Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Front Row

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by David Benedict and Catherine McCormack to review Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers, the first exhibition the National Gallery has dedicated to the artist. They also discuss The Critic, which stars Ian McKellen as a fearsomely ruthless drama critic and Small Rain by Garth Greenwell, which focuses on the narrator's time and treatment in hospital after experiencing a sudden piercing pain.

Chair of Judges Paddy O'Connell reveals the shortlisted authors for the BBC National Short Story Award 2024 with Cambridge University. The list includes Lucy Caldwell who talks about her short story Hamlet, a love story.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Claire Bartleet

Dame Jacqueline Wilson talks about Think Again, the long-awaited adult novel which is the sequel to her much-loved Girls series of books.

Actors Alexandra Roach and Joe Cole discuss their roles in BBC One's latest Sunday night drama series Nightsleeper, a thriller in which a night train from Glasgow to London is 'hackjacked'.

And on the eve of the publication of The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien, the book's two editors talk about dozens of previously unpublished poems.

Presenter: Kate Molleson Producer: Mark Crossan

Fran Healy, lead singer of indie-rock band Travis, on why their tenth album LA Times is the most personal since their breakthrough album, The Man Who, and why Los Angeles is a good place to be an artist.

As Equity calls for better guidelines for how the video games industry treats actors and performers, Rebecca Yeo, a member of the union's Video Game Working Party discusses what's needed.

Brian Watkins the playwright of Weather Girl, a one-woman show about an overheating California and one of the big hits at this year's Edinburgh Festival, and Ricky Roxburgh, screenwriter for new film Ozi: Voice of the Forest in which a young orangutan tries to save her forest home from destruction discuss the art of telling stories about climate change and environmental degradation for stage and screen.

Castlefield Gallery in Manchester celebrates its 40th anniversary this year as a contemporary arts space but in 2012 it branched out into finding spaces for artists across the North West. Make CIC was established in 2012 as an arts social enterprise in Merseyside which provides spaces for artists and makers across the region. Castlefield Director and Artistic Director, Helen Wewiora, and Make CIC's Chief Operating Officer, Kirsten Little, discuss the work involved in creating and maintaining spaces for artists.

Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Daniel Libeskind, the architect best known for the Jewish Museum in Berlin and the World Trade Centre masterplan in New York, talks about designing a building to house Einstein’s archive in Jerusalem.

As Germany celebrates the 250th birthday of the painter Caspar David Friedrich with three major exhibitions, art historians Louisa Buck and Waldemar Januszczak discuss the significance of the Romantic artist famous for his paintings of people in evocative landscapes.

And the musician and composer Karl Jenkins joins Samira to talk about celebrating his 80th birthday with a concert tour.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Olivia Skinner

Director Francis Annan discusses his film Escape from Pretoria. Daniel Radcliffe and Ian Hart star in the true story of the imprisonment of white anti-apartheid campaigners in the 1970s and their incredible escape from South Africa’s maximum-security Pretoria prison.

Did you know that amateur dramatics is the third most popular pastime in the UK after fishing and football? Michael Coveney has been a theatre reviewer for four decades and in his new book Questors, Jesters and Renegades he tells the story of Britain’s amateur theatrical companies. He is joined by Clare Greer from the Bangor Drama Club in Northern Ireland, established in 1935.

Denise Mina is acclaimed for her award-winning crime fiction, and now she’s turned her hand to crime of a different nature. Bertolt Brecht famously said 'What is robbing a bank compared with founding a bank?'. Denise discusses Mrs Puntila and her Man Matti, her new gender-swapping adaptation of a Brecht play which seeks to show how the law is always on the side of the wealthy.

Main image: Daniel Radcliffe as Tim Jenkins in Escape from Pretoria Image credit: Signature Entertainment

Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Oliver Jones

Elisabeth Moss talks about her new film The Invisible Man, a 21st century reboot of the HG Wells story. Told from the victim’s point of view, Elisabeth plays Cecilia who fears for her safety after escaping an abusive relationship. But when she discovers her ex has killed himself, she fears something far worse: that he’s not dead and has found a way to make himself invisible.

Booker winning novelist Aravind Adiga on his latest novel Amnesty, a novel set Sydney, Australia over 24 hours that follows Danny, an illegal immigrant, who gets unwittingly involved in a murder.

Twenty years ago this month, the video game The Sims was launched and went on to become one of the most successful games to date with millions of players worldwide. Games critic Jordan Erica Webber, and Dr Jo Twist, CEO of Ukie, discuss the ground-breaking impact of The Sims and how the games industry has changed in the last two decades.

Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Hilary Dunn

French director Céline Sciamma on her BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated film Portrait of a Lady on Fire, about an 18th Century artist who falls in love with the woman she is painting. Critics have hailed it as a manifesto for the female gaze.

André J. Thomas, composer and conductor of gospel music and spirituals, discusses the African-American musical tradition and his forthcoming event, Symphonic Gospel Spirit with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican in London this weekend.

In a year which has seen two novels published called Queenie, joining the swelling ranks of books that have the same titles from Possession to Joyland, from Life After Life to Twilight – writer and international trade lawyer Petina Gappah joins art critic Richard Cork to discuss what’s in a name across the arts.

Presenter Samira Ahmed Producer Jerome Weatherald

Main image above: Noémie Merlant (Left) as Marianne and Adèle Haenel as Héloïse in Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Image credit: Lilies Films

Ballerina Viviana Durante discusses her evening of dance celebrating Isadora Duncan, whose radical barefoot dancing shocked and enthralled European audiences in the early 1900s, before she was killed in a freak accident when her scarf got caught in the wheels of a car.

Life is beginning to imitate art for a British film crew in northern Italy. Director Nicholas Hulbert discusses the challenges they’re facing from the coronavirus outbreak as they film The Decameron, the 14th century Italian collection of novellas about a small group of young people sheltering in a secluded villa to escape the Black Death.

Deborah Annetts, Chief Executive of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, on the impact of the recently announced proposed changes to the immigration system to musicians and others working in the creative industries.

