Podcasts by Front Row

Margaret Cavendish, Margareth Olin, Christmas TV from 2023-12-12T20:26

Margaret Cavendish was born exactly 400 years ago, and her many achievements include writing The Blazing World, arguably the first ever sci-fi novel. Novelist Siri Hustvedt and biographer France...

Andy Serkis and Louisa Harland on Ulster American, Panto and Gender Roles, Graphic Novels with Rachel Cooke and Ian Dunt from 2023-12-12T09:54

Tom Sutcliffe talks to Andy Serkis and Louisa Harland about Ulster American, a new play in which they star at Riverside Studios with Woody Harrelson.

It's panto season (oh no it isn't), a ...

Benjamin Zephaniah, Wim Wenders' Anselm,The Famous Five, Xmas Ads from 2023-12-07T20:34

Fred D'Aguiar discusses the life and poetry of Benjamin Zephaniah, whose death was announced today.

Tom Sutcliffe reviews Wim Wenders' film about the artist Anselm Kiefer and the BBC's ada...

Paul King on directing Wonka, Best non-fiction books of 2023, British pop art artist Pauline Boty from 2023-12-06T20:06

Paddington director Paul King returns with Wonka starring Timothée Chalamet in the title role. He talks with Samira about exploring the backstory of Willy Wonka and Roald Dahl’s surprising visio...

Shane Meadows on the British film industry, Children’s books round-up, the Turner Prize from 2023-12-05T20:08

Shane Meadows talks about his unconventional journey into the British film industry and his vision for more diversity in film, as he prepares to give the David Lean lecture at BAFTA.

The f...

Julia Roberts on Leave the World Behind, guitarist MILOŠ, The Peasants from 2023-12-04T20:13

Julia Roberts, and the director of her latest project, Sam Esmail, discuss their new film, Leave The World Behind - a psychological thriller which explores what happens when all the things that ...

Front Row reviews Eileen and The House of Bernarda Alba from 2023-11-30T20:11

Front Row reviews the week’s cultural highlights. Samira Ahmed is joined by critics Sarah Crompton and Isabel Stevens to discuss William Oldroyd’s new film Eileen and a production of The House ...

Billie Marten, Yinka Shonibare, Richard Mantle on Opera North from 2023-11-29T20:47

Since 1994 Sir Richard Mantle has been General Director of Opera North. He's led the company through the creation of a new home in Leeds; the establishment of the Howard Assembly Room - a perfor...

AI and publishing, terrible record covers, Fred D'Aguiar from 2023-11-28T20:07

Michael Connelly is one of several authors suing the tech company OpenAI for "theft" of his work. Nicola Solomon, outgoing Society of Authors CEO, and Sean Michaels, one of the first novelists t...

Maria Callas, Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane, Rory Pilgrim from 2023-11-27T20:11

For what would have been the 100th birthday of soprano Maria Callas, Front Row brought together singer Dame Sarah Connolly and music critic Fiona Maddocks to reassess her achievements and influe...

The Booker Prize Ceremony 2023 from 2023-11-26T22:46

A special edition of Front Row, live from the Booker Prize for Fiction.

Samira Ahmed is joined on stage by Booker Prize judges actor Adjoa Andoh and Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro to d...

Maestro, reality TV Squid Game, Brutalist architecture from 2023-11-23T20:22

Bradley Cooper’s prosthetic nose has attracted a lot of media attention for Maestro, his portrayal of the composer Leonard Bernstein. Tom Sutcliffe asks music critic Nicholas Kenyon and writer a...

Joanna Hogg, map making, Ghislaine Leung from 2023-11-22T20:17

In her acclaimed films Joanna Hogg blurs the lines between her art and her life. As she releases her first ghost story film, The Eternal Daughter - an exploration of a mother and daughter rela...

Ridley Scott's Napoleon, Albert Hall tickets resales, Bob Mortimer's winning comedy fiction from 2023-11-21T20:13

Tom Sutcliffe talks to director Ridley Scott about his new film Napoleon - a subject that takes him back to an actor who’s played an emperor for him before – Joaquin Phoenix was Commodus in Glad...

The Alehouse Boys, Sarah Bernstein and AS Byatt from 2023-11-20T20:07

Thomas Guthrie and “The Alehouse Boys” bring the music of Schubert to pubs with their new album Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin. Their arrangements of Schubert’s song cycle intend to break free f...

