Front Row

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 help raise awareness of the issue of biodiversity loss. The bell will toll once, 150-200 times a day, at random intervals, indicating the estimated number of species lost worldwide every 24 hours. It will tour to a number of different venues including museums of natural history, botanic gardens and zoos, and its first location is Bristol Zoo Gardens.Elizabeth is Missing is adapted from Emma Healey's bestselling 2014 novel and stars Glenda Jackson as Maud – a woman struggling with dementia who attempts to piece together what has happened to her best friend. Raifa Rafiq reviews.Midnight Movie is a new play by Eve Leigh which combines British Sign Language, captioning, audio description and the spoken word and opens at the Royal Court this week with Nadia Nadarajah and Tom Penn. Samira Ahmed talks to the play’s director Rachel Bagshaw about the way in which the play explores the impact of the digital revolution on disabled people and the issues that face disabled practitioners working in theatre. Presenter : Samira Ahmed Producer : Dymphna Flynn

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 the Turner Contemporary in Margate where the Turner Prize exhibition is hosted this year to meet the nominees – Tai Shani, Laurence Abu Hamdan, Oscar Murillo and Helen Cammock - ahead of the winner announcement on the 3rd December.The Radio 4 Christmas Appeal with St Martin in the Fields will be launched on Sunday 1 December. This year, the fundraising gala at St Martin’s will include a performance of The First Nowell by Vaughan Williams with Radio 4 presenters, featuring a modified libretto by Zeb Soanes. He and Em Marshall-Luck, Founder-Director of The English Music Festival and former Chairman of the Vaughan Williams Society, discuss the delights of this rarely performed seasonal work.Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Sarah Johnson

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, journalist and author who writes about culture and politics, assess the parties’ planned commitment to investing in arts and culture.Poets Ruth Padel and Daljit Nagra discuss the continuing lure of Scheherazade, the legendary enchantress from One Thousand and One Nights ahead of a performance of Rimsky Korsakov's Scheherazade by the City of London Sinfonia at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall. The performance will include specially commissioned poetry by both poets, inspired by Rimsky Korsakov's music. Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Hilary Dunn

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 Front Row team

We exclusively reveal and analyse the 2019 Costa Book Prize shortlist. Critics Alex Clark and Sarah Shaffi discuss the books chosen in the five categories: novel, first novel, poetry, biography and children's fiction. Category winners will appear on the programme in January and Front Row will announce the overall prize-winner on 28 January 2020 Rian Johnson is the director of new film Knives Out - a murder comedy with an all-star cast. His previous work includes Star Wars: The Last Jedi and sci-fi film Looper. He tells us how he copes with a Gothic whodunnit set in the real world in the present day? Is art theft on the rise? There seem to have been a spate of high profile thefts from art galleries recently - Dresden, Dulwich, Tretyakov, even the solid gold toilet at Blenheim Palace. How can institutions make their collections accessible to the public whilst also keeping the priceless works of art secure? We ask art security expert Charley Hill Presenter: Kirsty Lang. Producer: Oliver Jones

Rapper Wretch 32 discusses his new memoir, Rapthology. Part autobiography, part guide to creativity and part cultural history, Rapthology unpacks the songs that have shaped him over the last 30 years, from gospel music to dancehall anthems, offering a portrait of his life through his best-known works.Two cinema chains have pulled the film Blue Story, about a violent street rivalry in south London, from its screens. The decision came after a violent brawl at a Birmingham leisure complex and, according to Vue Cinemas '25 significant incidents' in the film’s opening weekend. Dr Clive James Nwonka discusses the cinema chains’ decision, which has been criticised by some as an overreaction, and discusses the historical context of reactions to Black British Urban cinema.Tim Ecott visits the Faroe Islands where the local theatre company has just put on its first production of Hamlet which the director has reinterpreted, strengthening the female roles and emphasising the role of death and funerals in the story.Presenter Samira Ahmed Producer Jerome Weatherald

