Front Row

50 years after last playing the Danish prince, Sir Ian McKellen is returning to the role of Hamlet, in an age, colour gender-blind production.

At the age of 82, he has new insight to the character. He tells presenter John Wilson it’s clear to him Hamlet is bisexual, and how he is tackling the physical challenges of stage acting.

He talks about his coming out in a BBC radio interview in 1988, how it liberated him and improved his acting.

He also talks about his love of the theatre, how drama is an important aspect of British identity, and the joy of working in a company, the way his career began.

Presenter: John Wilson

We announce and speak to the winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.

Peggy Ashcroft said that Winnie, in Happy Days by Samuel Beckett, ‘is one of those parts…that actresses will want to play in the way that actors aim at Hamlet – a ‘summit’ part’. She was right, several great actresses, Ashcroft herself, Billie Whitelaw and Maxine Peake, have – while buried above the waist, then up to the neck, in a mound - scaled that summit. In Front Row, Samira Ahmed talks to two more, Juliet Stevenson, an acclaimed Winnie in 2015 and Lisa Dwan, in the 60th anniversary production that opens tonight, about the joys and trials of playing this desperately cheerful woman.

Tonight, the main stage of the Bristol Old Vic will play host to Outlier, a play about isolation, addiction and friendship in rural Devon. It is written by performance poet Malaika Kegode in her theatrical debut, and accompanied by the music of local Bristolian band Jakabol. While normally, debut playwrights may have been programmed for one of the theatre’s more intimate spaces, the pandemic has given emerging talent the opportunity to occupy the spotlight. Tom Morris, Artistic Director of the Bristol Old Vic, explains how the pandemic has actually enabled more risk-taking.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Starring James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan, Together is a new BBC2 drama following a couple forced to re-evaluate their relationship during lockdown. Polar opposites in personality and political opinion, the unnamed characters “he” and “she” are only together for the sake of their young son. Can physical proximity create a new emotional connection? Critic Hanna Flint reviews.

The winner of the 2021 CILIP Carnegie Medal for outstanding achievement in children’s writing was today announced as Jason Reynolds for his book Look Both Ways. It’s a series of intertwined stories that focuses on the unsupervised 15 minutes when children walk home from school and includes children dealing with bullying, homophobia, sick parents and anxiety. We speak to Jason about the stories and his work as US National Ambassador of Young People’s Literature.

Colin Macleod’s home is on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, leading an outdoor life as a crofter and fisherman, accompanied by his two sheepdogs. But he’s also an acclaimed singer-songwriter who’s performed with Sheryl Crow, Van Morrison and Robert Plant. His new album Hold Fast is out this week – and he’ll be performing live especially for Front Row.

Main image: Colin Macleod

To play the celebrated British painter, J.M.W. Tuner, for Mike Leigh’s film, Mr Turner, the actor Timothy Spall learned to paint. Four years later, it was the paintings he created while playing the role of another famous British painter, LS Lowry, that led to his first commission for an exhibition of his own paintings. Timothy joins Front Row to talk about finding his own style as a painter.

As a junior doctor and playwright, Shaan Sahota has a unique perspective on the past 18 months. In her new play Under the Mask, she has distilled her experience as a frontline doctor at the height of the pandemic into a 60 minute audio installation. She joins us to discuss the work, writing as therapy and experimenting with 3D binaural sound.

Irish Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin TD has proposed a basic income guarantee for artists. She explains the details for the pilot scheme, what it would cost, who would be eligible and how much they’d get.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegria Hudes discuss the new screen version of their smash hit musical, In the Heights, which celebrates the intertwined lives of Latino immigrants and their children in the Washington Heights neighbourhood of Manhattan, where both Miranda (who wrote the music) and Alegria Hudes (who wrote the script) grew up. The drama is focussed on Usnavi - the young owner of a cornershop or bodega, - where friends, relatives and community elders hang out, share their dreams and fears and fall in love.

With a planned extension of Coronavirus restrictions announced this evening, many theatres and music venues are having to consider delaying opening or admitting full-capacity audiences. Many had been counting on opening on 21st June to stay afloat. Theatre producer Sonia Friedman and Mark Davyd, chief executive of the Music Venues Trust, discuss the repercussions of the extended restrictions.

Samira talks to writer, actress and director Gerda Stevenson about her film of George Mackay Brown’s play The Storm Watchers made for the St Magnus International Festival in Orkney in celebration of Mackay Brown’s centenary. Described as a play for voices THE STORM WATCHERS was published in 1967 in his book of short stories A CALENDAR OF LOVE. The film was shot in the Orkneys under lock down featuring a cast of local almost entirely non professional actors who shot the interior scenes on their mobile phones.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Main image: Lin-Manuel Miranda

Poet Laureate Simon Armitage reflects on the experience of the pandemic in new BBC film, A Pandemic Poem: Where Did The World Go? Interspersed with interviews from people across the UK, the poem chronicles the pandemic from the first lockdown to the rollout of the vaccination programme.

