

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

Sep 12, 2018 • 32min
Michael Caine, Wagner's music in Israel, V&A Dundee
Hollywood legend Sir Michael Caine returns to the big screen in King of Thieves, the second cinematic adaptation of the infamous Hatton Garden burglary in 2015. The south London born actor looks back at his varied career, which he has seen him act alongside Sean Connery, Sylvester Stallone and even the Muppets and also become synonymous darker criminal roles, in films such as Get Carter, Harry Brown and the Italian Job.When Israel Public Radio recently broadcast part of Wagnar's Gotterdammerung or the Twilight of the Gods, it caused a furore leading the station issued an apology. This is because since 1938 there has been an understanding that, because for his anti-Semitism, Wagner's music is neither performed nor broadcast in Israel. Stig talks to Jonathan Livni, founder of Wagner in Israel, who is in favour of lifting the ban, and Yael Cherniavsky, the conductor and soprano, who used to run the offending radio network, who disagrees. Scotland's first design museum, the £80 million Victorian & Albert Dundee, opens this weekend on the city's waterfront. It will have a permanent collection which promises to tell the story of Scotland's design heritage. Art critic Moira Jeffrey has visited Dundee and lets us know if the museum lives up to its grand design.

Sep 11, 2018 • 29min
Sally Rooney, Trust, Catwalk music, Serena Williams cartoon
The Irish writer Sally Rooney's second novel Normal People, the story of a relationship between two young people from very different backgrounds, has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and is winning ecstatic reviews. She talks about structure, being true to her characters, and the pleasure and pressure of praise.TV critic David Butcher, reviews Trust, a new drama investigating the true story of the kidnap of the grandson of one of America's wealthiest families, the Getty's. Donald Sutherland stars as oil magnate, John Paul Getty, who after the death of his son looks to his grandson to take over the family business.
But after a perceived shame he brings to the family name Sutherland's Getty turns him away, leading to his grandson's eventual kidnap on the streets of Rome.London Fashion Week starts on Friday and Front Row takes a close look at how the catwalk uses music to its advantage, and the close and enduring relationship between music and fashion. John Wilson talks to Jeremy Healy, who puts music on the runway for John Galliano at Maison Margiela, and to Katie Baron, author of the book Fashion and Music.The publication in an Australian newspaper of a cartoon of Serena Williams in the final of the US Open has drawn criticism and protests that it's racist. Leading international caricaturist Tayo Fatunla considers the line cartoonists tread between caricature and offence.Presenter: John Wilson
Producer: Julian May.

Sep 10, 2018 • 32min
Nick Payne on Wanderlust, YolanDa Brown, Battersea Arts Centre after the fire
Nick Payne, the writer of new BBC One series Wanderlust starring Toni Collette and Steven Mackintosh, discusses adapting his play on modern sexual relationships into a sexually upfront series for mainstream TV.In 2015 the Grand Hall of Battersea Arts Centre in London was devastated by fire. It was rebuilt and last week reopened - with the show that was in the space when it was destroyed. The architect Steve Tompkins and artistic director David Jubb show Samira (who used to dance there in her youth) around, and explain how the fire was an opportunity as well as a disaster. As she embarks on a national tour, saxophonist YolanDa Brown discusses her love of reggae, jazz and soul, and performs live.Presenter Samira Ahmed
Producer Jerome Weatherald.

Sep 7, 2018 • 35min
Inspire Artist Commissions: Alison Brackenbury, Vaseem Khan, Testament
BONUS EDITION: As part of the Inspire season, Front Row commissioned three artists to create works especially for the programme. Poet Alison Brackenbury was challenged to write a villanelle based on her great uncle, crime-writer Vaseem Khan would pen the first page of his new volume, and rapper and beatboxer Testament would produce a brand new track. This special edition of the Front Row podcast looks back over the five week challenge and reveals the final works.Presenters: Kirsty Lang, Morgan Quaintance, John Wilson and Stig Abell.
Producer: Ben Mitchell

Sep 7, 2018 • 34min
Alison Brackenbury, Vaseem Khan and Testament reveal their finished artworks for the Inspire season
As Front Row's Inspire season draws to a close, three artists unveil the artworks they were commissioned to create, and discuss the inspiration behind them.Alison Brackenbury has written a poem based on her Great-Uncle; crime-writer Vaseem Khan, author of the Baby Ganesh Detective Agency novels, reads the first page of his new volume; and rapper and beatboxer Testament performs his new composition.And for the Front Row presenters' challenge, Stig Abell has written his first sonnet, Samira Ahmed has been taught to draw a comic-book character, and John Wilson has painted his first watercolour. Tonight it's Kirsty Lang's turn at the potter's wheel.Presenter Kirsty Lang
Producer Jerome Weatherald.

