Front Row Folgen

Front Row reviews some of the week’s cultural highlights. Tom Sutcliffe is joined by film critic Hanna Flint and Will Hodgkinson, chief pop and rock critic for The Times, to discuss Cold War, a new musical with music from Elvis Costello, and animated film Chicken Run: Return of the Nugget.Luke Jones reports on the super-fans of the musical Operation Mincemeat, who have been investigating the story of one of the real characters involved, an MI5 secretary called Hester Legett. As a plaque is unveiled in her honour, Luke hears why this musical has such a cult following. In May of this year a South Korean art student added his own footnote to Maurizio Cattelan’s controversial artwork Comedian – a fresh banana stuck to the gallery wall with duct tape – by pulling it free and eating it. Niki Segnit, the author of The Flavour Thesaurus, muses on the use of food in art. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Corinna Jones

Bradley Cooper directs and stars in the new film Maestro about the hugely influential American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein alongside Carey Mulligan as his wife, the actor Felicia Montealegre. Nick Ahad speaks to both of them about portraying a ‘marriage through music’ and how Cooper spent six years preparing to conduct Mahler’s Resurrection with the London Symphony Orchestra.Fifty years after his death, for many the playwright and composer Noel Coward is very much a figure of the British establishment. However as a new production of his most famous work, Brief Encounter, opens at Manchester’s Royal Exchange, Front Row brought together its musical director Matthew Malone and Sarah K Whitfield, co-author of An Inconvenient Black History of British Musical Theatre 1900 – 1950, to discuss how Coward’s songs reveal a more radical side of his artistry.Kirsty Lang reports on the Wien Museum, the Viennese institution which has just re-opened and for the first time includes an acknowledgement of the city’s Nazi past. Critic Kate Maltby reflects on the news that Indhu Rubasingham has been appointed the next director of the National Theatre. She will be the first female and the first person of colour to lead the theatre. Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Margaret Cavendish was born exactly 400 years ago, and her many achievements include writing The Blazing World, arguably the first ever sci-fi novel. Novelist Siri Hustvedt and biographer Francesca Peacock discuss the enduring legacy of this pioneering woman, with extracts read by Rhiannon NeadsMargreth Olin tells Samira about her film Songs of Earth, for which she returned to the valley in Western Norway where she grew up, and the year she spent learning from her elderly parents and from nature. Graham Kibble-White, Deputy Editor of Total TV guide magazine and TV critic and broadcaster Scott Bryan share their top festive viewing tips – from ghosts stories to soaps, documentaries to children’s viewing.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian Wilkinson