Front Row

Last month Baltimore Museum of Art announced that in 2020 it would only collect works of art by women, because in the last decade just 2% of global art auction spending was on work by women? At 26 major American museums just 11% of all acquisitions and 14% of exhibitions were by female artists. Frances Morris, Director of Tate Modern. and arts journalist Julia Halperin join John Wilson to discuss why there is such a gender imbalance in art collections and what can be done to rectify this.

In 2017, Britain’s oldest continuously working factory in the country, the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, was sold to American developers who wanted to turn it into a boutique hotel. Just last week the government intervened to prevent Tower Hamlets from granting permission to the proposed development. Gillian Darley, who writes about architecture and landscape, and Stephen Clarke, a trustee of the UK Heritage Building Preservation Trust, consider the importance of commercial viability rather than sentiment when it comes to protecting old buildings and industries.

Graeae Theatre, which puts deaf and disabled actors at the centre of their productions, struck by the metaphorical deafness of Chekhov's characters in Three Sisters, who don't listen to each other, has long wanted to to tackle the play. Writer Polly Thomas and actor Genevieve Barr discuss their new adaptation for Radio 4. It's a radical re-imagining of the Russian original exploring how, even today, isolation and stagnation are the daily lot of many. The Russian country estate becomes an isolated farm in 21st century Yorkshire; Moscow becomes London. Olivia, Maisie and Iris struggle to survive with intermittent internet, and a sense of dislocation from the rest of the world. Episode one airs on Radio 4 on Saturday.

Presenter: John Wilson

Inua Ellams, writer of the hit play Barber Shop Chronicles, has transposed Chekhov's Three Sisters to 1960s Nigeria, on the brink of the Biafran Civil War. His new version of Three Sisters is at London's National Theatre.

Two bananas taped to a wall with duct tape have just been sold for $120,000 each at the Art Basel fair in Miami. These works of art were created by Maurizio Cattelan, whose 18 carat gold toilet was stolen from Blenheim Palace recently. So has the artworld gone bananas? Art critic Louisa Buck gives her view.

Marriage Story, which stars Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson as a divorcing couple, has just swept the board at the Gotham Awards and is a frontrunner for BAFTAs and Oscars. As it is released onto Netflix, Stig talks to writer-director Noah Baumbach.

Presenter Stig Abell

Sarah Gosling is joined by Ferris & Sylvester, music director Kojo Samuel and composer Tom Foskett-Barnes, in a show recorded at the recent BBC Music Introducing Live weekend in London's Tobacco Docks.

Ferris & Sylvester are a blues folk duo, championed by BBC Introducing, who played Glastonbury this year and are recording their debut album. Izzy Ferris and Archie Sylvester perform two of their songs, Flying Visit and London's Blues.

Kojo Samuel is one of pop music's top music directors, who works with Stormzy, Jess Glynne, Dave, Rudimental and Rita Ora, and was responsbile for Stormzy's Glastonbury performance this year. But what does a music director actually do? Kojo Samuel explains.

Composer Tom Foskett-Barnes has created a new audio documentary about the London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard, the charity phoneline that has provided help since the 1970s. He was comissioned by the New Creative scheme, run by BBC Introducing Arts and Arts Council England.

BBC Music Introducing Live is a weekend of masterclasses, interactive sessions and performances for emerging artists, music fans and anyone who wants to know more about how to get into the music industry.

Presenter Sarah Gosling is the BBC Music Introducing Presenter for Devon and Cornwall and hosts evening shows on BBC Radio Devon.

Producer: Timothy Prosser

Lesley Manville, who was nominated for an Oscar for her last screen role in Phantom Thread, talks about her new film, Ordinary Love, which co-stars Liam Neeson and which explores the impact a diagnosis of breast cancer has upon an older couple.

It was announced last night that the four artists shortlisted for this year’s Turner Prize are to share the £40,000 award after the contenders sent a letter to judges proposing they should win as a collective. One of the prize's judges, Alessio Antoniolli, discusses the panel’s decision, alongside critics Adrian Searle and Waldemar Januszczak who will consider the broader implications for arts prizes.

An imagined film with vampires, witches and a girl gang is the story of Bat For Lashes' new album, Lost Girls. Natasha Khan discusses how moving to LA, 80s movies and falling in love shaped her fifth studio album, and her first after leaving a 10-year record deal.

Presenter: Stig Abell

Stand up comedian Nish Kumar was booed off stage at a charity gig for The Lord's Taverners. How do comedians cope when the audience disagrees with their political stance or just takes against them? Ayesha Hazarika is a much-in-demand comedian with well-known strong political views. What are her strategies for coping when facing vocal hostility from the people who've paid to see her perform?

