Elisabeth Moss talks about her new film The Invisible Man, a 21st century reboot of the HG Wells story. Told from the victim’s point of view, Elisabeth plays Cecilia who fears for her safety after escaping an abusive relationship. But when she discovers her ex has killed himself, she fears something far worse: that he’s not dead and has found a way to make himself invisible. Booker winning novelist Aravind Adiga on his latest novel Amnesty, a novel set Sydney, Australia over 24 hours that follow...
Feb 28, 2020•28 min
French director Céline Sciamma on her BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated film Portrait of a Lady on Fire, about an 18th Century artist who falls in love with the woman she is painting. Critics have hailed it as a manifesto for the female gaze. André J. Thomas, composer and conductor of gospel music and spirituals, discusses the African-American musical tradition and his forthcoming event, Symphonic Gospel Spirit with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican in London this weekend. In a year w...
Feb 27, 2020•28 min
Ballerina Viviana Durante discusses her evening of dance celebrating Isadora Duncan, whose radical barefoot dancing shocked and enthralled European audiences in the early 1900s, before she was killed in a freak accident when her scarf got caught in the wheels of a car. Life is beginning to imitate art for a British film crew in northern Italy. Director Nicholas Hulbert discusses the challenges they’re facing from the coronavirus outbreak as they film The Decameron, the 14th century Italian colle...
Feb 26, 2020•28 min
Authors Zadie Smith and Francine Prose join Front Row to consider how authors read, as the shortlist for the Rathbones Folio Prize, largely chosen by authors, is announced. Is it with the same eyes as any other reader or are they more aware of the scaffolding as well as the building? How do they judge writing, and how does what they read inform their own work? British Surrealism at Dulwich Picture Gallery in London is the first major exhibition to explore the origins of surrealist art in Britain...
Feb 25, 2020•28 min
Film director Todd Haynes talks to Samira about his latest film Dark Waters. Starring Tim Robbins, it's a tale of environmental catastrophe, corporate greed and an attempt to harness the power of the law to seek redress. Are libararies good for our health? Bradford City Council thinks so and are diverting a tranche of their wellbeing budget to ensure libraries can stay open for the benefit of local people. Flesh and Blood is a new crime drama set in a coastal town. It centres on a widowed mother...
Feb 24, 2020•28 min
Laurie Sansom, the new Artistic Director of Northern Broadsides on his vision for the theatre company and what British theatre can learn from a small drama company operating across the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu. Yesterday in Colorado, President Trump expressed his dismay at the success of the film Parasite at this year's Oscars. Instead he would have preferred the revival of films such Gone With The Wind and Sunset Boulevard. Professor Diane Roberts, a specialist in Southern culture...
Feb 21, 2020•29 min
Stephen Schwartz, composer and lyricist of Wicked and Godspell, on his spectacular new stage musical about Moses, The Prince of Egypt, based on the 1998 DreamWorks animation and featuring his hit song When You Believe. Leading costume designer and three-time Oscar winner Sandy Powell joins us in the studio. Not content with merely garnering BAFTA and Oscar nominations for her work this year on Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, Powell spent both ceremonies asking fellow nominees to sign her outfit,...
Feb 20, 2020•28 min
George Mackay, star of BAFTA winning film 1917, talks about his latest, The True History of the Kelly Gang, inspired by Peter Carey's novel about Australia's most infamous outlaw, Ned Kelly. Iranian artist Shirin Neshat discusses her new exhibition Land of Dreams, which explores the experience of minorities in Trump’s America, and the fractious relationship between Iran and the US through photography and film. Earlier this month, Front Row announced our Risk List – the top ten riskiest artworks ...
Feb 19, 2020•29 min
Al Pacino and Logan Lerman discuss their roles in the new TV drama series Hunters. 'Inspired by true events' it's about a group of individuals in New York in the 1970s who tracked down a number of high-ranking former Nazi officials to bring them to justice. Pass Over is a new play which concentrates on the lives of two African-American men who live in constant fear of violence, not least at the hands of white police officers. New York-based playwright Antoinette Nwandu discusses the influence Sa...
Feb 18, 2020•28 min
This week the Sistine Chapel is unveiling ten tapestries by Raphael, to mark the 500th anniversary of artist’s death and now, for the first time since the 16th century, visitors can see them as they were intended to be displayed. Anna Somers Cocks, founding editor of The Art Newspaper, reports on their significance. In light of controversial decisions by the Turner and Booker Prize judges to split their awards among multiple entrants, alongside recent protests around representation at the Baftas...