Annette Bening and Jodie Foster from 2023-11-16T20:14

Annette Bening and Jodie Foster star in a new sports biopic Nyad, the eponymous story of Diana Nyad who attempted to swim between Cuba and Florida in her 60s. In an exclusive interview for Front...

The Barber of Seville in Yorkshire dialect, Art as experience, Turner Prize nominee Jesse Darling, Northern Creative Corridor from 2023-11-15T20:51

Ian McMillan explains the challenge of translating Rossini's comedy opera, The Barber of Seville, into Yorkshire dialect and singers Oscar Castellino and Felicity Buckland along with pianist Pet...

Emerald Fennell, Lucy Frazer and Paul Harding from 2023-11-14T20:20

Emerald Fennell’s follow-up to her award-winning film Promising Young Woman aims to have cinema-goers squirming in their seats. The mystery drama Saltburn explores class, as an awkward outsider ...

Todd Haynes, Trevor Horn, new galleries at the Imperial War Museum from 2023-11-13T20:07

The UK’s first art, film and photography galleries dedicated to war and conflict have just opened at the Imperial War Museum. Al Murray, who has made several documentaries about Britain’s wars...

Anatomy of a Fall, Pete McKee, Wu-Tang Clan 30th anniversary from 2023-11-09T21:25

Tonight on Front Row - reviews of something old and something new. At this year's Cannes Film Festival, Anatomy of a Fall, a whodunnit fused with a portrait of a marriage and wrapped up in cour...

Front Row reviews 1623, to mark the anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio from 2023-11-08T19:30

To mark 400 hundred years to the day since the First Folio of Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies was published according to the True Original Copies, the BBC is celeb...

Billy Bragg, Paul Murray, feminist art of the 1970s from 2023-11-07T20:11

Singer, songwriter and activist Billy Bragg joins Samira Ahmed to perform live in the Front Row studio and discuss The Roaring Forty, a box set and nationwide tour to mark his forty years in the...

Rebecca Lucy Taylor aka Self Esteem, Judi Jackson, the rise of the Ghanaian art scene from 2023-11-06T20:08

Rebecca Lucy Taylor also known as Self Esteem is making her stage debut in the Olivier-award winning production of Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club in London as Sally Bowles, the English nightclub si...

Kenneth Branagh in King Lear, Andrew Motion on Elegies from 2023-11-02T20:10

Coming under the Front Row spotlight today are: Kenneth Branagh’s new stage production of King Lear, in which he both stars and directs, and How to Have Sex, a new coming of age film about the ...

Henry Winkler, Northern Ballet, David Fennessey from 2023-11-01T20:16

From 1974 to 1984 Henry Winkler played the character of Arthur Fonzarelli, “The Fonz”, in the hit American sitcom, Happy Days. The role dominated the public’s perception of him, but despite bein...

Duran Duran, Dobrivoje Beljkasic at 100 and Sandra Newman on retelling Orwell’s 1984 from 2023-10-31T20:18

To mark Halloween, Duran Duran have released Danse Macabre, a “spooky concept” album. Samira talks to Simon Le Bon and John Taylor about working with Nile Rogers, covering The Specials’ Ghost To...

Backstairs Billy, Jonathan Escoffery, National Theatre Wales from 2023-10-30T20:16

Backstairs Billy is a new play about Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon, the Queen Mother, and her loyal, camp and working class servant, William Tallon. Penelope Wilton, who plays the Queen...

David Fincher’s The Killer and the week’s highlights reviewed from 2023-10-26T19:11

The Killer, starring Michael Fassbender, has been hailed as a return to tense and stylish form for the director David Fincher. Critics Rhianna Dhillon and John Mullan join Tom Sutcliffe to give ...

A history of 2 Tone, actor Martin Shaw remembers producer Bill Kenwright, Booker-shortlisted author Chetna Maroo, Lyonesse from 2023-10-25T19:12

Daniel Rachel’s book Too Much Too Young: The 2 Tone Records Story is a new history of the iconic record label. He’s joined by Pauline Black, lead singer of The Selecter, to discuss the cultural ...

Patrick Stewart, Steven Isserlis, The art of skateboard design from 2023-10-24T19:20

Sir Patrick Stewart's memoir Making It So looks back over his long and eclectic acting career encompassing stage, film and television and video games. He has played roles in productions as varie...

Aviva Studios, The Chemical Brothers, Rufus Norris on 60 years of the National Theatre, Danny Boyle's Free Your Mind from 2023-10-23T19:37

Aviva Studios, a reportedly £240 million pound arts complex, has opened in Manchester with Free Your Mind, an immersive stage version of The Matrix from Oscar winning director Danny Boyle. Joini...

