Front Row Folgen

Michael Morpurgo’s book Private Peaceful has been made into a film, a solo stage show and a radio drama. As a new ensemble version opens at Nottingham Playhouse, before touring the country, the author and adapter Simon Reade talks to Nick Ahad about the power of this story of two brothers, caught up in the trauma of the First World War.We talk to the newly announced winner of the Barbellion Prize, dedicated to the furtherance of ill and disabled voices in writing: Lynn Buckle’s on her novel, What Willow Says, a meditation on nature and deafness.Soprano Barbara Hannigan first sang the role of Elle, the jilted lover in Poulenc’s one woman opera La Voix Humaine, in 2015. Now she’s simultaneously singing and conducting the opera, based on Jean Cocteau’s original monologue, with the London Symphony Orchestra at The Barbican. Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Simon RichardsonImage: Daniel Rainford in Private Peaceful Credit: Manuel Harlan

Japanese film Drive My Car has been nominated for four Oscars, including Best Director for Ryusuke Hamaguchi. With his next film Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy released in the UK on Friday, critic Briony Hanson joins Samira Ahmed to review both films.It’s a truism that Shakespeare is as relevant today as ever. But some of his plays are regarded as problematic and recently the celebrated actress Juliet Stevenson requested that a couple of them “should be buried”. Is she right? And which plays speak most powerfully to us? Juliet Stevenson and directors Abigail Graham - whose production of The Merchant of Venice is about to open at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse - and Justin Audibert join Samira. The BBC Concert Orchestra has begun a three year residency in Great Yarmouth, with the aim of ‘raising aspiration and improving wellbeing.’ For Front Row, BBC Radio Norfolk’s Andrew Turner reports on what the town already has to offer and how the cultural scene might benefit from the residency.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian MayImage: Hidetoshi Nishijima and Toko Miura in the film Drive My Car, directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi Credit: Modern Films

Monochrome is having a moment at this year’s awards season in films such as Belfast, The Tragedy of Macbeth and C’mon C’mon. To discuss the comeback of black and white and its enduring appeal, Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Edu Grau, Director of Photography for Passing and Ellen Kuras, who won the Cinematography Award at Sundance for her debut feature film, Swoon, shot in black and white in 1992. She’s since become the first woman to receive the American Society of Cinematographers’ Lifetime Achievement Award and is about to embark on Lee, a biopic of the black and white photographer, Lee Miller.As the 2022 Oscar nominees are announced, we talk to Maggie Gyllenhaal who is nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay with The Lost Daughter, the actor’s directorial debut, as well as Andrew Garfield, who bagged a best actor nomination for musical tick, tick... BOOM! Husband and wife animation team Les Mills and Joanna Quinn, writer and director respectively about their Best Animated Film-nominated Affairs of the Art also join us. Film critics Larushka Ivan-Zadeh and Leila Latif provide analysis.And we discuss a new experimental drama for Radio 4, An Artificially Intelligent Guide to Love, which sees writer Hannah Silva collaborate with a machine-learning algorithm to create an audio guide to romance.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Simon Richardson Production co-ordinator: Lizzy HarrisPhoto: Ruth Negga as Clare Bellew and Tessa Thompson as Irene "Reenie” Redfield in the film Passing Credit: Netflix