Front Row

Antonio Banderas on playing Pedro Almodóvar in Pain and Glory - Almodóvar's film based on his own life. Tom Shakespeare talks to Antonio about how the actor's heart attack affected the performance, the differences between acting in Hollywood and European cinema and how the film is the best depiction of back pain he's seen.

Witches have always been a popular subject in fiction but recent months have seen a particular flowering. Why? And how do authors choose whether to set their work in the past or the present? Front Row asks Philippa Gregory whose latest book Tidelands is about a 17th century wise woman and V.V. James, whose novel Sanctuary, set in a version of present-day USA, contains witchcraft.

Last weekend in Hong Kong, 1.7 million protestors marched against the Beijing government, brandishing their brollies to protect themselves from the downpour. The umbrella itself has become a symbol of protest since the Umbrella Movement first emerged in 2014 - but the cultural significance of the umbrella within China which dates back nearly two millennia. Zhaoying Fung, US Correspondent for the BBC Chinese Service in Washington talks to us about the historical importance of umbrellas and the ceremonial role they continue to play in contemporary Chinese culture.

Presenter: Tom Shakespeare

Louise Doughty, author of Apple Tree Yard, has a new novel: a thriller with a difference. Platform Seven’s narrator is dead – and she haunts the eerie half-light of Peterborough Railway Station weaving her way through the lives of the commuters and staff. The spirit of the late Lisa Evans pieces together a backstory which reveals the reality of an abusive relationship, but also offers an uplifting perspective on the dignity of the lives being lived in a place of transition.

Theatre director Robert Icke discusses The Doctor, his new adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s 1912 play Professor Bernhardi. Juliet Stevenson plays the titular doctor, who is running a medical facility but faces searching questions about her own motives and ethics following the death of one of her patients.

Often themes emerge among the work at the Edinburgh Festivals. This year lots of performers have sought to contextualise the collapse of old structures, the threat of climate change and new perspectives on gender. Joyce McMillan, columnist and critic of The Scotsman newspaper joins us to round up her must-see recommendations for the rest of the festivals.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Live from the Edinburgh Festivals : Ian Shaw, son of actor Robert Shaw, discusses his play, The Shark is Broken, based on Jaws. Using his father’s diaries, it’s the story of how Shaw, Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss are tortuously confined together on the boat Orca while filming - enduring endless delays, studio politics, foul weather and a constantly broken mechanical shark called Bruce. The show's getting five star reviews - they’re going to need a bigger venue.

Benjamin Zephaniah is one of our best loved poets, despite his avowed rejection of the establishment. Ahead of his appearance at the Edinburgh International Books Festival, he performs his poem White Comedy, inspired by a TV interview he saw with Muhammed Ali as a young boy.

With the vogue at this year's Fringe for confrontational, confessional shows based on artists' personal trauma, we talk to two performers about how they look after themselves and their audience. Artist and writer Scottee’s show Class confronts the gulf between his working class upbringing and that of his Fringe audience, while performance artist Demi Nandhra's Life is No Laughing Matter explores her relationship with depression.

And we’ve a song from American comedian Catherine Cohen whose sold-out show The Twist? …She’s Gorgeous is winning plaudits for its fast-paced wit and blistering candour on the lives of modern women.

Presenter : Kirsty Lang

Musical impressionist Christina Bianco reveals how she captures the voice and style of so many different musical divas like Shirley Bassey and Celine Dion, with a special performance on the Front Row stage.

The surprise hit of this year’s Fringe has been Basil Brush Unleashed. The children’s TV icon is celebrating fifty years in showbusiness with a chat show aimed at adults. Basil talks to Kirsty about his career highlights, and his Edinburgh show and how keeps it the right side of PC.

Edinburgh based author Mary Paulson-Ellis has used foxy themes in her novels The Other Mrs Walker and The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing. She gives Front Row a guide to the Fox in Fiction from Aesop's Fables, the medieval stories of Reynard to Kate Atkinson's Life After Life.

A big trend at this year’s Edinburgh Festivals is the number of shows about climate change. Kirsty discusses how they are capturing hearts and minds with Alanna Mitchell whose one-woman show Sea Sick is about a crisis in the world’s oceans, and Oli Savage, Artistic Director of The Greenhouse venue, an eco-friendly arts space.

Shows like Hamilton and Come From Away are reinventing the way we think of musicals. Kirsty speaks to Robyn Grant about their musical Unfortunate: The Untold Story of Ursula the Sea Witch, that reimagines the Little Mermaid story, and to Finn Anderson, whose show Islander draws on Scottish folk tradition - with loop pedals.

Presenter : Kirsty Lang

Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio discuss their new film Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. In the ninth film directed by Quention Taratino, set in the late 1960s, DiCaprio plays an actor in the twilight of his Hollywood career, with Pitt as his buddy and stunt double.

The Chief Conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo, guides Stig Abell in on what to listen out for when listening to a symphony. Oramo will conduct the annual Proms performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony next Monday evening.

In a row over colours the Turner Prize winner Sir Anish Kapoor has been banned from an art shop which is employing a full-time security guard with orders to keep him out. The artist and art shop owner Stuart Semple is angry that Kapoor secured the exclusive rights to Vantablack, that in response he's created his own blackest black paint, available to everyone, except Anish Kapoor. Stig Abell made it through the security checks and into his shop to talk to Stuart Semple about why the colour black is so important to artists, and why access to it raises fundamental issues about art and democracy.

It's August 14th which seems an ordinary sort of day but, as Front Row reveals, over the last 1,000 years many events of cultural and artistic significance have occurred on this date, so August 14th isn't so nondescript after all.

