Front Row

As two new productions prepare to take on Shakespeare in fresh and unexpected ways, the women behind them - Jeanie O'Hare, creator of new play Queen Margaret, and Jude Christian creator of OthelloMacbeth - discuss developing new dramas from Shakespeare's canon.Anton Chekhov's play The Seagull is a theatre classic that has been produced in many different ways for stage and screen since its premiere in 1896. Now it's been turned into a film with a stellar cast led by Annette Benning. Critic, broadcaster, and playwright Nick Ahad reviews.Artist Leo Fitzmaurice specialises in creating work that aims to get us to look afresh at everyday objects. He's now curating a portrait exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery with a simple but surprising element. He joins Kirsty to discuss the new show, Leo Fitzmaurice: Between You and Me and Everything Else.The multi-award winning classical musician, Alison Balsom, reveals the inspiration behind her career and her love of the trumpet, as part of Front Row's Inspire season..Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Ekene Akalawu.

John Simm stars in new ITV drama Strangers as a man who has to fly to Hong Kong to identify his wife's body, only to discover she has a secret other life. We talk to the actor about filming the thriller in Hong Kong and why he's so often cast as an everyman figure. In Moby Dick, Captain Ahab vows vengeance against the white whale which took his leg and chases him around the globe. In his new book for young adults, And the Ocean was Our Sky, the award-winning novelist Patrick Ness inverts this. Bathsheba is an apprentice in a pod of whales who hunt humans and her captain is determined to track down a legendary white whaling ship and destroy Toby Wick. Patrick Ness tells Stig Abell about his motivation to write his story and what this interesting reversal allows him to explore.For our Inspire season we commissioned three artists to make a piece of work for us, we catch up with rapper and playwright Testament to see how he's getting on. Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Hannah Robins.

After a devastating fire at the newly-opened Alexandra Palace in London in 1873, a new building was designed and built which included an elaborate and elegant theatre, and the opening concert was of the early Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, Trial by Jury. The theatre hasn't been used as a performance space for 80 years, but tomorrow the BBC Proms will be broadcast live from the newly-restored space in all its faded grandeur, featuring the very same operetta. Alexandra Palace's Emma Dagnes and conductor Jane Glover discuss the challenge and the thrill of bringing music back to this forgotten venue.Jason Solomons is at the Venice Film Festival as the latest remake of A Star is Born with Lady Gaga premieres. He'll have all the news of much-anticipated films and performances including Olivia Colman in The Favourite, already getting Oscar buzz.Continuing Front Row's Inspire season we ask novelists Joanne Harris and Natalie Haynes what is it about myths and legends from across the world that provide such an enduring source of inspiration for writers and readers alike. Whether it be the ancient Greeks and Romans, the Norse myths or classic Hindu texts that have been re-told and re-interpreted down the centuries, what makes their unique fascination for each successive generation?Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Sarah Johnson.

Television drama Mother's Day charts the aftermath of the 1993 Warrington bombing, telling the stories of Colin and Wendy Parry (played by Anna Maxwell Martin and Daniel Mays), the parents of Tim Parry, one of two young boys who died in the attack, and Dublin housewife Sue McHugh (Vicky McClure). The BAFTA award-winning writer Nick Leather, who grew up in Warrington and who was a teenager on his way into town when the bombs exploded, discusses his drama.Natasha Carthew is a working-class writer from Cornwall who this year published All Rivers Run Free, her first novel for adults. Doing the rounds of the literary festivals Carthew was struck by how few featured working-class writers, telling working-class stories. As a result, she set up a Working Class Literary Festival which she discusses with Samira.As part of the Front Row Inspire season, presenters are trying their hand at an art form they've always had a passion for, and today Samira meets a group of comic-book writers and graphic novelists to show her the first steps in how to draw a comic-book character.Presenter Samira Ahmed Producer Jerome Weatherald.

Idris Elba is a man of many parts - actor, DJ, kick-boxer and now film director. He discusses his first feature, Yardie, based on the hit novel of the same name, by Victor Headley which, in 1992, told the tales of "D", a Jamaican in London engaged in the super-violent drugs trade of the 1970s. The former Raleigh Cycle Company headquarters in Nottingham recently became the 400,000th listed building in England. Deborah Mays, Head of Listing Advice at Historic England, writer and architect Douglas Murphy, and Dr Anton Lang, Chartered Town Planner, discuss whether we have too many listed buildings in the UK.For the Front Row Inspire season, each of the presenters has taken on a creative challenge to try something new, and Stig elected to write a sonnet for his new-born daughter Phoebe. He visits the Walthamstow Forest Poets, one of over 85 'Stanza' poetry meetups around the UK run by volunteers from The Poetry Society. Stig reads his sonnet, gets some advice on it and finds out where the poets in the group get their inspiration. Presnter: Stig Abell Producer: Julian May.

