Front Row

Dev Patel talks about playing David Copperfield in Armando Iannucci’s retelling of Charles Dickens' classic ode to grit and perseverance, The Personal History of David Copperfield. This is a film for our cosmopolitan age with a diverse ensemble cast of actors from a range of ethnicities. Patel, star of Slumdog Millionaire, describes telling director Iannucci that the production would have to ‘weather a storm’ because of this colour-blind approach. The film also stars Nikki Amuka-Bird, Peter Capaldi‎, Benedict Wong and ‎Hugh Laurie.

To launch the season, three of our Risk List judges - author Will Self, critic and columnist Ellen E Jones and performer and writer Scottee – define what they mean by risk in the context of art, discuss if we live in risk taking or safety seeking times, and set out what they’re looking for in contenders for the list.

Stig Abell is joined in the studio by Number One Bestselling author Kimberley Chambers, ‘The Queen of Gangland Crime’, to discuss her new novel, Queenie, the prequel to her successful series of Butlers Family gangster novels. Set in Whitechapel in the 1930s, the book follows Queenie as she watches her family struggle, learning lessons the hard way. When she was a little girl there was one thing Queenie knew, that she was going to get out of this... then a tall, dark and handsome stranger walked into her life, giving her hope for a different future.

Main image: Dev Patel in David Copperfield

Presenter: Stig Abell

Playwright Lucy Kirkwood discusses her return to the National Theatre following the critically-acclaimed Mosquitoes in 2017 with her new play The Welkin, which stars Maxine Peake and Ria Zmitrowicz. It’s the story of a woman sentenced to hang for murder in 1759 but whose claims of pregnancy could save her life. A Jury of Matrons is assembled - 12 women who will decide the condemned woman’s fate.

Terrence Malick's latest film A Hidden Life is a historical drama based on a true story which depicts the life of Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian peasant farmer and devout Catholic, and the consequences he faced after refusing to pledge allegiance to the Nazis in World War II. Isabel Stevens reviews.

Folk singer Sam Lee has teamed up with electric guitarist and producer Bernard Butler on his new album Old Wow, which celebrates the joy of the natural world but also expresses fear about how the climate emergency is changing our relationship with the planet. Sam and Bernard discuss the album and Sam performs the most recent single, The Moon Shines Bright.

Presenter Nikki Bedi

Charlize Theron discusses her new film Bombshell, for which she's been Oscar nominated, in which she stars alongside Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie. It tells the true story of female Fox News presenters and personnel in New York who set out to expose the CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment in 2016.

The street gangs of Lagos are the setting for a new adaption of Oliver Twist for Radio 4. Writer Ayeesha Menon discusses how she transposed the story to Nigeria and what parallels she saw between the refugee crisis today and Victorian London.

Police procedural and the supernatural collide in a new Sky Atlantic drama, The Outsider, based on a book by Stephen King and starring Oscar nominee Cynthia Erivo. Karen Krizanovich reviews.

Monday 27th January is the first day of Independent Venue Week which aims to promote smaller music venues. We speak to the initiative's founder Sybil Bell on why they need support.

Presenter: John Wilson

As bushfires continue to ravage huge areas of land in Australia, how have artists and writers responded to the complex historical relationship the country has with this natural phenomenon? Writers Kathryn Heyman in Sydney and Danielle Clode in Adelaide join indigenous Australian artist Judy Watson from Brisbane to consider the place of fire in Australian arts, culture and the nation’s identity.

Writer Ben Richards discusses his new Sky One television drama series, COBRA, which stars Robert Carlyle as a PM under pressure. Like the Government’s emergency committee it focuses on, the series is named after the room in which the committee meets - Cabinet Office Briefing Room A”, and explores how a national crisis tests the limits of the British government and civil society.

In 1910 the unknown Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel, little known clog dancers, set sail for New York as part of Fred Karno's famous music hall troupe. On this journey Charlie and Stan shared a cabin and then spent two years together touring North America, with Stan as Charlie’s understudy. Chaplin never mentioned this. Laurel never stopped talking about it. Physical theatre company Told by an Idiot have turned the story into The Strange Tale of Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel, performed as if it were a silent film, live. Amalia Vitale plays Chaplin and she talks to Stig Abell about her role, and acting without speaking.

Presenter: Stig Abell

Michael B Jordan and Jamie Foxx on their new film Just Mercy, the story of one of America’s great miscarriages of justice. Michael plays lawyer Bryan Stevenson, who takes up the case of Walter McMillian, a man placed on death row for the 1986 murder of a woman in Alabama, even though there was no credible evidence linking him to the crime.

As a register for actors’ profiles, Spotlight describes itself as the 'home of stage and screen casting', but is it a home that is equally welcoming to all potential members in the acting industry? In the light of recent public criticism about its inclusivity for older actors, Helen Raw - who runs the British Actors Network - discusses Spotlight’s joining criteria and the changes she would like the organisation to make.

The shortlist for the 2019 T.S. Eliot Prize was announced last night and - at a time when the The Baftas and the Oscars are being criticised for being too white and too male - the poetry world has proved itself to be far more progressive than the cinema. The list comprised 4 women, one trans non binary and five men. The poet taking away the £25,000 cheque this year is Roger Robinson, who won for his collection A Portable Paradise. He talks to Samira Ahmed about his work that moves from black history to Grenfell, the Windrush and the NHS, along with poems about his family and personal life.

