Front Row

Live daily magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music

As she turns 80, Germaine Greer reflects on her career as a Shakespeare academic, public intellectual, feminist and provocateur. Germaine Greer discusses her passion for Shakespeare and how reading his comedies influenced her thinking for The Female Eunuch; her work championing the work of female writers and painters; how much things have really changed for women; and she shares her thoughts on ce...

Clint Eastwood is the director and star of The Mule, about a cantankerous 90 year-old horticulturist who decides to become a drug mule. Mark Eccleston reviews. The UK's biggest contemporary art prize, the £40,000 Artes Mundi prize, was won last night in Cardiff by Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul, known for his dream-like films such as Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, which won...

Karen Krizanovich explains the appeal of three of the biggest recent hit TV releases still provoking discussion: Bird Box and Sex Education on Netflix, and Bros: After the Screaming Stops on BBC iPlayer. The contemporary video artist Bill Viola has been paired with the Renaissance master Michelangelo in the Royal Academy’s new exhibition, Bill Viola/Michelangelo: Life, Death, Rebirth. It sets out...

The nominations for the 91st Academy Awards were announced earlier today with Roma and The Favourite leading the list, with Black Panther the first superhero film to be nominated for best picture. Kirsty Lang is joined by film critics Larushka Ivan-Zadeh and Jason Solomons to consider the winners and losers, and assess whether there is a better representation of BAME talent than in previous years....

Nicole Kidman discusses her first lead role for some time as she plays a tortured detective in the grimy LA-set thriller, Destroyer. John Cleland’s 18th century novel Fanny Hill has become known as 'the most famous banned book in the country'. Written in 1749, it tells the story of Frances ‘Fanny’ Hill who, after her parents' death, travels from the countryside to London earning money as a sex wor...

The Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright MP, who today gave his ‘Value of Culture’ speech, in which he set out the government’s plans for a multi-million-pound investment in the arts and culture in the UK, discusses his plans to ‘unleash creativity across the nation’. This week the BBC radio schedules saw sweeping change with new presenters at the helm of two breakfast shows. Lauren Laverne takes over...

The impact of Brexit on the creative industries. Today a letter from the Business for People’s Vote Campaign, was published in the Times, signed by names including leaders of the creative industries, like Norman Foster, Terence Conran, and the bosses of Aardman Animation and Endemol Shine. We speak to John Kampfner, formerly of the Creative Industries Federation and who helped coordinate the lette...

M. Night Shyamalan discusses his new film, Glass, the third in his comic book trilogy with Unbreakable and Split. It stars Samuel L Jackson, Bruce Willis and James McAvoy. The Sixth Sense director reveals how he storyboards every single shot, how he uses colour to denote character and why it’s so important for him to root his supernatural storylines in the real world. D. H. Lawrence is famous for...

Academy Award nominee Steve Carell continues his pursuit of more serious roles with his latest film Beautiful Boy. The true story is based on the parallel books by David and Nic Sheff, played by Steve and Timothée Chalamet, chronicling the years in which David tries to help his son, whose drug addiction is spiralling out of control. This weekend 70,000 people attended the festival marking the star...

Octavian, the winner of BBC Music’s Sound of 2019 announced on Friday, is a true rags-to-riches story. The French-born rapper discusses how, after a turbulent upbringing which saw him homeless for some of his teenage years, he has gone on to make his mark on the scene and how music has always been a driving force for him. Seven years since TV series The Killing's final episode, its creator, Danish...

The immortal comedy duo of Laurel and Hardy have been given a second life on screen by John C. Riley and Steve Coogan in the new film Stan & Ollie. The actors have been nominated for their roles at the Golden Globes and BAFTAs respectively, and they discuss the film that tells the story of Laurel and Hardy’s final UK tour in the twilight of their careers. A man wakes up in a forest with no mem...

Hugh Jackman on his film The Front Runner, in which he plays Democratic contender Gary Hart, who in 1987 was ahead in the polls before an alleged affair shot down his chances of becoming US President. The winner of the Costa Biography Award, announced on Front Row this week, is The Cut Out Girl by Bart van Es. The author discusses his book which tells the story of a 9-year-old Jewish Dutch girl, H...

