Front Row: Archive 2013

I Am Nasrine is the BAFTA-nominated debut film from Tina Gharavi. It follows teenage refugee Nasrine, forced to leave Iran and start a new life in the UK after a run-in with the police. Tina Gharavi explains how her own life and work with refugees in the north east of England contributed to the script, and how she filmed parts of the footage undercover in Iran.The White Queen is TV adaptation of Philippa Gregory's best-selling novel, The Cousin's War. Set during the War of the Roses, the battle between the Houses of York and Lancaster is seen through the eyes of the women at the heart of the action. Critic Rebecca Nicholson considers the growing appetite for historical drama and how The White Queen, with its underlying themes of magic and fantasy, compares to Game Of Thrones.For the Cultural Exchange, Paul Weller nominates The Zombies' album Odessey And Oracle - released in 1968.For the past twelve years, weavers at the West Dean tapestry studio have been recreating seven sixteenth century tapestries, known a

With Mark Lawson. Kim Cattrall plays a fading Hollywood star in a new staging of Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth. Marianne Elliott directs the play, which is set in the late 1950s in the American South. Sarah Churchwell reviews.The artist Cornelia Parker is best known for installations involving the exploding of a garden shed, Tilda Swinton sleeping in a glass case and the wrapping of Rodin's The Kiss in a mile of string. She reflects on her latest exhibition, and a new book on her work.For Cultural Exchange, Gwyneth Lewis - the inaugural Poet Laureate of Wales - chooses a dance routine from the Laurel and Hardy film Way Out West (1937).Novelist Brian Aldiss discusses his final science fiction work Finches Of Mars, which he's published at the age of 87. He also reveals why he has been writing a short story every day for the last year and casts his mind back over a long career that included a brief stint as an erotic novelist.Producer Nicki Paxman.

With Mark Lawson.James Baldwin's play, The Amen Corner, tells the story of Margaret, the uncompromising pastor of a Harlem church, who has to face a secret from her past. Marianne Jean-Baptiste stars in a new National Theatre production, featuring a gospel choir. Writer and critic Bidisha gives her verdict.Best-selling crime writer Peter James discusses his latest book Dead Man's Time, the ninth novel in the Roy Grace Series, and reveals the high-profile real-life inspiration for his character Amis Smallbone.For Cultural Exchange, concert pianist Stephen Hough chooses a song called The Hurdy Gurdy Man by Franz Schubert, from his 1828 song cycle Die Winterreise.After directing the blockbuster Avengers Assemble, Joss Whedon now releases a very different film: a modern-day version of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, shot in his own home, in black and white, and featuring a cast of his friends - most of whom appeared in his various cult TV series. Larushka Ivan-Zadeh reviews.Producer Nicki Paxman.

With Mark Lawson,Man of Steel, the latest Superman blockbuster, explores how Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) became a superhero. Amy Adams plays Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane and Michael Shannon is Superman's nemesis General Zod. Matt Thorne reviews.In Cultural Exchange, in which creative minds share a cultural passion, writer A L Kennedy explains why she has chosen Hitler's SS: A Portrait Of Evil, a TV drama from 1985, starring Bill Nighy.Mexican tenor Rolando Villazón discusses his love of Verdi's music, 200 years after the composer's birth. He explains when he first encountered it and the effect it had on him, the differences between singing on stage and in a recording studio - and why opera singers should try to stay as fit as athletes.Producer Claire Bartleet.