Presenter: Stig Abell

Live from the Edinburgh Festivals - comedian Henning Wehn is the self-styled German Ambassador of Comedy. Henning came to the UK seventeen years ago to improve his English and decided to stay due to the good weather and tasty food. His show is called Get On With It which he describes as an unbiased look at Brexit: light on facts and heavy on casual xenophobia.

After someone threw a burger at them and shouted a transphobic slur, performance artist Travis Alabanza became obsessed with burgers, and has written a show about how to reclaim an act of violence. They perform from the show Burgerz for Front Row.

Fringe of Colour is a grassroots organisation campaigning to make the Edinburgh Festival Fringe less white, more culturally relevant and more welcoming to people of colour. Its founder Jessica Brough discusses their work bringing BAME performers together and a new scheme offering free tickets to people of colour for shows by people of colour.

Novelist Chris Brookmyre and his wife Dr Marisa Haetzman, a consultant anaesthetist, have formed Scotland’s newest crime-writing partnership. Writing under the nom de plume Ambrose Parry, they have penned The Art of Dying - a tale of medicine and murder on the streets of 19th century Edinburgh.

Presenter : Kirsty Lang

Poet Lemn Sissay discusses his new memoir, My Name Is Why, which tells the story of his fractured childhood within the now infamous Wigan care system in the '60s and '70s. Since then he has gone on to become the official poet of the London 2012 Olympics, the Chancellor of the University of Manchester, and most recently won this year's PEN Pinter Prize.

This Friday the BBC Proms celebrates the 200th anniversary of Queen Victoria’s birth with a concert featuring Stephen Hough who will be playing Victoria’s own gold piano that she bought in 1856. Sally Goodsir from the Royal Collection Trust discusses the history of the grand piano which is being loaned for the first time by HM The Queen, as well as Victoria & Albert's keen enjoyment of music.

The new HBO drama Euphoria is an uncompromising look at drug addiction, sex and the exhausting pressure of social media on a group of teenagers. The show has garnered criticism for its controversial depiction of sexual violence among young people desensitised by porn – but how accurate a portrayal of life in Generation Z is it? Critic Annie Lord gives us her take on a show purporting to give a no-holds-barred view of growing up in 2019.

Presenter Samira Ahmed

Bohemian Rhapsody, The Crown and a new production of Equus have all used Movement Directors to capture the physicality and movements of their characters. But how do they do it and why is it a role in demand? Polly Bennett, who has worked with Rami Malek and Oliva Coleman, and Shelley Maxwell, who is helping the actors in Equus capture the movement of horses, discuss the role of the Movement Directors.

The stormy weather is taking its toll on Britain's festivals with announcements this week that several music festivals this weekend, including Houghton Hall in Norfolk and the Boardmasters festival in Watergate Bay, Cornwall, have been called off. What are the financial implications when festivals are cancelled at the last minute? John speaks to Tim Thornhill,director of Integro, the UK’s leading insurance company which specialises in underwriting festivals.

A new ITV drama Deep Water set in the Lake District brings together actresses Anna Friel, Sinead Keenan and Rosalind Eleazar to explore the lives of three women in extraordinary circumstances. Writer Anna Symon talks to us about adapting Paula Daly’s Windermere series of novels for the small screen.

Cary Grant was a star in the golden age of Hollywood. As one of his most famous films, Hitchock’s Notorious, is restored and re-released and the British Film Institute launch a season of his films, Charlotte Crofts, Director of Bristol’s Cary Comes Home Festival assesses the work of the British born icon.

Presenter: John Wilson

Martyn Brabbins, the Music Director of English National Opera, is turning 60 next week and to celebrate he’ll be conducting a new take on Elgar's Enigma Variations at the Royal Albert Hall. He discusses the mystery theme to the original version and the importance of cultural exchange with international musicians.

Playmobil: The Movie is the next in the long line of toys-to-screen animated films. Daniel Radcliffe, Anya Taylor-Joy and Meghan Trainor lend their voices to the film where two orphaned children find themselves magically transported into a Playmobil world from their imaginations. BBC Radio 6 Music film critic Rhianna Dhillon reviews.

Scribe Paul Antonio discusses historic and contemporary calligraphy - from laws intricately and elegantly written on vellum and signed by the Queen to high-end fashion events - and offers Shahidha some handy tips for the perfect Copperplate script.

Presenter Shahidha Bari

Candace Bushnell whose 1996 book Sex and the City was a runaway best seller and adapted into a successful HBO television series and two films, talks to John Wilson about her new memoir Is There Still Sex in The City? - a wry look at sex, dating and friendship in New York City after fifty.

We talk to choreographer and Artistic Director of National Dance Company Wales, Fearghus Ó Conchúir, about Rygbi: Annwyl i Mi / Dear to Me, a dance production celebrating rugby in Wales, which he developed alongside professional rugby players. The work premieres at the Welsh National Eisteddfod this week and will travel to the Rugby World Cup in Japan later in the year.

Audible has announced a new “captioning” facility, which will allow audiobook listeners to see the words of a text as they are spoken by the narrator. It’s set to start in America in September, but publishers there have reacted furiously, saying the rights to produce an audiobook are entirely separate to the rights to reproduce a text. Nicola Solomon, chief executive of the Society of Authors takes us through a tech development which has startled US publishers.

The black actor and singer Paul Robeson – forever associated with Ol’ Man River – is the subject of a new play 8 Hotels at Chichester Festival Theatre. The play’s writer, Nicholas Wright, and its director, Richard Eyre, consider the political controversy surrounding the singer as he toured the US in Othello in the 1940s. Vincent Dowd reports.

Presented by John Wilson