publicly reproached for mentioning an actor's weight. Critics Sarah Crompton and Quentin Letts debate whether reviewers should feel free to assess an actor's body as well as their performance. Olly Alexander from Years and Years discusses the band's new album, Palo Santo, which combines a sci-fi setting with a visceral account of his life as a gay man. And he performs a song from the new release. Veteran American documentary fi...
Jul 11, 2018•33 min
