Front Row: Archive 2014

With John Wilson

Andrew Dickson reviews Channel 4's new drama series New Worlds, set in the turbulent 1680's, a time of torture and show trials as the reign of Charles II goes from tolerance to tyranny. New Worlds stars Jamie Dornan and Freya Mavor.

American photographer Nan Goldin talks to John about her latest collection of work which comprises of more than 300 photographs exploring the theme of childhood, why digital photography is not for her, and how the camera saved her life.

To mark Radio 4's forthcoming Character Invasion Day - when fictional characters will be taking over the network - Front Row asked five of Britain's leading actors to talk about their experience of playing an iconic character. Sir Ian McKellen discusses taking on the role of Estragon in Waiting for Godot - a play voted the most significant English language play of the 20th century in a National Theatre poll of 800 playwrights, actors, directors and journalists.

The Past is the new film from the Iranian writer and director of the Oscar-winning A Separation. In Asghar Farhadi's latest film, Bérénice Bejo (from The Artist) plays a French woman who embarks on a new relationship after her Iranian husband leaves her behind and returns to his homeland. But when she arranges for a divorce he returns to find unexpected tragic consequences. Shahidha Bari reviews.

Producer : Dymphna Flynn

Image: Ian McKellen in Waiting for Godot performed in rep with No Man's Land by Harold Pinter, directed by Sean Mathias at Broadway's Cort Theatre, New York

With John Wilson

Tom Hollander on playing The Reverend Adam Smallbone as television sitcom Rev returns to our screens for a third series.

Emma Donoghue talks about 'Frog Music', her first novel since 'Room', and in a stark departure, her new book is set in 1876 in San Francisco, in the middle of a stifling heat wave and smallpox epidemic. Based on real events, the story opens with the murder of the eccentric Jenny Bonet, frog catcher and wearer of "mens' clothes" at a time when such a thing was illegal. Emma Donoghue tells John Wilson how the idea she first had 15 years ago, has finally come to fruition, and how she came to draw the conclusion that detectives at the time didn't.

The latest addition to the Marvel Comics film franchise is Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which sees Scarlett Johansson and Robert Redford take their part in the superhero battle between good and evil. Novelist Naomi Alderman reviews.

To mark Radio 4's forthcoming Character Invasion - when fictional characters will be taking over the network - Front Row asked five of Britain's leading actors to talk about their experience of playing an iconic character. To start us off, Dame Harriet Walter describes her experience of playing Lady Macbeth in a celebrated production of the play by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1999.

Produced by Ella-mai Robey.

Kirsty Lang talks to Kristin Davis, best known for playing Charlotte in Sex and the City, as she makes her West End debut in Fatal Attraction, directed by Trevor Nunn.

The latest Nordic Noir to arrive on British TV screens is Mammon, a Norwegian thriller about a newspaper journalist. Crime writer Dreda Say Mitchell reviews.

Documentary maker Errol Morris (The Fog of War) on his latest film The Unknown Known, which profiles former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from his early days as a congressman to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

In August Kate Bush will play her first live concerts in 35 years. She recently talked to John Wilson about her fears of performing live.

With John Wilson.

Five of the world's greatest ballet stars are together on stage this week in Kings Of The Dance at The London Coliseum. John talks to principal dancers Roberto Bolle and Marcelo Gomes.

John Banville, the Man Booker Prize winning author of The Sea, also writes crime fiction under the pen name Benjamin Black. Now Banville, writing as Black, has taken on the legacy of Raymond Chandler and penned a hardboiled detective novel. John Banville discusses Chandler's iconic private eye, Phillip Marlowe, and the re-creation of Chandler's literary style.

The life of French designer Yves Saint Laurent is the subject of two films this year. The first biopic looks at his taking over Christian Dior's fashion house at the age of 21, and finding creative success whilst battling with personal demons. Linda Grant, Orange Prize winner and author of The Thoughtful Dresses, reviews.

Director Nicholas Hytner discusses his plans for the National Theatre in the year ahead. It's the last year Hytner will be responsible for the theatre, before Rufus Norris takes over the role. The season is dominated by new works from David Hare, Polly Stenham and Tom Stoppard.

Producer: Rebecca Nicholson.

With John Wilson.

Kylie Minogue has achieved record sales of around 70 million, and received multiple awards including a Grammy. She discusses 26 years in the music industry, her new album Kiss Me Once - which features collaborations with artists including Pharrell Williams, and the possibility of Kylie The Musical.

William Kent was an 18th century polymath, an architect, designer, sculptor, artist and landscape gardener. In the years after the act of union with Scotland (1707) and the accession of the Hanoverian Royal Family (1714) Britain redefined itself as a new nation - and Kent played a dominant role in the aesthetic of the Georgian era. A new exhibition at the V&A examines Kent's life and works, demonstrating his transformative effect on the nation's taste - from Whitehall (he designed Horse Guards and the Treasury), to grand country estates, fashion and furniture. Amanda Vickery reviews.

"Starred up" is the process by which difficult young offenders are moved early to adult prisons. Writer and former prison counsellor Jonathan Asser, and actor Jack O'Connell, talk to John about the film, Starred Up - which Jonathan has written and which stars Jack as Eric, a troubled young prisoner who finds himself moved into the same prison as his own father.

When the old Parliament building burned down in 1834, JMW Turner was one of those who went to watch. He produced two oil paintings and a series of watercolour sketches - or so everyone thought. However, new research has revealed that the watercolour sketches are actually of a fire at the Tower Of London, instead. John visits Tate Britain, where David Brown, Turner Curator, explains how this news will change things.

Producer: Claire Bartleet.

With Kirsty Lang.

