Irish comedian Ardal O’Hanlon is best-known for roles in Father Ted, My Hero and currently Death in Paradise, but he started out as a stand-up comic in 80s Dublin. As he embarks on a nationwide solo tour, Samira talks to Ardal about the role of politics in his life and work and breaking free from being typecast. Novelist Tessa Hadley is praised for her psychological insight, her nuance, and her precision. In her new book Late in the Day she turns her sharp eye to the impact of the unexpected dea...
Feb 14, 2019•28 min
French-Moroccan novelist Leila Slimani caused a sensation in France with her novel Lullaby about a nanny who murders the two children in her care, which won the Prix Goncourt and became a bestseller in the UK. As her first novel, Adèle, is published in the UK for the first time, she discusses the book's contentious storyline about a married woman with an addiction to having sex with strangers. Diane Arbus is viewed by many as one of the most influential female photographers of her generation. Cu...
Feb 13, 2019•28 min
It was in Manchester in 2013 that Anna Jordan won the Bruntwood Prize, the UK’s biggest national competition for new plays. She’s now back in the city with her new adaptation of a stage classic – Mother Courage. Bertolt Brecht set his play in 17th century Europe during the Thirty Years’ War but Jordan has moved the story into the future. It’s 2080, and Europe no longer exists, the countries have been replaced by a grid system with individuals struggling to survive between the warring factions. S...
Feb 12, 2019•28 min
Comedian Sara Pascoe talks about her latest stand-up show Lads, Lads, Lads and its evolution from being about her relationship break-up to being happy a single woman. Also what's it like sharing such personal experiences in front of thousands of people? And how has the situation changed for women in comedy since she started out? There are Baftas and Oscars for Best Hair & Make Up and an Olivier Award for Best Costume Design. But hitherto there's been no award for the people whose job is mayb...
Feb 11, 2019•29 min
This weekend sees the announcement of the winners of this year's Baftas - the British Academy Film Awards - and Stig talks to two of the stars in London for the event. Director Spike Lee attracted a great deal of attention with his first feature She's Gotta Have It in 1986, yet despite his later films including Do the Right Thing, Mo' Better Blues, Malcolm X and Summer of Sam, he was never nominated in the director category for either the Oscars or the Baftas. But this year he is in the running ...
Feb 08, 2019•28 min
Broadway star Chita Rivera, who created the iconic roles of Anita in West Side Story and Velma in Chicago, talks to Samira about her seven decades on stage, as she prepares to perform again in London. The Woman in the Window is the bestselling psychological thriller that sparked a bidding war between publishers resulting in a two million dollar book deal and its publication in January 2018. Now its author Dan Mallory, who writes under the pen name AJ Finn, has been accused of lying and deception...
Feb 07, 2019•28 min
Front Row considers the artistic significance of walls and borders. John Lanchester, whose latest novel The Wall is about a massive fictional defensive structure, discusses the way walls feature in literature and art with poet and art critic Sue Hubbard, from cave paintings to artworks like Andy Goldsworthy’s 750 feet long drystone wall. Artist Luke Jerram takes us on a tour around his home city of Bristol discovering unusual wall art such as the Magic Wall, where children leave toys between the...
Feb 06, 2019•28 min
The Cutty Sark was launched 150 years ago this year. The acme of sailing technology, now she floats not in the sea but in the air in Greenwich. People walk around on, in and under her. So the ship has become a monumental public art-work. The sculptor Michael Speller, who has made public works for Greenwich, tours the Cutty Sark with Kirsty Lang and the ship's curator, Hannah Stockton. They start beneath the keel, Michael considering the the shape and heft of the hull, then venture into the hold,...
Feb 04, 2019•28 min
American comedian Tiffany Haddish joins the voice cast of the Lego Movie sequel as the shape-shifting Queen Whatever Wa'Nabi. She tells Front Row how comedy saved her from a troubled childhood and the foster care system, and how she went on to host Saturday Night Live and feature on the cover of Time 100. Alice Clark-Platts’ latest thriller The Flower Girls was the subject of fierce bidding war. The story of two sisters, Laurel and Primrose, the novel has resonances with the Bulger and Madeleine...
Feb 01, 2019•28 min
Painter, sculptor, architect and engineer- Leonardo da Vinci is regarded as one of the greatest artists of all time. To mark the 500th anniversary of his death, 144 of his drawings from the Royal Collection are to be exhibited in 12 galleries and museums nationwide. Senior curator Natasha Howes, and Mark Roughley, medical illustrator and Art in Science lecturer at Liverpool School of Art and Design discuss the Renaissance master's anatomical work on show at Manchester Art Gallery. Green Book - a...
