Front Row

Jane Fonda, the two-time Academy Award-winning actress, film producer, political activist and fitness guru, looks back at her 60 year career with Kirsty Lang. The feminist classic film 9 to 5, about three female office workers who take on their chauvinist boss, is being rereleased in cinemas. Jane Fonda, who produced and stars in the film, explains how she came up with the idea, cast Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton in the other lead roles and why it's a comedy. We also speak to Lily Tomlin about her friendship with Jane Fonda. As well as working together on 9 to 5, the two actresses star in the Netflix sitcom Grace and Frankie, and have even co-presented a TED Talk about the importance of female friendships. Plus film critics Helen McGill and Jason Solomons look back at Fonda’s career. From Barbarella to The China Syndrome, from Klute to Monster-in-Law, we examine how this actress reinvented herself on screen and her cultural and political impact beyond cinema.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Kate Bullivant

In Sebastian Barry’s inaugural speech as Laureate for Irish Fiction earlier this year, he stated that Ireland was in a 'golden age of prose'. As Northern Irish writer Anna Burns scooped the Man Booker Prize for her novel Milkman last month, Front Row hears voices from the No Alibis bookstore in Belfast. We speak to former Irish Laureate and Booker Prize winner Anne Enright; Professor of Irish History and Literature, Roy Foster; award-winning, Belfast-born writer Lucy Caldwell; and writer, editor and journalist Sinead Gleeson. They discuss the renaissance in Irish writing, its roots in Irish storytelling and love of language, and how the border - now at the heart of the Brexit debate - is being written about by a new generation of writers, north and south.And Front Row exclusively announces the winner of this year's Hepworth Sculpture Prize, hearing live from the victor and from the Chief Curator of The Hepworth Wakefield, Andrew Bonacina. This year’s shortlist includes Mona Hatoum, Michael Dean, Phillip Lai, Magali Reus, and Cerith Wyn Evans.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Sarah Johnson

Arts education has become the focus of a great deal of passion and concern recently, since the core, knowledge-based subjects took precedence over the creative subjects when the EBacc was introduced in England by the then Education Minister Michael Gove, announced in 2010.With the arts not being a requirement in the GCSE syllabus for the English Baccalaureate (the EBacc), leaders in the arts and the lucrative creative industries have been very vocal in their criticism of government policy.Stig Abell chairs a discussion on the subject from a state secondary school - Soar Valley College in Leicester - with leading figures in arts and education.On the panel are:Bob and Roberta Smith, contemporary artist and education advocate Deborah Annetts, Chief Executive of the Incorporated Society of Musicians (the ISM)Trina Haldar, graduate in chemistry and engineering, and director and founder of Leicester-based Mashi Theatre Branwen Jeffreys, BBC’s Education EditorMark Lehain, founder (and former headteacher) of one of the first secondary Free Schools. He also leads the Parents and Teachers for Excellence campaignJulie Robinson, headteacher of Soar Valley College in LeicesterCarl Ward, Chief Exec of the City Learning Trust, a partnership of schools teaching a combined total of 6000 pupils in Stoke-on-TrentPresenter: Stig Abell Producers: Edwina Pitman and Jerome Weatherald

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is the second in the Fantastic Beasts film franchise from JK Rowling which explores the Wizarding World before Harry Potter. Eddie Redmayne and Johnny Depp star, and Jude Law joins the cast as a young Dumbledore. James Walters, Head of the Department of Film at the University of Birmingham reviews. As CAPSID, a new exhibition which explores how viruses behave, opens in Manchester, Front Row brought together the artist behind it, John Walter, and scientist turned artist, Dr Lizzie Burns to discuss the appeal of making art inspired by the microbiological world.Fernand Léger is the subject of a new exhibition at Tate Liverpool. Leger's work moved between many of the great art movements of the 20th century - Cubism, Surrealism, Futurism - but retained his own distinctive style. Fernand Léger: New Times, New Pleasures is the first major exhibition dedicated to the artist in the UK in 30 years. Art Critic Laura Robertson explains his significance.Adapting 1902 novel Heart Of Darkness for the stage in 2018 - theatre company Imitating The Dog has turned Joseph Conrad's famous story on its head, swapping the African Congo for war-torn Europe, narrator Charles Marlow for a black female private detective, and using digital film and a dual narrative on stage. To discuss this creative reimaging and how it tackles the novel’s issues with race and colonialism, John is joined by Co-Artistic Director Andrew Quick, and Keicha Greenidge, who plays the lead role.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Getting butterflies is something many performers admit to, and although some thrive off it, others are often more badly affected. Professor of Performance Science, Aaron Williamon and West End psychologist Dr Anna Colton discuss the power of stage fright and how to overcome it.This week Channel 4 airs a true crime drama about Tony Martin, the Norfolk farmer who in 1999 shot dead a burglar at his Norfolk farmhouse. His actions and subsequent murder trial sparked a national debate about householders' rights to protect their property. The drama, however, does not focus on the furore surrounding the case, instead the script is taken verbatim from police interviews with Tony Martin. Crime writer Dreda Say Mitchell gives her verdict. Joel and Ethan Coen discuss their latest feature The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, a six-part anthology film made up of tales about the American frontier, starring a plethora of big names including Liam Neeson, Tom Waits and James Franco. Each of the stories, which were written over a 25 year period, pay homage to a different subgenre of movie about the American West, in the Coen Brothers’ characteristic style.Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Kate Bullivant