With Mark Lawson.Author and illustrator Judith Kerr is best known for her much-loved children's books, which include The Tiger who Came to Tea and When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. In the week of her 90th birthday, she discusses her latest book, Judith Kerr's Creatures, which celebrates her life, family and work. She talks about the inspiration for her books and her family's remarkable story of escape from Nazi Germany.Admission is a new comedy set at Princeton University. Tina Fey is an admissions officer who's approached by a teacher (Paul Rudd) trying to persuade her to accept his brilliant but troubled pupil. Critic and writer Elaine Showalter, who used to teach at Princeton, gives her verdict.Dates, a new TV drama series, focuses on the uncomfortable, funny and complex situations arising when people meet for a first date. The series, created by Bryan Elsley, who also launched Skins, features a cast including Sheridan Smith, Will Mellor, Oona Chaplin and Gemma Chan. Writer and advice columnist Bel Mooney rev

With John Wilson.Marc Chagall's paintings filled with colour, floating figures and Jewish motifs are among the most distinctive in art. A new exhibition at Tate Liverpool traces the creation of Chagall's style by following his early years as an artist in Paris and his native Russia. Jackie Wullschlager, author of the biography Chagall: Love and Exile, reviews.St Colmcille, the patron saint of Derry/Londonderry, returns for a public pageant on a city-wide scale, starting this evening. Frank Cottrell Boyce, the writer behind the London 2012 Opening Ceremony, discusses how he created the story for this weekend's events in the UK's City of Culture. Many aspects of the city's history are celebrated, culminating in a showdown on the river front between St. Colmcille and his monstrous nemesis. Singer-songwriter Laura Marling reflects on her new album Once I was an Eagle, and explains why she has chosen to base herself in Los Angeles. She also brings her guitar to the Front Row studio, to perform. And the Irish write

With Mark Lawson.Writer and comedy performer Miranda Hart reflects on her career so far, as her book Is It Just Me? appears in paperback.Martin Amis discusses his 13th novel Lionel Asbo: State of England, a black comedy about a very violent and not very successful criminal and his nephew Desmond Pepperdine.Playwright and actor Kwame Kwei-Armah, currently Artistic Director of Center Stage in Baltimore, Maryland, selects his Cultural Exchange: Joe Turner's Come and Gone by August WilsonProducer Jerome Weatherald.

With Mark LawsonAs actress Anne-Marie Duff (The Virgin Queen, Shameless) takes to the stage as Nina in Eugene O'Neill's 1923 play Strange Interlude, she talks to Mark about the soliloquy technique, madness, shyness, and Doctor Who.Formerly known as the Orange Prize, this year's Women's Prize for Fiction will be awarded this evening. The shortlist includes Hilary Mantel, Barbara Kingsolver, Zadie Smith, A.M. Homes, Kate Atkinson and Maria Semple. Mark speaks to the winner live from the ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall.Now in its 245th year, the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy in London is about to open. It is the world's largest open-submission exhibition, displaying more than 1,000 works in all styles and media, including painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, architectural models and film. Curators Eva Jiricna and Norman Ackroyd discuss the range of works chosen by the Academicians.And for this evening's Cultural Exchange, novelist and poet Sarah Hall chooses the 1992 Director's Cut of Blad

John Wilson has news of the winner of the £100 000 Art Fund Prize for Museum of the Year, as he presents the programme live from the ceremony at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.The 10 contenders are:BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, GatesheadBeaney House of Art and Knowledge, CanterburyDulwich Picture Gallery, LondonThe Hepworth Wakefield, WakefieldHorniman Museum & Gardens, LondonKelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, GlasgowMuseum of Archaeology & Anthropology, CambridgeNarberth Museum, PembrokeshirePreston Park Museum, Stockton-on-TeesWilliam Morris Gallery, LondonJohn hears from each of the museums in the running, as well as speaking to the judges of the Prize, including Stephen Deuchar of the Art Fund, Bettany Hughes, Sarah Crompton and artist Bob and Roberta Smith.Maria Miller, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, discusses the current role of museums, and Ian Hislop will announce the winning museum live on the programme.Producer Ella-mai Robey.

With Mark LawsonComedian Julian Clary reviews Steven Soderbergh's film Behind the Candelabra, starring Michael Douglas as Liberace, with Matt Damon as his lover Scott Thorson.American composer Philip Glass discusses his latest opera, The Perfect American, which imagines the last few months of Walt Disney's life. It's based on the novel by Peter Stephan Jungk and directed by Phelim McDermott, and is Philip Glass's 24th opera.Novelist P D James reveals her choice for the Cultural Exchange, in which leading creative minds share their passion for a favourite work. She nominates a poem by Philip Larkin.Channel 4's first subtitled drama for two decades, French zombie drama The Returned, is reviewed by novelist Denise Mina.Producer Stephen Hughes.