Jan 31, 2019•28 min
Moon and Me is the new CBeebies programme by Andrew Davenport, creator of the award-winning shows Teletubbies and In the Night Garden. He discusses how his story of a doll, Pepi Nana, and the baby in the moon who travels to her doll house to tell stories and have adventures, was inspired by tales of toys that come to life when nobody is looking. Why are some musicians and writers labelled 'the voice of a generation'? Kate Mossman from The New Statesman and books journalist Sarah Shaffi discuss w...
Jan 30, 2019•28 min
Live daily magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
Jan 29, 2019•29 min
As she turns 80, Germaine Greer reflects on her career as a Shakespeare academic, public intellectual, feminist and provocateur. Germaine Greer discusses her passion for Shakespeare and how reading his comedies influenced her thinking for The Female Eunuch; her work championing the work of female writers and painters; how much things have really changed for women; and she shares her thoughts on censorship and pornography and why being outspoken is the best way to provoke change. Presenter: Samir...
Jan 28, 2019•28 min
Clint Eastwood is the director and star of The Mule, about a cantankerous 90 year-old horticulturist who decides to become a drug mule. Mark Eccleston reviews. The UK's biggest contemporary art prize, the £40,000 Artes Mundi prize, was won last night in Cardiff by Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul, known for his dream-like films such as Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. He talks to Front Row. In new novel When All is Said, 84 year-old Maurice...
Jan 25, 2019•28 min
Karen Krizanovich explains the appeal of three of the biggest recent hit TV releases still provoking discussion: Bird Box and Sex Education on Netflix, and Bros: After the Screaming Stops on BBC iPlayer. The contemporary video artist Bill Viola has been paired with the Renaissance master Michelangelo in the Royal Academy’s new exhibition, Bill Viola/Michelangelo: Life, Death, Rebirth. It sets out to show the preoccupation of both artists with the nature of human experience and existence. Critic ...
Jan 24, 2019•28 min
The nominations for the 91st Academy Awards were announced earlier today with Roma and The Favourite leading the list, with Black Panther the first superhero film to be nominated for best picture. Kirsty Lang is joined by film critics Larushka Ivan-Zadeh and Jason Solomons to consider the winners and losers, and assess whether there is a better representation of BAME talent than in previous years. Presenter Kirsty Lang Producer Dymphna Flynn Main image: Oscars Photo credit: Getty Images...
Jan 22, 2019•28 min
Nicole Kidman discusses her first lead role for some time as she plays a tortured detective in the grimy LA-set thriller, Destroyer. John Cleland’s 18th century novel Fanny Hill has become known as 'the most famous banned book in the country'. Written in 1749, it tells the story of Frances ‘Fanny’ Hill who, after her parents' death, travels from the countryside to London earning money as a sex worker. As one of the oldest-known copies is set to go under the hammer, literary critic Sarah Ditum di...
Jan 21, 2019•28 min
The Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright MP, who today gave his ‘Value of Culture’ speech, in which he set out the government’s plans for a multi-million-pound investment in the arts and culture in the UK, discusses his plans to ‘unleash creativity across the nation’. This week the BBC radio schedules saw sweeping change with new presenters at the helm of two breakfast shows. Lauren Laverne takes over from Shaun Keaveny at 6 Music, and Zoe Ball fills the shoes of Chris Evans on the UK’s largest break...
Jan 18, 2019•28 min
The impact of Brexit on the creative industries. Today a letter from the Business for People’s Vote Campaign, was published in the Times, signed by names including leaders of the creative industries, like Norman Foster, Terence Conran, and the bosses of Aardman Animation and Endemol Shine. We speak to John Kampfner, formerly of the Creative Industries Federation and who helped coordinate the letter, about the impact of proposals on the sector. Bestselling author of The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Set...
Jan 17, 2019•29 min
M. Night Shyamalan discusses his new film, Glass, the third in his comic book trilogy with Unbreakable and Split. It stars Samuel L Jackson, Bruce Willis and James McAvoy. The Sixth Sense director reveals how he storyboards every single shot, how he uses colour to denote character and why it’s so important for him to root his supernatural storylines in the real world. D. H. Lawrence is famous for his novels - The Rainbow, Sons and Lovers, Women in Love and, notoriously, Lady Chatterley's Lover. ...
