Front Row

Cressida Cowell is announced as the new Waterstones Children’s Laureate. We speak to the How to Train Your Dragon writer about her plans for the role which is mainly focused on encouraging primary school age children to read.

With recent attempts by the USA to rekindle the Israeli-Palestinian peace process having foundered on the rocks, we talk to Cherie Blair about her role as Executive Producer of a new film about the crisis. The drama is in development and will be directed by John Deery who also joins John in the studio. The film, The Rock Pile, explores the lives of three little boys – a Muslim, an Arab-Christian and a Jew – who meet and play football together on the streets of Jerusalem.

Yann Martel's novel Life of Pi won the Man Booker, selling over 3 million copies and was a critically acclaimed Hollywood movie. It’s the story of Pi, a 16 year old boy stranded on a lifeboat in the Pacific with a Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker. Paul Allen reviews a new adaptation at the Crucible Theatre Sheffield and discusses the challenges of bringing the story to the stage.

Presenter : John Wilson

Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason talks about her love for the music of Clara Schumann, who in the 19th Century was famous as a virtuoso pianist but overshadowed as a composer by her husband Robert Schumann. Isata has recorded Clara's music for her debut album, Romance.

Tree, a major production of the Manchester International Festival, is embroiled in controversy. The Festival states that Tree is a new work, based on a concept by Idris Elba with an original script by Kwame Kwei-Armah. But writers Tori Allen-Martin and Sarah Henley say that they spent 4 years working on the project, workshopping and writing drafts, and should be credited. Samira talks to Allen-Martin and Henley about this and why they have set up an organisation to help female playwrights.

Jill Halfpenny and Babou Ceesay star in new BBC drama Dark Money as a parents who accept a huge pay off to keep quiet after finding out their child was sexually abused while shooting a film in Hollywood. The Radio Times's David Butcher reviews,

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

In the week of Pride and following his Glastonbury speech about LGBTQ rights, Olly Alexander of Years & Years talks about writing lyrics that are overtly about gay relationships.

Ari Aster's horror film Midsommar starring Florence Pugh has allegedly given its own stars nightmares. Isabel Stevens reviews.

17th century artists Joan Carlile, Mary Beale and Anne Killigrew were the first professional female painters in Britain. Art historian Bendor Grosvenor discusses the work of these trailblazing women showcased in “Bright Souls”: The Forgotten Story of Britain’s First Female Artists at the Lyon & Turnbull Gallery in London.

William Feaver marks the life and work of renowned artist Leon Kossoff, known for his lyrical and energetic paintings of London life. His death has been announced at the age of 92.

Presenter: John Wilson

We last saw the work of the Cuban artist Tania Bruguera when she was commissioned for the turbine hall of Tate Modern. She’s known for facing down police interrogation of her work in her native Havana. Now she’s harnessed Manchester’s international community for what she calls a School of Integration.

In May, Ibrahim Mahama was one of the six Ghanaian artists chosen to represent the country as it made its debut at the Venice Biennale. Now, he’s come to Manchester to create Parliament of Ghosts – an exhibition at the Whitworth Art Gallery which reflects both on Ghana’s time under British rule, and the years following the country’s independence.

The Mexican-Canadian electronic artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s new work, Atmospheric Memory uses the very latest technology but is rooted in the story of the English mathematician and computer pioneer Charles Babbage. We’ll be asking why this very contemporary artist is seeking inspiration in the nineteenth century.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Filmmaker Chanya Button talks about Vita & Virginia, which explores the relationship between Virginia Woolf and fellow writer Vita Sackville-West, the inspiration for the protagonist of Woolf’s novel Orlando. Based on the correspondence between the two women, the film stars Elizabeth Debicki and Gemma Arterton.

Michael Frayn’s Noises Off, hailed as one of the funniest plays ever written, was first performed in 1982 at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, where a new production has just opened. It’s a farce about a touring production of a farce, in which the Assistant Stage Manager Poppy struggles to control her actors. Front Row talks to Lois Chimimba, who plays Poppy, and her real life counterpart, Caroline Meer.

Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, based on an ode by Friedrich Schiller, was adopted by the EU as its anthem. Following the Brexit party’s response to it being played at the opening of the European parliament, Norman Lebrecht discusses why this piece of music has had so much political resonance since its composition in 1824.

Once upon a time, computer games - like much of the media - perpetuated negative stereotypes about mental health. Now they’re at the forefront of moves to tackle the stigma sometimes associated with conditions like depression and anxiety. Jordan Erica explains why the rise of the independent gaming sector and the mental health backgrounds of many developers makes modern gaming the perfect forum in which to boost empathy between sufferers and non-sufferers.

