Front Row

The Midnight Sky is George Clooney’s post-apocalyptic new film, which he directs and stars in alongside Felicity Jones and David Oyelowo. Is this Clooney’s Magnum Opus? Larushka Ivan-Zadeh reviewsEight years since its announcement and after several delays, futuristic roleplaying game Cyberpunk 2077 is released across consoles and PC this week. Its Warsaw-based studio CD Projekt is famous for The Witcher series and Cyberpunk 2077 promises to be the most detailed and expansive open-world game out there. But was it worth the wait? Elle Osili-Wood reviews. As debate continues about the role of the National Trust, whose recent work shedding light on many of its property’s links to slavery, as well as other historical injustices, has drawn criticism from members and a group of Conservative MPs, we ask what is the purpose of the Trust now? To explore the issues John is joined by Kirsty Weakley, Editor of Civil Society News, architectural historian Oliver Gerrish and David Lascelles, 8th Earl of Harewood.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Simon Richardson Studio Manager: Donald McDonaldMain Image: George Clooney in The Midnight Sky Image credit: Netflix

Writer and director Julia Hart joins Samira to talk about I'm Your Woman, a gritty crime drama set in the 1970s. Rachel Brosnahan (Marvellous Mrs Maisel) stars as a woman forced to go on the run after her husband betrays his partners, sending her and her baby on a dangerous journey.Benjamin Britten’s chamber opera Owen Wingrave was written for television and first appeared on BBC Two in 1971. Grange Park Opera have produced a new filmed version as part of their ‘Interim Season’, and director Stephen Medcalf joins us in the studio to explain how to film a socially-distanced opera.Dulwich Picture gallery is staging its first ever photography exhibition, Unearthed, which tells the story of photography through images of plants and botany. The show’s curator Alexander Moore talks about the work of the early pioneers in the 1840s, including the first known Victorian images by Fox Talbot, as well as the eroticisim of Robert Mapplethorpe's pictures and today’s leading innovatorsPresenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Dymphna Flynn Studio Manager: Duncan Hannant

Ryan Murphy’s new film, The Prom, bursts into song and dance as four down-on-their-luck Broadway stars descend on a small Indiana town in support of a girl who just wants to go to the high school Prom with her girlfriend. The cast includes Meryl Streep, James Corden and Nicole Kidman and the critical reception in the US has been polarised; what does our reviewer Karen Krizanovich make of it?When theatre director Rebecca Frecknall and playwright Chris Bush began rehearsals for the show that would re-open London's Almeida Theatre after lockdown they had the title, Nine Lessons and Carols, but nothing else. They talk to Kirsty about creating a production, from scratch, with a cast that must maintain social distance; a show that addresses these dark times, but warmly welcomes an audience back to the theatre with lights, sound, and stories. A comic strip “Our Plague Year” by artist and illustrator Nick Burton, conceived in collaboration with HOME in Manchester, draws parallels between the Great Plague which struck England in the 17th century and the current Coronavirus epidemic. Set in the Derbyshire village of Eyam which, when The Plague took hold, famously chose to cut off all contact with the outside world to stop the contagion spreading. But it’s not just doom gloom and death, the strip is full of dark humour and makes readers wonder whether human society has really changed all that much between then and now.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Julian May

Viggo Mortensen joins us live to talk about his new film, Falling, his debut as a director, which he also wrote. It's the story of a conservative father moving from his rural farm to live with his gay son's family in Los Angeles. We’ve been hearing from figures from the creative industries about their Lockdown Discovery, something that has given them great pleasure or solace during the two lockdowns. Today, the novelist Alex Wheatle, aka the Brixton Bard, who has been working with Steve McQueen on his Small Axe series of dramas and who is the subject of this week’s film, reveals his Lockdown Discovery.Would it be Christmas without A Christmas Carol? Even in 2020, there are still many live productions going on. A new film version by siblings Jacqui and David Morris combines voices of Simon Russell Beale, Daniel Kaluuya and Carey Mulligan with dance performances of Russell Maliphant and others. Sarah Crompton and Tobi Kyeremateng review the film and the phenomenon of Dickens’ story – is it particularly resonant this year? And they’ll consider the new National Theatre at Home subscription service as well as making their own cultural picks of the week.The winner of this year’s William Hill Sports Book of the Year is The Rodchenkov Affair: How I Brought Down Putin’s Secret Doping Empire. Grigory Rodchenkov was the head of Russian sport’s doping programme, and this is his detailed account of how he blew the whistle on what's been described by the World Anti-Doping Agency as the biggest sporting scandal in world history. Rodchenkov had to flee Russia and is still in hiding in the US. His editor Drummond Moir discusses the story and the challenges this presented.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Timothy Prosser Studio Manager: Emma Harth

The fourth in the Netflix series of The Crown, written by Peter Morgan and starring Olivia Coleman as the Queen, has raised questions about its historical accuracy, including from Britain’s Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden. Award winning novelist Naomi Alderman and journalist Simon Jenkins discuss the controversy in the context of the number of recent dramas set in the very recent past about real people.The Royal Academy in London has reopened its doors and is preparing to show Tracey Emin/Edvard Munch: The Loneliness of the Soul, in which 25 of Emin’s works sit alongside a series of oils and watercolours by the Norwegian artist Emin has been in love with since she was 18, in a shared exploration of grief, loss and longing. Described as somewhere between Mad Men and Agatha Christie, ‘The Announcer’ launched on All 4 this week. TV presenter Christine Beauval crashes against the glass ceiling in 1960s France, as she tries to outrun sinister threats on her life. Hannah McGill reviews.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Hilary Dunn Studio Manager: Emma Harth