Jan 16, 2019•28 min
Academy Award nominee Steve Carell continues his pursuit of more serious roles with his latest film Beautiful Boy. The true story is based on the parallel books by David and Nic Sheff, played by Steve and Timothée Chalamet, chronicling the years in which David tries to help his son, whose drug addiction is spiralling out of control. This weekend 70,000 people attended the festival marking the start of Waltham Forest's year as the inaugural London Borough of Culture. But after recent knife attack...
Jan 15, 2019•28 min
Octavian, the winner of BBC Music’s Sound of 2019 announced on Friday, is a true rags-to-riches story. The French-born rapper discusses how, after a turbulent upbringing which saw him homeless for some of his teenage years, he has gone on to make his mark on the scene and how music has always been a driving force for him. Seven years since TV series The Killing's final episode, its creator, Danish writer Søren Sveistrup, is publishing a crime thriller, The Chestnut Man, his first novel. Søren te...
Jan 14, 2019•28 min
The immortal comedy duo of Laurel and Hardy have been given a second life on screen by John C. Riley and Steve Coogan in the new film Stan & Ollie. The actors have been nominated for their roles at the Golden Globes and BAFTAs respectively, and they discuss the film that tells the story of Laurel and Hardy’s final UK tour in the twilight of their careers. A man wakes up in a forest with no memory. He is told that today a murder will be committed. He will relive the same day eight times, but ...
Jan 11, 2019•28 min
Hugh Jackman on his film The Front Runner, in which he plays Democratic contender Gary Hart, who in 1987 was ahead in the polls before an alleged affair shot down his chances of becoming US President. The winner of the Costa Biography Award, announced on Front Row this week, is The Cut Out Girl by Bart van Es. The author discusses his book which tells the story of a 9-year-old Jewish Dutch girl, Hesseline – or Lien – who was handed by her parents to Bart van Es’s grandparents in 1942 to be foste...
Jan 10, 2019•28 min
The comedian Nish Kumar on why his latest stand up tour is his most political yet, and the challenge of keeping his satirical topical news television show, The Mash Report, fresh in these febrile times. The look of a building has always been an essential element in architectural design, but less conspicuous are its acoustic properties. Specialists in acoustic design are frequently engaged to enhance the aural experience of people in a room or a building. Their work ranges from blocking out unwan...
Jan 09, 2019•28 min
Keira Knightley discusses her new film about the celebrated French Belle Epoque author Colette, whose bestselling Claudine novels explored teenage sexuality and were inspired by her own life. Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan return with the BAFTA award-winning comedy series Catastrophe on Channel 4. Since becoming pregnant after a fast-moving romance in the show's first episode, the couple's life together has continued to spiral out of control, culminating at the end of series three with Rob succum...
Jan 08, 2019•28 min
Charlie Brooker discusses his ground-breaking interactive film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, where the viewer chooses multiple storylines. As Netflix's first adult live action interactive experience, does this herald the start of a new genre for entertainment? Sophie Raworth (Chair of Judges) announces the category winners of the Costa Book Awards (2018) exclusively on Front Row and John talks live to the Best Novel winner. Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Timothy Prosser
Jan 07, 2019•28 min
Forrest Gump, Back to the Future and Castaway director Robert Zemeckis returns with new film Welcome to Marwen. Based on real-life events and starring Academy Award nominee Steve Carell, the film charts the unconventional way one man copes with losing his memory after a violent attack. As Carol Ann Duffy comes to the end of her ten year stint as the Nation’s Poet Laureate - the first woman in its 350 year history - the Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright has convened a panel of experts to select her...
Jan 04, 2019•28 min
Brexit: The Uncivil War stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Rory Kinnear as the leaders of the Leave and Remain campaigns. Written by James Graham, the one-off Channel 4 drama follows the campaigns as they compete for public attention and votes. TV critic David Butcher reviews. The Catcher in the Rye, narrated by 16-year-old Holden Caulfield, is perhaps the classic coming-of-age text of the 20th Century. Why did the book have such an impact and what are the merits of JD Salinger’s other work? Literar...
Jan 03, 2019•28 min
Olivia Colman is winning major awards for her portrayal of Queen Anne in The Favourite, Yorgos Lanthimos’ film about a scandalous love triangle between the monarch, the Duchess of Marlborough and her cousin Abigail Masham. Olivia Colman discusses the difference between playing Queen Anne and her other role as our present Queen Elizabeth in the forthcoming series of The Crown. Luther is back. Dreda Say Mitchell reviews Idris Elba’s return as the maverick police detective as the BBC airs an episod...
Jan 02, 2019•28 min
