Front Row

Chris Dunkley, for many years television critic of the Financial Times, discusses the impact and ongoing popularity of Dad's Army, which was first broadcast fifty years ago this week. Music streaming platforms have reported a rise people aged under 30 listening to jazz, with the genre's new sound also being produced by musicians in that age group. Music journalist Teju Adeleye and jazz musician Em...

New film Iceman was inspired by Ötzi, the prehistoric man who was found perfectly preserved in the ice in the Ötztal Alps in 1991. Dubbed "The European Revenant" the characters speak in an extinct language which isn't subtitled. We review with film critic Hannah McGill and survival enthusiast and Costa Children's Book Award winner Katherine Rundell. A recent Parliamentary meeting addressed the iss...

Fran Ross was a gifted African-American author who died in 1985. Her novel Oreo, written at the height of the Black Power movement, tells the rollercoaster story of a black-Jewish girl's quest for her white father using Greek myth, slang, Yiddish, puns, made-up words and Ross' own extraordinary imagination. The novel sank without much trace but Man Booker-Prizewinning author Marlon James, who's wr...

Andre Holland is perhaps best known for his role as Kevin, the chef (and love interest) in the Oscar winning film Moonlight. Now he is in Britain playing Othello at Shakespeare's Globe in a production also featuring Mark Rylance as Iago. He tells Kirsty Lang how, unlikely as it might seem, his southern American accent fits the iambic pentameter of Shakespeare's lines perfectly. The arrival of arti...

Playwright Patrick Marber and actress Indira Varma on Exit the King, Marber's adaptation for the National Theatre of the Romanian absurdist drama by Eugène Ionesco, in which Varma stars as Queen Marguerite alongside Rhys Ifans' King, about to make his final exit. John talks to Nick Drnaso, the first graphic novelist to be longlisted for the Man Booker prize, and critics Arifa Akbar and Toby Lichti...

John Hurt as Artist is a new exhibition in Norfolk which reveals a less well-known side of the actor who died last year. Sir John Hurt's widow Anwen discusses the mainly figurative paintings and drawings which mostly relate to the actor's off-screen life, but also include self-portraits of him in prosthetic make-up for his role as John Merrick in The Elephant Man from 1980. Ian McKellen is playing...

American footballer-turned-opera star Morris Robinson is returning to the Proms this weekend to perform as the bass soloist in Mahler's epic Symphony of a Thousand. He sings live and discusses his extraordinary move from the football stadium to the opera house. Sitting around of an evening with friends, a bottle of wine, discussing a good book - that's the cosy image of the Book Club. But the Rich...

The Lehman Trilogy at the National Theatre is an epic new play directed by Sam Mendes, which tells the story of the American banking dynasty from its humble beginnings in Alabama to its bankruptcy in the 2008 crash. John talks to Simon Russell Beale, Adam Godley and Ben Miles, who play the founding Lehman brothers and many other characters too. As the 100th Now That's What I Call Music album is re...

Alan Bennett's new play Allelujah! is set in the geriatric ward of a Yorkshire hospital threatened with closure. It follows a singing, dancing choir of quick-witted elderly patients whose problem is not that they are ill so much as they have nowhere to go. Alan Bennett and director Nicholas Hytner discuss working together and how Alan manages to take on big themes - English identity, education and...

Sacha Baron Cohen's return to TV is Who Is America?, a new series in which he dupes figures such as Sarah Palin and Bernie Sanders into giving interviews to him, heavily disguised with prosthetics. TV critic Boyd Hilton reviews. As the decision is taken to rebuild the Glasgow School of Art after its second devastating fire, Sally Stewart, Head of Architecture at the school, discusses the latest pl...

Pierce Brosnan discusses his long and varied career which began as an artist, as he reprises the role of Sam Carmichael in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again - with less singing this time. The Irish government has recently announced a new arts strategy and funding of Euro 2.billion Euros in a programme called "Investing in Our Culture, Language and Heritage. Journalist and Art Historian Robert O' Byrne,...

Grime has been on an epic journey from subculture to explosive phenomenon. John speaks to presenter DJ Target, writer of Grime Kids, and to music journalist Dan Hancox, writer of Inner City Pressure. They discuss Grime as music of protest and how it evolves in a rapidly shifting landscape. Agnès Varda on her life as a legendary film-maker of the Nouvelle Vague, and her work as an artist as her fir...

