Front Row

Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio discuss their new film Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. In the ninth film directed by Quention Taratino, set in the late 1960s, DiCaprio plays an actor in the twilight of his Hollywood career, with Pitt as his buddy and stunt double. The Chief Conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo, guides Stig Abell in on...

Live from the Edinburgh Festivals - comedian Henning Wehn is the self-styled German Ambassador of Comedy. Henning came to the UK seventeen years ago to improve his English and decided to stay due to the good weather and tasty food. His show is called Get On With It which he describes as an unbiased look at Brexit: light on facts and heavy on casual xenophobia. After someone threw a burger at them...

Poet Lemn Sissay discusses his new memoir, My Name Is Why, which tells the story of his fractured childhood within the now infamous Wigan care system in the '60s and '70s. Since then he has gone on to become the official poet of the London 2012 Olympics, the Chancellor of the University of Manchester, and most recently won this year's PEN Pinter Prize. This Friday the BBC Proms celebrates the 200t...

Bohemian Rhapsody, The Crown and a new production of Equus have all used Movement Directors to capture the physicality and movements of their characters. But how do they do it and why is it a role in demand? Polly Bennett, who has worked with Rami Malek and Oliva Coleman, and Shelley Maxwell, who is helping the actors in Equus capture the movement of horses, discuss the role of the Movement Direct...

Martyn Brabbins, the Music Director of English National Opera, is turning 60 next week and to celebrate he’ll be conducting a new take on Elgar's Enigma Variations at the Royal Albert Hall. He discusses the mystery theme to the original version and the importance of cultural exchange with international musicians. Playmobil: The Movie is the next in the long line of toys-to-screen animated films. D...

Candace Bushnell whose 1996 book Sex and the City was a runaway best seller and adapted into a successful HBO television series and two films, talks to John Wilson about her new memoir Is There Still Sex in The City? - a wry look at sex, dating and friendship in New York City after fifty. We talk to choreographer and Artistic Director of National Dance Company Wales, Fearghus Ó Conchúir, about Ryg...

Toni Morrison, the Nobel prize winning writer whose novels explored black identity in America and in particular the experience of black women, has died aged 88. To pay tribute to the author of Beloved, Stig is joined by the writers Claudia Rankine, Walter Mosley, Ladee Hubbard and literary critic Diane Roberts. Plus Front Row's 2015 interview with Toni Morrison. How do you create the sound of Spac...

The Crucible drew inspiration from the paranoia and fear of McCarthyism - so we find out if a new Scottish Ballet production of Arthur Miller's classic is drawing on our own turbulent political times. Kelly Apter of The Scotsman gives us her verdict. The performance is part of the 2019 Edinburgh International Festival. And two musical takes on The Peterloo Massacre. Folk trio Peter Coe, Brian Pete...

We review the ninth in the Fast & Furious franchise and its first spin-off, Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw starring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham as the eponymous duo. Larushka Ivan-Zadeh considers the lasting success of one of the biggest franchises in the history of cinema which has amassed almost $5bn worldwide. The youngest person and first woman to be a principal guest conductor...

k.d. lang, who has been revisiting and touring her best-selling 1992 album Ingénue, talks about its significance in terms of LGBT rights, her coming out during its promotion, and why she feels now is the time to retire from music: “The muse is eluding me. I am completely at peace with the fact that I may be done”. As three works by Peter Lanyon, one of the most important postwar British painters,...

Olivier Latry has been the Organist of Notre-Dame de Paris since 1985, is about to play the Royal Albert Hall organ at the Proms. He talks about his talent for improvisation, his feelings about the fire that nearly devastated Notre Dame, and how he thinks the cathedral should be rebuilt. Gurinder Chadha, director of Bend It Like Beckham and Bride and Prejudice, discusses her latest film, Blinded b...

This week sees the 200th anniversary of the birth of Herman Melville, writer of one of America's greatest novels, Moby Dick. Sarah Churchwell and Richard King discuss the extraordinary tale of Captain Ahab's pursuit of the white sperm whale that had bitten off his leg. The story of Ahab's revenge is famously narrated by Ishmael, who is on his first whaling expedition, with one of literature's most...

