Front Row

Comedian Sara Pascoe talks about her latest stand-up show Lads, Lads, Lads and its evolution from being about her relationship break-up to being happy a single woman. Also what's it like sharing such personal experiences in front of thousands of people? And how has the situation changed for women in comedy since she started out?There are Baftas and Oscars for Best Hair & Make Up and an Olivier Award for Best Costume Design. But hitherto there's been no award for the people whose job is maybe most crucial to any theatre, film or television production: casting directors. So the Casting Directors’ Guild decided to create their own and on Tuesday the inaugural UK Casting Awards will throw some glitter on these Cinderellas. Three of the country's top casting directors, Julia Horan (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child), Lucinda Syson (Wonder Woman) and Victor Jenkins (Troy: Fall of a City) explain what they actually do, how they find new talent, and whether or not casting directors are a progressive force, opening the gates, or guarding them.Country music star Kacey Musgraves came out on top in four categories at Sunday's Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year. But with even the Grammy’s misspelling her name during the ceremony, we thought we ought to find out: who is Kacey Musgraves?Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Oliver JonesMain image: Sara Pascoe Photo credit: Matt Crockett

This weekend sees the announcement of the winners of this year's Baftas - the British Academy Film Awards - and Stig talks to two of the stars in London for the event. Director Spike Lee attracted a great deal of attention with his first feature She's Gotta Have It in 1986, yet despite his later films including Do the Right Thing, Mo' Better Blues, Malcolm X and Summer of Sam, he was never nominated in the director category for either the Oscars or the Baftas. But this year he is in the running at both events for his latest film BlacKkKlansman, the true story of a black police officer infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan. Spike Lee discusses the film which is Bafta-nominated for Best Director, Best Film, and Best Adapted Screenplay.Oscar-winner Thelma Schoonmaker has been editing the films of Martin Scorsese for over five decades including Raging Bull, Goodfellas, The Departed and The Wolf of Wall Street. This Sunday she will receive the British Academy of Film and Television Arts' highest accolade, the BAFTA Fellowship. She looks back at her career and their extraordinary partnership.And we remember the stage and screen actor Albert Finney, whose death was announced today. Finney's notable roles included the films Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and Tom Jones, and he won a Bafta for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in the TV film The Gathering Storm. The film's director Richard Loncraine looks back at Albert Finney's career.Presenter Stig Abell Producer Jerome Weatherald

Broadway star Chita Rivera, who created the iconic roles of Anita in West Side Story and Velma in Chicago, talks to Samira about her seven decades on stage, as she prepares to perform again in London. The Woman in the Window is the bestselling psychological thriller that sparked a bidding war between publishers resulting in a two million dollar book deal and its publication in January 2018. Now its author Dan Mallory, who writes under the pen name AJ Finn, has been accused of lying and deception which helped secure his own senior position in the publishing industry as an editor. Books journalist Sarah Shaffi unpicks what this means for the man, his book and the publishing industry more broadly.Until last November Jeff Koons was the most expensive living artist sold at auction, with his Balloon Dog (Orange) fetching over $58m in 2013. As he opens his new retrospective at the Ashmolean in Oxford, the controversial artist discusses the technical challenges of creating his complex works, and his love of the Old Masters.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Hannah RobinsMain image: Samira Ahmed and Chita Rivera

Front Row considers the artistic significance of walls and borders. John Lanchester, whose latest novel The Wall is about a massive fictional defensive structure, discusses the way walls feature in literature and art with poet and art critic Sue Hubbard, from cave paintings to artworks like Andy Goldsworthy’s 750 feet long drystone wall.Artist Luke Jerram takes us on a tour around his home city of Bristol discovering unusual wall art such as the Magic Wall, where children leave toys between the stones, and early works by Banksy. Mexican artist Tanya Aguiniga, who travelled each day to school in the US, has set up an art project on the US/ Mexico border. She is joined by Suzanne Lyle, Head of Visual Arts for the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, to discuss the influence of borders on art.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Timothy Prosser

