Front Row - Dame Judi Dench and Wendy Craig remember Geoffrey Palmer; Ruth Wilson; Graeae; Kylie and Little Mix albums; Ted Hughes's Crow
The death of Geoffrey Palmer was announced today. Two of his leading co-stars, Dame Judi Dench and Wendy Craig, pay tribute.
Ruth Wilson plays the sinister and ruthlessly ambitious Mrs Coulter in the BBC’s lavish adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. We catch up with her as series two begins to discuss the relationship with her estranged daughter Lyra, working with a digital monkey, and to ask if baddies are just more fun to play.
November marks the 25th anniversary of the Disability Discrimination Act, criminalising discrimination against disabled people in many areas of life. The anniversary is being marked on BBC TV and radio with a focus on the arts. For Radio 4, Jenny Sealey, of Graeae Theatre, and Polly Thomas have directed an adaptation of a Ben Johnson play - Bartholomew Fair - reimagined as The Bartholomew Abominations, set in a dystopian future.
Two major pop acts have new releases out – longstanding international treasure Kylie Minogue and relative newcomers on the block, Little Mix. Katie Puckrik and Roisin O’Connor join John to discuss the merits (or otherwise?) of the albums and also to select a cultural highlight they’ve been enjoying recently
Fifty years ago Ted Hughes published Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow. The Crow is a violent shape-shifter, a ruthless trickster who is determined to survive. A new edition of Crow has just been published and in Front Row Marina Warner, who has written the foreword, reveals the brutal beauty that Hughes achieved. The poet Zaffar Kunial reflects on how the rough music of the Songs of the Crow echoes across half a century to us today. We hear, too, from the archive, powerful readings of the poems by Ted Hughes himself.
Presenter: John Wilson
Producer: Sarah Johnson
Published on Friday, 6th November 2020.
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