The Rolling Stones; Foe; television food consultant; Doctors axed from 2023-10-19T19:12

Film critic Ryan Gilbey and music and club culture writer Kate Hutchinson deliver their verdict on Hackney Diamonds - the first new Rolling Stones album for 18 years – and Garth Davis’ film Foe,...

Bonnie Langford performs Sondheim, film director Maysoon Pachachi, the portrayal of nuns in culture from 2023-10-18T19:07

Musical theatre legend Bonnie Langford performs Stephen Sondheim's I'm Still Here from the musical Follies, in tribute to the late composer and lyricist. The actress, singer and dancer reflects ...

Front Row from Belfast with writer Paul Lynch and singer Cara Dillon from 2023-10-17T19:24

Two adaptations of Rhinoceros by Eugène Ionesco open this month, one in Belfast and a Welsh language adaptation in Cardiff. The adaptors Patrick J O’Reilly and Manon Steffan Ros both join Kathy...

Martin Scorsese film, John le Carré’s legacy, Madonna on Tour from 2023-10-16T19:22

Madonna is still in the spotlight 45 years after bursting onto the pop scene in the 1980s, inspiring fashion, dance and youth culture, as well as being the world’s best-selling female artist of ...

Front Row reviews the Frasier reboot and performance from folk musician Martin Hayes from 2023-10-12T19:17

Samira Ahmed is joined by critics Anne Joseph and Nancy Durrant to review some of this week’s cultural highlights. They discuss the new series of the classic TV comedy Frasier, which is return...

Lubaina Himid, Richard Armitage, David Pountney’s new opera from 2023-10-11T19:33

Actor Richard Armitage – who starred in North and South and the Hobbit - joins Nick to discuss writing his debut novel, the bio-tech thriller Geneva, which is about to be published in hardback b...

Nigel Kennedy, art gallery labels, how do museums recover stolen art? from 2023-10-10T19:17

Nigel Kennedy remains the best selling violinist of all time with a repertoire that spans jazz, classical, rock, klezmer and more. Ahead of his four night residency at Ronnie Scott’s in London ...

Piper Kathryn Tickell performs, film director Terence Davies remembered, author Jhumpa Lahiri, £200 million for Heritage Places from 2023-10-09T19:12

Kathryn Tickell and The Darkening’s new album, Cloud Horizons, fuses synthesizers with a bone flute, a sistrum – very old Egyptian instrument - and lyrics based on an inscription in Latin carve...

Front Row reviews Philip Guston at the Tate Modern and new film Golda from 2023-10-05T19:27

The winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize for Literature is Norwegian writer Jon Fosse, who is best known for his innovative plays. Playwright Simon Stephens, who has translated his work, talks about ...

The Streets, the British Textile Biennial, Kate Prince on her mentor from 2023-10-04T19:14

Mike Skinner helped define an era with The Streets' album Original Pirate Material in 2002. Now he's back with not only new music but an accompanying film, The Darker the Shadow the Brighter the...

Patsy Ferran, Rubens&Women, the portrayal of black men in British film from 2023-10-03T19:15

The actor Patsy Ferran talks to Samira about her transformation from flower girl (with some autonomy) to duchess (with none at all) in Pygmalion at the Old Vic, and a career in which she transfo...

Claudette Johnson, ghosts in literature, the Dutch Golden Age from 2023-10-02T19:00

The portraits in the National Gallery’s new retrospective of the artist Frans Hals capture his informal and fresh style which contrasted with other masters like Vermeer and Rembrandt. We hear fr...

Víkingur Ólafsson on Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Ken Loach’s The Old Oak from 2023-09-28T19:05

Front Row reviews two of this week’s cultural highlights. Tom Sutcliffe is joined by writer Hettie Judah and film critic Peter Bradshaw to discuss Happy Gas, a retrospective of work by Sarah Lu...

James Graham on Boys from the Blackstuff, and are maestros behaving badly? from 2023-09-27T20:02

Alan Bleasdale’s Boys From The Blackstuff is widely regarded as television drama at its best with a cultural footprint that led to the phrase “Gi’s a job” being heard up and down the country. Fo...