The Cutty Sark was launched 150 years ago this year. The acme of sailing technology, now she floats not in the sea but in the air in Greenwich. People walk around on, in and under her. So the ship has become a monumental public art-work. The sculptor Michael Speller, who has made public works for Greenwich, tours the Cutty Sark with Kirsty Lang and the ship's curator, Hannah Stockton. They start beneath the keel, Michael considering the the shape and heft of the hull, then venture into the hold, where the iron ribs to which the huge planks are attached, are akin to the armature of a sculpture, and finish up on deck, where Michael is struck by the delicate filigree of the rigging and the powerful shapes described by the masts and yards. Regina King is sweeping up awards for her performance in If Beale Street Could Talk, Barry Jenkins’ adaption of James Baldwin’s novel set in 1970s Harlem. She talks to Kirsty about police violence in America, how the awards season resembles a political campaign and why she used her Golden Globes speech to issue a challenge to the industry. Demolition of the former Royal Mail sorting office in Bristol began last week, as part of the regeneration of the city’s Temple Quarter district. Vanessa Kisuule is Poet-in-residence on the project and has written a poem, ‘Brick me’, to capture the history of the site which has been derelict for more than 20 years. It at once celebrates the erasure of an eyesore, and is an elegy for the loss of a familiar landmark.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Julian May

American comedian Tiffany Haddish joins the voice cast of the Lego Movie sequel as the shape-shifting Queen Whatever Wa'Nabi. She tells Front Row how comedy saved her from a troubled childhood and the foster care system, and how she went on to host Saturday Night Live and feature on the cover of Time 100.Alice Clark-Platts’ latest thriller The Flower Girls was the subject of fierce bidding war. The story of two sisters, Laurel and Primrose, the novel has resonances with the Bulger and Madeleine McCann cases. A former human rights lawyer, Alice Clark-Platts grapples with notions of whether a person can ever be rehabilitated and why the past is often impossible to bury in future relationships.This year sees the 25th anniversary of the National Lottery. In that time it has awarded almost £40bn to good causes across more than 535,000 individual projects. Ros Kerslake, CEO of the newly-named National Lottery Heritage Fund who award their own share of the money, discusses her new plans to distribute over £1bn to the UK’s heritage over the next five years.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Ben MitchellMain image: The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part Photo credit: Warner Bros

Painter, sculptor, architect and engineer- Leonardo da Vinci is regarded as one of the greatest artists of all time. To mark the 500th anniversary of his death, 144 of his drawings from the Royal Collection are to be exhibited in 12 galleries and museums nationwide. Senior curator Natasha Howes, and Mark Roughley, medical illustrator and Art in Science lecturer at Liverpool School of Art and Design discuss the Renaissance master's anatomical work on show at Manchester Art Gallery.Green Book - a film about an Italian-American bouncer turned chauffeur for an African-American concert pianist, driving through the Deep South in Jim Crow America, arrives in the UK garlanded with awards and Oscar and Bafta nominations. Al Bailey, Co-founder and Director of Programming at Manchester International Film Festival, reviews.As Sian Edwards prepares to conduct Opera North’s latest production of Janáček’s Katya Kabanova, she discusses the appeal of the Czech composer’s music, and what she plans to bring to his dark tale of a woman in search of love but trapped by convention.Earlier this month, the Department for Education announced plans for a new model music curriculum with the aim of stopping the decline in the number of pupils studying music at GCSE and A Level. The plan has faced criticism including thirty academics with backgrounds in music and education signing an open letter to the DfE. The Right Honourable Nick Gibb, Minister for School Standards, and Dr Jonathan Savage from Manchester Metropolitan University, and former Chair of Expert Subject Advisory Group for Music 2013, join Gaylene to discuss if the proposed new curriculum is the right answer to the right question.

Moon and Me is the new CBeebies programme by Andrew Davenport, creator of the award-winning shows Teletubbies and In the Night Garden. He discusses how his story of a doll, Pepi Nana, and the baby in the moon who travels to her doll house to tell stories and have adventures, was inspired by tales of toys that come to life when nobody is looking.Why are some musicians and writers labelled 'the voice of a generation'? Kate Mossman from The New Statesman and books journalist Sarah Shaffi discuss what characteristics earn artists this label, if it’s a blessing or a curse, and who they think represent generations today or in the past.As English National Opera chief Stuart Murphy says opera has a problem with diversity and announces a strategy for nurturing BAME talent, Opera Now editor Ashutosh Khandekar and composer Shirley Thompson discuss the issue of representation in opera.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Jerome WeatheraldMain image: Moon and Me Photo credit: BBC

Live daily magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music

As she turns 80, Germaine Greer reflects on her career as a Shakespeare academic, public intellectual, feminist and provocateur.Germaine Greer discusses her passion for Shakespeare and how reading his comedies influenced her thinking for The Female Eunuch; her work championing the work of female writers and painters; how much things have really changed for women; and she shares her thoughts on censorship and pornography and why being outspoken is the best way to provoke change.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Hannah Robins