American opera singer, Tamara Wilson withdrew from her final ever performance of Aida at the weekend. She was scheduled to be conducted by Placido Domingo at the Arena Di Verona but announced on Instagram that her absence was due to illness. But it comes after her public opposition to the use of ‘blackface’ for the role - heavy "chocolate brown" make-up. Tamara speaks out about the incident and wh...

Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans, starring Kim Cattrell as Agrippina and Craig Roberts as Emperor Nero, is the first foray into cinema of the popular children’s TV series. Classics author Natalie Haynes gives her verdict. On the 400th anniversary of her birth, we assess the life and work of Venetian composer Barbara Strozzi with Professor Susan Wollenberg and mezzo-soprano CN Lester;...

Roger and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! is Chichester Festival Theatre’s new summer musical, starring Josie Lawrence as Aunt Eller and Hyoie O’Grady and Amara Okereke as the young lovers. Fiona Mountford reviews. Following violence and verbal abuse directed at ushers, some theatres are issuing them with body cameras, hoping this will deter aggressive behaviour by audience members. Theatre critic Fiona M...

Literary critics Arifa Akbar and Toby Lichtig dissect the longlist of the 2019 Booker Prize longlist. For the full list see below. Tea is the most widely-consumed drink after water. Julie Finch, director the Compton Verney gallery, guides Julian May through their new exhibition A Tea Journey: From the Mountains to the Table. The show navigates the cultural history of the cuppa from the delicate bo...

Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Shannon star in The Current War, as Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse. It's the electrifying story about the race to supply people with electricity and power. The film has had a turbulent production, plagued with unfavourable reviews at 2017 Toronto Film festival premier and then caught up in the scandal surrounding the Harvey Weinstein allegations. Film Critic...

To mark the 20th anniversary of her best-selling debut album, Macy Gray performs her smash hit I Try, and talks frankly to Kirsty about the challenges she faced after achieving fame and success. She also sings from her latest album, Ruby. Tomorrow hundreds of Morris dancers will gather outside the Houses of Parliament to protest against the cancellation of next year's early May bank holiday. Gordo...

Hip hop pioneer and art lover Fred Brathwaite, aka Fab 5 Freddy, hunts for the hidden black figures of Italian Renaissance art in a new BBC2 documentary, A Fresh Guide To Florence. He reveals some of the ground-breaking images he discovered of a multi-racial and multi-ethnic society that have slipped through the cracks of art history. Artist Laurie Anderson discusses her new VR artwork To the Moon...

Illuminated River is a major new art project on the River Thames claiming to be the world’s longest artwork. 15 bridges across the river will be lit up by a series of LED displays for the next 10 years. Kirsty talks to director Sarah Gaventa and light artist Leo Villareal. Twenty-five years since Disney’s animated film The Lion King broke records and won Oscars, a new live action version is roarin...

Karina Canellakis will be launching this year's BBC Proms on Friday, conducting Janáček's monumental Glagolitic Mass. She talks to John Wilson about her approach to this daunting task, why she loves the spiritual drama of the piece and how since early childhood her head has been filled with music. Vicky McClure, Gemma Chan and Samantha Morton star in a series of stand alone television dramas focus...

American composer Philip Glass is often cited as one of the most influential composers alive, combining minimalist, spare music with the harmonic tradition of Bach, Schubert and Mozart. Now, for the Manchester International Festival, he's teamed up with British performer and director Phelim McDermott to produce a very personal work with ten new pieces of music and ten meditations on life, death an...

Dominic Dromgoole, used to run Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London, he tried take a production of Hamlet to every country in the world (and very nearly succeeded), and he brought a year-long season of Oscar Wilde’s work to the West End. and now he's directed is debut feature film, Making Noise Quietly. It began life as stageplay, a triptych of stories, each involving the meeting of strangers and...

Novelist and screenwriter Deborah Moggach whose eighteen novels include Heartbreak Hotel, Tulip Fever and These Foolish Things - made into the hit film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel - talks to Stig Abell about her new novel The Carer, a poignant story about age, sibling rivalry and having to grow up – at last. Stig is joined by Jordan Erica Webber to play a new computer game based on the world of...

Oscar winning director Ron Howard has made an in-depth look at the life and career of singer Luciano Pavarotti, featuring interviews with his family and other stars such as Placido Domingo and Angela Gheorghiu. Classical music critic Fiona Maddocks reviews. The latest British Attitudes Survey is published today, but how are attitudes reflected and influenced by the culture we consume? Research Dir...