Original version

BBC World Service Online

The Arts Hour

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

The best global arts coverage from across the BBC.

No Master Brand

BBC World Service

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service East Asia

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

The BBC's international radio station (B2B)

BBC World Service US Public Radio

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

The Arts Hour: Spotlight, Rokia Traoré, Will Smith

Discussion & Talk

Mark Ruffalo, Rokia Traore, Will Smith

06/02/2016 GMT

Spotlight, Rokia Traoré, Will Smith

BBC World Service - The Arts Hour, Spotlight, Rokia Traoré, Will Smith

Will Smith explains why he and his wife are boycotting the Oscars

Oscar-nominated actor Mark Ruffalo outlines his role playing journalist Michael Rezendes in the Catholic-Church paedophelia true story Spotlight. We also hear from Michael Rezendes himself, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter at The Boston Globe. We visit the sold-out fifth edition of the comedy showcase Arabs Are Not Funny in London. Its line-up included artists from Africa and the Middle East, among them award-winning British Somali comic Prince Abdi and upcoming Tunisian comedian Houssem Rhaiem. 

Director Ben Hopkins tells us about the personal experience behind his satire Lost In Karastan in which an unemployed film-maker is hired by a dictator to make an epic historical action film extolling the virtues of his country.   Rokia Traoré, Mali’s award-winning musician, discusses collaborating with Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison who has written lyrics for her new album, Ne So. 

Will Smith tells us about how his wife led his family’s boycott of this year’s Oscar ceremony. British-Nigerian soul and jazz singer Ola Onabule tells us how years in Nigeria influence his life and music, and how this can be heard in his latest album, It's the Peace that Deafens. 

We head to the Royal Academy in London and an exhibition bringing together some of the world's best-known works to examine the role that gardens have played in art since the mid-19th century. The exhibition will include a display of all three panels of Monet’s famous water lily work - it is the first time they have been on public display in Europe.    

And, acclaimed novelist Han Kang sends the BBC a postcard from South Korea about the literary scene in the capital Seoul.

(Photo: Mark Ruffalo who stars in Spotlight (c) Larry Busacca/Getty Images, Rokia Traoré (c) Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images, Will Smith (c) Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images)

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Arts Hour

Spotlight, Rokia Traoré, Will Smith

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service Online

About BBC World Service