Feb 17, 2020•29 min
Eleanor Catton, who in 2013 became the youngest writer to win the Booker Prize for her monumental novel The Luminaries, talks about her screenplay for the new film adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, She tells Nikki Bedi why she thinks Emma is such a fascinatingly flawed heroine. After falling from favour in the last decade, the Rom-Com is on the rebound. It's Valentine's Day and Rachael Siggie looks at how the updated genre has a new generation of film – and streaming – audiences falling for its ...
Feb 14, 2020•29 min
Comedian David Mitchell discusses his West End debut playing William Shakespeare in Ben Elton’s stage adaptation of the BBC TV sitcom, Upstart Crow. The play, which also stars Gemma Whelan and Mark Heap, explores the realities of life for the man behind the drama as he attempts to resurrect his career and save London theatre form the puritans. Leading soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn has, over the last 10 years, won many plaudits for her voice that’s been described as distinctive and unforgettable. S...
Feb 13, 2020•28 min
Geeta Pendse presents Front Row from Leicester, home of the Leicester Comedy Festival, which is currently taking place in over ninety venues across the city. Comedians Eshaan Akbar and Ishi Khan talk about why Leicester is where they try out new material in Work in Progress shows. Geoff Rowe, who founded the festival 27 years ago, on what makes it unique. Last year the first UK Kids Comedy Festival was launched in Leicester. We talk to the UK's youngest comedy double-act, Samson and Mabel, and t...
Feb 12, 2020•28 min
Leopoldstadt is the area of Vienna where poor Jews lived, and the title of Tom Stoppard’s new play. It’s about a family who come from there but, cultured, clever, successful and assimilated, no longer live there when the play begins. It follows their story from 1899 to 1955, from fin de siècle optimism to the aftermath of the Holocaust. Talking to John Wilson in the theatre, Sir Tom Stoppard speaks about how, in the 1990s, he came to appreciate his own Jewishness and how, now in his 80s, he came...
Feb 11, 2020•28 min
Playwright Sir Tom Stoppard discusses his new play, Leopoldstadt, in an extended interview. Leopoldstadt is the area of Vienna where poor Jews lived, and the title of Tom Stoppard’s new play. It’s about a family who come from there but, cultured, clever, successful and assimilated, no longer live there when the play begins. It follows their story from 1899 to 1955, from fin de siècle optimism to the aftermath of the Holocaust. Talking to John Wilson in the theatre, Stoppard speaks about how, in ...
Feb 11, 2020•28 min
A new exhibition 'Art Deco By The Sea' has opened at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich, looking at the impact of the movement on the architecture as well as painting and fashion at British seaside towns. The Art Deco movement flourished on Britain’s coast through the boom and bust of the 20s and 30s, bringing a sense of glamour and opportunity to the masses, in a wave of proudly British manufacture and design that evoked far-off exotic places like New York and Paris. Britain rightly celebrates its...
Feb 10, 2020•29 min
As she completes her quintet of Agatha Christie adaptations with The Pale Horse, screenwriter Sarah Phelps discusses why Christie’s supernatural murder mystery attracted her attention when she was looking for a fifth work by the Queen of Crime to turn into television drama. We Will Walk - Art and Resistance in the American South is an exhibition of sculptures, paintings and quilts made by African American artists from Alabama and the surrounding southern states, made mainly during the Civil Righ...
Feb 07, 2020•31 min
We look at the career of Kirk Douglas who has died at the age of 103. Not only was he a fine actor - and one of the last of the Hollywood Golden Age - he was also a fearless campaigner for social causes who tried to break through the restrictions imposed by the Hollywood system. American Dirt, a novel about a mother and son attempting to cross the Mexico/US border, has been the subject of fierce debate over the last fortnight. One of the 2020s' most hotly-anticipated releases, its white author J...
Feb 06, 2020•28 min
In the finale of Front Row’s Risk season we’ll be debating the biggest creative risk takers as we reveal the Front Row Risk List – the 10 riskiest artworks of the 21st century. From putting your reputation on the line to putting yourself in physical danger - we look at the ways artists have used risk in their work., and ask is it always a good thing to risk offending people, and how does gender play a role in what's risky? To discuss and reveal the list our panel are: artist and activist, Scotte...
Feb 05, 2020•43 min
The Korean film Parasite is in the running for Best Picture, Director, and International Feature at the Oscars on Sunday. Critic Mark Eccleston reviews the tragicomedy, directed by Bong Joon Ho. It follows the collision of two Korean families from very different socio-economic backgrounds, and the unstoppable string of mishaps that lie in wait. As part of our Risk season, Front Row is asking artists working in different forms about their greatest career risks. Tonight we speak to Jasmine Lee-Jon...