Front Row hosts the BBC National Short Story Award Ceremony from 2023-09-26T19:26

The announcement of the winners of the BBC National Short Story Award and the BBC Young Writers’ Award with Cambridge University, live from the Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House in London. Listen

Philip Barantini on Boiling Point, The Archers cast on Lark Rise to Ambridge from 2023-09-25T19:21

As the cast of the Archers star in a new adaptation of Flora Thompson's Lark Rise to Candleford, Samira is joined by actors Louiza Patikas, who plays Helen in the Archers, and Susie Riddell, who...

Live from the Contains Strong Language festival from 2023-09-21T19:49

Front Row opens this year’s Contain’s Strong Language festival live in Leeds. Nick Ahad talks to Detectorists star Toby Jones about his stage adaptation of Italo Calvino’s If On A Winters Night ...

Marina Abramovic and The Long Shadow reviewed, Dmitry Glukhovsky's The White Factory from 2023-09-20T19:24

Writer Joan Smith and art historian Katy Hessel review a retrospective exhibition of the performance artist Marina Abramovic at the Royal Academy and a new ITV drama about the Yorkshire ripper, ...

Carlos Acosta on the Black Sabbath ballet; Birmingham arts funding; the business of British fashion from 2023-09-19T19:36

Birmingham Royal Ballet is celebrating the city’s pioneering heavy metal band in a new production, Black Sabbath – the Ballet. Tom Sutcliffe talks to the director of BRB Carlos Acosta about how ...

Jane Austen fashion, poet Daljit Nagra, musician Alice Phoebe Lou performs live from 2023-09-18T19:10

From the enduring legacy of Colin Firth’s wet shirt to the colourful extravagance of Bridgerton, costumes have always been central in period dramas. But how much does adaptation match up to real...

Paul Simon and Charlie Mackesy, the V&A’s Chanel exhibition and author Kamila Shamsie. from 2023-09-14T19:21

When the artist Charlie Mackesy, best-known for his book The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, heard Paul Simon’s most recent album, the acclaimed Seven Psalms, he was inspired to create a s...

Katherine Rundell on Impossible Creatures, the rise of crafts on social media from 2023-09-13T19:24

Katherine Rundell on her new children’s fantasy book, Impossible Creatures. It's a story of two worlds, ours and one where the animals of myth and legend still survive, and thrive. A fantasy whi...

The impact of the Hollywood strikes, author K Patrick, the iconic chant from the Halo video game from 2023-09-12T19:12

Front Row looks at the impact of the Hollywood strikes. Film critic Leila Latif, Equity UK’s Secretary General Paul Fleming, and Lisa Holdsworth, screenwriter and Chair of the Writers’ Guild of ...

The British Museum’s missing gems, a drinking game drama, National Short Story Award from 2023-09-11T19:08

Front Row gets an exclusive look at some of the treasures confirmed as missing by the British Museum, as art dealer, academic and whistleblower Dr Ittai Gradel, who says he bought them in good f...

Lise Davidsen, film Past Lives and Black Atlantic: power, people, resistance exhibition from 2023-09-07T19:20

Presenter Samira Ahmed is joined by the broadcaster and Chair of Judges Reeta Chakrabarti to announce the shortlist of the 2023 BBC National Short Story Awards with Cambridge University. Front R...

Sir Ken Dodd exhibition; RIBA Stirling Prize for architecture shortlist; A Life on the Farm documentary from 2023-09-06T20:09

Curator Karen O’Rourke, and the actor and writer Arthur Bostrom discuss Sir Ken Dodd - the man behind the the tickling stick, the Diddymen, and the new exhibition, Happiness! at the Museum of Li...

Stephen Lawrence anniversary drama; small publishers; Pablo Larrain on his film El Conde; RAAC in theatres from 2023-09-06T08:54

The Architect - a play marking the 30th anniversary of the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence - will take place on a double-decker bus travelling the route on which Stephen was attacked in 1993. ...

Anna Wintour on Vogue World; Bloomsbury Group fashion; BBC Singers conductor Sofi Jeannin from 2023-09-04T19:14

Dame Anna Wintour, Global Editorial Director of Vogue, tells Samira Ahmed about Vogue World, the magazine’s fashion and performance spectacular which makes its UK debut this month at the start o...

Front Row reviews new British film Scrapper, French writer director Louis Garrel from 2023-08-24T19:27

Larushka Ivan-Zadeh and Mickey-Jo Boucher discuss A Mirror, a new play by Sam Holcroft about staging a drama in a country where state censorship controls the arts. It stars Trainspotting's Jonny...

Authors Helen Macdonald and Sin Blaché, Stewart Lee on Macbeth, musician Connie Converse rediscovered from 2023-08-23T19:16

Authors Helen Macdonald and Sin Blaché are live in the studio to discuss their new queer sci-fi thriller Prophet.