Sep 6, 2018 • 29min
New BBC drama Press, Kate Tempest, John Wilson learns the art of watercolouring
Award winning Doctor Foster writer, Mike Bartlett, discusses his new show Press alongside one of its stars, the Peaky Blinders actor Charlotte Riley. The programme centres around two competing papers, a broadsheet and a tabloid, both struggling to find their place in a changing world of print journalism.Award-winning poet, novelist, playwright, rapper and recording artist Kate Tempest on her new poetry collection Running Upon The Wires - an intimate look at the end of a relationship, the beginning of another, and what happens in between when the heart is pulled both ways at once.As part of our inspire season Front Row presenters have been taking up the creative challenge of having a go and tackling a new art. Today John Wilson joins the Wapping Group of Artists alongside the river banks of Walton-on-Thames to try his hand at a water colour.Presenter: John Wilson
Producer: Rebecca Armstrong.

Sep 5, 2018 • 29min
Khaled Hosseini, Roxanna Panufnik, The inspiration of dreams
To celebrate her 50th birthday, the composer Roxanna Panufnik discusses her new album Celestial Bird which showcases the variety of her work, from religious choral music to an adaptation of a poem by the Indian polymath Rabindranath Tagore, as well as two major new commissions, one of which - Songs of Darkness, Dreams of Light - will have its world premiere at the Last Night of the Proms on Saturday.Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner, discusses his new illustrated book which is a response to seeing the photo of Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy whose body washed up on the beach in Turkey in September 2015.As part of Front Row's Inspire season we'll be concentrating on dreams, and how they have provided inspiration for writers and artists over the centuries. The writer Matthew Sweet considers the influence of dreams on films and literature, neuro-scientist Prof Anil Seth gives us a clinical approach, and the artist Liliane Tomasko discusses the power of dreams and how she depicts them in her work.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Julian May.

Sep 4, 2018 • 29min
The Seagull, Refashioning Shakespeare, Alison Balsom
As two new productions prepare to take on Shakespeare in fresh and unexpected ways, the women behind them - Jeanie O'Hare, creator of new play Queen Margaret, and Jude Christian creator of OthelloMacbeth - discuss developing new dramas from Shakespeare's canon.Anton Chekhov's play The Seagull is a theatre classic that has been produced in many different ways for stage and screen since its premiere in 1896. Now it's been turned into a film with a stellar cast led by Annette Benning. Critic, broadcaster, and playwright Nick Ahad reviews.Artist Leo Fitzmaurice specialises in creating work that aims to get us to look afresh at everyday objects. He's now curating a portrait exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery with a simple but surprising element. He joins Kirsty to discuss the new show, Leo Fitzmaurice: Between You and Me and Everything Else.The multi-award winning classical musician, Alison Balsom, reveals the inspiration behind her career and her love of the trumpet, as part of Front Row's Inspire season..Presenter: Kirsty Lang
Producer: Ekene Akalawu.

Sep 3, 2018 • 29min
John Simm, Patrick Ness, Testament
John Simm stars in new ITV drama Strangers as a man who has to fly to Hong Kong to identify his wife's body, only to discover she has a secret other life. We talk to the actor about filming the thriller in Hong Kong and why he's so often cast as an everyman figure. In Moby Dick, Captain Ahab vows vengeance against the white whale which took his leg and chases him around the globe. In his new book for young adults, And the Ocean was Our Sky, the award-winning novelist Patrick Ness inverts this. Bathsheba is an apprentice in a pod of whales who hunt humans and her captain is determined to track down a legendary white whaling ship and destroy Toby Wick. Patrick Ness tells Stig Abell about his motivation to write his story and what this interesting reversal allows him to explore.For our Inspire season we commissioned three artists to make a piece of work for us, we catch up with rapper and playwright Testament to see how he's getting on. Presenter: Stig Abell
Producer: Hannah Robins.

Aug 31, 2018 • 29min
Proms at Alexandra Palace, Venice Film Festival, Inspire - myths and legends
After a devastating fire at the newly-opened Alexandra Palace in London in 1873, a new building was designed and built which included an elaborate and elegant theatre, and the opening concert was of the early Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, Trial by Jury. The theatre hasn't been used as a performance space for 80 years, but tomorrow the BBC Proms will be broadcast live from the newly-restored space in all its faded grandeur, featuring the very same operetta. Alexandra Palace's Emma Dagnes and conductor Jane Glover discuss the challenge and the thrill of bringing music back to this forgotten venue.Jason Solomons is at the Venice Film Festival as the latest remake of A Star is Born with Lady Gaga premieres. He'll have all the news of much-anticipated films and performances including Olivia Colman in The Favourite, already getting Oscar buzz.Continuing Front Row's Inspire season we ask novelists Joanne Harris and Natalie Haynes what is it about myths and legends from across the world that provide such an enduring source of inspiration for writers and readers alike. Whether it be the ancient Greeks and Romans, the Norse myths or classic Hindu texts that have been re-told and re-interpreted down the centuries, what makes their unique fascination for each successive generation?Presenter: Kirsty Lang
Producer: Sarah Johnson.


