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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music

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Kirsty Lang

Ella-mai Robey

Alison Steadman

Anders Lustgarten

Cornelia Parker

Griselda Pollock

Ben Wardle

Front Row: Alison Steadman, Anders Lustgarten, History of art A-level

Alison Steadman, Anders Lustgarten, History of art A-level

02/12/2016

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Alison Steadman, Anders Lustgarten, History of art A-level

Alison Steadman on Abigail's Party, Pride and Prejudice, and Gavin & Stacey.

Alison Steadman looks back at her acting career, playwright Anders Lustgarten on The Seven Acts of Mercy, the new History of Art A-level, and the F-Word in pop (not that one).

As Alison Steadman wins the Richard Harris Award for Outstanding Contribution to Film at the British Independent Film Awards, and the BFI announces a season dedicated to her TV work in the New Year, we speak to the actress about her career.

What links baroque bad-boy painter Caravaggio and a present-day retired docker from Merseyside? Compassion, according to Anders Lustgarten's new play The Seven Acts of Mercy. Kirsty talks to the playwright and political activist about his latest work for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

After news in October that AQA, the last exam board in England offering History of Art A-level, was dropping the subject from 2018, the schools standards minister, Nick Gibb, has announced that a new A-level in art history is being developed by the Pearson exam board for teaching from September 2017. Artist Cornelia Parker and Griselda Pollock, Director of the Centre for Cultural Analysis, Theory & History at Leeds University, give their reaction. 

The Top 40 Singles chart this week includes The Weeknd's Starboy (featuring Daft Punk), Sia's The Greatest (featuring Kendrick Lamar) and Jonas Blue's By Your Side (featuring Raye). Music writer Ben Wardle has spent decades glued to the radio, and he's got a bit of an issue with this increasing use of the F-Word - 'Featuring'.

Presenter: Kirsty Lang
Producer: Ella-mai Robey.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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