Presenter: Stig Abell

Howard Jacobson is renowned for his comic novels, winning the 2010 Booker Prize for The Finkler Question . Now he’s published a funny but also tender novel about life and love in older age: Live a Little. He talks to Front Row about his trademark wit, insight and irreverence.

Othello: Remixed locates Shakespeare’s play into a London boxing club in 2019. Staged by Intermission Theatre Company, their director Darren Raymond discusses this production and explains how their approach of swapping street vocabulary for the Elizabethan slang used in the original text is intended - and has managed - to allow a wider audience to relate to the work.

St Fagans National Museum of History in Cardiff has been shortlisted for Museum of the Year. A £30m extensive refit has changed much of the site. There are new interactive galleries and more reconstructed buildings in their huge outdoor area. 3,000 volunteers helped throughout the redevelopment and continue to do so. Kirsty takes a tour with Director of Learning and Engagement Nia Williams and meets some of the volunteers.

Presenter: Kirsty Lang

Inkheart writer Cornelia Funke discusses Pan's Labyrinth, her new collaboration with director Guillermo del Toro, who approached her to write an adult novel based on his 2006 dark fantasy film.

The filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck discusses his latest work Never Look Away, which has blurred the line between fiction and biography. The Oscar-nominated epic historical drama follows 30 years in the life of a great artist, loosely based on Gerhard Richter, one of the 20th century's most admired visual artists, as it sees him struggling to create meaningful work under Nazism, Socialism and the Avant-Garde.

The striking grey exterior of V&A Dundee has been likened to the prow of a ship and to sea cliffs. Inside it houses treasures of Scottish craft. Shortlisted for Art Fund Museum of the Year less than a year after it opened its doors, Director Philip Long talks about the impact of the building, inside and out.

Presenter Samira Ahmed

50 years ago, on July 20th 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first people to set foot on the moon. A new film documentary, Apollo 11, charts that historic event using unseen archive footage and some of the 11,000 hours of uncatalogued audio recordings. The film’s director Todd Douglas Miller discusses the challenge of bringing NASA’s monumental achievement to the big screen.

We conclude our exploration of LGBT literature marking today’s 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. The events of 28th June 1969 were a key moment in the birth of the gay rights movement. Dr Erica Gillingham, Bookseller at London’s ‘Gay’s the Word’ bookshop and specialist in LGBT young adult fiction guides us through titles from the last decade.

It’s been a big week for memes with Boris Johnson’s image being transposed to the Titanic and an Ikea catalogue. Louis Wise unpicks what makes the best ones so successful and consider what memes tell us about the zeitgeist, how memes act as instant feedback on TV, film or music videos, and how far memes undermine, or proliferate, celebrity culture.

Presenter: Shahidha Bari

Kate Atkinson discusses her new novel, Big Sky. For Jackson Brodie fans it’s been a long nine years but finally he’s back. After the first four books in this crime fiction series, the acclaimed writer turned her attention to World War II resulting in two prize-winning novels, Life After Life and A God In Ruins. She explains how almost a decade later she was ready to return to Jackson and why the sixth Jackson book is not so far away.

As insults fly, tempers flare, and books are pulled, writer Leo Benedictus, Charlotte Eyre, Children’s Editor at The Bookseller, and Children’s and YA author Patrice Lawrence discuss the impact that online criticism is having on the world of Young Adult fiction.

We continue our exploration of LGBT literature which marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York in 1969, a key moment in the birth of the gay rights movement. Today journalist Amelia Abraham, author of the recently published book Queer Intentions: a Personal Journey through LGBTQ+ Culture, guides us through her favourite LGBT books from 1999 to 2009.

Presenter Stig Abell

A killer dress is on the hunt in Peter Strickland’s new kitsch horror film In Fabric, which stars Marianne Jean-Baptiste as an innocent sales shopper. Larushka Ivan-Zadeh reviews.

We continue our exploration of LGBT literature marking the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. The events of 28th June 1969 were a key moment in the birth of the gay rights movement. Today novelist and salon host Damian Barr reflects on growing up gay in 1990s Scotland and the queer books he loves from that decade

Today is National Writing Day and Rajan Dator meets Kaoru Akagawa who is keeping alive Kana Shodo, a script developed in 10th century Japan by women, so they could write, and for women, so they could read. Akagawa tells its story and explains how she uses Kana Shodo in her own art.

For the third of Front Rows reports from the five museums and galleries shortlisted for the 2019 Art Fund Museum of the Year, we visit HMS Caroline in the Titanic Quarter of Belfast, a First World War naval cruiser, the sole survivor of the Battle of Jutland in 1916, and now a floating museum following an £18m restoration.

Presenter: Rajan Datar