Booker shortlisted author Jeet Thayil discusses his new novel Low, which follows one man’s weekend of self-destructive grief in Mumbai. It's a black comedy, a tender portrayal of depression and drug addiction, a love letter to Mumbai and a biting satire of contemporary Indian society.

Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Hannah Robins

Main image: Viviana Durante Company performing Dance of the Furies in Isadora Now Image credit: David Scheinmann

Authors Zadie Smith and Francine Prose join Front Row to consider how authors read, as the shortlist for the Rathbones Folio Prize, largely chosen by authors, is announced. Is it with the same eyes as any other reader or are they more aware of the scaffolding as well as the building? How do they judge writing, and how does what they read inform their own work?

British Surrealism at Dulwich Picture Gallery in London is the first major exhibition to explore the origins of surrealist art in Britain, positioning it as a fundamental movement in the history of art, with roots in the work of writers such as William Blake and Lewis Carroll. The show also features the significant contribution made by female artists to surrealism, including Eileen Agar, Leonora Carrington and Ithell Colquhoun. Art critic Louisa Buck reviews.

Jingan Young is a Hong Kong born playwright, best known for Filth: Failed in London, Try Hong Kong. She talks to Stig Abell about her new play, Life and Death of a Journalist. Set against the backdrop of the Hong Kong protests, it tells the tale of a reporter for a Chinese-owned newspaper in Britain asked to compromise her coverage to appease a powerful investor.

And Andrew Holgate, Sunday Times Literary Editor, talks about the publicity surrounding Hilary Mantel's much anticipated novel The Mirror and the Light. How does the book's marketing and launch compare with the hoopla - as one newspaper described it- surrounding the last major campaign in the books world, for Margaret Atwood's The Testaments?

Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Dymphna Flynn

Film director Todd Haynes talks to Samira about his latest film Dark Waters. Starring Tim Robbins, it's a tale of environmental catastrophe, corporate greed and an attempt to harness the power of the law to seek redress. Are libararies good for our health? Bradford City Council thinks so and are diverting a tranche of their wellbeing budget to ensure libraries can stay open for the benefit of local people. Flesh and Blood is a new crime drama set in a coastal town. It centres on a widowed mother-of-three as she begins a new relationship and stars Francesca Annis. Writer Sarah Williams discusses the family dynamics that inspired her to write the script, and about putting older women in leading roles.

Murder 24/7 is a new BBC documentary series which follows real murder investigations as they evolve. Viewers get to see all the behind the scenes detective work and procedures of Essex Police, from the critical first day to through to arrest and conviction. Julia Raeside reviews.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Oliver Jones

Laurie Sansom, the new Artistic Director of Northern Broadsides on his vision for the theatre company and what British theatre can learn from a small drama company operating across the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu.

Yesterday in Colorado, President Trump expressed his dismay at the success of the film Parasite at this year's Oscars. Instead he would have preferred the revival of films such Gone With The Wind and Sunset Boulevard. Professor Diane Roberts, a specialist in Southern culture, and the presenter of a Radio 4 Archive on 4 edition on Gone With The Wind, analyses the President's choices.

In 1970, acclaimed composer and sitar player Ravi Shankar was commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra to write what would be his first concerto for sitar and orchestra. Fifty years on, as Jasdeep Singh Degun prepares for the premiere of his first concerto for sitar and orchestra, he discusses the appeal of bringing together different musical traditions.

Living from the proceeds of one’s art is the dream of many artists but there’s a rising number of artists looking to create new business models for sustaining their careers. Jon Wakeman, Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of East Street Arts discusses why artists are getting into the hotel business.

Presenter: Katie Popperwell Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Stephen Schwartz, composer and lyricist of Wicked and Godspell, on his spectacular new stage musical about Moses, The Prince of Egypt, based on the 1998 DreamWorks animation and featuring his hit song When You Believe.

Leading costume designer and three-time Oscar winner Sandy Powell joins us in the studio. Not content with merely garnering BAFTA and Oscar nominations for her work this year on Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, Powell spent both ceremonies asking fellow nominees to sign her outfit, part of a fundraising campaign to help preserve Derek Jarman’s cottage in Dungeness. Powell worked with the director, writer and artist on several films and the suit she wore to the ceremonies will be auctioned as part of the appeal.

Acclaimed Irish folk singer song writer Lisa O’Neill talks to John Wilson about the importance of traditional songs, storytelling and politics to her music, as she performs this week at “Imagining Ireland” at the Barbican in London, an event celebrating the groundswell of women’s voices in Irish literature, music and poetry.

Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Simon Richardson

George Mackay, star of BAFTA winning film 1917, talks about his latest, The True History of the Kelly Gang, inspired by Peter Carey's novel about Australia's most infamous outlaw, Ned Kelly.

Iranian artist Shirin Neshat discusses her new exhibition Land of Dreams, which explores the experience of minorities in Trump’s America, and the fractious relationship between Iran and the US through photography and film.

Earlier this month, Front Row announced our Risk List – the top ten riskiest artworks of the 21st Century. Jerry Springer - The Opera ranked 5th for its outrageous combination of trash TV with opera that garnered over 55,000 complaints when it was broadcast. Creator Richard Thomas talks about how attitudes to offence have changed since 2000, when the opera was first staged.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Timothy Prosser

Al Pacino and Logan Lerman discuss their roles in the new TV drama series Hunters. 'Inspired by true events' it's about a group of individuals in New York in the 1970s who tracked down a number of high-ranking former Nazi officials to bring them to justice.

Pass Over is a new play which concentrates on the lives of two African-American men who live in constant fear of violence, not least at the hands of white police officers. New York-based playwright Antoinette Nwandu discusses the influence Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot had on her and the research into slavery which informed her play.

End of the Century is an Argentinian film about two men who hook up with each other in Barcelona and then realise they have already met twenty years previously. The debut feature from Argentinian director Lucio Castro, it’s already been hailed by some as the best gay film of the year. Tim Robey reviews.

Coronavirus has affected many individuals around the world. And the arts world is also subject to its consequences. Major arts events and vast international tours are being cancelled, postponed or rerouted to avoid the Far East. We explore the issues.

Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Oliver Jones

Labour leader Keir Starmer joins to discuss his party's new arts strategy, which he unveiled this morning, aiming to boost access to the arts and grow the creative industries.

Writer and theologian Professor Tina Beattie and critic and broadcaster Matthew Sweet review Marilynne Robsinson’s new book Reading Genesis which offers a fresh look at the story of creation as told in the first book of the Bible.

They also give their verdict on the Japanese filmmaker Kore-eda Hirokazu's new film Monster. The mystery thriller won Best Screenplay at Cannes last May and is dedicated to Ryuichi Sakamoto as this was his final film score before his death last year.

This week the Sistine Chapel is unveiling ten tapestries by Raphael, to mark the 500th anniversary of artist’s death and now, for the first time since the 16th century, visitors can see them as they were intended to be displayed. Anna Somers Cocks, founding editor of The Art Newspaper, reports on their significance.

In light of controversial decisions by the Turner and Booker Prize judges to split their awards among multiple entrants, alongside recent protests around representation at the Baftas and Oscars, the resignation of the French Cesar Academy board and the #MeToo scandal that forced the cancellation of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature, we ask what’s going wrong with modern arts prizes? Is there a crisis of authority in who is allowed to say what’s good or bad? Have we lost the ability to unite around a shared idea of excellence? To consider the issues Stig is joined by book critic Alex Clark and Karen Simecek, Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Warwick University.

24 Hour Party People director Michael Winterbottom discusses his new film Greed, starring Steve Coogan as a narcissistic British billionaire and fashion tycoon Sir Richard ‘Greedy’ McCreadie, whose star and power is fading.

And, after Radio 4's A History of the World in 100 Objects Front Row presents The History of Art in 100 Limericks. Angus Reid, who wrote them, performs some.

Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Julian May

Eleanor Catton, who in 2013 became the youngest writer to win the Booker Prize for her monumental novel The Luminaries, talks about her screenplay for the new film adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, She tells Nikki Bedi why she thinks Emma is such a fascinatingly flawed heroine.

After falling from favour in the last decade, the Rom-Com is on the rebound. It's Valentine's Day and Rachael Siggie looks at how the updated genre has a new generation of film – and streaming – audiences falling for its charms.

In 1978 Roman Polanski fled the US for France before being sentenced for the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl. His latest film, An Officer and a Spy, about the Dreyfus Affair - a notorious anti-semitic injustice - has received 12 nominations in the Césars. In response the entire board of the César Academy, which distributes France's equivalent of the Oscars, has resigned. Olivia Salazar- Winspear of news channel France 24 explains what is going on.

The great singer songwriter James Taylor, whose work includes You've Got a Friend, Fire and Rain and Carolina in my Mind, has recorded American Standard, an album of songs from shows and films including Moon River, Ol' Man River, Pennies From Heaven and even The Surrey with the Fringe on Top. He tell Nikki Bedi about the influence they have on him and how he has reinterpreted these wonderful songs.

Presenter: Nikki Bedi Producer: Julian May

Main image: Anya Taylor-Joy Photo credit: NBC Universal

Comedian David Mitchell discusses his West End debut playing William Shakespeare in Ben Elton’s stage adaptation of the BBC TV sitcom, Upstart Crow. The play, which also stars Gemma Whelan and Mark Heap, explores the realities of life for the man behind the drama as he attempts to resurrect his career and save London theatre form the puritans.

Leading soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn has, over the last 10 years, won many plaudits for her voice that’s been described as distinctive and unforgettable. She discusses taking on the title role in a production of Verdi’s Luisa Miller at ENO – the first time the opera, dating from the middle of Verdi’s career, has been performed at the Coliseum.

Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights is a 19th century classic with its tempestuous love story between spirited Catherine Earnshaw and brooding Heathcliff becoming a shorthand for obsessive passion. Conventionally, it’s been seen as book for girls but that hasn’t deterred playwrights Andrew Sheridan and Ben Lewis who join Stig to discuss their respective new stage adaptations of Brontë’s gothic tale.

Presenter Stig Abell Producer Jerome Weatherald

Geeta Pendse presents Front Row from Leicester, home of the Leicester Comedy Festival, which is currently taking place in over ninety venues across the city.

Comedians Eshaan Akbar and Ishi Khan talk about why Leicester is where they try out new material in Work in Progress shows. Geoff Rowe, who founded the festival 27 years ago, on what makes it unique.

Last year the first UK Kids Comedy Festival was launched in Leicester. We talk to the UK's youngest comedy double-act, Samson and Mabel, and their father Howard Read.

We hear about the school that has just won the title "Funniest School in Leicestershire", talking to Mayflower Primary School Deputy Head, Hannah Boydon.

Plus Sam Hewitt from Leicester band Easy Life. Championed by BBC Introducing, Easy Life recently came second in the BBC Sound of 2020 poll, and tonight are up for three prizes at the NME Awards, including Best New Act in the World.

Presenter: Geeta Pendse Producer: Timothy Prosser

Main image: Eshaan Akbar

Leopoldstadt is the area of Vienna where poor Jews lived, and the title of Tom Stoppard’s new play. It’s about a family who come from there but, cultured, clever, successful and assimilated, no longer live there when the play begins. It follows their story from 1899 to 1955, from fin de siècle optimism to the aftermath of the Holocaust. Talking to John Wilson in the theatre, Sir Tom Stoppard speaks about how, in the 1990s, he came to appreciate his own Jewishness and how, now in his 80s, he came to write what might be his last play, about a family whose tragic story parallels that of his own.

After the unprecedented success of South Korean film Parasite, which was the first foreign language film to win Best Picture at the Oscars on Sunday, Hyun Jin Cho, film curator at the Korean Cultural Centre, offers a guide for fans of the film of what to watch next.

Oscar-winning film director Sir Steve McQueen discusses the first survey of his art in the UK for over 20 years. The show at Tate Modern sees the Turner Prize-winning artist revisit works which include film, photography and sculpture, that he’s created in the last two decades.

Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Simon Richardson

Image: Tom Stoppard Image credit: Jack Taylor/Getty Images

Playwright Sir Tom Stoppard discusses his new play, Leopoldstadt, in an extended interview.

Leopoldstadt is the area of Vienna where poor Jews lived, and the title of Tom Stoppard’s new play. It’s about a family who come from there but, cultured, clever, successful and assimilated, no longer live there when the play begins. It follows their story from 1899 to 1955, from fin de siècle optimism to the aftermath of the Holocaust. Talking to John Wilson in the theatre, Stoppard speaks about how, in the 1990s, he came to appreciate his own Jewishness and how now, in his 80s, he came to write what might be his last play, about a family whose tragic story parallels that of his own.

A new exhibition 'Art Deco By The Sea' has opened at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich, looking at the impact of the movement on the architecture as well as painting and fashion at British seaside towns. The Art Deco movement flourished on Britain’s coast through the boom and bust of the 20s and 30s, bringing a sense of glamour and opportunity to the masses, in a wave of proudly British manufacture and design that evoked far-off exotic places like New York and Paris.

Britain rightly celebrates its part in the abolition of slavery but what many people in this country are unaware of is the compensation agreed by the British government in 1833 to pay slave-owners to release their slaves. The cost amounted to 40% of the nation’s budget and the British tax payer was still paying off this debt in the second decade of the 21st century. The wrangling inside and activism outside parliament that led to abolition is at the heart of a new play, The Whip, by Juliet Gilkes Romero which premieres this week at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford. Juliet joins Samira to discuss her play which questions the morality of that long-hidden debt.

In a new BBC4 documentary Meet the Family, dierector Catherine Bray explores how families have been portrayed in cinema. Why have families in film often been overlooked in favour of romances, bromances, buddy movies etc. From Mommie Dearest to Back to the Future, she shows how filmmakers have approached the challenge of depicting the most universal relationship of all. And Catherine also discusses the biggest winners from last night’s Oscars.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Oliver Jones

Main image: New Brighton and Wallasey, Scott, 1923-47 © National Railway

As she completes her quintet of Agatha Christie adaptations with The Pale Horse, screenwriter Sarah Phelps discusses why Christie’s supernatural murder mystery attracted her attention when she was looking for a fifth work by the Queen of Crime to turn into television drama.

We Will Walk - Art and Resistance in the American South is an exhibition of sculptures, paintings and quilts made by African American artists from Alabama and the surrounding southern states, made mainly during the Civil Rights movement of the '50s and '60s. Art critic Asana Greenstreet reviews the show, which is at Turner Contemporary in Margate and includes many works not seen before in the UK.

This week Edward Kamau Brathwaite, the great poet of the Caribbean, died. Brathwaite realised the potential of West Indian vernacular, the beauty of its rhythms and vocabulary, as the language to speak of the Caribbean experience – surf, hurricanes, rum and calypso, the memory of Africa and the history of slavery. The poet Fred D’Aguiar pays tribute.

Following the announcement of the death of the writer, academic and cultural critic George Steiner, the writer Robert McCrum - his editor at the Observer newspaper, and the publishing house Faber & Faber – pays tribute to Steiner’s life, work and his legacy as a public intellectual.

Presenter Chrystal Genesis Producer Jerome Weatherald

We look at the career of Kirk Douglas who has died at the age of 103. Not only was he a fine actor - and one of the last of the Hollywood Golden Age - he was also a fearless campaigner for social causes who tried to break through the restrictions imposed by the Hollywood system.

American Dirt, a novel about a mother and son attempting to cross the Mexico/US border, has been the subject of fierce debate over the last fortnight. One of the 2020s' most hotly-anticipated releases, its white author Jeanine Cummins has been accused of exploitation, pedalling clichés and being culturally ‘tone deaf’ to the plight of the lives of Mexican migrants which the book attempts to explore. Ignacio Sanchez Prado, Professor of Latin American Culture, and Telegraph book critic Jake Kerridge, explore the issues.

Daniel Kehlmann, author of the global bestseller Measuring the World, speaks to Samira about his new historical epic Tyll, about a wandering performer and court jester who lives through the Thirty Years War.

Presenter Samira Ahmed Producer Oliver Jones

Main image: Kirk Douglas Photo credit: Silver Screen/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

In the finale of Front Row’s Risk season we’ll be debating the biggest creative risk takers as we reveal the Front Row Risk List – the 10 riskiest artworks of the 21st century.

From putting your reputation on the line to putting yourself in physical danger - we look at the ways artists have used risk in their work., and ask is it always a good thing to risk offending people, and how does gender play a role in what's risky?

To discuss and reveal the list our panel are: artist and activist, Scottee, film and TV critic and columnist Ellen E. Jones, founder of Wakey and author of Outspoken Deborah Coughlin, author and cultural commentator Will Self and presenter of Saturday Review Tom Sutcliffe.

They'll join Stig in the Radio Theatre for a live show in front of an audience in a special extended programme.

Presenter Stig Abell Producer: Hannah Robins

Paul Theroux discusses his new novel, Burma Sahib, about George Orwell’s formative years as a colonial police officer in what is now Myanmar.

Voice expert Professor Patsy Rodenburg quit her job over fears that actors’ traditional “craft” skills are being lost, as screen acting overshadows theatre work.

Sam Lee, Bernard Butler and James Keay perform live and talk about Sam's new album, Songdreaming. Sam draws on traditional songs to explore the richness and fragility of the natural world here in the UK.

And we announce the winner of the Writers' Prize (formerly Rathbones Folio) Book of the Year 2024.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Ciaran Bermingham

The Korean film Parasite is in the running for Best Picture, Director, and International Feature at the Oscars on Sunday. Critic Mark Eccleston reviews the tragicomedy, directed by Bong Joon Ho. It follows the collision of two Korean families from very different socio-economic backgrounds, and the unstoppable string of mishaps that lie in wait.

As part of our Risk season, Front Row is asking artists working in different forms about their greatest career risks. Tonight we speak to Jasmine Lee-Jones, the 20-year-old playwright of Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner which was produced at the Royal Court last year. She considers the risk of discussing divisive topics such as cultural appropriation and colourism - prejudice against people of darker skin tone by those of the same ethnicity - in her play.

