Front Row

Colson Whitehead won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2016 novel The Underground Railroad, about slaves escaping from the southern states and seeking sanctuary in the north. The author discusses his new novel The Nickel Boys, which follows the misfortunes of a young black boy, Elwood Curtis, who finds himself being sent to the brutal Nickel Academy, a segregated reform school where the threat of severe - and sometimes fatal - punishment beatings is a constant fear for all the pupils. Prior to Thursday’s Prom featuring the sacred music of Duke Ellington, Samira talks to two of the performers in the concert, singer Carleen Anderson and conductor Peter Edwards, about Ellington’s blend of big-band, gospel and orchestral music in this evening of dance, song and jazz with a Christian theme. Carnival Row is a new fantasy from Amazon Prime which debuts on Friday. Ekow Eshun reviews the series described "as a complex and dark world where Game of Thrones meets Ripper Street." Starring Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne, and directed by Jon Amiel, it features a human detective and a fairy rekindling a dangerous affair in a Victorian fantasy world; the city's uneasy peace collapses when a string of murders reveals an unimaginable monster. We end the programme with a tribute to Sheila Steafel, whose death was announced yesterday. A much loved comic performer and versatile actress whose career spanned six decades, Steafel appeared in films including Quatermass and the Pit (1967), was a regular performer in the long-running music hall style variety programme The Good Old Days and the first woman to join the all-male cast of the Radio 4 satirical show Week Ending.

A Front Row for Bank Holiday Monday: Kirsty Lang interviews the writer Edna O'Brien about her new novel, her first novel and her career in between, spanning almost sixty years, 25 works of fiction, as well as biographies and plays. Radio 4 is now broadcasting an adaptation of The Country Girls trilogy. Edna O'Brien's stories of Kate and Baba as they leave rural Ireland for Dublin then London, find work, meet men, and have sex caused scandal when they were published in the 1960s. Her books were banned (six times) and publicly burned in her hometown. Now these are considered among the most significant novels of the last century, important for their exploration of the experience of women and for furthering the cause of their liberation. Times change and now, O'Brien tells Kirsty Lang, she has received, from the president, Ireland's highest cultural accolade. Edna O'Brien is in her late eighties yet research for her new novel, Girl, took her to difficult, dangerous territory in Nigeria. Reading a report about a girl found with her baby wandering in the forest without food, she felt compelled to write their story so set out to find out about the schoolgirls abducted by Bokko Haram. She tells Kirsty how she visited camps, interviewed young women who had been kidnapped, raped and enslaved. She distilled this material into the story of Maryam. It is harrowing, redemptive and beautifully written.Edna O'Brien speaks about the relationship between her own life and her writing and how she has found the courage to move beyond the autobiographical in her fiction. Her ambition, she tells Kirsty, is to carry on, to write one more novel. But that, too, will involve a perilous journey.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Reader: Shalifa Kaddu Producer: Julian May

Screenwriter Andrew Davies talks to Samira Ahmed about his latest period drama, Sanditon, based on an unfinished novel by Jane Austen. They discuss what attracted him to the seaside tale, how lead character Charlotte Heywood is a very different kind of Austen heroine, and why he felt it was important to raise the issue of racial prejudice in Regency Britain.Writer and reviewer Vic James looks at Netflix’s reboot of the 1982 Jim Henson puppet film The Dark Crystal which is accompanied by an exhibition of sets, puppets and props at the BFI on London's South Bank. The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is a ten-part prequel to the original film charting the political awakening of a race of elf-like creatures who begin to question the regime of their oppressive rulers.It's 550 years since Europe’s most trenchant political writer Niccolo Machiavelli was born. In The Prince he laid bare the machinations of the Florentine Republic. Novelist Sarah Dunant, whose last novel In The Name of the Family features Machiavelli, and John Bowen, Professor of Literature at York University, discuss the ways in which writers have explored the relationship between citizen and state in times of political turmoil.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Harry Parker

The Bafta winning writer Danny Brocklehurst tells Front Row about the new Sky One comedy drama Brassic. It focuses on Vinnie O’Neill whose incompetent criminal crew is involved in everything from illegal boxing matches to an underground fetish club and stealing a Shetland pony. How did he shape some of lead actor Joe Gilgun’s teenage experiences into a six-part series?Photographer Craig Easton discusses his new exhibition, Fisherwomen, which opens this week at the Hull Maritime Museum. From Shetland to Great Yarmouth, he has focused on the unsung workforce in fishing – the women - in the past and the present, including a series of new portraits he’s taken of women working in the industry today.Today is GCSE results day. For the students who’ve got the results they need, the next stop is A levels. There has been a 13% decline this summer in entries for all types of English A level. Teachers groups have suggested the decline in numbers is due to the teaching of the subject being turned into a “joyless slog” but is that fair? Dr Jenny Stevens, an Ofqual subject expert in English teaching and a member of the English Association and Mark Lehain, director of the Parents and Teachers for Excellence campaign, discuss.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Sarah Johnson

Composer Erich Korngold was best known for his swashbuckling film scores like The Adventures of Robin Hood and Captain Blood. A child prodigy, he was already a well-established writer of concert music and operas in his native Austria before he went to Hollywood in the 1930s and continued to compose after he left the movie industry. The conductor John Wilson assembled a special orchestra, the Sinfonia of London, to perform some of his later works, including a symphony, for a new recording entitled simply Korngold. Samira talks to the conductor, as well as to Korngold’s biographer Brendan Carroll.What makes brilliant interior design and can we all do it? As the BBC launches Interior Design Masters, a new show where budding interior designers compete to win a big commission, we investigate the art and history of interior design, with head judge on the show, Michelle Ogundehin, and Sonia Solicari, director of The Geffrye Museum of the Home.This week sees the 80th anniversary of the much-loved film The Wizard of Oz. Clarice Laughrey, Chief Film Critic at The Independent, delves into one of the most influential films of all time to see if behind the scenes it was it as bright as the Emerald City and sweet as the Lollipop Guild, or was it a much darker affair? Presenter Samira Ahmed Producer Jerome Weatherald