Honey Boy is a new film written by Shia LaBeouf, a largely autobiographical story of an actor in rehab who, in an attempt to cure his PTSD, revisits memories of his abusive childhood. Jumping between present day and 1995, LaBeouf plays a version of his own father, a recovering alcoholic, sharing a motel room with son and child star 'Otis' whilst filming for children’s television nearby. Documentary filmmaker and film critic Charlie Lyne gives us his verdict.

There's a heated debate in film circles at the moment. As cinema companies and Netflix clash over the distribution of Martin Scorsese’s epic mob drama The Irishman, how vital is it that it should it be seen on the big screen vs streaming on Netflix? The streaming service has a policy of restricting the amount of time its films are shown on actual cinema screens. We ask whether going to the cinema may eventually become an elite pursuit.

Sri Lankan author Romesh Gunesekera discusses his new novel Suncatcher. It’s set in the country of his birth in 1964 when national political turbulence seems to echo the emotional turmoil experienced by the central character, Kairo, a boy on the cusp of adolescence attempting to make sense of the world around him.

Presenter: John Wilson

Edward Norton on his new film Motherless Brooklyn, which he wrote, directed, produced and stars in, as a lonely private detective with Tourette Syndrome in 1950s New York. The film also stars Bruce Willis, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alec Baldwin and Willem Dafoe, and is based on Jonathan Lethem's 1999 novel.

Bristol–based artist Luke Jerram discusses his latest artwork, Extinction Bell, which he hopes will help raise awareness of the issue of biodiversity loss. The bell will toll once, 150-200 times a day, at random intervals, indicating the estimated number of species lost worldwide every 24 hours. It will tour to a number of different venues including museums of natural history, botanic gardens and zoos, and its first location is Bristol Zoo Gardens.

Elizabeth is Missing is adapted from Emma Healey's bestselling 2014 novel and stars Glenda Jackson as Maud – a woman struggling with dementia who attempts to piece together what has happened to her best friend. Raifa Rafiq reviews.

Midnight Movie is a new play by Eve Leigh which combines British Sign Language, captioning, audio description and the spoken word and opens at the Royal Court this week with Nadia Nadarajah and Tom Penn. Samira Ahmed talks to the play’s director Rachel Bagshaw about the way in which the play explores the impact of the digital revolution on disabled people and the issues that face disabled practitioners working in theatre.

Presenter : Samira Ahmed

The Boy in the Dress is a major new musical at the RSC in Stratford based on the book by David Walliams, with songs by Robbie Williams and Guy Chambers, a script by Mark Ravenhill and directed by Gregory Doran. With such a pedigree will it match the success of Matilda? Nick Ahad reviews.

The Turner Prize is one of the biggest art prizes in the UK and offers £25,000 to its winner. Front Row goes to the Turner Contemporary in Margate where the Turner Prize exhibition is hosted this year to meet the nominees – Tai Shani, Laurence Abu Hamdan, Oscar Murillo and Helen Cammock - ahead of the winner announcement on the 3rd December.

The Radio 4 Christmas Appeal with St Martin in the Fields will be launched on Sunday 1 December. This year, the fundraising gala at St Martin’s will include a performance of The First Nowell by Vaughan Williams with Radio 4 presenters, featuring a modified libretto by Zeb Soanes. He and Em Marshall-Luck, Founder-Director of The English Music Festival and former Chairman of the Vaughan Williams Society, discuss the delights of this rarely performed seasonal work.

Presenter: Stig Abell

Atlantics is a Senegalese supernatural romantic drama directed by Mati Diop. She made history when the film premiered at Cannes, becoming the first black woman to direct a film featured In Competition at the festival. Atlantics went on to win the Grand Prix. Be Manzani reviews.

Now that the political parties have released their manifestos, the BBC’s arts editor Will Gompertz, and Kieran Yates, journalist and author who writes about culture and politics, assess the parties’ planned commitment to investing in arts and culture.

Poets Ruth Padel and Daljit Nagra discuss the continuing lure of Scheherazade, the legendary enchantress from One Thousand and One Nights ahead of a performance of Rimsky Korsakov's Scheherazade by the City of London Sinfonia at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall. The performance will include specially commissioned poetry by both poets, inspired by Rimsky Korsakov's music.

Presenter: Kirsty Lang

The deaths of two giants of the arts were announced today. The Australian poet, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and essayist, Clive James, and the theatre and opera director, actor, author and medical doctor Sir Jonathan Miller. Shahidha Bari is joined by Ian McEwan, Eric Idle, Norman Lebrecht, Melvin Bragg and Pete Atkin to pay tribute.

Presenter: Shahidha Bari

We exclusively reveal and analyse the 2019 Costa Book Prize shortlist. Critics Alex Clark and Sarah Shaffi discuss the books chosen in the five categories: novel, first novel, poetry, biography and children's fiction. Category winners will appear on the programme in January and Front Row will announce the overall prize-winner on 28 January 2020