Theatre director Wils Wilson has invited the comedian Stewart Lee to rewri...

Louise Doughty, sign language at music festivals, The Missing Madonna podcast from 2023-08-22T19:10

Author Louise Doughty talks to Samira Ahmed about her new novel, A Bird in Winter. A fast-paced thriller set in the world of espionage, it follows a woman on the run who must work out who is on ...

Corinne Bailey Rae, playwright Peter Arnott, new short story collections from 2023-08-21T19:53

Musician Corinne Bailey Rae performs live in the studio and discusses the inspiration for her new album, Black Rainbows.

Writer Peter Arnott on his new play about the 2014 Scottish Indepe...

Edinburgh Festival review: The Grand Old Opera House Hotel; Funeral; Kieran Hodgson: Big In Scotland; Vanessa 5000; AI Art; Food from 2023-08-17T19:15

A review of two of the big shows at this year’s Edinburgh Festival: Olivier award-winning writer Isobel McArthur has had great success with her genre-busting works Pride and Prejudice* (*Sort Of...

TV's I Claudius; Jules Buckley's Stevie Wonder Prom; the difficulty buying concert tickets from 2023-08-16T19:28

As the acclaimed 1976 Roman Empire drama series I Claudius returns to television screens, classicist Natalie Haynes and cultural critic Charlotte Higgins discuss the reasons for its success, whe...

Live from the Edinburgh Festival: Nicola Benedetti, Colson Whitehead, Karine Polwart, Susie McCabe, Andrew O’Hagan from 2023-08-15T20:23

Front Row is live from Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh for festival season, presented by Kate Molleson.

Scotland’s own Grammy award-winning violinist Nicola Benedetti will be with us to share ...

Christy Lefteri's The Book of Fire, Artistic Directors in theatre, Palestinian Embroidery from 2023-08-14T19:15

As the death toll from wildfires in Hawaii rises, The Beekeeper of Aleppo author Christy Lefteri explains how similar tragedies in Greece inspired her new novel The Book of Fire.

Batterse...

Composer György Ligeti, L'immensità starring Penelope Cruz, La Cage Aux Folles from 2023-08-10T19:34

György Ligeti: on the 100th anniversary of his birth, we celebrate the Hungarian-Austrian composer and the 2023 Proms performances of his work - music which was famously used by filmmaker Stanle...

Anohni, artists' intellectual property, Bruntwood Prize-winning play Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz from 2023-08-09T19:50

Mercury Prize winning and Oscar-nominated artist Anohni returns with a soulful new album, My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross, released under the moniker Anonhi and the Johnsons for the first ...

Bruce Lee, mental health in reality TV, poet Sean Street on birdsong from 2023-08-08T19:16

On the 50th anniversary of the release of the martial arts film Enter The Dragon, actor and filmmaker Daniel York Loh and Bruce Lee’s biographer Matthew Polly discuss the star of the film, Bruce...

Lucy Prebble on The Effect, Welsh band Adwaith perform and Is the Critic Dead? from 2023-08-07T19:22

When you fall in love how do you know it’s for real, and not just the result of chemicals in your brain? Lucy Prebble’s play The Effect is back at the National Theatre - Tristan and Connie fall...

Soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha; Joy Ride film and Ann Patchett’s novel Tom Lake reviewed; composer Carl Davis from 2023-08-03T19:29

The South African soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha talks to Front Row ahead of returning to the Proms this Saturday to sing Strauss’s Four Last Songs with the National Youth Orchestra.

Welsh Fleabag, Social media and comedy in Edinburgh; Moon Palace in Leeds from 2023-08-02T19:55

A new Welsh version of the comedy hit Fleabag is about to premiere at the National Eisteddfod in Boduan. Branwen Davies’ adaptation of the one-woman show for Theatr Clywd has been given the thu...

The Booker Prize longlist; Freddie Mercury's costume archive, Scottish theatre from 2023-08-01T19:18

As the Booker Prize longlist is announced, literary critic Alex Clark takes us through the contenders for the £50,000 literary award for fiction, to be announced on 26th November.

In Septe...

West End producer unmasked, Reassessing the poetry of Virgil, Adjani Salmon on Dreaming Whilst Black from 2023-07-31T19:35

Adjani Salmon is the writer of the award-winning web-series Dreaming Whilst Black, now on BBC Three. He tells Tom Sutcliffe about the reality and his fictional portrayal of the everyday struggle...