Coldplay's new album Everyday Life is released today after a performance at sunrise in Jordan this morning. Also out is Leonard Cohen's posthumous album Thanks for the Dance, completed by his son Adam. Kieran Yates reviews. The controversial comedian Roy Chubby Brown is at the centre of a row in Middlesbrough, as Mayor Andy Preston has sanctioned the booking of the entertainer and the Head of the Town Hall Lorna Fulton resigns, reportedly in protest. Stig is joined by Andy Preston and Philip Bernays, chief exec of Newcastle's Theatre Royal Trust, who banned the comedian from the City Hall last year. To celebrate the centenary of the birth of the County Durham artist and miner Norman Cornish, the Bowes Museum is holding the first major retrospective of his work, including his drawings of mining community life. William Feaver, who has written about ‘pitmen painters’, discusses his art and career. This week literary agent Clare Alexander and publisher John Mitchinson have been reflecting on aspects of how the publishing industry works from the power of Amazon to the boom in independent publishing. In their final discussion they consider the changes and challenges that lie ahead.Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Timothy Prosser

The story of the slave abolitionist Harriet Tubman has finally made it to the big screen where she is played by Cynthia Erivo. Gaylene Gould reviews.After France’s President Macron was reportedly “shaken by the accuracy” of new French film Les Misérables, depicting life today in the deprived outer suburbs of Paris, French critic Agnès Poirier joins us to discuss modern attitudes toward social realist cinema in the UK, France and elsewhere.The Christmas sales are the most important time in the publishing industry as sees a number of companies go from the red into the black. As they continue their reflections on how the book industry operates, literary agent Clare Alexander and publisher John Mitchinson consider the nature of risk, and whether it pays to be one of the big conglomerates or a small independent outfit.And Jonathan Moberly explains how the Weavers Community Action Group commissioned street artists — calling themselves the Columbia Road Cartel — to combat drug dealing in their local area.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Hilary Dunn

Idina Menzel, famous for singing Let It Go from the film Frozen, provides the voice once more of Elsa, now Queen of Arendelle and still with magical powers, in the sequel Frozen 2. The singer discusses the early concept for her character in what became the biggest-grossing animated film of all time, and how Elsa has grown up in the years since the original.The new Frozen 2 film has been long awaited but does the plastic merchandise brought out to accompany the film line up with its environmental concerns? Environment journalist Lucy Siegle takes stock.The first UK retrospective of the work of Dora Maar opens at Tate Modern today. The artist, who died in 1997 aged 89, was best known for her provocative photographs and her surrealist photomontages, as well as her productive eight-year relationship with Picasso. Jacky Klein reviews.Literary agent Clare Alexander and publisher John Mitchinson continue their discussions on how the publishing industry works, focusing today on where the power lies. There's no denying the influence of Amazon, but that's far from the whole story.Presenter Kirsty Lang Producer Jerome Weatherald

RJ Palacio’s first novel Wonder has been published in 45 languages, sold 5 million copies worldwide and been made into a film starring Julia Roberts. We speak to RJ about her new graphic novel White Bird which tells the back story of the classroom bully from Wonder, Julian, whose Jewish grandmother fled from the Nazis. A row involving Taylor Swift and her former record label has been resolved - for now. Music industry lawyer Duncan Lamont explains whether the company has the right to block Swift performing her old songs, and if this might be a landmark case for songwriters.Britcar Endurance Championship winner Sarah Moore dreams of successfully taking part in Le Mans, the iconic 24 hour French competition. She gives a racing driver's view of new film Le Mans '66 as it tears up the American box office.Publishers are now approaching the most important time of the year with Christmas sales, and all this week we're investigating different aspects of the books business. Today, agent and former publisher Clare Alexander, and John Mitchinson, co-founder of the crowdfunding publisher Unbound and former Marketing Director of Waterstones, consider the biggest change to have happened to publishing in the last 25 years – the arrival of Amazon.The artist Nan Goldin is well known for her protest against the corporate sponsorship of the arts by the Sackler Trust who own companies connected to the opioid crisis in America, and her new deeply personal show discusses her own addiction. And the Baltic in Gateshead are hosting the biggest show of Judy Chicago's work ever seen in the UK, but the exhibition omits her most famous piece, The Dinner Party. Emily Steer, Editor of Elephant magazine reviews both shows.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Hannah Robins