With Kirsty Lang.The artist Alfred Munnings is best remembered as a painter of English rural scenes and horses. An ill- judged speech to the Royal Academy in 1949, in which he attacked Picasso, Henry Moore and modern art in general, led him to be seen as a reactionary and conservative figure.But a new film about his early life, Summer in February, reveals another side to Munnings. Set in an artists' colony in Cornwall, the film explores the bohemian existence and love affairs of painters including Sir Alfred Munnings and Dame Laura Knight before they became established.Kirsty Lang discovers the love triangle that tore young Munnings's life apart and asks whether his outspoken views and traditional approach to art in later life has led him to be overlooked as a painter.Producer Olivia Skinner.

John Wilson charts the progress of artist Jeremy Deller, as he creates a range of new work for the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The journey begins in Jeremy's flat, and includes visits to a recording studio and a record pressing plant, before the final unveiling of the works in Venice. Producer Ekene Akalawu.

With Mark Lawson.Award-winning documentary maker Norma Percy's latest series, The Iraq War, investigates the events that led Britain and America to go to war with Iraq, with testimony from major players including Tony Blair, Jack Straw and key figures in the Iraqi government. Chris Mullin and Richard Ottaway MP discuss whether the series give us a new insight into how the war came about.To celebrate the centenary of Stravinsky's controversial ballet The Rite of Spring, dancer and choreographer Akram Khan has created a new interpretation of the piece with an original score by Nitin Sawnhey, Jocelyn Pook and Ben Frost. Akram Khan discusses his new work ITMOi (In the Mind of Igor) and explains how he went about following in Stravinsky's footsteps.In Cultural Exchange, in which leading creative minds share a cultural passion, historian Antonia Fraser champions J M W Turner's painting The Fighting Temeraire.Producer Olivia Skinner.

With Mark Lawson.Gemma Arterton (Quantum of Solace) and Saoirse Ronan (Atonement) play mother and daughter in Neil Jordan's vampire film Byzantium. After setting up home in a run-down seaside guest house, schoolgirl Eleanor (Ronan) confides to a friend that she survives on human blood. Natalie Haynes reviews.Lucy Kirkwood's new play Chimerica opens in Beijing in 1989. As the tanks roll into Tiananmen Square, an American photographer captures a piece of history - which comes back to haunt him as he works on the U S presidential elections in New York 2012. Lucy Kirkwood and director Lyndsey Turner talk to Mark about working together on the play.Novelist Audrey Niffenegger, who wrote the best-seller The Time Traveller's Wife, has now collaborated with the Royal Ballet on Raven Girl. Based on a fairy tale written by Niffenegger, Raven Girl tells the story of a girl who wants to fly. Audrey Niffenegger reflects on how the creative partnership worked.For the Cultural Exchange, in which leading creative minds share

With Mark Lawson.TV and film producer Tony Garnett's work includes Cathy Come Home, Kes, Cardiac Arrest and This Life. The British Film Institute is now marking his 50 year career with a retrospective season. In this conversation, he explains why he has generally refused to do interviews, and how personal tragedies have been reflected in films such as Up the Junction. Although he started his career as an actor, appearing in Dixon of Dock Green, Garnett discusses the appeal of being a producer and the resultant battles to make hard-hitting films tackling difficult or controversial issues - including back-street abortions and the welfare state.Producer Claire Bartleet.