Eimear McBride, whose experimental debut A Girl is a Half-formed Thing was a literary sensation, she tells Samira Ahmed about her new novel Strange Hotel, about a woman reflecting on her life whilst moving from one hotel room to another.

Art critic Richard Cork reports on the restoration of two paintings known as the Petworth Beauties. The portraits of two ladies from Queen Anne’s court were shortened 200 years ago by folding back part of the paintings showing their lower legs to make more space on the wall at Petworth House in Sussex. The paintings are now on show, at full length, as part of British Baroque at Tate Britain.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian May

Main image: Parasite Photo credit: Curzon

Tom Hanks talks about his new film, A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, which is based on the true story of the popular American children's TV presenter Fred Rogers. For more than three decades Fred Rogers presented Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood , imparting words of wisdom tenderly, without condescension or skirting around difficult subjects, to very young viewers. This film charts the relationship between Rogers and Lloyd Vogel, a cynical investigative journliast looking to dig up and dish the dirt where there is none.

Prescriptive funders, cautious gatekeepers, social media scrutiny, cancel culture – are we living in an especially risky moment for artists? As part of Front Row’s Risk Season John is joined by playwright Roy Williams, critic Louis Wise and editor of Arts Professional Magazine Amanda Parker to consider how attitudes towards creative risk have changed over the past 20 years. How have the arrival of the internet, more than a decade of austerity and the increasing imperative to represent marginalised voices impacted the choices artists can make?

The Brexit negotiations may have inspired endless newspaper articles and documentaries but in Northern Ireland, choreographer Eileen McClory decided that she wanted to reflect on the negotiations with a new contemporary dance. The result – Brink – features two dancers on a small 1.5 metres high table. Eileen discusses why this non-verbal artform was the perfect medium for that most verbose of subjects – Brexit.

Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Simon Richardson

Polish director Agnieszka Holland, best-known for her Oscar nominated feature films about the Holocaust, discusses her new film Mr Jones, starring James Norton as the Welsh journalist Gareth Jones. Jones exposed the truth about Stalin’s genocidal famine which killed millions in Ukraine in the early 1930s and his reporting of the story inspired George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

Continuing Front Row’s risk season, theatre critic Michael Billington talks about when risks fail to pay off. Failure in the arts can be a taboo subject and Doctor Leila Jancovich from Leeds University has been exploring histories of failure and why it seems the arts find it difficult to learn from their mistakes.

Timur Vermes' first novel Look Who's Back was a satire imagining the return of Hitler in the present day and sold over 3 million copies. The German novelist's new book, The Hungry and the Fat, translated by Jamie Bulloch, considers what would happen if thousands of refugees walked to the German border.

Presenter: Tom Shakespeare Producer: Sarah Johnson

Main image: James Norton in Mr Jones Photo credit: Signature Entertainment

Robert Pattinson talks to Samira about his new Oscar nominated film The Lighthouse, a gothic thriller in black and white from Robert Eggers (The Witch), in which Robert and Willem Dafoe play two lighthouse keepers who start to lose their sanity when a storm strands them on a remote island.

Continuing Front Row's Risk season, two film-makers who have exposed themselves to personal danger. Oscar winning director Orlando von Einsiedel (The White Helmets, Virunga) discusses filming in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in DR Congo as civil war broke out. Hassan Akkad discusses filming his journey from Damascus to the UK via the Calais ‘Jungle’, including a dangerous boat crossing from Turkey to Greece as the boat began to sink, footage which featured in the BBC series Exodus.

In the run up to this year's BAFTAs and Academy Awards, the all-male Best Director shortlists have attracted criticism, with many lamenting the omission of Greta Gerwig, whose Little Women has been a critical and commercial success and picked up other nominations including Best Film, Actress and Screenplay. Greta gives her take on all this and discusses her reworking of Louisa May Alcott's novel.

Main image: Robert Pattinson in The Lighthouse Image credit: © Universal Pictures International

Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Timothy Prosser

Director Melina Matsoukas talks about her first feature film Queen and Slim, which follows a black couple on a lackluster date pulled over for a minor traffic infraction. The situation escalates, with sudden and tragic results and the erstwhile couple decide to go on the run. Known primarily as a director of music videos for megastars like Beyoncé, Matsoukas discusses her transition between mediums and the film’s political message.

Grayson Perry: The Pre-Therapy Years is the first exhibition to survey the artist’s earliest works - pots, plates and sculptures - which he made between 1982 and 1994. Critic Jacky Klein reviews the exhibition at the Holburne Museum in Bath which includes pottery that addresses his regular themes of gender, identity and social class.

The life of Faust, an itinerant alchemist and astrologer in 15th century Germany, has inspired great writers through the centuries, most notably Christopher Marlowe. Now Chris Bush reinvents the story again; Faustus is a woman and, instead of using the powers of Mephistopheles for self-gratificiation she seeks the kinds of knowledge denied women through the ages, traveling through time to attain it. Stig talks to Chris Bush about her ambitious, ideas-laden new play, Faustus: That Damned Woman.

As we continue to explore risk in the arts, actor Richard Armitage speaks to us about the physical and reputational risk of being waterboarded for the filming of Spooks.

Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Hannah Robins

Samira talks to Sir Patrick Stewart about what tempted him back to Star Trek to play Jean-Luc Picard for the first time in 18 years. Star Trek: Picard finds the legendary Starfleet officer in retirement but still deeply affected by the loss of Lieutenant Commander Data and the destruction of Romulus that ended his career. Stewart also discusses the parallels between the world of Star Trek: Picard and politics today.

The overall winner of the Costa Book of the Year is announced on Front Row, live from the ceremony. Contenders this year include debut novelist Sara Collins, novelist Jonathan Coe, biographer Jack Fairweather, poet Mary Jean Chan and children’s novelist Jasbinder Bilan.

Continuing our Risk Season, Sharmaine Lovegrove tells us about the risks involved in setting up Dialogue Books, an imprint that publishes authors from under-represented communities, including writers from BAME, LGBTQI+ and working class backgrounds.

