Front Row

Stories from Mark Gatiss will dominate the small screen once again this festive season. Gatiss joins Kirsty to talk about his new adaptation of Dracula, in 3 hour and a half episodes, starring John Heffernan as Jonathan Harker and Danish actor Claes Bang as the tall, dark, handsome vampire. They also discuss Gatiss’s new version of the M R James Christmas story, Martin’s Close, with Peter Capaldi...

The Two Popes is a based on true events, the resignation of Pope Benedict and the election of his successor, Francis. It's also a double act by two great Welsh actors, Jonathan Pryce, Francis, and Anthony Hopkins, Benedict. Jonathan Pryce discusses his role, the story of their unlikely friendship and what the film is really exploring - the nature of forgiveness. 300 years after the publication of...

Ballet star Francesca Hayward on the Royal Ballet's Romeo and Juliet: Beyond Words, filmed on location, and her lead role as Victoria The White Cat in the new film musical Cats. The Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir discusses her scores for the film Joker, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe this week, and the hit TV series Chernobyl, for which she won an Emmy. This Saturday will be...

The work of the playwright and screenwriter Mike Bartlett has become a staple of the theatre and television landscape with his plays, such as Bull, winning prizes, his television dramas, such as Dr Foster, tantalising viewers, and productions such as King Charles III having a life on both stage and small screen. Now he’s written a new ITV drama serial - Sticks & Stones - about workplace bullyi...

Controversy surrounds this year's Nobel Prize for Literature; unusually there are two winners, Polish Olga Tokarczuk and Austrian Peter Handke. Handke has been vocally supportive of the Serbs during the 1990s Yugoslav war including accusing the Bosnian Muslims of staging attacks. Jonas Eklöf, Editor in Chief of Swedish literary magazine Vi Läser, reports on the presentation ceremony in Stockholm t...

Last month Baltimore Museum of Art announced that in 2020 it would only collect works of art by women, because in the last decade just 2% of global art auction spending was on work by women? At 26 major American museums just 11% of all acquisitions and 14% of exhibitions were by female artists. Frances Morris, Director of Tate Modern. and arts journalist Julia Halperin join John Wilson to discuss...

Inua Ellams, writer of the hit play Barber Shop Chronicles, has transposed Chekhov's Three Sisters to 1960s Nigeria, on the brink of the Biafran Civil War. His new version of Three Sisters is at London's National Theatre. Two bananas taped to a wall with duct tape have just been sold for $120,000 each at the Art Basel fair in Miami. These works of art were created by Maurizio Cattelan, whose 18 ca...

Sarah Gosling is joined by Ferris & Sylvester, music director Kojo Samuel and composer Tom Foskett-Barnes, in a show recorded at the recent BBC Music Introducing Live weekend in London's Tobacco Docks. Ferris & Sylvester are a blues folk duo, championed by BBC Introducing, who played Glastonbury this year and are recording their debut album. Izzy Ferris and Archie Sylvester perform two of...

Lesley Manville, who was nominated for an Oscar for her last screen role in Phantom Thread, talks about her new film, Ordinary Love, which co-stars Liam Neeson and which explores the impact a diagnosis of breast cancer has upon an older couple. It was announced last night that the four artists shortlisted for this year’s Turner Prize are to share the £40,000 award after the contenders sent a lette...

Stand up comedian Nish Kumar was booed off stage at a charity gig for The Lord's Taverners. How do comedians cope when the audience disagrees with their political stance or just takes against them? Ayesha Hazarika is a much-in-demand comedian with well-known strong political views. What are her strategies for coping when facing vocal hostility from the people who've paid to see her perform? Honey...

Edward Norton on his new film Motherless Brooklyn, which he wrote, directed, produced and stars in, as a lonely private detective with Tourette Syndrome in 1950s New York. The film also stars Bruce Willis, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alec Baldwin and Willem Dafoe, and is based on Jonathan Lethem's 1999 novel. Bristol–based artist Luke Jerram discusses his latest artwork, Extinction Bell, which he hopes will...

The Boy in the Dress is a major new musical at the RSC in Stratford based on the book by David Walliams, with songs by Robbie Williams and Guy Chambers, a script by Mark Ravenhill and directed by Gregory Doran. With such a pedigree will it match the success of Matilda? Nick Ahad reviews. The Turner Prize is one of the biggest art prizes in the UK and offers £25,000 to its winner. Front Row goes to...