The poet Roddy Lumsden died last Friday. As well as his own work he was respected as organiser, teacher and mentor whose influence on recent poetry in Britain is profound. The writer Katy Evans-Bush, who knew him for 20 years, pays tribute.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

John talks to Oscar nominees including Charlize Theron (Best Actress), Jonathan Pryce (Best Actor) and Florence Pugh (Best Supporting Actress).

Critics Larushka Ivan-Zadeh and Ellen E Jones discuss the films in contention. Joker has most nominations, followed by 1917, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and The Irishman. Yet again the Best Director category is all male, though Greta Gerwig's Little Women is nominated for Best Picture.

John is also joined by producer Joanna Natasegara, whose film The Edge of Democracy is nominated for Best Documentary.

Presenter: John Wilson

Jonathan Coe talks about Middle England which has won the Costa Novel Award 2019. Set in the outskirts of Birmingham where car factories have been replaced by pound shops and in a London beset by riots and Olympic fever, it’s a state of the nation novel that tries to make sense of our times, with characters from both sides of the EU referendum divide.

Pop megastar Selena Gomez releases her 3rd studio album Rare. She’s been through an emotional rollercoaster in recent years, including an emergency kidney transplant, mental health struggles and public break-ups with Justin Bieber and The Weeknd - all inspiration for the album, which she describes as her most honest yet. Sophie Harris reviews.

Johnny Flynn was nominated for an Olivier Award for his performance in Jerusalem and won acclaim for his score for the BBC 4 series Detectorists. For BBC Radio 3 he has co-written the strange tale of a tax adviser’s struggle to uncover Russian tax fraud, his imprisonment by the authorities, and an American financier’s crusade for justice. Flynn tells us about Magnitsky The Musical, which tells the story of the origins of the Magnitsky Act which allows governments to sanction those whom they see as offenders against human rights.

And as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex indicate that their roles will be changing, Jan Dalley comments on royal patrons in the arts.

Presenter: Stig Abell

A teenage sex therapist on a high school campus is the premise of the hit Netflix series Sex Education. Starring Asa Butterfield and Gillian Anderson, its first season attracted 40m viewers in the first weeks of streaming and it’s back for a second series. Writer and creator Laurie Nunn discusses balancing serious sexual content with humour, why it’s hard to pin down the location and era of the series, and the debt it owes to the American high school movies of the '80s and '90s.

All this week Front Row is talking to the winners of the different categories of the Costa Book Awards. Tonight Samira hears from the poetry winner, Mary Jean Chan. Chan was a competitive fencer, representing Hong Kong, and her first collection takes its title, Flèche, from an offensive technique in the sport, but it also suggests the vulnerability of the body.

At the end of last year came news that podcasts will now be eligible for the Pulitzer Prize for Audio Reporting. What does this mean about the status and quality of podcasts and what are the trends in their consumption, whether streamed or downloaded via Apple, Spotify, BBC Sounds and others? Podcaster and critic Caroline Crampton joins us to discuss this along with Kate Hutchison, co-fouder of Lasso Audio, a new podcast talent agency based in New York.

Presenter Samira Ahmed

Freddie Fox on playing Jeremy Bamber in ITV's new six part factual drama White House Farm, about one fateful night in August 1985 when five members of the same family were murdered at an Essex farmhouse. The drama, which is based on extensive research, interviews and published accounts, tells the story of how Essex Police initially believed that Bamber’s sister Sheila Caffell had murdered her own family before turning the gun on herself but doubts soon began to emerge.

While some London shows sell out immediately and command huge ticket prices and regional theatres struggle to fill venues, we consider how theatres use their ticketing strategy to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. Critic Lyn Gardner, alongside Delia Barker, Programme Director at Camden Roundhouse and Robin Hawkes, Executive Director of Leeds Playhouse, discuss.

This week Front Row hears from the winners of each of the Costa Book Award categories. Tonight Jasbinder Bilan talks about her Children’s Book Award winner - Asha & The Spirit Bird - which fuses a children’s adventure story with magical realism.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

We discuss the controversy over this years BAFTA nominations. The most prominent categories - Best Film, Best Actor, Best Actress – remain predominantly white. There’s not a woman on the Best Director shortlist and all the Best Film nominees are stories about men. John Wilson asks the critic Larushka Ivan-Zadeh why this is and what it means for such awards. Do they have any meaning anymore?

Adam Sandler on his new film Uncut Gems in which he plays a charismatic New York jeweller who makes a high-stakes bet that could lead to the windfall of a lifetime. Directed by Josh and Benny Safdie and filmed in a relentless handheld style with a soundtrack to match, Uncut Gems charts Ratner's failing attempts to balance business, family and adversaries on all sides in pursuit of the ultimate win.

The Confessions of Frannie Langton has won the Costa First Novel Award. We speak to its author Sara Collins about her gothic novel that puts a mixed race woman centre stage in this page-turner about a double murder in Victorian London.

American composer David Lang’s new opera is Prisoner of the State, a contemporary take on Beethoven’s only opera Fidelio, with its strong message about political oppression and freedom. David talks to John ahead of the shows premiere.

Presenter: John Wilson