Front Row: Archive 2014

With Kirsty Lang.

Scarlett Johansson plays an alien wandering around Glasgow looking for human prey in Under The Skin, which was filmed without some of the cast realising they were in a movie or that they were talking to a Hollywood star. Novelist Toby Litt delivers his verdict on Jonathan Glazer's adaptation of Michael Farber's science fiction novel.

On the day research from the University of Sheffield shows half the country picks up a book at least once a week for pleasure, and 45% prefer television, Front Row looks at the fast changing world of publicising books. Publishers are producing their own book programmes and podcasts, authors are appearing in online trailers and are increasingly responsible for promoting their own work. Kirsty finds out about the latest developments from Cathy Rentzenbrink from the Bookseller, Sara Lloyd from Pan Macmillan and author Toby Litt.

Karen Joy Fowler's novel The Jane Austen Book Club spent 13 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and was a successful Hollywood film. She talks to Kirsty about her latest book We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. It's the story of an American family - with a twist. Karen explains how she drew upon her psychologist father's work with rats and chimpanzees when writing the novel, and how important it is to learn good 'chimp manners' when visiting a chimp colony.

After a successful on-air pilot, Douglas Henshall returns as a detective and single dad in Shetland, an adaptation of Ann Cleeves' series of crime novels about nefarious activities on the remote Scottish islands.

Producer: Ellie Bury.

With John Wilson. We announce the winner of the inaugural Folio Prize and speak to her/him live from the ceremony in London. The £40,000 prize celebrates the best English-language fiction from around the world, regardless of form, genre, or the author's country of origin.

Cézanne and the Modern is a new exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum Oxford, featuring the collection of Henry and Rose Pearlman. They began collecting in 1945 with a work by Jacques Lipchitz and it now includes a matchless group of paintings and watercolours by Paul Cézanne, as well as paintings and sculptures by artists including Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Edouard Manet, Vincent van Gogh, and Edgar Degas. Curator John Whitely talks to John Wilson about the collection.

John also talks to guitar hero Jeff Beck about a 50 year career that has seen him play with the likes of The Yardbirds, David Bowie, Eric Clapton and Morrissey.

And as a new teen movie the GBF (Gay Best Friend) is about to open, writer Damian Barr looks at the appeal of the gay best friend in film.

Producer Dymphna Flynn.

With Samira Ahmed

Award winning writer Alexander McCall Smith talks about his latest novel The Forever Girl, which focuses on an expatriate community in the Cayman Islands. Smith talks about writing from a female perspective, Tartan Noir, and why - despite addressing serious issues - his work remains resolutely cheerful.

The Walshes is a new comedy series about a tight-knit family in Dublin - really tight-knit: the Walshes are tripping over each other as the two kids out-grow the family home. The series is co-written by Graham Linehan with the five-strong comedy troupe, Diet Of Worms, who also play the main roles. Boyd Hilton, TV editor of Heat magazine, reviews.

Set in Laos and written and directed by Australian Kim Mordaunt, The Rocket has won acclaim at film festivals. The central character is Ahlo, a young boy whose family believes he brings bad luck. After his family is displaced from their village to make way for a huge dam, Ahlo decides to prove his worth by building a rocket. Ryan Gilbey reviews.

The creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, have brought out a computer game. South Park: The Stick Of Truth is an epic quest...to become cool. Armed with weapons of legend, gamers defeat underpant gnomes, hippies and other forms of evil - and earn a place at the side of Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny. Computer-game author Naomi Alderman reviews.

Playwright Stella Feehily talks about bringing her play about the NHS to the stage. Based in part on Feehily's experiences after her husband, director Max Stafford-Clark, had a stroke, This May Hurt A Bit stars Stephanie Cole (Coronation Street, Waiting For God) as an NHS supporter who becomes ill and finds that all is not necessarily well with the NHS.

Producer Claire Bartleet.

With John Wilson.

The poets laureate of the UK, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland will share a stage for the first time this Friday. All the poets laureate are women - and this has never happened before in the history of the laureateships. Carol Ann Duffy, Gillian Clarke and Liz Lochhead discuss their roles as national poets and talk about reflecting a nation in verse.