Andrew Miller, who won the Costa Book of the Year Award for his novel Pure, discusses his new book Now We Shall Be Entirely Free, an adventure story set during the Napoleonic wars.We consider how the idea of the artist's muse has changed over time, and ask what makes a modern muse? With art critic Louisa Buck, novelist and critic Matt Thorne and Andrew Miller.As the latest TV adaptation of William Thackeray's Vanity Fair hits our screens this weekend, Emma Bullimore reports from the set, where she speaks to Olivia Cooke, who stars as Becky Sharp, the consummate and shameless social climber, as well as screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes and Michael Palin, who plays the narrator Thackeray.Neil Simon, the pioneering playwright who set a new tone in theatrical comedy with such shows as The Odd Couple and captured the spirit of the middle-class American family with plays like Lost in Yonkers, has died. Critic Michael Carlson pays tribute. Presenter : Samira Ahmed Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Poet and broadcaster Ian McMillan takes us on a guided tour of Darfield churchyard near Barnsley, as part of Front Row's Inspire season.Patrick Gale, who wrote last year's TV drama Man In An Orange Shirt, discusses his new novel Take Nothing With You, a coming-of-age story as a young boy obsessed with the cello realises how messy adult life can be.Are internet horror movies becoming a new genre? In the wake of the recent release of several films using it as inspiration and a plot device, including Slender Man and the forthcoming Searching, horror podcaster Mike Muncer and technology lecturer Dr Kate Devlin discuss. TV reviewer Caroline Preece reacts to the announcement that US comedy series The Big Bang Theory will be coming to an end next year after nearly 300 episodes, and the differing responses the news has received from both critics and the public.Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Jerome Weatherald.

Monday sees the performance of a ‘Relaxed Prom’ at the Royal Albert Hall, offering an informal environment for children, young people and adults with autism, sensory and communication impairments, learning disabilities and other challenges. The Prom will feature the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and its ensemble BSO Resound, comprising six disabled musicians led by conductor James Rose who has cerebral palsy. James Rose and violin and viola player Siobhan Clough discuss the practicalities of conducting and performing ahead of their first major UK performance. The shortlist for this year’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards has been announced. Journalist Stephen Armstrong is the chair of the judging panel and joins Kirsty to discuss the selection and the main themes explored by comedians at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. The winner will be announced on Saturday 25 August.What happens in the brain when we are inspired? Professor of Neuroscience Paul Howard–Jones explains, as part of our Inspire season.Novelist and nature writer Melissa Harrison talks about her latest book, All Among the Barley, a story of an adolescent farmer’s daughter in 1930s Britain. In the course of a long hot summer a sophisticated stranger arrives in the village but she is not what she seems and her presence has a shattering effect on the lives of the girl and her family.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Rebecca Armstrong

Jed Mercurio's new drama Bodyguard follows Richard Madden as a troubled war veteran assigned as protection officer to the Home Secretary played by Keeley Hawes. TV critic Alison Graham reviews this latest offering from the writer of police thriller Line of Duty.As a One Direction themed fanfiction is now being turned into a feature film; we ask if fanfiction has finally gone mainstream with books journalist Sarah Shaffi and fanfiction writer and novelist RJ Anderson. The Lovely Bones is a bestselling novel by Alice Sebold about a young girl who is brutally murdered and looks down on her grieving family from heaven. Playwright Bryony Lavery discusses turning this well loved book into a theatre piece.For our Inspire season we commissioned three artists to make a piece of work. Tonight we catch up with crime novelist Vaseem Khan to see how he's getting on. Presenter: Sharmaine Lovegrove Producer: Hannah Robins.

Spike Lee's new film BlacKkKlansman is based on a true story from the 1970s. John David Washington plays Ron Stallworth the first African-American detective to serve in the Colorado Springs Police Department. Determined to make a name for himself he sets out on a dangerous mission to infiltrate and expose the Ku Klux Klan. Natty Kasambala reviews.Canadian author Esi Edugyan on her Man Booker Prize long-listed novel, Washington Black. A historical adventure, set in the early 19th century, it's the story of a young slave who flees Barbados with an abolitionist inventor.Poet Alison Brackenbury tells us how she is getting on with her commission to write a poem for our Inspire season. Comedian Helen Lederer returns to stand-up comedy and launches Comedy Women in Print, a competition to encourage funny female fiction.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Harry Parker.