Feb 05, 2020•28 min
Tom Hanks talks about his new film, A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, which is based on the true story of the popular American children's TV presenter Fred Rogers. For more than three decades Fred Rogers presented Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood , imparting words of wisdom tenderly, without condescension or skirting around difficult subjects, to very young viewers. This film charts the relationship between Rogers and Lloyd Vogel, a cynical investigative journliast looking to dig up and dish the ...
Feb 03, 2020•28 min
Polish director Agnieszka Holland, best-known for her Oscar nominated feature films about the Holocaust, discusses her new film Mr Jones, starring James Norton as the Welsh journalist Gareth Jones. Jones exposed the truth about Stalin’s genocidal famine which killed millions in Ukraine in the early 1930s and his reporting of the story inspired George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Continuing Front Row’s risk season, theatre critic Michael Billington talks about when risks fail to pay off. Failure in the ...
Jan 31, 2020•28 min
Robert Pattinson talks to Samira about his new Oscar nominated film The Lighthouse, a gothic thriller in black and white from Robert Eggers (The Witch), in which Robert and Willem Dafoe play two lighthouse keepers who start to lose their sanity when a storm strands them on a remote island. Continuing Front Row's Risk season, two film-makers who have exposed themselves to personal danger. Oscar winning director Orlando von Einsiedel (The White Helmets, Virunga) discusses filming in Iraq and Afgha...
Jan 30, 2020•28 min
Director Melina Matsoukas talks about her first feature film Queen and Slim, which follows a black couple on a lackluster date pulled over for a minor traffic infraction. The situation escalates, with sudden and tragic results and the erstwhile couple decide to go on the run. Known primarily as a director of music videos for megastars like Beyoncé, Matsoukas discusses her transition between mediums and the film’s political message. Grayson Perry: The Pre-Therapy Years is the first exhibition to ...
Jan 29, 2020•28 min
Samira talks to Sir Patrick Stewart about what tempted him back to Star Trek to play Jean-Luc Picard for the first time in 18 years. Star Trek: Picard finds the legendary Starfleet officer in retirement but still deeply affected by the loss of Lieutenant Commander Data and the destruction of Romulus that ended his career. Stewart also discusses the parallels between the world of Star Trek: Picard and politics today. The overall winner of the Costa Book of the Year is announced on Front Row, live...
Jan 28, 2020•28 min
Martin Scorsese has the most Oscar nominations of any living director though he has only won once, for his 2006 film The Departed. Nominated again this year for The Irishman, he talks about the film’s themes of ageing, guilt and redemption – and about how it would feel to win. As part of our season looking at risk in the arts, we consider when risk is disproportionately apportioned to working with diverse talent like women or black artists. The result is that white male practitioners are seen as...
Jan 27, 2020•28 min
In a career spanning half a century, Martin Scorsese has told stories about masculinity, music, violence, guilt and redemption – in films including Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Casino and many more. Despite nine best director Oscar nominations in that time, Scorsese only has one win to his name, for The Departed. But that tally could rise if his latest movie The Irishman wins him another Oscar. For Front Row, he talks to John Wilson from New York about his hopes of winning, representati...
Jan 27, 2020•37 min
The Pet Shop Boys talk about their highly anticipated new studio album Hotspot, which is released today. Hotspot is the duo’s final release with producer Stuart Price who ushered in a period of ‘electronic purism’ in their work. Recorded using a large amount of analogue equipment, Hotspot is a departure from the Pet Shop Boy’s recent hyper dance pop sound. Front Row's series examining risk in the arts focuses today on emotional risk. What is it like for writers and performers to explore their ow...
Jan 24, 2020•28 min
As the BBC Three hit comedy Man Like Mobeen returns for a third series, its creator and star, Guz Khan, discusses the development of his on screen persona, Mobeen Deen, and why his show has something for everyone. Front Row's Risk Season continues with filmmaker Penny Woolcock and Richard Mantle, General Director of Opera North. Both have faced big creative challenges and join Front Row to discuss how to decide if a risk is worth taking. The Portico Prize, the UK’s biennial award for outstanding...
Jan 23, 2020•28 min
Michael Palin remembers his friend and fellow Python, Terry Jones - writer, director, actor and historian - whose death at the age of 77 was announced today. Hugh Laurie discusses his new role in Armando Iannucci’s new TV comedy drama Avenue 5, which is set on a galactic cruise liner. When a mishap turns the eight-week pleasure jaunt among the stars into a voyage lasting three-and-a-half years it’s not just the spacecraft that begins to breakdown – it’s civilisation itself. And masks begin to sl...
Jan 22, 2020•29 min
