

Front Row
BBC Radio 4
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jan 16, 2019 • 28min
Film director M Night Shyamalan, DH Lawrence as dramatist, New work by Bridget Riley
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 his novels - The Rainbow, Sons and Lovers, Women in Love and, notoriously, Lady Chatterley's Lover. His poetry is admired and he is even known as a painter. But he also, early in his career, wrote several plays. They didn't enjoy much success in his lifetime - The Daughter-in-Law, which Richard Eyre hails as his masterpiece, wasn't performed until 1967, but there have been a number of productions in recent years. As an acclaimed staging of The Daughter-in-Law returns to the Arcola Theatre, Samira Ahmed discusses the work of D. H. Lawrence, dramatist, with the play's director Jack Gamble and the Lawrence scholar Dr Catherine Brown.The abstract painter Bridget Riley has recently completed Messengers, a huge - 30 by 60 feet - work on the walls of the National Gallery's Annenberg Court.
It is inspired by something the young John Constable wrote about clouds, but perhaps also alludes to the numerous angels, themselves harbingers, that appear in the skies of so many of the National Gallery's pictures. Bridget Riley explains how she arrived at the title and the critic Louisa Buck, on the spot, reviews the piece.Presenter: Samira Ahmend
Producer: Julian May

Jan 15, 2019 • 28min
Steve Carell, Brian Tyler, London Borough of Culture
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 start of Waltham Forest's year as the inaugural London Borough of Culture. But after recent knife attacks in the area, questions have been raised about whether London's City Hall should be spending the £1 million award on culture rather than policing. Sam Hunt, Creative Director of the Waltham Forest Borough of Culture, and former Deputy Mayor and Executive Director for Culture at King's College London, Munira Mirza discuss.Composer Brian Tyler is best known for blockbuster film scores including Avengers: Age of Ultron, Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World and The Mummy 3. His most recent hit soundtrack was for Jon M Chu’s Crazy Rich Asians, which incorporates Asian instruments into big band swing. He talks to John about how he creates the theme of a superhero.Presenter: John Wilson
Producer: Ben Mitchell

Jan 14, 2019 • 28min
Octavian, The Killing creator Soren Sveistrup, TS Eliot Prize-winner
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 writer Søren Sveistrup, is publishing a crime thriller, The Chestnut Man, his first novel. Søren tells Stig how he moved from the cult detective Sarah Lund to create new detectives for the novel.Minutes after the announcement is made, live from the award ceremony Front Row brings you the first interview with the winner of the £25,000 T. S. Eliot Prize for the best collection of poetry published last year. This is the UK’s most prestigious poetry prize, the one poets aspire to win, the one judged only by other poets. Only Fools -The (Cushty) Dining Experience, is the latest comedy theatre tribute version of the BBC’s well-known television sitcom, Only Fools and Horses, to open in the UK. But it’s been reported that the producers behind Only Fools and Horses: The Musical which premieres next month, have complained that such tribute versions may cross moral and legal lines. Theatre critic Paul Vale and Intellectual Property barrister Guy Tritton discuss the issues raised by these tribute productions.Presenter Stig Abell
Producer Jerome Weatherald

Jan 11, 2019 • 28min
Steve Coogan and John C Reilly, Costa First Novel winner Stuart Turton
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 memory. He is told that today a murder will be committed. He will relive the same day eight times, but each morning he’ll wake up in a different body. This lies at the heart of The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle which has just won the Costa First Novel Award. Its author Stuart Turton discusses his time-travelling, body-hopping novel.Tomorrow, the partial shutdown of the US government becomes the longest in the country's history, leaving some 800,000 federal employees unpaid. From New York, David D'Arcy of the Art Newspaper explains how the shutdown is impacting on the US's arts and cultural institutions.Presenter Kirsty Lang
Producer Jerome Weatherald

Jan 10, 2019 • 28min
Hugh Jackman on The Front Runner, Costa Biography Award winner Bart van Es, Da Vinci loan refusal
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, Hesseline – or Lien – who was handed by her parents to Bart van Es’s grandparents in 1942 to be fostered and kept safe during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Lien is now 85 and living in Amsterdam, and together they recount a remarkable story of tragedy and survival.As Italy decides not to lend three Leonardo Da Vinci paintings to the Louvre in Paris for their blockbuster exhibition of the old master's work, art journalist Anna Somers Cocks reports on how much loans of this kind are used as symbolic political gestures.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Hannah Robins

Jan 9, 2019 • 28min
Comedian Nish Kumar, Acoustics in architecture, 2018 Costa Children’s Book Award winner Hilary McKay
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 enhance the aural experience of people in a room or a building. Their work ranges from blocking out unwanted noise, such as from passing trains, to providing the optimal sound for the audience and musicians in a concert hall. Stig Abell visits a virtual sound laboratory, and hears from Trevor Cox, professor of acoustic engineering, about the history and importance of sound in building design.The winner of the 2018 Costa Children’s Book Award is Hilary McKay. She talks to Stig about her novel, The Skylarks’ War. This is set during the First World War and follows three children growing up at a time when girls had to fight for an education and boys, as soon as they were able, went off to fight.Presenter: Stig Abell
Producer: Julian May

Jan 8, 2019 • 28min
Keira Knightley, Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney, Costa Poetry Winner
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 together has continued to spiral out of control, culminating at the end of series three with Rob succumbing to his alcoholism and being involved in a drink-driving incident. The pair discuss what it's like to star in and write the dark comedy.Front Row has announced the winners of the Costa Book Awards 2018 this week. J.O. Morgan talks about Assurances, winner of the poetry category, his single long poem which runs through the Cold War, depicting the airborne nuclear deterrent in which his father, an RAF officer, was involved. It features passages in verse and others in what the poet calls not prose but unverse, and it is told through several voices – communications experts, civilians and even the atomic bomb itself. Presenter : Samira Ahmed
Producer : Dymphna Flynn

Jan 7, 2019 • 28min
Charlie Brooker on Bandersnatch, Sophie Raworth reveals the Costa Book Award Winners
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 to the Best Novel winner. Presenter: John Wilson
Producer: Timothy Prosser

Jan 4, 2019 • 28min
Robert Zemeckis, Poet Laureate, The Victorian House of Arts and Crafts
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 350 year history - the Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright has convened a panel of experts to select her successor. Poet Helen Mort and Judith Palmer, Director of the Poetry Society look back at Carol Ann Duffy’s tenure and the particular demands placed on the holder of this prestigious royal appointment, whilst also considering the Laureate’s changing role in a society facing political turmoil.In new BBC2 series The Victorian House of Arts and Crafts, six crafters go back to Victorian times to live out William Morris’s utopia of the Arts and Crafts movement. Living as Victorians in an artists’ commune in Wales, they take on a different room to decorate each week. Embroider Niamh Wimperis and judge and mentor Keith Brymer Jones explain what they learnt from the process.Presenter: Kirsty Lang
Producer: Sarah Johnson

Jan 3, 2019 • 28min
Brexit: The Uncivil War, JD Salinger Centenary, Tracy-Ann Oberman
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 Century. Why did the book have such an impact and what are the merits of JD Salinger’s other work? Literary critic Erica Wagner and American cultural commentator Michael Carlson discuss the writing of this hugely talented and complicated man, to mark Salinger's centenary. Tracy-Ann Oberman, perhaps best known as Chrissie Watts in EastEnders, discusses her new roles in the Harold Pinter plays Party Time and Celebration. They are being performed as part of a six month season at the Pinter Theatre in London where they are bringing together all of his one-act productions.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Ben Mitchell