Shows / Front Row
Episodes
- Front Row
Gary Oldman
Gary Oldman on his 30 year career in film, from playing punk rebel Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy to a barnstorming performance as Winston Churchill in Darkest…
- Front Row
Christmas Party with Jon Culshaw, Josie Lawrence, Austentatious, Patience Agbabi, Inua Ellams and Steve Edis
Join John Wilson for a Christmas party including games and performances from all our guests.Impressionist Jon Culshaw delivers ten Christmas messages, but can…
- Front Row
Emily Watson, Older women on screen, Christmas songs
Emily Watson discusses her role as Marmee March, the mother of four daughters, in the new BBC TV adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's novel Little Women, set in…
- Front Row
Jodie Foster, Molly's Game, Christmas film round-up, Hamilton, Imtiaz Dharker
Jodie Foster was a child star who fulfilled that early promise with performances as an adult that won her two Oscars. She went on to direct - four feature…
- Front Row
James Norton, Independent Magazines, New Jungle Book Musical
The actor and one-time theology student James Norton discusses his role as Alex Godman in new TV thriller McMafia. His character begins the series as a public…
- Front Row
Mavis Staples, Carmen Maria Machado, Christmas ghost stories
Mavis Staples, formerly of the gospel group The Staple Singers, discusses her new album If All I Was Was Black, ten songs which address the continuing racial…
- Front Row
The League Of Gentlemen, Gina Yashere, Jenny Eclair, Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World
As The League of Gentlemen returns to BBC Two for three new episodes we speak to Mark Gatiss and Jeremy Dyson about revisiting the bizarre characters of…
- Front Row
The Hayward Gallery reopening, Emily Wilson, The art of literary translation
Emily Wilson, the first woman to translate The Odyssey, explains why the issues running through the epic - gender, geo-politics, migration - make Homer…
- Front Row
Emma Rice, John Boyega, Laura Ingalls Wilder
Theatre director Emma Rice talks about her final production as Artistic Director of Shakespeare's Globe, The Little Matchgirl and Other Happier Tales. She…
- Front Row
Kazuo Ishiguro
Kazuo Ishiguro is the winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature. To mark the occasion, he talks to John Wilson from Stockholm about his reaction to the…
- Front Row
Christmas TV, Theatre from the Calais Jungle, Protecting live music.
As the Christmas TV schedules are finalised we round up the best festive telly. With Caroline Frost. Do live music venues need protecting from inner-city…
- Front Row
The Bette Davis/Joan Crawford Feud, The Twilight Zone, A Snow Poem
An eight-part series about the legendary rivalry between Hollywood icons Bette Davis and Joan Crawford comes to BBC2 this Christmas. Matthew Sweet reviews.What…
- Front Row
Vanessa Redgrave, Imperium, French African artefacts, Sally Rooney
Vanessa Redgrave has just been awarded the Richard Harris Award which is given to an actor for their outstanding contribution to British film. She talks to…
- Front Row
Christopher Nolan, Guys and Dolls, City of Culture 2021
Christopher Nolan, writer and director of Memento, Inception, Interstellar and the Batman trilogy including The Dark Knight, looks back over his career as the…
- Front Row
Jonathan Yeo, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Designing awards
Portrait painter Jonathan Yeo discusses his ambitious new cutting-edge sculpture, which features in a new exhibition From Life at the Royal Academy, alongside…
- Front Row
Claire Foy, Bryan Hymel, Film Heritage
Actress Claire Foy talks about returning to play Queen Elizabeth II in series two of Netflix's hugely successful TV series The Crown. Tenor Bryan Hymel, famous…
- Front Row
Stronger, Shashi Kapoor, Douglas Henshall, Tokio Myers
Jake Gyllenhaal stars in Stronger, a true story of Jeff Bauman who lost both of his legs when a bomb exploded at the Boston Marathon in 2013. Ellen E Jones…
- Front Row
Cecilia Bartoli, The Face, Louis CK film
Italian Soprano Cecilia Bartoli and Argentinian cellist Sol Gabetta come together for an album of baroque arias, in which the voice and cello intertwine in a…
- Front Row
Sir Michael Parkinson, Wonder, A Christmas Carol
Sir Michael Parkinson discusses his love of jazz and big-band music, and the choices he made for a collection of his favourite songs: Our Kind of Music: The…
- Front Row
Amy Sherman-Palladino, Hollywood Film Awards Season, Costume Workers