Cellist Ana Carla Maza performs, the Mercury Music Prize shortlist from 2023-07-27T19:26

Cuban composer, cellist and singer Ana Carla Maza performs live in the Front Row studio, ahead of her appearance at WOMAD, and discusses the unusual combination of cello and vocals.

Tom Su...

Sinéad O'Connor tribute, Edinburgh Fringe previews, Frank Cottrell-Boyce and Efua Traoré on children’s books from 2023-07-26T19:28

Kathryn Ferguson, director of the documentary feature Nothing Compares, pays tribute to Sinéad O'Connor whose death was announced today. The film explores the five years at the start of Sinéad O...

Pianist Christian Blackshaw, tech-inspired funding for artists, playwright Rabiah Hussain from 2023-07-25T19:18

Christian Blackshaw is a renowned classical pianist but has made only a handful of records preferring the concert platform. Ahead of his appearance at the Oxford Piano Festival on 29 July and as...

Elizabeth Fremantle on Artemisia Gentileschi, French horn player Felix Klieser, logo design from 2023-07-24T19:21

Elizabeth Fremantle talks about her novel ‘Disobedient’, which explores the story of the extraordinary C17th woman artist, Artemisia Gentileschi, and how the traumatic events of her seventeenth ...

Sarah Phelps on BBC drama The Sixth Commandment, Blur's new album reviewed from 2023-07-20T19:19

Sarah Phelps on BBC drama The Sixth Commandment, Blur's new album reviewed.

Christopher Nolan on Oppenheimer, what is Cynghanedd?, club culture under threat from 2023-07-19T19:33

Presenter Nick Ahad meets Christopher Nolan, director of the much anticipated Oppenheimer film. It tells the story of the American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer who, in 1943, assembled a group...

20 years of Podcasting, Black Venus, AI Songwriting Challenge from 2023-07-18T19:15

Aindrea Emelife and black women in art. Nigerian-British curator on her Somerset House exhibition Black Venus, addressing colonial history and the representation of black women in art as subject...

Greta Gerwig, Tudor tapestry, Tanika Gupta, Jane Birkin farewell from 2023-07-17T19:13

This Friday sees the release of the much anticipated ‘Barbie’ starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. Samira meets director, Greta Gerwig to discuss the making of the film and her myriad of inf...

Mission Impossible, Herzog&de Meuron, Walter Murch from 2023-07-13T19:24

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One - the long awaited seventh film in the series - and the Royal Academy's new exhibition about architecture practice Herzog & de Meuron. Ryan Gilbey ...

Remembering Milan Kundera, author Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Northern Soul Prom, the winner of the Art Fund Museum of the Year from 2023-07-12T19:28

Front Row remembers the renowned Czech-born novelist, poet and essayist Milan Kundera who has died aged 94. Novelist Howard Jacobson and French journalist Agnès Poirier discuss the influence of...

Film-maker Sally Potter on her first music album, the British Library turns 50, romance in later life on stage from 2023-07-11T20:31

Sally Potter is best known as a filmmaker- from Orlando starring Tilda Swinton to The Roads Not Taken with Javier Bardem. But she's also a musician, collaborating on the scores for all of her fi...

PJ Harvey, the Scapa Flow museum, pianist Benjamin Grosvenor performs from 2023-07-10T19:08

PJ Harvey talks to Samira Ahmed about her new album, I Inside the Old Year Dying. She explains how her poetry and lyrics were influenced by the Dorset dialect and how the film-maker Steve McQue...

Kwame Kwei-Armah, Disney Pixar film Elemental reviewed from 2023-07-06T19:12

Kwame Kwei-Armah discusses his play Beneatha's Place, which imagines a future for Beneatha Younger, a character from Lorraine Hansberry’s ground-breaking 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun. He talks...

Manchester International Festival Special from 2023-07-05T20:59

Yayoi Kusama: You, Me & The Balloons is the inaugural show in Aviva Studios, the new headquarters for the Manchester International Festival. In a variety of ways Kusama’s distinctive polka d...

Ben Okri, film director Shamira Raphaela, Leighton House Museum from 2023-07-04T19:16

The Booker Prize-winning author Sir Ben Okri joins Antonia Quirke to reflect on his new collection Tiger Work, intended as a wake up call for a warming world. It blends fiction, essays and poetr...

The legendary Dolly Parton and celebrating children's books from 2023-07-03T19:17

Dolly Parton, one of the few global stars to have truly earned the title icon, talks to Samira Ahmed about departing from her Country sound to record an album of Rock songs. Rockstar sees her co...