Arts Council England’s Chief Executive Darren Henley and Amanda Parker, Editor of arts industry journal, Arts Professional, discuss “Let’s Create” - the Arts Council’s new 10-year Strategy which seeks to expand our nation’s creative opportunities.

Image: Sir Patrick Stewart in Star Trek: Picard Image credit: Amazon Prime Video

Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Simon Richardson

Martin Scorsese has the most Oscar nominations of any living director though he has only won once, for his 2006 film The Departed. Nominated again this year for The Irishman, he talks about the film’s themes of ageing, guilt and redemption – and about how it would feel to win.

As part of our season looking at risk in the arts, we consider when risk is disproportionately apportioned to working with diverse talent like women or black artists. The result is that white male practitioners are seen as a safe pair of hands and women and BAME talent are ignored even if they have proven their success in the past. We investigate the scale of the problem and what can be done to change it with Dawn Walton, Head of Revolution Mix theatre group and Clare Binns Joint Managing Director, Picturehouse.

Artist, engineer, architect and poet, Naum Gabo was a leading spirit in the radical arts flourishing after the Russian Revolution. When the Soviet authorities cracked down on avant-garde art, Gabo worked at the Bauhaus in Germany, collaborated with Diaghilev in Paris, and energised London's art scene. During the war Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson persuaded him to come to St Ives. His work was startlingly spare and made beautiful use of industrial materials. Tate St Ives presents the first major exhibition of Gabo’s work for more than 30 years. Michael Bird, who lives in St Ives and has written about Gabo, reviews the show.

Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Oliver Jones

Main image: Martin Scorsese

In a career spanning half a century, Martin Scorsese has told stories about masculinity, music, violence, guilt and redemption – in films including Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Casino and many more. Despite nine best director Oscar nominations in that time, Scorsese only has one win to his name, for The Departed. But that tally could rise if his latest movie The Irishman wins him another Oscar. For Front Row, he talks to John Wilson from New York about his hopes of winning, representation on screen, and the themes that have permeated all his work.

The Pet Shop Boys talk about their highly anticipated new studio album Hotspot, which is released today. Hotspot is the duo’s final release with producer Stuart Price who ushered in a period of ‘electronic purism’ in their work. Recorded using a large amount of analogue equipment, Hotspot is a departure from the Pet Shop Boy’s recent hyper dance pop sound.

Front Row's series examining risk in the arts focuses today on emotional risk. What is it like for writers and performers to explore their own personal backgrounds and issues and then to go public with their revelations and confessions, and how much has that changed in recent years? Louise Allen addresses the challenge of putting her experiences of an abusive childhood in foster care onto the page in her memoir Thrown Away Child, and stand-up Ahir Shah discusses drawing on his own personal mental health issues in his stage act.

Next Monday is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. We are all familiar with images of victims of the Holocaust. Most of these, though, were actually taken by the Nazis for propaganda purposes and to create a historical record. The Eye as Witness , a new touring exhibition organised by The National Holocaust Centre and Museum, challenges these views. Professor Maiken Umbach explains how, using virtual reality technology, viewers can enter into a photograph to experience how it was framed and, crucially, what is not shown, including the photographer taking the picture. The exhibition focuses, too, on photographs taken, at enormous risk, by the inmates of the ghettoes and camps. Some of these images were buried and retrieved once the war was over. They reveal, amidst degradation and evil, a zest for life, humanity and love.

Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Hilary Dunn

As the BBC Three hit comedy Man Like Mobeen returns for a third series, its creator and star, Guz Khan, discusses the development of his on screen persona, Mobeen Deen, and why his show has something for everyone.

Front Row's Risk Season continues with filmmaker Penny Woolcock and Richard Mantle, General Director of Opera North. Both have faced big creative challenges and join Front Row to discuss how to decide if a risk is worth taking.

The Portico Prize, the UK’s biennial award for outstanding literature that best evokes the spirit of the North, is awarded on Thursday 23 January. Portico Prize judge, poet, and novelist Zahid Hussain and Claire Malcolm, founding CEO of the regional writing development agency, New Writing North, discuss what constitutes writing that reflects the North and the hurdles such writing faces.

Presenter: Katie Popperwell Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Historical novelist Philippa Gregory talks to Nick Ahad about writing her first stage play, Richard, My Richard, for Shakespeare North Playhouse in Prescot. Unlike Shakespeare's, Gregory's play is a tender, passionate, portrait of man in his time, surrounded by the women who influence his fate.

With Marvel, DC and Sony superhero films boring fans and the box office, Nick speaks with Comic Crush editor Paul Dunne and film journalist Feyi Adebanjo about what's gone wrong and if these billion dollar blockbusters can get their mojo back.

Showtown, Blackpool’s new museum of fun and entertainment opens on Friday. Liz Moss, the museum’s Chief Executive and journalist and former circus elephant girl Dea Birkett reflect on the museum’s ambitions.

Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Michael Palin remembers his friend and fellow Python, Terry Jones - writer, director, actor and historian - whose death at the age of 77 was announced today.

Hugh Laurie discusses his new role in Armando Iannucci’s new TV comedy drama Avenue 5, which is set on a galactic cruise liner. When a mishap turns the eight-week pleasure jaunt among the stars into a voyage lasting three-and-a-half years it’s not just the spacecraft that begins to breakdown – it’s civilisation itself. And masks begin to slip. Laurie stars as the urbane, silver-haired Ryan Clark, the confidence inspiring Captain. But Clark is not what he seems.

Mental health, the pressures of social media and a feeling of freedom all feature in Gabrielle Aplin’s upbeat pop album Dear Happy. The singer-songwriter talks to Samira about making the album on her own record label and performs live in the studio.

As Front Row continues to explore risk in the arts, author Kerry Hudson speaks about the emotional risk involved in writing her memoir Lowborn: Growing Up, Getting Away and Returning to Britain’s Poorest Towns.

Presenter Samira Ahmed Producer Jerome Weatherald

It's taken 25 years and several false starts but Terry Gilliam has at last succeeded in bringing his version of Don Quixote to the big screen. The director discusses his jinxed project, now that he has completed The Man who Killed Don Quixote, which stars Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce.