What one memory would you choose if you had to live it forever when you die? That’s the question posed in After Life, Jack Thorne and Bunny Christie’s new production at the National Theatre inspired by Hirokazu Kore-eda’s 1998 film. Theatre critic Ava Wong Davies and the British Council’s Director of Film Briony Hanson review the play and consider wider depictions of the afterworld on stage and screen.

Chaitanya Tamhane’s first feature film, Court, was selected to represent India in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Oscars in 2015. His second feature film, The Disciple, which focuses on a musician trying to become an Indian classical music master, won three prizes at last year’s Venice Film Festival. With The Disciple now showing on Netflix, Chaitanya joins Front Row to discuss creating a new cinematic vision of India.

Major publishing organisations and leading authors have joined forces to campaign against potential changes to copyright law, which they say would flood the UK with cheap foreign editions and threaten livelihoods. The Save our Books campaign, organised by the Publishers Association, the Society of Authors, the Association of Authors’ Agents and the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society, is in response to a new government consultation into the UK’s post-Brexit approach to copyright. Stephen Lotinga, CEO of the Publishers Association, joins us to discuss.

Presenter Tom Sutcliffe

Noel Gallagher discusses his new album Back the Way We Came: Vol 1, a Greatest Hits compilation from a decade of his band High Flying Birds that he formed once Oasis broke up in 2011.

In the week that the Football Association has appointed its first ever female chair, playwright Amanda Whittington talks to John Wilson about her play Atalanta Forever. Set in 1920s Huddersfield, it is inspired by the true story of a women’s football team so successful that The Football Association banned women from playing the beautiful game. Thousands thronged to watch women's football but the FA declared, 'The game...is quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged.' People are thronging to watch the play too: its first performance at the Piece Hall in Halifax was a sell-out.

Presenter: John Wilson

Danny Elfman has composed the score for over 100 films including Batman, Men in Black, Edward Scissorhands, as well as writing The Simpsons theme tune. Before he worked in film he was a rock musician in a band called Oingo Boingo, and when the movie industry went into lockdown he used the opportunity to return to his rock roots. He’s just released a double-album called Big Mess. Danny talks to Samira about both his musical lives.

Billed as Gossip Girl meets Get Out, Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé’s debut novel, Ace of Spades, is a YA thriller that explores the effects of institutional racism. Set in an elite high school, it follows two black teenagers who are targeted by an anonymous texter spreading damaging rumours about them to the entire student body. Faridah joins us to discuss her book which landed her a one million dollar book deal.

Public statuary has a reputation for mostly commemorating male subjects, but a newly unveiled statue of suffragette Emily Davison in Epsom is part of a trend to address that imbalance. But how difficult is it to get approval for new statues, who decides whether a subject is important enough and how do you start the process? We speak with two women, Sarah Dewing, who was instrumental in the Emily Davison statue, and Charlotte Cornell, who is beginning a campaign for a statue to Aphra Behn.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Main image: Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

The artist Ai Weiwei has just unveiled his seven-metre-tall Gilded Cage at Blenheim Palace, a sculpture which addresses the international migrant crisis. He discusses this, as well as the largest exhibition of his work ever staged, in Lisbon, and why he has now made Portugal his home.

In the run-up to the awarding of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021, Front Row is talking to each of the shortlisted authors. This week it’s the turn of Claire Fuller for her novel Unsettled Ground which has won praise for its sensitivity and intelligence. It’s the story of twins in their 50s, living a life of rural isolation and poverty. Following the death of their mother, lies and secrets begin to emerge and their home comes under threat.

Open Ground is a new visitor experience which enables people to hear recordings of the late Nobel Laureate, Seamus Heaney, reading his own poems in the locations that inspired them. An accompanying app lets you learn more about the context of the poem. How successful will it be in keeping alive the Nobel Laureate’s poetry for a new generation? Freya McClements reports.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

Florian Zeller’s play The Father was hailed as a masterpiece. Zeller made his debut as a director with his film of it, and Sir Anthony Hopkins won an Oscar for his performance as the patriarch sliding into dementia. Zeller tells Kirsty Lang how he was determined to make a film, rather a film version of a play, and how he makes the audience experience the disorientation of a man as his mind crumbles.

The author and teacher Jeffrey Boakye has made a playlist with a difference – it’s A Musical History of Modern Black Britain in 28 Songs - but if that title runs too long for you, he talks to Kirsty about why he’s called his new book Musical Truth.

And three years ago Ita O’Brien joined us on Front Row to talk about how intimacy co-ordinators were beginning to be used in film and television to ensure the comfort and wellbeing of actors during the shooting of sex scenes. Last night, Michaela Coel dedicated her Bafta win for I May Destroy You to Ita, who joins us now to talk about how the landscape has changed since she was last spoke on Front Row, and what progress has been made.

Presenter: Kirsty Lang

Main image: Sir Anthony Hopkins in Florian Zeller's film The Father