Helena Bonham Carter discusses how she drew on her own experience of depression for her new film 55 Steps which is based on the life of Eleanor Riese. Riese was diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 25 and successfully sued a hospital in San Francisco for the right to refuse anti-psychotic medication. At the time of her court case in 1989 Riese was 44, and had been in and out of psychiatric hospitals for several years. This interview is part of Front Row’s occasional series exploring the way in which mental health issues are represented across the arts.What ho! Ben Schott talks about taking on PG Wodehouse’s beloved characters Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves in his new novel, Jeeves and The King of Clubs. Schott argues that the pair becoming spies in pre-war London and taking part in car chases is all in the spirit of their creator.11-11: Memories Retold is the first full-length video game to come from Wallace and Gromit creators, Aardman Animations. Set in the final days of WWI it follows a young Canadian photographer and German soldier who, uniquely for a wargame, never fire a shot. Gaming expert Jordan Erica Webber reviews.Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Hilary Dunn

To mark Armistice Day, Marin Alsop will be conducting Brahms's A German Requiem this weekend, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and in a break from tradition, she will be introducing the work from the podium. Marin discusses the reasons behind this move, and also reveals the various ways in which this requiem also broke from tradition.Russell Howard makes comedy out of political issues such as the tampon tax, junior doctors and the housing crisis, and is hugely successful with younger audiences who watch him on TV, social media and in his sell-out stand-up world tours. The comedian discusses his show, The Russell Howard Hour, how much he wants to politically engage his audience, and finding the funny in what can be bleak political times. A whinge – that’s the collective noun for a group of cartoonists, and this evening a whinge of some of the best-known, including Steve Bell of the Guardian, Matt of the Daily Telegraph and Banx of the FT, will gather to judge the Young Cartoonist of the Year Competition. But with newspaper circulation in decline and, conversely, the appetite of the internet for images, what is the outlook for those young winners? Tim Benson, editor of Britain’s Best Political Cartoons, 2018, and the cartoonist Andy Davey discuss the future of the political cartoon in the digital age.Presenter Nikki Bedi Producer Rebecca Armstrong

On Folkestone beach, film-maker Danny Boyle discusses Pages of the Sea, his Armistice Day tribute to the servicemen and women who left these shores in the First World War, many never to return. Members of the public will be invited to visit a number of beaches around the country to pay their respects, and will be given a specially-commissioned poem The Wound in Time, by Carol Ann Duffy.Zadie Smith’s White Teeth gets a musical makeover, we review the new theatrical production put on in the same district of north London where the novel is set.Continuing Front Row's Arts and Mental Health series, John Wilson meets singer-songwriter, composer and poet Emily Maguire who discusses how music making and writing have helped her deal with bipolar disorder. She is about to embark on a nationwide tour playing music and reading from her new collection of poetry, Meditation Mind, which was inspired by her latest battle with bipolar, and is a testimony to how her Buddhist practice of meditation has helped her recovery.Nigerian artist Ben Enwonwu's famous painting, Tutu, has gone on public display in Lagos, prompting a search for the subject, an Ife princess called Adetutu Ademiluyi. The novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaks about the power and significance of the painting known as 'the African Mona Lisa'.Presenter John Wilson Producer Julian May

Steve McQueen discusses his return to the big screen with Widows, an adaptation of the Lynda La Plante thriller. Set this time in Chicago, the widows must learn to survive after their husbands die in a botched heist leaving debts that need to be repaid in a city rife with professional crime and political corruption.Romeo and Juliet is more relevant to our young people than ever according to the RSC deputy director Erica Whyman. She's directed a new production which involves local young people throughout the tour and swaps the gender of some key roles including Mercutio and Prince Escalus. She explains her approach to the text.Many theatre productions in recent months have featured roles reimagined for a different gender, including Marianne Elliott's revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical Company at the Donmar Warehouse, Troilus and Cressida at the RSC and Theatr Clwyd's Lord of the Flies. Theatre critics Dominic Cavendish and Lyn Gardner discuss the merits and pitfalls of gender-swapping on stage.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Hannah Robins

As Boy George releases his first new album with Culture Club in almost 20 years – simply called Life - he talks about being a changed man and contrasts making music today with the band’s heyday in the 80s.Academy award winning director Peter Jackson has added colour to archival footage from WWI for the first time in his new film They Shall Not Grow Old. But how is this colourisation achieved and how does changing its colour affect the way we experience the film? BFI National Archive Curator Bryony Dixon and film historian Ian Christie discuss.John Cooper Clarke, the razor-sharp poet with the rapid-fire delivery, is one of the defining figures of the late 70s. Over the years he’s been variously referred to as The Bard of Salford, The Godfather of Punk Poetry and more recently, perhaps to his own surprise, as a National Treasure. Now 69, he joins Front Row to perform and talk about his first new collection for decades, The Luckiest Guy Alive.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Sarah Johnson