Atlantics is a Senegalese supernatural romantic drama directed by Mati Diop. She made history when the film premiered at Cannes, becoming the first black woman to direct a film featured In Competition at the festival. Atlantics went on to win the Grand Prix. Be Manzani reviews. Now that the political parties have released their manifestos, the BBC’s arts editor Will Gompertz, and Kieran Yates, jou...

The deaths of two giants of the arts were announced today. The Australian poet, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and essayist, Clive James, and the theatre and opera director, actor, author and medical doctor Sir Jonathan Miller. Shahidha Bari is joined by Ian McEwan, Eric Idle, Norman Lebrecht, Melvin Bragg and Pete Atkin to pay tribute. Presenter: Shahidha Bari Producer: Tim Prosser and the...

We exclusively reveal and analyse the 2019 Costa Book Prize shortlist. Critics Alex Clark and Sarah Shaffi discuss the books chosen in the five categories: novel, first novel, poetry, biography and children's fiction. Category winners will appear on the programme in January and Front Row will announce the overall prize-winner on 28 January 2020 Rian Johnson is the director of new film Knives Out -...

Rapper Wretch 32 discusses his new memoir, Rapthology. Part autobiography, part guide to creativity and part cultural history, Rapthology unpacks the songs that have shaped him over the last 30 years, from gospel music to dancehall anthems, offering a portrait of his life through his best-known works. Two cinema chains have pulled the film Blue Story, about a violent street rivalry in south London...

Coldplay's new album Everyday Life is released today after a performance at sunrise in Jordan this morning. Also out is Leonard Cohen's posthumous album Thanks for the Dance, completed by his son Adam. Kieran Yates reviews. The controversial comedian Roy Chubby Brown is at the centre of a row in Middlesbrough, as Mayor Andy Preston has sanctioned the booking of the entertainer and the Head of the...

The story of the slave abolitionist Harriet Tubman has finally made it to the big screen where she is played by Cynthia Erivo. Gaylene Gould reviews. After France’s President Macron was reportedly “shaken by the accuracy” of new French film Les Misérables, depicting life today in the deprived outer suburbs of Paris, French critic Agnès Poirier joins us to discuss modern attitudes toward social rea...

Idina Menzel, famous for singing Let It Go from the film Frozen, provides the voice once more of Elsa, now Queen of Arendelle and still with magical powers, in the sequel Frozen 2. The singer discusses the early concept for her character in what became the biggest-grossing animated film of all time, and how Elsa has grown up in the years since the original. The new Frozen 2 film has been long awai...

RJ Palacio’s first novel Wonder has been published in 45 languages, sold 5 million copies worldwide and been made into a film starring Julia Roberts. We speak to RJ about her new graphic novel White Bird which tells the back story of the classroom bully from Wonder, Julian, whose Jewish grandmother fled from the Nazis. A row involving Taylor Swift and her former record label has been resolved - fo...

Dear Evan Hansen is the Tony award winning musical about a socially anxious teenager who, via a web of lies, gets caught up in social media adulation following a classmate’s suicide. As the musical opens in London’s West End amidst much anticipation, co-creator Steven Levenson talks about turning such a sensitive story into a life affirming show. We speak to former child soldier, Sudanese hip-hop...

As Northern Ballet reaches its half century, the company's Artistic Director David Nixon discusses his love of telling stories through Dance. Ever fancied sleeping in an artwork? Soon you’ll be able to do exactly that at the Art B&B – a new hotel in Blackpool which has commissioned 30 artists to turns its rooms into works of art. Michael Trainor, Creative Director of the Art B&B explains t...

With Italy set to declare a state of national emergency in Venice after the Unesco world heritage site was engulfed by a 6ft 'acqua alta', flooding its historic basilica and many other sites of great historic interest, art critic Jonathan Jones discusses the cultural significance of the imminent threat from flood and fire and what is being done to protect the city’s invaluable architectural and ar...

This edition of Front Row has a regal air. As the third series of The Crown airs next week, with Olivia Coleman taking over the role of Queen Elizabeth from Claire Foy, Stig Abell talks to Tobias Menzies about the challenges of playing Prince Phillip, previously Matt Smith's part. Covering the years 1964 – 1977, in this series the Royals have all four of their children and are more settled in thei...

Portrait painter Lorna May Wadsworth has forged a remarkable career with subjects including David Tennant, Michael Sheen, David Blunkett and Baroness Thatcher. As a major retrospective of her work - Gaze - opens at the Graves Gallery in her home town of Sheffield, Lorna May Wadsworth talks about the importance to her of the “female gaze." Marriage Story is the new film from director Noah Baumbach,...