Front Row

Writer Juno Dawson, critic Sarah Crompton, comedian Ayesha Hazarika and folk musician Matthew Crampton battle it out to see who'll be crowned champion in our cultural quiz of the year. Plus, as it's wassailing season, Matthew discusses the history of drinking songs and plays some examples. Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Simon Richardson

How has TV changed in the last decade, from what we watch to how we watch it. Critics Boyd Hilton and Eleanor Stanford discuss, alongside contributions from screen writers Mark Gatiss, Amanda Coe and Mike Bartlett. Male ballet dancers Ty Singleton and Tom Rogers on how they hope their podcast, Ty and Tom Talk, will change perceptions of ballet. Chinese film Long Day's Journey into Night is reviewe...

The most recent statistics released by the Church of England reveal record cathedral attendance, despite falling numbers in many Anglican parish churches. Cathedrals are increasingly programming cultural events and art installations as a way of engaging with wider communities. We discuss the evolving role of contemporary art in churches as well as different approaches to conserve the art that alre...

A sparkling and razor-sharp conversation marks the end of a remarkable year for two authors. Queenie has been one of the breakthrough novels of the year, winning over readers with its compassionate and funny depiction of a young black woman whose life seems to be spinning out of control. Front Row asked its author, Candice Carty-Williams, to choose a cultural figure she’d like to talk to. She sele...

Three names on the Motown label, Holland-Dozier-Holland, were behind a string of hits including 13 number 1s in a row. The songs they wrote included Reach Out (I'll Be There), Stop! in the Name of Love, Where Did Our Love Go? and Baby Love and the artists they composed for ranged from Martha and the Vandellas and Diana Ross and the Supremes to Marvin Gaye and The Four Tops. Now in the 60th anniver...

Amanda Coe, novelist and screenwriter of Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story, Room at the Top and Apple Tree Yard talks about her latest television drama series, The Trial of Christine Keeler. It's the story of the Profumo Affair and John Wilson asks her what the 1963 scandal tells us about power and sex in today's society. Novelist Diana Evans discusses Singular, her new short story specially commis...

The Mischief Theatre team – Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields have had an amazing year with their Play That Goes Wrong theatre franchise – three productions on at the West End, one touring the UK, and now a new six-part television series on BBC One called The Goes Wrong Show. They join Front Row to discuss how things have gone right since they started going wrong. Slow Art Days, where...

JJ Abrams on overcoming his initial qualms about directing The Rise of Skywalker, the epic conclusion of the 42 year Star Wars saga. A huge juggling act, the film must satisfy fans, financiers and critics while tying up the many themes and plotlines of its eight predecessors. How did he do it? The long awaited film of Cats starring national treasures Dame Judi Dench and Sir Ian McKellen has been s...

Robert De Niro discusses reuniting with Martin Scorsese after nearly 25 years for The Irishman, the big-budget epic Netflix saga about organised crime over five decades, also starring those classic mob actors Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel. After inspiring a popular video game, The Witcher Saga, the dark and fantastical novels of Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski have now been adapted for TV...

Saoirse Ronan stars as Jo March in Greta Gerwig’s new film adaptation of Little Women. The Irish actress, who’s tipped for an Oscar for the role, discusses how the film draws out the connection between Jo and her creator Louisa May Alcott, if Jo and Laurie would work as couple today and her frustration at Greta’s lack of Golden Globe nominations for the film. The Book People, the online and pop-up...

Taron Egerton, whose performance as Elton John in the film Rocketman has already earned him Golden Globe and SAG nominations for Best Actor, talks about channelling the flamboyant performer on screen and capturing his distinctive voice in hits such as Your Song and Tiny Dancer. Rocketman is available on DVD. There have been scores of actors who have played Scrooge from Charles Dickens’s A Christma...

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...