Front Row

Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

Magazines & Reviews

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

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

BBC Radio 4 FM

Front Row: The Blackwater Lightship, Filmmaker Kirsty Bell, Black Art

28/09/2022

The Blackwater Lightship, Filmmaker Kirsty Bell, Black Art

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, The Blackwater Lightship, Filmmaker Kirsty Bell, Black Art

Colm Toibin's novel on stage; debut director of A Bird Flew In; the history of black art.

New play The Blackwater Lightship, based on Colm Tóibín's novel; Kirsty Bell, debut film director of A Bird Flew In; and the history and shifting meaning of black art.

The Blackwater Lightship is a novel by Colm Tóibín, published in 1999 and shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It was later made into a film and has now been dramatized for the Dublin Theatre Festival. Set in the early nineties, it tells of a young gay man suffering from AIDS who visits his grandmother in rural Wexford and the repercussions his arrival has on her, his mother, and sister. Elle talks to the writer and director David Horan about adapting the novel for the stage, and the issues it raises about mother-daughter relationships and attitudes to AIDS then and now.

On the 40th anniversary of the First National Black Art Convention, held at Wolverhampton Polytechnic, and an accompanying exhibition at Wolverhampton Art Gallery, we look at that foundational moment for black art now, 40 years on. Elle speaks to Marlene Smith, artist, curator, and a founding member of the BLK Art Group, and to Alice Correia - art historian and editor of a new collection of documents from that time.

Plus filmmaker Kirsty Bell discusses her directorial debut, A Bird Flew In - set during lockdown, and featuring a stellar cast, including Sadie Frost, Derek Jacobi, and Frances Barber.

Presenter: Elle Osili-Wood
Producer: Ellie Bury

BBC Radio 4

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

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Front Row

The Blackwater Lightship, Filmmaker Kirsty Bell, Black Art

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4