Amy Sherman-Palladino, the screenwriter and director who found fame with hit show Gilmore Girls, discusses her latest TV comedy drama The Marvelous Mrs…
- Front Row
Chinese characters on TV, Actor James Franco, Sports Book of the Year
We discuss the portrayal of Chinese characters on TV with Shin-Fei Chen, co-creator of BBC Three's Chinese Burn, and writer and theatre director David Tse…
- Front Row
James Bolam on Rodney Bewes, Gilbert & George, Marnie the opera
Yesterday saw the announcement of the death Rodney Bewes, the actor most fondly remembered playing the aspirational Bob in the BBC sitcom The Likely Lads. His…
- Front Row
Joyce DiDonato, European Capital of Culture, Puppets in theatre
Soprano Joyce DiDonato on tackling the vocal pyrotechnics of Rossini and why she's bringing opera to the inmates of Sing Sing, New York's maximum security…
- Front Row
Benjamin Clementine performs live
Benjamin Clementine performs live from his second album I Tell a Fly. He tells us why an experimental concept album felt like the right way follow up to his…
- Front Row
Inua Ellams on Barber Shop Chronicles, Battle of the Sexes, Charles Causley, Godless
Inua Ellams on his acclaimed play Barber Shop Chronicles, which explores masculinity from the perspective of the barber's chair, both in London and Africa…
- Front Row
Modigliani, Costa Book Awards shortlists, John Lithgow
A new Modigliani exhibition at Tate Modern shows the most extensive display of the Italian Jewish painter and sculptor's work yet seen in the UK, including 12…
- Front Row
Cate Blanchett, Priscilla Presley, Arts Manifestos
Priscilla Presley talks about life with Elvis and 40 years of looking after his legacy, as she takes part in a concert tour with the Royal Philharmonic…
- Front Row
Fenella Fielding, Gluck, Mona Arshi, Call of Duty
Fenella Fielding's most famous moment is in Carry on Screaming as she reclines seductively on a couch in a red velvet dress, asks Harry H Corbett "Do you mind…
- Front Row
Noel Gallagher, Poets in Zimbabwe, Surrealism in Egypt
Noel Gallagher, former songwriter and guitarist for Oasis, discusses his new album Who Built The Moon? He tells us why he chose to go solo after the break-up…
- Front Row
Robert Pattinson, Ian McMillan, the voice behind the puppet, Goldsmiths Prize winner
Robert Pattinson on his new film Good Time, set in the streets of Queens as the consequences of a bank robbery entangle his character Connie in a violent web…
- Front Row
Dee Rees, Pussy Riot, Theatre governance
Dee Rees talks about her new film, Mudbound, which explores the racial divide in 1940s Mississippi.As questions continue to be asked of The Old Vic's theatre…
- Front Row
Annette Bening, Music managers, Drama podcast review
Annette Bening discusses her role as Oscar-winning actress Gloria Grahame in Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, the story of the real-life romance between…
- Front Row
Sheridan Smith, Fred D'Aguiar, Maxine Peake play, UNESCO Creative Cities
Sheridan Smith is a comic actor (The Royle Family, Gavin and Stacey), a serious dramatic actor (Flare Path, The Moorside, Dustin Hoffman's film Quartet) and a…
- Front Row
Christian Slater and Sam Yates, Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, Ivor Wood
Hollywood star Christian Slater and director Sam Yates discuss David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Glengarry Glen Ross, in which Slater is currently…
- Front Row
Hugh Grant, Stephen Fry, Hollywood and homosexuality
Hugh Grant explains how his early career in repertory theatre has helped him play faded actor Phoenix Buchanan, the villain in Paddington 2.Stephen Fry talks…
- Front Row
Kenneth Lonergan on Howards End, The Florida Project, Artists as curators
Kenneth Lonergan, who recently won an Oscar for the screenplay to his film Manchester By the Sea, talks to Kirsty Lang about adapting E.M. Forster's Howards…
- Front Row
Modern fairytales with Joanne Harris and Jonathan Coe; Call Me by Your Name; Catalonian culture
Novelists Joanne Harris and Jonathan Coe discuss their latest books which are both fairytales. Coe's The Broken Mirror is a modern fable with a political…
- Front Row
Kenneth Branagh, Keeping TV secrets, Josie Lawrence, Parents in film
The actor and comedian Josie Lawrence is currently tackling Bertolt Brecht in a production of Mother Courage and her Children at Southwark Playhouse in London…
- Front Row
Tracey Emin, Minette Walters, Gauguin biopic
To coincide with the publication of a book which collects all her artwork from the past decade, Tracey Emin comes into the Front Row studio to look back at…
- Front Row
Lisette Oropesa, Richard Flanagan, Kate MccGwire