Seventeen years after achieving global success with her debut album, Katie Melua talks about her latest record Album No.8, and how she took a course in short fiction writing before embarking on the lyrics. Plus she performs a special acoustic performance for Front Row.British-Ghanaian artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye paints 'figments': portraits of fictitious people constructed from memory and fantasy. As Tate Britain re-opens, her Covid-postponed show Fly in League With the Night surveys her body of work from 2003 to the present day with a distinctive sense of mystery. Art critic Asana Greenstreet reviews the exhibition and gives us a sense of Yiadom-Boakye’s importance to British art now.Husband and wife team Feargus Woods Dunlop and Heather Westwell from the New Old Friends Theatre company have come up with a novel way of beating Covid restrictions on live performances by turning their traditional Christmas show into an online advent calendar podcast – Crimes Against Christmas, which is loosely based on Agatha Christie’s Then There Were None. Feargus Woods Dunlop talks to Elle Osili-Wood about how and why they did it.Presenter Elle Osili-Wood Producer Jerome WeatheraldMain image: Katie Melua Image credit: Rosie Matheson

Yazz Ahmed, trumpeter and composer, and winner of the Innovation Award at tonight’s Ivors Awards, joins us in the studio. Yazz’s music blends jazz, arabic scales and rhythms, electronics, and the music of Bahrain, where she spent her childhood.Francis Ford Coppola's first two Godfather films are considered cinematic masterpieces, but The Godfather Part III never received such acclaim. Thirty years after its release, Coppola has recut the film and renamed it The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. Film critic Tim Robey gives his verdict. When Oleanna was first staged in 1992 it prompted intense responses. “People used to get into fistfights in the lobby,” David Mamet said. In his play a student visits a professor for help, but then lodges a complaint of sexual harassment that will ruin his career. How will a new production fare today, after Me Too and Harvey Weinstein's conviction? Samira Ahmed hears from the director, Lucy Bailey.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Timothy Prosser

As museums and galleries in tiers one and two prepare to reopen on Wednesday, we consider what the future might look like for these much loved institutions. Has the pandemic changed their fundamental purpose or merely accelerated shifts that had already begun? What might museums and galleries look like as physical and social entities in ten years’ time? To explore these questions, Kirsty is joined by Jenny Waldman, Director of Art Fund, an organisation currently working to assist organisations in innovating to meet the challenges COVID 19 presents, and museum and gallery designer Dinah Casson, whose new book Closed on Mondays: Behind the Scenes at the Museum is released tomorrow.Screenwriter and director Henry Blake talks about his forthcoming film, County Lines. Inspired by the stories Blake heard while mentoring young people at an East London pupil referral unit, County Lines follows Tyler, a 14-year-old boy who is groomed into a criminal network trafficking drugs between communities.John Mullen has been making the case for re-reading Jane Austen throughout lockdown. Today, it's the turn of Emma.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Simon RichardsonMain image: Conrad Khan in Henry Blake's film County Lines Image credit: BFI

Avi Avital., the world's leading mandolin player, on his new album The Art of the Mandolin, in which he performs music specially written for the instrument by Vivaldi, Beethoven and Scarlatti through to contemporary composers David Bruce and Giovanni Sollima. Yesterday the Government announced which areas of England will be in Tiers 1, 2 or 3. For theatres and live performance venues in Tier 3 it's disappointing news as they will have to remain closed. What will be possible in Tier 2? Matt Hemley of The Stage joins us to look at the picture across the nation including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and we hear from Chris Stafford of the Curve Theatre in Leicester.Marina Abramović, the celebrated performance artist, discusses her takeover of a whole evening of Sky Arts next weekend. The five-hour series of programmes she’s curating and directing will delve into a hundred years of performance art, and guest Jarvis Cocker will explore meditation according to the ‘Abramović Method’.Possessor is a sci-fi psychological horror film written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg, son of visionary film-maker David Cronenberg, starring Andrea Riseborough. Film critic Larushka Ivan-Zadeh and crime novelist Abir Mukherjee review. Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Sarah Johnson Studio Manager: Matilda MacariMain image: Avi Avital Image credit: Christoph Kostlin

The actress Amy Adams is one of Hollywood’s brightest stars with multiple Oscar nominations and a roster of unforgettable roles to her name from the adorable pregnant teenager in Junebug, to the lovable Disney Princess in Enchanted, to full on 1970s disco in American Hustle. Now she’s taken on the distinctly un-glamorous role of a drug addicted mother in the movie version of the best-selling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, a book that aimed to explain Trump’s appeal to white working class America. Nick Ahad talks to Amy Adams about poverty, Trump and what happens next. When ITV’s Coronation Street began in 1960 a columnist in a national newspaper predicted it wouldn't last more than three weeks. Now, as it prepares to celebrate 60 years on air next month, it’s the longest running TV soap opera in the world. Nick discusses the enduring charm of Weatherfield with former writer and archivist Daran Little and superfan BBC 6 Music DJ Chris Hawkins, who chose Coronation Street as his topic when invited on celebrity Mastermind.Jake Blount is black, queer and used to play guitar in punk-rock bands. He's also the first black musician to reach the finals at the prestigious Appalachian String Band Festival. He tells Nick Ahad about discovering the African-Americans roots of bluegrass and old time Appalachian fiddle and banjo songs, and repossess them. And he has recorded one of those songs, from his acclaimed new album, Spider Tales, especially for Front Row.Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Olive Clancy Picture credit: Lacey Terrell/Netflix