Front Row

Dame Judi Dench looks back at her six decade career in theatre, television and film, from playing Lady Macbeth to M in Bond.

As she prepares to return to the stage for a series of conversations at the Bridge Theatre in London, Judi discusses Shakespeare, Musicals, Awards, how she copes with losing her eyesight, and how she was originally told she didn't have a face for films.

Now she has a record seven Oscar nominations and one win, eight Olivier awards and eleven BAFTAs.

Presenter: John Wilson

Steven Appleby’s comic strips have graced the pages of many national newspapers including The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and The Observer. Now he’s created his first graphic novel, Dragman - a thriller about August Crimp who discovers that wearing women’s clothing gives him the power of flight. As his superhero alter ego, Dragman, he’s on the case of the missing souls, but can he also use his powers to save his marriage and himself?

Playwright Sally Abbott discusses her new play, directed by Kathy Burke, that helps to mark 25 years of Frantic Assembly and their distinctively physical take on theatre. I Think We Are Alone is a multi-stranded story of the connections - and disconnections - between people and their desire for intimacy.

Humans hunting humans for sport – this is the theme of two new films, The Hunt and Bacurau, both seemingly inspired by the 1920s short story The Most Dangerous Game. Controversial thriller The Hunt is a satire of the American political landscape, with a liberal elite hunting conservative 'deplorables'; while Bacurau explores neo-colonial tensions with a small Brazilian village held siege by bloodthirsty American and European hunters. Mark Eccleston reviews.

Presenter Samira Ahmed

The Miss World beauty pageant in 1970 is probably best remebered for one thing: The Women’s Liberation movement's intervention. They staged a protest at the final and it got them on the front pages of newspapers around the world. And now it’s the subject of a new film called Misbehaviour starring Keira Knightley, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Jessie Buckley. We speak to the film’s director Philippa Lowthorpe about bring this moment of history to life on screen.

We continue our new series, J’Accuse, in which contributors get the chance to make a short, uninterrupted argument on an artistic subject that matters to them. Tonight John is joined by bestselling author Marian Keyes who shares her thoughts on the fiction genre often dismissed as Chick Lit.

A daily 9 minute breakfast show, hosted by Love Island’s Chris Taylor and drag queen Ginger Johnson is the newest way that entertainment and technology have combined to improve mental health. A new app, Wakey, has been designed with scientists and television experts to come straight to your phone so you can watch as you start the day in a positive way. Founder Deborah Coughlin tells us how it works.

The jazz pianist McCoy Tyner, whose death at the age of 81 was announced at the weekend, made his name playing alongside improvisational saxophonist John Coltrane before carving out his own career as a soloist, bandleader and composer. Music writer Kevin Le Gendre looks back over the life of the influential figure.

Presenter: John Wilson

In recent weeks, two new reports on diversity in the arts have generated headlines. Arts Council England has issued a document called Equality, Diversity and the Creative Case, and The Creative Diversity Network, an organisation funded by all the main broadcasters, has released its third assessment of representation on screen and off.

Discussing what we can be learnt from their findings are:

And in the first of an occasional series on Front Row called J'accuse, Tiffany Jenkins makes the case for a greater diversity of opinion in the arts.

Presenter: Stig Abell

The Mash Report’s Rachel Parris discusses why her private life rather than politics has inspired her new stand up show, All Change Please.

As the Greater Manchester Combined Authority announces increased funding for arts venues across its ten boroughs, we talk to Mayor of Greater Manchester and former Culture Secretary Andy Burnham about the effect Local Government funding cuts have had on councils’ cultural activities.

Actor and writer Mark Gatiss discusses his lifelong fascination with the artist Aubrey Beardsley, who died of tuberculosis in 1898 at the age of just 25. Gatiss has made a BBC4 film about Beardsley, famous for his distinctive black and white drawings, which coincides with an extensive new exhibition at Tate Britain of the artist’s work.

Presenter: John Wilson

Playwright and writer Hassan Abdulrazzak discusses his latest play The Special Relationship, a dark satire about the deportation of ex-prisoners from the US, which is based on interviews with real ex-prisoners.

Tim Robey reviews Onward, the new Pixar/Disney animation about two teenage elves who go in search of their father, set in a realm of mythical creatures who live as humans do, with houses and modern appliances.

Presenter: Nikki Bedi

Hilary Mantel's novel The Mirror and The Light is published tomorrow. In the Front Row readers' panel, three of our listeners - Deborah Stuart, Sasha Simic, and Laura Helen Back - gather to discuss the first two novels in the Cromwell trilogy, Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, and to express their hopes and fears for the final instalment.

Shay D, a UK hip hop artist, is curating a national tour of women-only artists, to redress the balance of the male-dominated world. She joins Stig along with journalist J’na Jefferson from New York to talk about how women are cutting through the hip hop and rap world.

How does isolation or solitude breed creativity? As the likelihood of self-isolation increases with the coronavirus situation, what can we learn from artists about the creative properties of solitude, loneliness and even boredom? We discuss with composer and musician Errollyn Wallen, who composes from a remote lighthouse in Scotland, and poet and author Andrew Greig, who divides his time living in Edinburgh and the Orkney Islands.

Presenter Stig Abell

Koby Adom on directing Malorie Blackman's best-selling young adult novel Noughts + Crosses for BBC1, creating an alternative world where Europe has been colonised by Africa, the ruling class are black and the white population are slaves.

As Korean film Parasite dominates the box office, have theatre, film and TV audiences become more accepting of subtitles? Declan Donnellan, artistic director of theatre company Cheek by Jowl, who is directing Thomas Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy on stage in Italian with English surtitles, discusses with Film and TV critic Hannah McGill.

The Broadway production of Pretty Woman The Musical, based on the 1990s classic rom-com, has transferred to London, featuring new songs co-written by Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance, and a book based on the original film script. Liz Carr, actor and fan of the film, reviews.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Main Image: Sephy Hadley (Masali Baduza) and Callum McGregor (Jack Rowan) in Noughts + Crosses. Credit: BBC / Mammoth Screen / Ilze Kitshoff

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

Presenter: John Wilson

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