Front Row reviews Indiana Jones; author Brandon Taylor; Young V&A reviewed from 2023-06-29T19:13

Our critics Hanna Flint and Larushka Ivan-Zadeh watch Harrison Ford’s last outing as the title character in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, also starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Is it a cr...

Playwright Kimber Lee, the art of pattern discussed, Elgan Llŷr Thomas on queer culture in classical song from 2023-06-28T19:54

In 2019 Kimber Lee won the first International Award from the Bruntwood Prize, the UK’s biggest national competition for playwriting, with her work - Untitled F*ck M*ss S**gon Play. As the play...

Michael R Jackson on his hit musical, Ray BLK on Champion, the Natural History Museum from 2023-06-27T19:12

Playwright and composer Michael R Jackson talks about his musical A Strange Loop, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The musical is based on his own experiences and follows a black man wor...

Wes Anderson on Asteroid City, Bob Stanley on his biography of the Bee Gees from 2023-06-26T19:10

Wes Anderson, known for his quirky storylines and individual aesthetic, talks about his latest film Asteroid City. Set in 1955, at a science competition in the middle of the desert, it follows ...

Elliot Page, Wicker Man music, Jewish Museum and Holocaust Memorial from 2023-06-26T14:58

Oscar-nominated Elliot Page, best known as star of comedy drama Juno, on coming out as gay and as a trans man, all in the glare of the Hollywood spotlight - and sharing this now in his new memoi...

National Portrait Gallery refurbishment and play Dear England reviewed, violinist Rachel Podger from 2023-06-22T19:34

Tom is joined by reviewers Boyd Hilton and Susannah Clapp who look at Dear England, a new play by James Graham at the National Theatre which examines the changes in England’s football since Gare...

The winner of the Yoto Carnegie Medal, the MAC in Belfast and does the UK need more music arenas? from 2023-06-21T19:39

Front Row hears from the winner of this year’s Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing, which is awarded for a book for children or young people. Manon Steffan Ros has won for her novel The Blue Book of...

The Beatles at Stowe, Nick Drake, Maggi Hambling from 2023-06-19T19:22

The Beatles at Stowe School: Front Row made the news with the discovery of the earliest recording of a concert by The Beatles in this country, at Stowe School in April 1963. Today Samira brings ...

Glenda Jackson remembered, Wayne McGregor, Black Mirror reviewed from 2023-06-15T19:13

Front Row plays tribute to Oscar winning actor Glenda Jackson, who has died aged 87. Theatre critic Sarah Crompton remembers the power of her stage performances, and Aisling Walsh discusses dir...

The Burrell Collection, Accordion Quartet, Women's Prize Winner Barbara Kingsolver, Folk Film Gathering from 2023-06-14T19:25

Allan Little visits the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, which re-opened last year after a £68 million transformation and is now a finalist for Art Fund Museum of the Year 2023. He talks to Direct...

Two debuts: novelist Cecilia Rabess, film director Dionne Edwards; the cost of maintaining arts organisations' buildings from 2023-06-13T19:21

Author and former data scientist, Cecilia Rabess joins Samira Ahmed to discuss her debut novel, Everything’s Fine, which explores the unlikely and complicated relationship between a liberal blac...

Mad Musicals, Eric Whitacre, Women's Prize - Laline Paull from 2023-06-12T19:17

Surprising musicals: new musicals are packing in audiences - and some with quite unlikely subjects. Whilst the classic Broadway musical, like 42nd Street, Guys and Dolls, and Oklahoma!, remain a...

Film Chevalier and new TV drama Significant Other reviewed from 2023-06-08T19:15

Gaming isn’t just something you play, it is also a spectator sport! Comedian and streamer Ellie Gibson and journalist and gamer Marie Le Conte join us to discuss the cultural phenomenon of game ...

Dave Johns on I, Daniel Blake; the Liverpool Biennial; why Dario Fo's plays speak to this moment? from 2023-06-07T19:44

The Liverpool Biennial, the UK’s largest contemporary visual arts festival, begins this weekend. Arts journalist Laura Robertson reviews, and the curator of the biennial, Khanyisile Mbongwa, dis...

Rufus Wainwright, hairdressing film Medusa Deluxe, the rise of the understudy from 2023-06-06T19:21

Rufus Wainwright talks to Samira Ahmed about his new album Folkocracy, a collection of reimagined Folk songs. The album includes collaborations with artists including John Legend, Chaka Khan an...