Antonio Banderas on playing Pedro Almodóvar in Pain and Glory - Almodóvar's film based on his own life. Tom Shakespeare talks to Antonio about how the actor's heart attack affected the performance, the differences between acting in Hollywood and European cinema and how the film is the best depiction of back pain he's seen.Witches have always been a popular subject in fiction but recent months have seen a particular flowering. Why? And how do authors choose whether to set their work in the past or the present? Front Row asks Philippa Gregory whose latest book Tidelands is about a 17th century wise woman and V.V. James, whose novel Sanctuary, set in a version of present-day USA, contains witchcraft.Last weekend in Hong Kong, 1.7 million protestors marched against the Beijing government, brandishing their brollies to protect themselves from the downpour. The umbrella itself has become a symbol of protest since the Umbrella Movement first emerged in 2014 - but the cultural significance of the umbrella within China which dates back nearly two millennia. Zhaoying Fung, US Correspondent for the BBC Chinese Service in Washington talks to us about the historical importance of umbrellas and the ceremonial role they continue to play in contemporary Chinese culture.Presenter: Tom Shakespeare Producer: Hannah Robins

Louise Doughty, author of Apple Tree Yard, has a new novel: a thriller with a difference. Platform Seven’s narrator is dead – and she haunts the eerie half-light of Peterborough Railway Station weaving her way through the lives of the commuters and staff. The spirit of the late Lisa Evans pieces together a backstory which reveals the reality of an abusive relationship, but also offers an uplifting perspective on the dignity of the lives being lived in a place of transition. Theatre director Robert Icke discusses The Doctor, his new adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s 1912 play Professor Bernhardi. Juliet Stevenson plays the titular doctor, who is running a medical facility but faces searching questions about her own motives and ethics following the death of one of her patients.Often themes emerge among the work at the Edinburgh Festivals. This year lots of performers have sought to contextualise the collapse of old structures, the threat of climate change and new perspectives on gender. Joyce McMillan, columnist and critic of The Scotsman newspaper joins us to round up her must-see recommendations for the rest of the festivals. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Oliver Jones

Live from the Edinburgh Festivals : Ian Shaw, son of actor Robert Shaw, discusses his play, The Shark is Broken, based on Jaws. Using his father’s diaries, it’s the story of how Shaw, Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss are tortuously confined together on the boat Orca while filming - enduring endless delays, studio politics, foul weather and a constantly broken mechanical shark called Bruce. The show's getting five star reviews - they’re going to need a bigger venue.Benjamin Zephaniah is one of our best loved poets, despite his avowed rejection of the establishment. Ahead of his appearance at the Edinburgh International Books Festival, he performs his poem White Comedy, inspired by a TV interview he saw with Muhammed Ali as a young boy.With the vogue at this year's Fringe for confrontational, confessional shows based on artists' personal trauma, we talk to two performers about how they look after themselves and their audience. Artist and writer Scottee’s show Class confronts the gulf between his working class upbringing and that of his Fringe audience, while performance artist Demi Nandhra's Life is No Laughing Matter explores her relationship with depression.And we’ve a song from American comedian Catherine Cohen whose sold-out show The Twist? …She’s Gorgeous is winning plaudits for its fast-paced wit and blistering candour on the lives of modern women.Presenter : Kirsty Lang Producer : Simon Richardson

Musical impressionist Christina Bianco reveals how she captures the voice and style of so many different musical divas like Shirley Bassey and Celine Dion, with a special performance on the Front Row stage.The surprise hit of this year’s Fringe has been Basil Brush Unleashed. The children’s TV icon is celebrating fifty years in showbusiness with a chat show aimed at adults. Basil talks to Kirsty about his career highlights, and his Edinburgh show and how keeps it the right side of PC.Edinburgh based author Mary Paulson-Ellis has used foxy themes in her novels The Other Mrs Walker and The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing. She gives Front Row a guide to the Fox in Fiction from Aesop's Fables, the medieval stories of Reynard to Kate Atkinson's Life After Life. A big trend at this year’s Edinburgh Festivals is the number of shows about climate change. Kirsty discusses how they are capturing hearts and minds with Alanna Mitchell whose one-woman show Sea Sick is about a crisis in the world’s oceans, and Oli Savage, Artistic Director of The Greenhouse venue, an eco-friendly arts space.Shows like Hamilton and Come From Away are reinventing the way we think of musicals. Kirsty speaks to Robyn Grant about their musical Unfortunate: The Untold Story of Ursula the Sea Witch, that reimagines the Little Mermaid story, and to Finn Anderson, whose show Islander draws on Scottish folk tradition - with loop pedals.Presenter : Kirsty Lang Producer : Hannah Robins

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 what to listen out for when listening to a symphony. Oramo will conduct the annual Proms performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony next Monday evening.In a row over colours the Turner Prize winner Sir Anish Kapoor has been banned from an art shop which is employing a full-time security guard with orders to keep him out. The artist and art shop owner Stuart Semple is angry that Kapoor secured the exclusive rights to Vantablack, that in response he's created his own blackest black paint, available to everyone, except Anish Kapoor. Stig Abell made it through the security checks and into his shop to talk to Stuart Semple about why the colour black is so important to artists, and why access to it raises fundamental issues about art and democracy.It's August 14th which seems an ordinary sort of day but, as Front Row reveals, over the last 1,000 years many events of cultural and artistic significance have occurred on this date, so August 14th isn't so nondescript after all. Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Julian May