With John Wilson.Writer and critic Paul Morley discusses his new book The North: (And Almost Everything In It). The book is part memoir and part history, exploring what it means to be northern and the contribution the area has made to English cultural and political life.In Cultural Exchange, in which leading creative minds reflect on a favourite cultural experience, soprano Angela Gheorghiu nominates fellow Romanian Virginia Zeani singing Bellini's I Puritani.Critic Jason Solomons considers the runners and riders for this year's Palme D'Or, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, including the Coen Brothers new offering Inside Llewyn Davis and Blue Is The Warmest Colour, a love story that has already made history for containing the most explicit lesbian sex scenes in a mainstream movie.Singer-songwriter John Grant has revealed his anguish after his laptop, containing music and notes for lyrics, was stolen after a recent gig in Brighton. Jazz musician Soweto Kinch was also the victim of theft, but is now re

With John Wilson.Berlin-born photographer Erwin Blumenfeld (1897-1969) was one of the most internationally sought-after portrait and fashion photographers in the 1940s and 1950s. America's leading magazines, including Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, hired him for his imaginative and highly individual shots. Erwin's grandson Remy and critic Joanna Pitman assess his legacy as a new exhibition Blumenfeld Studio: New York, 1941-1960 opens.Lydia Davis won The Man Booker International Prize last night for a career which includes a novel, translations of Proust and Flaubert and a large repertoire of very short stories, some only one sentence long. She explains how momentary observations inspire her work, including something she spotted on the London Underground yesterday.For Cultural Exchange, in which leading creative minds reflect on a favourite cultural experience, violinist Nigel Kennedy selects Black and Blue, by Louis Armstrong.John Constable's renowned landscape painting Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows has be

With Mark Lawson.Khaled Hosseini's debut novel The Kite Runner was an international best-seller. As he publishes a new novel, And the Mountains Echoed, Hosseini reflects on being a writer in exile, his creative process, and censorship in his native Afghanistan.Saints Alive is the new project from the artist Michael Landy, who once destroyed all his possessions for a work called Break Down. Images of saints from the National Gallery's collection have been cast in three dimensions and assembled using materials he sourced from car boot sales and flea markets. He shows Mark around the exhibition.Novelist A S Byatt reveals her choice for Front Row's Cultural Exchange, in which leading creative minds nominate a favourite artwork.DJ and film critic Andrew Collins presents his top 10 of disc jockeys in film, as The King Of Marvin Gardens is re-released, starring Jack Nicholson as a late-night talk show host.Producer Stephen Hughes.

With Mark Lawson.The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown discusses his latest novel about code-breaking called Inferno, a Dante inspired crime thriller set in the streets, museums and ancient buildings of Florence.Richard Wagner is loved and loathed in almost equal measure. The composer of the musically ground-breaking Ring Cycle, Tristan and Isolde and Meistersingers is also known for his extreme political views, including anti-Semitism. Tomorrow is the 200th anniversary of his birth. Former England cricketer and Wagner fan Ed Smith debates if it's possible to look beyond Wagner's politics and celebrate his music.Comedy writer Eddie Braben, best known for his work with Morecambe and Wise, has died aged 82. The radio critic Gillian Reynolds, who was a lifelong friend of Braben, reflects on his career and legacy.In Cultural Exchange, in which leading creative minds reflect on a favourite cultural experience, Mary Beard chooses Laocoön and His Sons, a sculpture from Ancient Greece which depicts a key scene from the

With Mark LawsonRobert De Niro and Diane Keaton star in The Big Wedding, playing an ex-married couple who must pretend to be together for their adopted son's wedding. The starry cast also includes Susan Sarandon, Amanda Seyfried and Robin Williams as the priest. Larushka Ivan-Zadeh delivers her verdict.A new series on the Tudors begins on BBC TV this week - so why is this historical period so popular with TV executives, and which other parts of British history deserve the TV treatment? Historians Henrietta Leyser and Don Spaeth pitch their alternatives.Veteran American writer James Salter has just published his first novel in 34 years. All That Is comes garlanded with praise from writers on both sides of the Atlantic, and draws together many of the themes of Salter's lifetime's work: war, love, sex and marriage. Often considered the great overlooked writer, 87 year old Salter discusses the novel's long gestation, and his trademark economy of prose.In Cultural Exchange, in which leading creative minds reflect