Front Row

The bestselling children’s book series The Snow Spider has been adapted for TV by award-winning writer, poet and playwright Owen Sheers. It is a fantasy drama that follows nine-year-old Gwyn as he discovers his magical powers and his family connection to the Welsh myths of the Mabinogion. Owen tells us how he adapted a much-loved classic. Booker longlisted author Nikita Lalwani discusses her new n...

Singer and fiddle player Eliza Carthy, daughter of folk doyens Norma Waterson and Martin Carthy, is known as a folk musician but, while being steeped in traditional music, she has wide musical horizons. Her new album Through that Sound (My Secret was Made Known) is a collection of her own songs. It’s a collaboration with musician and producer Ben Seal, who provides arrangements for string quartet,...

Poet Laureate Simon Armitage talks about his new poetry collection Magnetic Field: the Marsden Poems, which is inspired by the West Yorkshire village he grew up in. As classical musicians struggle to cope with the loss of their income due to the cancellation of all concerts, Samira is joined by music critic Anna Picard, Deborah Annetts of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, and pianist Stephen...

Front Row has announced Valeria Luiselli the winner of the 2020 Rathbones Folio book prize for her novel Lost Children Archive and John Wilson speaks live to Valeria from her home in New York. This Tuesday sees the UK launch of Disney+, the new television streaming service from the second largest media company in the world. As well as all their classic releases, the service will include access to...

It was a call from Dame Esther Rantzen for choirmaster Gareth Malone to bring the nation together under his metaphorical baton that has inspired Gareth’s latest choral idea – The Great British Home Chorus. He talks to Katie about the challenge of creating a virtual choir from amateurs and professionals at a time when we are all being told to keep our distance from each other. The contralto voice u...

Actor and screenwriter Lennie James talks about the return of his award-winning Sky drama Save Me, in which he plays a father trying to rescue his daughter from a sex trafficking ring. In the new series Save Me Too, he finds someone who may hold the key to her location. Writer and comedian Rob Auton performs live and talks about finding inspiration from small everyday things including hair, water,...

Director and writer Gary Sinyor joins John Wilson to discuss his new sitcom The Jewish Enquirer. This follows hapless journalist Paul, played by Tim Downie, in search of scoops for Britain’s “fourth most-read Jewish newspaper”. Sinyor reveals how his own Jewish heritage inspired this irreverent depiction of a Jewish family and how everything and everyone from circumcision to Philip Green is ripe f...

Author and comedian David Baddiel is going to read The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow, now his UK tour has been cancelled due to coronavirus, and he has the time. David tells Stig Abell why this novel has always been such a challenge to him. As cinemas close round the country, Universal Pictures have announced they are home releasing several current big films such as Emma and The Invisib...

American author Jenny Offill discusses her highly anticipated new novel, Weather, about a female librarian struggling to cope with a domestic life haunted by the growing awareness of catastrophic climate change. Actor and comic Roy Hudd has died at the age of 83. We speak to producer and writer John Lloyd - who was also a friend - about Roy's career. The English Game, a new Netflix drama written b...

The Kodo drummers from Japan formed in 1981 and are currently nearing the end of their world tour. Five members bring their drums, flutes and cymbals to our studio to perform, and to discuss the strict regime for their apprenticeship and the physical demands of their stage show. As theatres empty, film releases are delayed and festivals cancelled, Front Row considers the ongoing impact of coronavi...

Dame Judi Dench looks back at her six decade career in theatre, television and film, from playing Lady Macbeth to M in Bond. As she prepares to return to the stage for a series of conversations at the Bridge Theatre in London, Judi discusses Shakespeare, Musicals, Awards, how she copes with losing her eyesight, and how she was originally told she didn't have a face for films. Now she has a record...

Steven Appleby’s comic strips have graced the pages of many national newspapers including The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and The Observer. Now he’s created his first graphic novel, Dragman - a thriller about August Crimp who discovers that wearing women’s clothing gives him the power of flight. As his superhero alter ego, Dragman, he’s on the case of the missing souls, but can he al...

The Miss World beauty pageant in 1970 is probably best remebered for one thing: The Women’s Liberation movement's intervention. They staged a protest at the final and it got them on the front pages of newspapers around the world. And now it’s the subject of a new film called Misbehaviour starring Keira Knightley, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Jessie Buckley. We speak to the film’s director Philippa Lowthorp...

In recent weeks, two new reports on diversity in the arts have generated headlines. Arts Council England has issued a document called Equality, Diversity and the Creative Case, and The Creative Diversity Network, an organisation funded by all the main broadcasters, has released its third assessment of representation on screen and off. Discussing what we can be learnt from their findings are: Debor...

The Mash Report’s Rachel Parris discusses why her private life rather than politics has inspired her new stand up show, All Change Please. As the Greater Manchester Combined Authority announces increased funding for arts venues across its ten boroughs, we talk to Mayor of Greater Manchester and former Culture Secretary Andy Burnham about the effect Local Government funding cuts have had on council...

Playwright and writer Hassan Abdulrazzak discusses his latest play The Special Relationship, a dark satire about the deportation of ex-prisoners from the US, which is based on interviews with real ex-prisoners. Tim Robey reviews Onward, the new Pixar/Disney animation about two teenage elves who go in search of their father, set in a realm of mythical creatures who live as humans do, with houses an...

Hilary Mantel's novel The Mirror and The Light is published tomorrow. In the Front Row readers' panel, three of our listeners - Deborah Stuart, Sasha Simic, and Laura Helen Back - gather to discuss the first two novels in the Cromwell trilogy, Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, and to express their hopes and fears for the final instalment. Shay D, a UK hip hop artist, is curating a national tour o...

Koby Adom on directing Malorie Blackman's best-selling young adult novel Noughts + Crosses for BBC1, creating an alternative world where Europe has been colonised by Africa, the ruling class are black and the white population are slaves. As Korean film Parasite dominates the box office, have theatre, film and TV audiences become more accepting of subtitles? Declan Donnellan, artistic director of t...

Director Francis Annan discusses his film Escape from Pretoria. Daniel Radcliffe and Ian Hart star in the true story of the imprisonment of white anti-apartheid campaigners in the 1970s and their incredible escape from South Africa’s maximum-security Pretoria prison. Did you know that amateur dramatics is the third most popular pastime in the UK after fishing and football? Michael Coveney has been...

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 novelis...

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...

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 the...

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...

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 loca...

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 suc...