Front Row

Irish comedian Ardal O’Hanlon is best-known for roles in Father Ted, My Hero and currently Death in Paradise, but he started out as a stand-up comic in 80s Dublin. As he embarks on a nationwide solo tour, Samira talks to Ardal about the role of politics in his life and work and breaking free from being typecast. Novelist Tessa Hadley is praised for her psychological insight, her nuance, and her pr...

French-Moroccan novelist Leila Slimani caused a sensation in France with her novel Lullaby about a nanny who murders the two children in her care, which won the Prix Goncourt and became a bestseller in the UK. As her first novel, Adèle, is published in the UK for the first time, she discusses the book's contentious storyline about a married woman with an addiction to having sex with strangers. Dia...

It was in Manchester in 2013 that Anna Jordan won the Bruntwood Prize, the UK’s biggest national competition for new plays. She’s now back in the city with her new adaptation of a stage classic – Mother Courage. Bertolt Brecht set his play in 17th century Europe during the Thirty Years’ War but Jordan has moved the story into the future. It’s 2080, and Europe no longer exists, the countries have b...

Comedian Sara Pascoe talks about her latest stand-up show Lads, Lads, Lads and its evolution from being about her relationship break-up to being happy a single woman. Also what's it like sharing such personal experiences in front of thousands of people? And how has the situation changed for women in comedy since she started out? There are Baftas and Oscars for Best Hair & Make Up and an Olivie...

This weekend sees the announcement of the winners of this year's Baftas - the British Academy Film Awards - and Stig talks to two of the stars in London for the event. Director Spike Lee attracted a great deal of attention with his first feature She's Gotta Have It in 1986, yet despite his later films including Do the Right Thing, Mo' Better Blues, Malcolm X and Summer of Sam, he was never nominat...

Broadway star Chita Rivera, who created the iconic roles of Anita in West Side Story and Velma in Chicago, talks to Samira about her seven decades on stage, as she prepares to perform again in London. The Woman in the Window is the bestselling psychological thriller that sparked a bidding war between publishers resulting in a two million dollar book deal and its publication in January 2018. Now it...

Front Row considers the artistic significance of walls and borders. John Lanchester, whose latest novel The Wall is about a massive fictional defensive structure, discusses the way walls feature in literature and art with poet and art critic Sue Hubbard, from cave paintings to artworks like Andy Goldsworthy’s 750 feet long drystone wall. Artist Luke Jerram takes us on a tour around his home city o...

The Cutty Sark was launched 150 years ago this year. The acme of sailing technology, now she floats not in the sea but in the air in Greenwich. People walk around on, in and under her. So the ship has become a monumental public art-work. The sculptor Michael Speller, who has made public works for Greenwich, tours the Cutty Sark with Kirsty Lang and the ship's curator, Hannah Stockton. They start b...

American comedian Tiffany Haddish joins the voice cast of the Lego Movie sequel as the shape-shifting Queen Whatever Wa'Nabi. She tells Front Row how comedy saved her from a troubled childhood and the foster care system, and how she went on to host Saturday Night Live and feature on the cover of Time 100. Alice Clark-Platts’ latest thriller The Flower Girls was the subject of fierce bidding war. T...

Painter, sculptor, architect and engineer- Leonardo da Vinci is regarded as one of the greatest artists of all time. To mark the 500th anniversary of his death, 144 of his drawings from the Royal Collection are to be exhibited in 12 galleries and museums nationwide. Senior curator Natasha Howes, and Mark Roughley, medical illustrator and Art in Science lecturer at Liverpool School of Art and Desig...

Moon and Me is the new CBeebies programme by Andrew Davenport, creator of the award-winning shows Teletubbies and In the Night Garden. He discusses how his story of a doll, Pepi Nana, and the baby in the moon who travels to her doll house to tell stories and have adventures, was inspired by tales of toys that come to life when nobody is looking. Why are some musicians and writers labelled 'the voi...

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...