As she makes her debut at the Royal Opera House in Lucia di Lammermoor, Lisette Oropesa talks about combining a career as one of the world's top sopranos with…
- Front Row
Bill Bailey, Philip Pullman, Alias Grace
Bill Bailey talks to Shahidha Bari ahead of his UK tour, and tries out the new Front Row keyboard.Philip Pullman discusses his new novel La Belle Sauvage, a…
- Front Row
Annie Leibovitz, Andy Serkis, David Bomberg
Annie Leibovitz looks back at her career of nearly 50 years, in which she's photographed many of the world's leaders, celebrities and the Royal Family. With…
- Front Row
Stranger Things 2, Richard Bean on Young Marx, The Essay
Nicholas Hytner, who used to run the National Theatre, has a new project - The Bridge Theatre. Richard Bean (who wrote One Man Two Guvnors) and Clive Coleman…
- Front Row
Women and Sexism in the Arts
Revelations about Harvey Weinstein's casting couch have led some of the biggest voices in Hollywood to talk about this being a watershed moment. So tonight…
- Front Row
Taika Waititi on Thor, Art in the Age of Terror, David Adjaye, Eisenstein's October
Kiwi director Taika Waititi, known for Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Flight of the Conchords, on bringing his comedic style of indie film-making to the…
- Front Row
Armistead Maupin, Viviana Durante on Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Mining Art Gallery
Tales of The City writer Armistead Maupin discusses his new memoir Logical Family, which details his early life in an ultra-conservative family in the deep…
- Front Row
Harry Hill, Liza Tarbuck, Yoshiki
Comedian Harry Hill is best known for writing and presenting the BAFTA-winning television show, Harry Hill's TV Burp - which ran for 11 years - and for…
- Front Row
Daniel Radcliffe, I Am Not a Witch, Wim Wenders, Taj Mahal
Daniel Radcliffe stars in new film Jungle, about the real experience of Yossi Ghinsberg who spent three weeks lost in the Bolivian jungle. Daniel explains what…
- Front Row
Beth Ditto, Jackie Kay, Domestic Noir
Beth Ditto talks about her debut solo album Fake Sugar, her first since the break up of her punk-pop band Gossip, in which she returns to her Southern…
- Front Row
St Vincent, Andrew Michael Hurley, The Tin Drum, Daljit Nagra
The American singer St. Vincent, aka Annie Clark, discusses her new album Masseduction.Andrew Michael Hurley's debut novel The Loney was a runaway success…
- Front Row
Armando Iannucci on the Death of Stalin, Kwame Kwei-Armah directs Ibsen's Lady from the Sea
Armando Iannucci, writer of The Thick of It, discusses his new film satire The Death of Stalin and his love of classical music as explored in his book, Hear Me…
- Front Row
Kit Harington, Kele Okereke, Dynasty, Porridge
Kit Harington on playing his own ancestor in Gunpowder, the new BBC1 drama series about the 17th Century plot to blow up Parliament. Kele Okereke, lead singer…
- Front Row
George Michael: Freedom, John Banville, Michael Fassbender, Performance art
Kate Mossman reviews George Michael: Freedom, the film George Michael was working when he died, in which he and a host of A-List names talk about his songs…
- Front Row
Dustin Hoffman; Jon Boden plays live; the new gallery at Tate St Ives
In his latest film, The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), Dustin Hoffman plays an old, bitter, self obsessed sculptor, whose children from several…
- Front Row
Director Sally Potter, Composer Jimmy Webb, Anorexia on screen
In Sally Potter's latest film, The Party, a group of friends meet to celebrate a promotion but their lives begin to unravel as shocking secrets are exposed…
- Front Row
Audre Lorde, Dan Brown, Art Connoisseurship, Harvey Weinstein
Audre Lorde described herself as "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet". A writer of the 70s and 80s, this month her poetry and prose is published in the UK…
- Front Row
Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling on Blade Runner 2049
As Blade runner 2049 hits cinemas around the country, John Wilson speaks to Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling about what the film offers to fans of the…
- Front Row
Kazuo Ishiguro wins the Nobel Prize, Latonia Moore, Loving Vincent
Kazuo Ishiguro wins the Nobel Prize in Literature. The literary critic, Alex Clark, assesses his contribution to the literary canon.Latonia Moore has just made…
- Front Row
Kate Winslet, Sparks, Jenny Uglow on her book about Edward Lear
Kate Winslet's latest film, The Mountain Between Us, is an epic romance shot at 10,000 feet above sea level and at -38 degrees Celsius. The actress talks to…