Reece Shearsmith (Psychoville, The League Of Gentlemen) swaps surreal dark comedy for factual drama in The Widower. Based on the crimes of convicted murderer, Malcolm Webster, the three part series charts the events that led to a charming male nurse systematically attempting to murder more than one wife. Chris Dunkley reviews.

Elizabeth McGovern discusses performing with her band, Sadie And The Hotheads. Best-known for playing Cora, the Countess of Grantham, on Downton Abbey, McGovern currently switches between filming Downton Abbey in the day, and performing on stage with The Hotheads at night. She talks about song-writing and how everyday experiences have inspired her songs.

Director Jamie Lloyd talks to John on the set of his latest musical. With The Commitments already in London's West End, Jamie discusses taking on the oddly titled and unexpected Broadway hit, Urinetown. He also talks about his fast-paced and sometimes bloody style, working with Harold Pinter, and plans to bring the film Back To The Future to the stage.

Producer: Rebecca Nicholson.

With John Wilson.

Guy Garvey, Elbow's lead singer and guitarist, talks about the band's sixth studio album, The Take Off and Landing of Everything. Written during a period of change for the band, the lyrics cover the break-up of a long term relationship. Guy Garvey discusses how recent events inspired the band's song writing.

300: Rise Of An Empire is the sequel to 2007's 300, and - like the original - inspired by the work of graphic novelist Frank Miller, and with the same stylised, blood-spattered storyline. The sequel focusses on Themistokles, the Athenian general who - during the same three days as Thermopylae - led the Greek navy against the Persian navy, commanded by a brutal woman named Artemisia. Natalie Haynes reviews.

The broadcaster Sir David Frost is to have a memorial stone in Westminster Abbey. The Dean of the Abbey gives John a tour of the site and David Frost's new neighbours, and explains how decisions about these memorials are reached.

Producer: Olivia Skinner.

With John Wilson,

An enormous Viking longboat - the biggest ever discovered - is the central piece in the British Museum's new exhibition about the Viking era. Taking pride of place in the museum's newly-constructed Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery, the longboat is surrounded by other artefacts of warfare, as well as many treasures that the Vikings created - or looted. A year ago, British Museum director Neil MacGregor took John round the work-in-progress when the gallery was still a building-site; now he explains how the new space will aid future displays, and curator Gareth Williams gives John a tour of the ferocious Viking weaponry and stunning jewellery.

As part of a BBC series marking the centenary of World War One, Ian McDiarmid (Star Wars) and Tim Pigott-Smith (Spooks) star in political thriller 37 Days. Set in Whitehall and Berlin during 1914, the factual drama chronicles the count down to the start of the First World War. Sarah Crompton reviews.

John Carter Cash talks about his father and his legacy as never-heard-before recordings, made in the 1980s during Cash's last days with his long-time label Columbia Records, are being released.

A lost novella by Jack Kerouac has been published for the first time, more than seventy years after the author left it in a university dorm room in New York. The Haunted Life is a coming of age story and, like much of Kerouac's later work, is autobiographical. Michael Carlson discusses whether Kerouac's early writing tells us anything new about his later works, On the Road and Big Sur.

Producer Claire Bartleet.

With Samira Ahmed.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is the latest film from Wes Anderson, the director of Moonrise Kingdom and The Royal Tenenbaums. It follows the adventures of a flamboyant hotel concierge Gustave H, played by Ralph Fiennes, and his trainee Lobby Boy, Zero, played by Tony Revolori. Larushka Ivan-Zedeh reviews.

The French film director Alain Resnais has died at the age of 91. His last film, The Life of Riley, was based on a play by Alan Ayckbourn and will be released this month. Alan Ayckbourn discusses his relationship with Resnais, who adapted three of his plays for the screen.

A new exhibition at Tate Britain explores the lure of ruins for artists ranging from John Constable to Rachel Whiteread. Ruin Lust includes paintings of picturesque ruins from the 18th Century and 20th century photographs of inner city decay. Author Iain Sinclair discusses why so many artists have found ruins compelling.

French author Marie Darrieussecq's latest novel, All The Way, charts the sexual awakening of Solange, a young French girl who's obsessed with sex and with losing her virginity. Marie Darrieussecq became a French literary sensation with her first novel, Pig Tales, about a woman turning into a pig. She discusses writing about adolescence, desire and the feminine experience.