A new exhibition at the National Gallery Veronese: Magnificence in Renaissance Venice brings together masterpieces by Veronese from around the world, some of which have not been united since they were painted in Veronese's studio in the 16th century. Sarah Dunant reviews.

Following the success of Twenty Twelve, the comedy series which revolved around preparations for the London Olympics, writer John Morton now turns his attention to the BBC. In W1A, Hugh Bonneville's Ian Fletcher has been head-hunted for the role of the BBC's Head Of Values. John talks to Kirsty about the series, and about the art of accurately catching the tone of the worlds he portrays.

Labor Day stars Kate Winslet as the mother of a young boy who falls for an escaped convict, played by Josh Brolin, over the course of a Labor Day weekend. The film was adapted for the screen by the writer/director Jason Reitman from a novel by Joyce Maynard. Kate Muir reviews.

Violinist and conductor Sigiswald Kuijken gives Kirsty a studio demonstration of an "extinct" instrument: the violoncello da spalla or "shoulder cello". It went out of fashion in the middle of the 18th century, and Sigiswald explains his theory that many of Bach's works, including the Brandenburg concertos and cello suites, may have been originally written not for the cello, but for the violoncello da spalla.

Producer: Olivia Skinner.

I Can't Sing is a new musical based on the ITV talent show, The X -Factor, starring Nigel Harman as the Simon Cowell character. Comedian Harry Hill, who wrote the musical, and its director Sean Foley discuss bringing the talent show format from the TV screen to the stage.

George Michael has released his sixth studio album Symphonica, recorded during his 2011-12 tour. The last work of legendary producer Phil Ramone, it features orchestral versions of songs by George Michael, Sting, Rufus Wainwright and Nina Simone.

Nick Hornby's novel A Long Way Down has been made into a film starring Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul, Toni Collette, Pierce Brosnan and Imogen Poots. Set on New Year's Eve, the story focuses on four people brought together as they face a difficult crossroad in their lives. Larushka Ivan-Zadeh reviews.

Plus Neil Hannon from The Divine Comedy on composing a piece for the Royal Festival Hall's newly renovated organ. Called To Our Fathers in Distress, the work is inspired by Hannoh's childhood as the son of a Church of Ireland Bishop.

Produced by Claire Bartleet.

With John Wilson.

David Hare's 2011 TV film Page Eight starred Bill Nighy as idealistic MI5 officer Johnny Worricker. Now Hare has written and directed two follow up films, Turks and Caicos and Salting the Battlefield, beginning where the last film left off with Johnny on the run from the British government after stealing an incriminating document. Ralph Fiennes, Winona Ryder and Helena Bonham Carter co-star.

Folk musician Sixto Rodriguez released a couple of albums in the 1970s and then drifted into obscurity. Unbeknownst to him his music, and especially his song Sugarman, went on to become iconic in South Africa as anthems for the anti-apartheid struggle. The award-winning 2012 documentary Searching for Sugarman, which traced his revelatory trip to South Africa to meet his legion of fans, brought his music to global attention. Now 72 and touring the UK, Rodriguez discusses the impact of the rediscovery on his life since.

Stage Kiss is Sarah Ruhl's play examining the onstage and offstage ramifications of locking lips night after night in front of an audience. She discusses why the subject fascinated her, with contributions from Guildhall's Director of Drama Christian Burgess and actor Jimmy Akingbola.

After a week in which Amnesty International levied criticism at the Globe theatre for its decision to take a production to Hamlet to North Korea, John speaks to the theatre's Artistic Director, Dominic Dromgoole. They discuss the world tour of the play, whether cultural organisations have a moral responsibility as well as an artistic one, and whether the North Korean government have asked for any part of the play to be edited or censored.

With John Wilson

Terry Gilliam discusses his new film The Zero Theorem set in a dystopian future where a computer hacker tries to find the meaning of life, and reflects on the Monty Python reunion.

Artist Michael Craig-Martin joins John at the grounds of Chatsworth House to discuss his latest exhibition. From contemporary sculpture based on a series of line drawings by the artist and made from vibrantly coloured steel, to a curated series of head portraits from the estate's collection of old master drawings.

Siri Hustvedt's best-selling novels include What I Loved and The Summer Without Men. Her new book is The Blazing World, a feminist fable about an artist who assumes the identity of various young men in order to prove that her work is taken more seriously. Siri reflects on the recurring themes of creative process and gender dynamics within her work.

Produced by Ella-mai Robey.

With Kirsty Lang

Veronica Mars, the film spin-off of the noughties TV show, is the first major Hollywood film to be crowd-funded. Raising its entire budget through the Kickstarter platform, its success inspired other high profile stars including Spike Lee and Zach Braff to finance their passion projects through the site. Briony Hanson, Head of Film at the British Council, reviews the film and discusses the impact of Kickstarter on film financing.

To discuss the impact of Kickstarter - which marked another milestone last week as total pledges to the site surpassed $1 billion - CEO and co-founder Yancey Strickler discusses the future for the platform, and whether controversial pitches by celebrities are really contrary to the site's original ethos.

Vivienne Franzmann's first play, Mogadishu, explored the culture of a contemporary London secondary school. It drew on her background as a secondary school teacher and went on to win her the Bruntwood Prize - the UK's biggest national playwriting competition - in 2008. Franzmann is now a full-time playwright and as her third play, Pests, opens at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, she talks to Kirsty Lang about her writing life and being inspired by the women she came across as a resident prison playwright.

As Ricky Gervais prepares for his UK tour as David Brent and his backing band Foregone Conclusion, David Quantick looks at the history of the fake band from Spinal Tap to The Rutles.

Producer: Rebecca Armstrong.