The comedian Nish Kumar on why his latest stand up tour is his most political yet, and the challenge of keeping his satirical topical news television show, The Mash Report, fresh in these febrile times. The look of a building has always been an essential element in architectural design, but less conspicuous are its acoustic properties. Specialists in acoustic design are frequently engaged to enhan...

Keira Knightley discusses her new film about the celebrated French Belle Epoque author Colette, whose bestselling Claudine novels explored teenage sexuality and were inspired by her own life. Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan return with the BAFTA award-winning comedy series Catastrophe on Channel 4. Since becoming pregnant after a fast-moving romance in the show's first episode, the couple's life tog...

Charlie Brooker discusses his ground-breaking interactive film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, where the viewer chooses multiple storylines. As Netflix's first adult live action interactive experience, does this herald the start of a new genre for entertainment? Sophie Raworth (Chair of Judges) announces the category winners of the Costa Book Awards (2018) exclusively on Front Row and John talks live...

Forrest Gump, Back to the Future and Castaway director Robert Zemeckis returns with new film Welcome to Marwen. Based on real-life events and starring Academy Award nominee Steve Carell, the film charts the unconventional way one man copes with losing his memory after a violent attack. As Carol Ann Duffy comes to the end of her ten year stint as the Nation’s Poet Laureate - the first woman in its...

Brexit: The Uncivil War stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Rory Kinnear as the leaders of the Leave and Remain campaigns. Written by James Graham, the one-off Channel 4 drama follows the campaigns as they compete for public attention and votes. TV critic David Butcher reviews. The Catcher in the Rye, narrated by 16-year-old Holden Caulfield, is perhaps the classic coming-of-age text of the 20th Centur...

Olivia Colman is winning major awards for her portrayal of Queen Anne in The Favourite, Yorgos Lanthimos’ film about a scandalous love triangle between the monarch, the Duchess of Marlborough and her cousin Abigail Masham. Olivia Colman discusses the difference between playing Queen Anne and her other role as our present Queen Elizabeth in the forthcoming series of The Crown. Luther is back. Dreda...

Actress Keeley Hawes has long been a household name and seems to have an uncanny ability to pick parts that place her in the most talked about TV shows of their moment. In this extended interview we look back on her career, considering those key roles including the Home Secretary in the hugely popular Bodyguard, working on cult lesbian drama Tipping the Velvet, MI5 agent Zoe in spy thriller Spooks...

How much were you paying attention to arts and culture in 2018? Critics Boyd Hilton, Katie Puckrik and Sarah Crompton, Raifa Rafiq from the Mostly Lit podcast, and actress Maureen Lipman battle it out to see who'll be crowned champion in our cultural quiz of the year. Plus what is your favourite cultural depiction of New Year's Eve? Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Hannah Robins

Journalist and novelist Jonathan Freedland remembers the Israeli author Amos Oz who died today. Tim Robey, Susannah Clapp and Laura Barton - film, theatre and music critics - look ahead to the notable arts events of the upcoming year. The legendary comic book creator and Marvel figurehead, Stan Lee, died earlier this year. Today, on what would have been his 96th birthday, we pay tribute to his lif...

Front Row marks the deaths of three great choreographers.

Internationally-acclaimed land artist Chris Drury's latest project is a dry stone chamber at the end of a remote peninsular overlooking Morecambe Bay in Lancashire. As the tide recedes, Stig brings us some 'slow radio' as he crosses the causeway and heads for Sunderland Point to meet the artist, as well as Andrew Mason, the Master Craftsman and noted dry stonewaller, as they work on the constructi...

It's estimated that almost three million people in the UK now belong to a choir. Kirsty Lang explores why this might be, and looks at the evidence that singing is really good for us. The Sixteen is a professional choir which celebrates its 40th anniversary next year. It's founder, Harry Christophers, and one of the sopranos, Charlotte Mobbs, talk to Kirsty about starting the choir, changing attitu...