Torchwood and Broadchurch star Eve Myles returns to our screens in the Welsh-noir series Keeping Faith. The drama centres around a working mother, Faith Howells, as she deals with the personal and professional fallout of her husband's mysterious disappearance. Originally broadcast in Welsh on S4C, an English language version is now being shown on BBC One after breaking viewing records on BBC Wales...

Theatre criticism has been in the dock recently after a reviewer was publicly reproached for mentioning an actor's weight. Critics Sarah Crompton and Quentin Letts debate whether reviewers should feel free to assess an actor's body as well as their performance. Olly Alexander from Years and Years discusses the band's new album, Palo Santo, which combines a sci-fi setting with a visceral account of...

Holly Hunter talks about her four-decade career in Hollywood, including her Oscar winning performance in The Piano, her role as a TV journalist in Broadcast News, and returning to voice Elastigirl in the blockbuster animation, Incredibles 2. The National Theatre of Wales is marking the 70th anniversary of the NHS with a season of new plays performed across Wales. Samira talks to Peter Cox, writer...

The acclaimed composer and conductor, Oliver Knussen, has died aged 66. He began composing at just six years-old and as well as continuing to write music, went on to conduct around the world and in 1994 he was made a CBE. He was perhaps best known for the operatic adaptation of the children's classic Where the Wild Things Are. Mark Anthony Turnage and Roger Wright pay tribute. A reimagining of the...

Live from Dublin, Seamus Heaney's wife and daughter, Marie and Catherine Heaney, talk to the writer Sinéad Gleeson about 100 Poems, a selection of the poet's work chosen by his family. The book runs the gamut of Heaney's writing life, yet is a personal collection, with poems of love for his wife, children and grandchildren, his parents and relatives. A favourite of Seamus Heaney's poems is The Rai...

Rob Brydon, Daniel Mays and Adeel Akhtar were among the actors spending long hours in swimming pools last summer rehearsing for, and shooting, the new British film Swimming With Men, based on a true story about a group of male synchronised swimmers competing in the world championships. Stig Abell reports from the set at Basildon swimming pool, which was masquerading as Milan, the venue for the fin...

Actor Emily Mortimer on a new film adaption of Penelope Fitzgerald's The Bookshop, about a widow who decides to open a bookshop selling subversive literature in a small seaside town in 1950s England. She also tells Samira about her role in the upcoming Mary Poppins sequel. The 50th year of the Man Booker Prize is celebrated this weekend with a festival at London's South Bank. Literary Director Gab...

When Haifaa Al Mansour released Wadja in 2012 she became Saudi Arabia's first female director of a feature film. She has now directed her first English-language film - a biopic about Mary Shelley. Al Mansour talks why she wanted to make a film set in 19th-century England about the teenage creator of Frankenstein and how much film-making has changed in Saudi Arabia since her debut film six years ag...

Maxine Peake discusses her new stage play, Queens of the Coal Age, which dramatizes the incident in 1993 when, armed with wet wipes and nicotine gum, Anne Scargill led a group of women to occupy Parkside Colliery in protest against pit closures. The acclaimed dancer and choreographer, Gillian Lynne, has died aged 92. Best known for Cats and The Phantom of the Opera, she worked on more than 60 show...

Winner of five Tony Awards, Fun Home is a ground-breaking new musical about a lesbian girl coming out, based on Alison Bechdel's autobiographical graphic novel. Briony Hanson reviews the UK premiere at London's Young Vic theatre. Remarkably, Fun Home is the first Broadway musical with a lesbian protagonist. But are queer women underrepresented in drama in general? Briony is joined by theatre direc...

A Japanese-themed edition of Front Row as the Oscar-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, whose scores include Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence and The Last Emperor, talks to Stig about being inspired by nature, and how he came back from treatment for throat cancer to write the music for The Revenant. The editor of The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories, Jay Rubin, tells how he curated the selection a...

Bartlett Sher's adaption of The King and I won four Tony Awards during its run on Broadway and is transferring to London this month. The American director was highly praised for his updating of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, which is set in 19th century Siam but has been criticised for sexism and orientalism. Bartlett Sher discusses taking on this classic musical for a modern-day audience. W...

Michael Jackson as a visual icon is the subject of a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery which brings together artists inspired by the global star. Art critic Ekow Eshun joins Todd Gray - Michael Jackson's personal photographer at the time of Off The Wall and Thriller - to discuss the star's relationship with his own image. An American podcast, which explores the way humans use music,...