Samantha Strauss, creator of the hit Australian teen drama series Dance Academy, talks to John Wilson about her new drama series The End starring Harriet Walter and Francis O’Connor which uses dark humour to tell the story of a family’s struggle with assisted dying and the nature of choice.

Front Row's Risk season continues. We’re talking to figures across the arts about their greatest career risks. Tonight, artist Jeremy Deller tells us about the risks involved in creating The Battle of Orgreave, his 2001 re-enactment of the violent confrontation between miners and police in 1984.

Picasso and Paper: Throughout his career, which spanned eight decades, Pablo Picasso worked with paper – not just drawing and painting on it but manipulating it. He used several printmaking techniques, made collages by cutting and pasting and created sculptures by burning and tearing paper. The Royal Academy’s new exhibition brings together 300 works in a variety of forms, from different periods of the artist’s life, but all created with this single medium. Morgan Quaintance reviews.

Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Oliver Jones

Dev Patel talks about playing David Copperfield in Armando Iannucci’s retelling of Charles Dickens' classic ode to grit and perseverance, The Personal History of David Copperfield. This is a film for our cosmopolitan age with a diverse ensemble cast of actors from a range of ethnicities. Patel, star of Slumdog Millionaire, describes telling director Iannucci that the production would have to ‘weather a storm’ because of this colour-blind approach. The film also stars Nikki Amuka-Bird, Peter Capaldi‎, Benedict Wong and ‎Hugh Laurie. Today Front Row launches its Risk Season: we’ll be investigating personal, financial, reputational and physical risk in all the arts. How far is risk inherent to creativity, who takes risks and why? The season will culminate in the unveiling of the top ten riskiest artworks of the last 20 years in the Front Row Risk List.

To launch the season, three of our Risk List judges - author Will Self, critic and columnist Ellen E Jones and performer and writer Scottee – define what they mean by risk in the context of art, discuss if we live in risk taking or safety seeking times, and set out what they’re looking for in contenders for the list.

Stig Abell is joined in the studio by Number One Bestselling author Kimberley Chambers, ‘The Queen of Gangland Crime’, to discuss her new novel, Queenie, the prequel to her successful series of Butlers Family gangster novels. Set in Whitechapel in the 1930s, the book follows Queenie as she watches her family struggle, learning lessons the hard way. When she was a little girl there was one thing Queenie knew, that she was going to get out of this... then a tall, dark and handsome stranger walked into her life, giving her hope for a different future.

Main image: Dev Patel in David Copperfield Image credit: Lionsgate Films

Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Julian May

Playwright Lucy Kirkwood discusses her return to the National Theatre following the critically-acclaimed Mosquitoes in 2017 with her new play The Welkin, which stars Maxine Peake and Ria Zmitrowicz. It’s the story of a woman sentenced to hang for murder in 1759 but whose claims of pregnancy could save her life. A Jury of Matrons is assembled - 12 women who will decide the condemned woman’s fate.

Terrence Malick's latest film A Hidden Life is a historical drama based on a true story which depicts the life of Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian peasant farmer and devout Catholic, and the consequences he faced after refusing to pledge allegiance to the Nazis in World War II. Isabel Stevens reviews.

Folk singer Sam Lee has teamed up with electric guitarist and producer Bernard Butler on his new album Old Wow, which celebrates the joy of the natural world but also expresses fear about how the climate emergency is changing our relationship with the planet. Sam and Bernard discuss the album and Sam performs the most recent single, The Moon Shines Bright.

Presenter Nikki Bedi Producer Jerome Weatherald

Charlize Theron discusses her new film Bombshell, for which she's been Oscar nominated, in which she stars alongside Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie. It tells the true story of female Fox News presenters and personnel in New York who set out to expose the CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment in 2016.

The street gangs of Lagos are the setting for a new adaption of Oliver Twist for Radio 4. Writer Ayeesha Menon discusses how she transposed the story to Nigeria and what parallels she saw between the refugee crisis today and Victorian London.

Police procedural and the supernatural collide in a new Sky Atlantic drama, The Outsider, based on a book by Stephen King and starring Oscar nominee Cynthia Erivo. Karen Krizanovich reviews.

Monday 27th January is the first day of Independent Venue Week which aims to promote smaller music venues. We speak to the initiative's founder Sybil Bell on why they need support.

Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Hannah Robins

As bushfires continue to ravage huge areas of land in Australia, how have artists and writers responded to the complex historical relationship the country has with this natural phenomenon? Writers Kathryn Heyman in Sydney and Danielle Clode in Adelaide join indigenous Australian artist Judy Watson from Brisbane to consider the place of fire in Australian arts, culture and the nation’s identity.

Writer Ben Richards discusses his new Sky One television drama series, COBRA, which stars Robert Carlyle as a PM under pressure. Like the Government’s emergency committee it focuses on, the series is named after the room in which the committee meets - Cabinet Office Briefing Room A”, and explores how a national crisis tests the limits of the British government and civil society.

In 1910 the unknown Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel, little known clog dancers, set sail for New York as part of Fred Karno's famous music hall troupe. On this journey Charlie and Stan shared a cabin and then spent two years together touring North America, with Stan as Charlie’s understudy. Chaplin never mentioned this. Laurel never stopped talking about it. Physical theatre company Told by an Idiot have turned the story into The Strange Tale of Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel, performed as if it were a silent film, live. Amalia Vitale plays Chaplin and she talks to Stig Abell about her role, and acting without speaking.

Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Julian May

Michael B Jordan and Jamie Foxx on their new film Just Mercy, the story of one of America’s great miscarriages of justice. Michael plays lawyer Bryan Stevenson, who takes up the case of Walter McMillian, a man placed on death row for the 1986 murder of a woman in Alabama, even though there was no credible evidence linking him to the crime.

As a register for actors’ profiles, Spotlight describes itself as the 'home of stage and screen casting', but is it a home that is equally welcoming to all potential members in the acting industry? In the light of recent public criticism about its inclusivity for older actors, Helen Raw - who runs the British Actors Network - discusses Spotlight’s joining criteria and the changes she would like the organisation to make.

