War Of The Worlds re-imagined, Stephen Bourne- Playing Gay, Museum Funding

HG Wells’ classic novel The War of the Worlds has been adapted many times including the infamous occasion on which Orson Welles’ radio version convinced some American citizens that Martians really were invading the Earth . Now a new BBC TV version is coming, with a female narrator and subtexts about empire and climate change. Writer Peter Harness talks to Front Row about the choices he’s made for this version. Today the National Gallery in London announced an appeal to raise the final £2m needed to buy a painting which has been on loan to the gallery for nearly 20 years - The Finding of Moses by Orazio Gentileschi, father of his better-known painter daughter, Artemisia. The National Gallery’s director, Dr Gabriele Finaldi, discusses the appeal, and considers the broader contentious issue of corporate sponsorship of the arts with Sharon Heal, director of the Museums Association. Television has been an important catalyst for social change in modern times, a hot line into the national psyche and an engine of changing attitudes. In a new book,Playing Gay in the Golden Age of British TV, social historian Stephen Bourne has explored the role of the small screen in the fight for gay liberation from television's modest beginnings until the 1980s Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Producer: Oliver Jones