Presented by John Wilson

Since Damon Albarn's introduction to the public as the lead singer of Blur, he's become famous for his collaborations with a wide range of partners including artist Jamie Hewlett, the next Artistic Director of the National Theatre Rufus Norris, and Soul legend Bobby Womack. As he prepares to play songs from his forthcoming debut solo album, for a special 6Music festival gig, Damon talks to John about going it alone.

Maxine Peake is one of the subjects in a new exhibition at the Lowry dedicated to portrait painter Jonathon Yeo. Maxine and Jonathan describe the experience of creating a portrait from their different perspectives. And when she's not being captured in oils, Maxine is the star of the BBC legal drama Silk where she plays the role of barrister Martha Costello QC. The new series of Silk starts this week and Maxine discusses how Martha's character has developed.

Suranne Jones plays one half of television police duo Scott and Bailey. The series, described as the "Cagney and Lacey of Manchester", arose out of Suranne's desire to find better parts for women. She's now playing one of Virginia Woolf's most distinctive creations, Orlando, in a new production at the Royal Exchange Theatre. Suranne discusses with John what this play, about a character who lives as a man and a woman, can contribute to our contemporary view of the gender divide.

The musician Kiran Leonard will be performing on the main stage of the 6Music festival on Saturday 1 March. He released his debut album last year at the age of 17 and he's a multi-instrumentalist who lists Mothers of Invention, Sufjan Stevens, Albert Ayler, Krzysztof Penderecki, and the Beach Boys, as just a handful of his influences. He'll be playing live on Front Row.

Producer: Ekene Akalawu.

With Will Gompertz.

Marc Almond and John Harle discuss their new collaboration, The Tyburn Tree, a collection of songs about Gothic London, whose subjects include the Highgate Vampire, Jack The Ripper and the Elizabethan mystic John Dee.

50 years ago the Liverpool Everyman theatre opened its doors to the public for the first time. 40 years ago, Willy Russell provided the theatre with his first big hit play and their first London transfer - John, Paul, George, Ringo... and Bert. As the Everyman re-opens after an extensive three-year building project, Willy Russell discusses the theatre's past. Gemma Bodinetz, Artistic Director of the Everyman and Playhouse theatres, and theatre writer Lyn Gardner discuss what the role of the theatre building should be in the 21st century.

Gary Shteyngart, the Russian-born American author, whose books include The Russian Debutante's Handbook and Super Sad True Love Story, has recently released his memoir, Little Failure. Named after the nickname bestowed upon him by his mother, the book documents Gary's childhood in the Soviet Union, his move to America at the age of seven, and his life thereafter as a Russian Jewish immigrant and wannabe writer.

Glastonbury was named Best Festival at last night's NME Awards and this morning Dolly Parton announced that she has been booked for this year. Emily Eavis explains how they choose their megastar line-ups and what she intends to do with the festival as she takes a more prominent role in its planning.

Producer: Ellie Bury.

With John Wilson.

Peter Gabriel's film Back to Front documents the experience of performing his most commercially successful album, 1986's So, with the band he originally toured with. He tells John why despite being a famously forward looking artist, he wanted to revisit the album once more.

The National Portrait Gallery's exhibition The Great War in Portraits explores how artistic representations of the conflict and its participants changed as the fighting progressed. Beginning with magisterial portraits of leaders and generals and finishing with the anguished German expressionism of the Die Brücke group, the show depicts the vastly divergent experiences bound up in 'the war to end all wars'. Rachel Cooke reviews.

One of the world's most celebrated flamenco guitarists, Paco de Lucia, has died in Mexico, at the age of 66. In 2004, he was awarded Spain's prestigious Asturias Prize for Art as the "most universal of flamenco artists". We speak to his friend and fellow flamenco guitarist Paco Pena about his legacy and why he will be remembered as a revolutionary and a genius.

Helen Oyeyemi was listed as one of Granta's Best Young Novelists 2013. She wrote her first novel The Icarus Girl whilst studying for her A-levels - and secured a book deal on the same day as she received her results. Still only 29, she is about to publish her fifth title Boy, Snow, Bird. She talks to John about confronting issues of race in the novel, her love of fairy tale and myth and how Hitchcock inspired her lead character.

Mark Thomas discusses the legacy of controversial comedian Bill Hicks, who died 20 years ago today.

Producer: Rebecca Armstrong.