Front Row Folgen

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.