The shortlist for the 2019 T.S. Eliot Prize was announced last night and - at a time when the The Baftas and the Oscars are being criticised for being too white and too male - the poetry world has proved itself to be far more progressive than the cinema. The list comprised 4 women, one trans non binary and five men. The poet taking away the £25,000 cheque this year is Roger Robinson, who won for his collection A Portable Paradise. He talks to Samira Ahmed about his work that moves from black history to Grenfell, the Windrush and the NHS, along with poems about his family and personal life.

The poet Roddy Lumsden died last Friday. As well as his own work he was respected as organiser, teacher and mentor whose influence on recent poetry in Britain is profound. The writer Katy Evans-Bush, who knew him for 20 years, pays tribute.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Oliver Jones

John talks to Oscar nominees including Charlize Theron (Best Actress), Jonathan Pryce (Best Actor) and Florence Pugh (Best Supporting Actress).

Critics Larushka Ivan-Zadeh and Ellen E Jones discuss the films in contention. Joker has most nominations, followed by 1917, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and The Irishman. Yet again the Best Director category is all male, though Greta Gerwig's Little Women is nominated for Best Picture.

John is also joined by producer Joanna Natasegara, whose film The Edge of Democracy is nominated for Best Documentary.

Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Timothy Prosser

Jonathan Coe talks about Middle England which has won the Costa Novel Award 2019. Set in the outskirts of Birmingham where car factories have been replaced by pound shops and in a London beset by riots and Olympic fever, it’s a state of the nation novel that tries to make sense of our times, with characters from both sides of the EU referendum divide.

Pop megastar Selena Gomez releases her 3rd studio album Rare. She’s been through an emotional rollercoaster in recent years, including an emergency kidney transplant, mental health struggles and public break-ups with Justin Bieber and The Weeknd - all inspiration for the album, which she describes as her most honest yet. Sophie Harris reviews.

Johnny Flynn was nominated for an Olivier Award for his performance in Jerusalem and won acclaim for his score for the BBC 4 series Detectorists. For BBC Radio 3 he has co-written the strange tale of a tax adviser’s struggle to uncover Russian tax fraud, his imprisonment by the authorities, and an American financier’s crusade for justice. Flynn tells us about Magnitsky The Musical, which tells the story of the origins of the Magnitsky Act which allows governments to sanction those whom they see as offenders against human rights.

And as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex indicate that their roles will be changing, Jan Dalley comments on royal patrons in the arts.

Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Sarah Johnson

A teenage sex therapist on a high school campus is the premise of the hit Netflix series Sex Education. Starring Asa Butterfield and Gillian Anderson, its first season attracted 40m viewers in the first weeks of streaming and it’s back for a second series. Writer and creator Laurie Nunn discusses balancing serious sexual content with humour, why it’s hard to pin down the location and era of the series, and the debt it owes to the American high school movies of the '80s and '90s.

All this week Front Row is talking to the winners of the different categories of the Costa Book Awards. Tonight Samira hears from the poetry winner, Mary Jean Chan. Chan was a competitive fencer, representing Hong Kong, and her first collection takes its title, Flèche, from an offensive technique in the sport, but it also suggests the vulnerability of the body.

At the end of last year came news that podcasts will now be eligible for the Pulitzer Prize for Audio Reporting. What does this mean about the status and quality of podcasts and what are the trends in their consumption, whether streamed or downloaded via Apple, Spotify, BBC Sounds and others? Podcaster and critic Caroline Crampton joins us to discuss this along with Kate Hutchison, co-fouder of Lasso Audio, a new podcast talent agency based in New York.

Presenter Samira Ahmed Producer Jerome Weatherald

Beth Ditto talks to Tom Sutcliffe about reuniting with her band Gossip for their first new album in nearly a decade.

Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke discuss collaborating as a husband and wife team on their new film, Drive Away Dolls.

Michael Donkor discusses his new novel Grow Where They Fall, about a young British Ghanian teacher exploring his sexuality, heritage and past.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Paula McGrath

Freddie Fox on playing Jeremy Bamber in ITV's new six part factual drama White House Farm, about one fateful night in August 1985 when five members of the same family were murdered at an Essex farmhouse. The drama, which is based on extensive research, interviews and published accounts, tells the story of how Essex Police initially believed that Bamber’s sister Sheila Caffell had murdered her own family before turning the gun on herself but doubts soon began to emerge.

While some London shows sell out immediately and command huge ticket prices and regional theatres struggle to fill venues, we consider how theatres use their ticketing strategy to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. Critic Lyn Gardner, alongside Delia Barker, Programme Director at Camden Roundhouse and Robin Hawkes, Executive Director of Leeds Playhouse, discuss.

This week Front Row hears from the winners of each of the Costa Book Award categories. Tonight Jasbinder Bilan talks about her Children’s Book Award winner - Asha & The Spirit Bird - which fuses a children’s adventure story with magical realism.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian May

We discuss the controversy over this years BAFTA nominations. The most prominent categories - Best Film, Best Actor, Best Actress – remain predominantly white. There’s not a woman on the Best Director shortlist and all the Best Film nominees are stories about men. John Wilson asks the critic Larushka Ivan-Zadeh why this is and what it means for such awards. Do they have any meaning anymore?

Adam Sandler on his new film Uncut Gems in which he plays a charismatic New York jeweller who makes a high-stakes bet that could lead to the windfall of a lifetime. Directed by Josh and Benny Safdie and filmed in a relentless handheld style with a soundtrack to match, Uncut Gems charts Ratner's failing attempts to balance business, family and adversaries on all sides in pursuit of the ultimate win.

The Confessions of Frannie Langton has won the Costa First Novel Award. We speak to its author Sara Collins about her gothic novel that puts a mixed race woman centre stage in this page-turner about a double murder in Victorian London.

American composer David Lang’s new opera is Prisoner of the State, a contemporary take on Beethoven’s only opera Fidelio, with its strong message about political oppression and freedom. David talks to John ahead of the shows premiere.

Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Oliver Jones