Author Maggie O’Farrell, New opera Giant, The consumerism in creativity from 2023-06-05T19:28

Charles Byrne was an 18th-century “Irish giant” whose skeleton was stolen and put on display against his wishes. 240 years after his death, he is being remembered in a new electro acoustic oper...

Punk exhibition reviewed, Reality film director, TV drama White House Plumbers reviewed from 2023-06-01T19:26

Critics Katie Puckrik and Michael Carlson join Front Row to review the exhibition Punk: Rage and Revolution at Leicester Museum and Art Gallery and Soft Touch Arts.

The American writer and...

Shane Meadows on The Gallows Pole, and GoGo Penguin perform live from 2023-05-31T20:45

Writer/director Shane Meadows and actor Michael Socha on the new BBC TV adaptation of Benjamin Myers' novel, The Gallows Pole.

The Mercury Music Prize-nominated minimal jazz trio GoGo Peng...

Chita Rivera, a new funding model for the arts discussed, Priscilla Morris from 2023-05-30T19:13

Broadway legend Chita Rivera, who made her name playing Anita in the original stage production of West Side Story, talks to Samira Ahmed about the highlights of her seven decade career, ahead of...

The 75th anniversary of the Windrush - the cultural legacy of a generation from 2023-05-29T19:00

The Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury Docks on 22 June 1948 from Jamaica. Front Row marks the artistic and cultural contribution of a generation of people from the Caribbean, now characterised...

Jhalak Book Prize, Tate Britain Rehang, The Little Mermaid, Cannes from 2023-05-25T19:10

The Jhalak Prize is an annual literary prize for British or British-Resident writers of colour, established in 2016. Previous winners include Reni Eddo-Lodge and Johny Pitts. Tom speaks to the w...

Playing Putin on stage in Patriots, DJ Taylor on Orwell, new V&A Photography Centre from 2023-05-24T19:34

Patriots, Peter Morgan’s play set in Russia in 1991, traces the rise and fall of Boris Berezovsky, who helped Vladimir Putin take power. As Patriots transfers to the West End, Allan Little – who...

Sparks, EM Forster adaptations, nature mystery writer Bob Gilbert from 2023-05-23T19:14

Sparks, the American pop duo formed in 1960s Los Angeles, are back with their 26th album, The Girl is Crying in her Latte. Samira Ahmed meets brothers Ron and Russell Mael to discuss how Cate Bl...

Arlo Parks, Martin Amis remembered, depicting The Troubles from 2023-05-22T19:29

Singer songwriter Arlo Parks talks about following her highly acclaimed first album with a new release, My Soft Machine, which includes a collaboration with American musician Phoebe Bridgers. Listen

Caleb Azumah Nelson, Reviews of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret&China's Hidden Century from 2023-05-18T19:20

Caleb Azumah Nelson’s debut novel, Open Water, won the Costa First Novel award and critical acclaim. He joins Front Row to talk about his second, Small Worlds, the story of a young musician loo...

Chuck D of Public Enemy on watercolours; author Jacqueline Crooks; artist Andy Holden from 2023-05-17T20:00

Chuck D on his watercolour art. He is regarded as one of hip-hop's greatest MCs with his powerful lyrical dexterity a key component in Public Enemy's international success, but what is less well...

Contemporary sari design; the politics of museum labelling; Mat Osman's novel The Ghost Theatre from 2023-05-16T19:13

Samira Ahmed talks to Priya Khanchandani, the curator of The Offbeat Sari, an exhibition of contemporary saris at the Design Museum in London.

The art critic Louisa Buck and the journalist...

Brokeback Mountain on stage, Venice architecture biennale, author Tan Twan Eng from 2023-05-15T19:42

Brokeback Mountain on stage: musician and librettist Dan Gillespie Sells discusses writing the songs for a new stage production of Brokeback Mountain, adapted from Annie Proulx’s short story ab...

June Givanni on the PanAfrican cinema archive, Gwen John at Pallant House Gallery reviewed from 2023-05-11T19:12

In 2021, June Givanni was presented with the British Independent Film Awards Special Jury Prize for what was described as “an extraordinary, selfless and lifelong contribution to documenting a p...

Author Louise Kennedy, Royal patronage in the arts, beatboxer SK Shlomo from 2023-05-10T19:15

Louise Kennedy's debut novel Trespasses has been shortlisted for this year's Women's Prize for Fiction. Set in Belfast in 1975 at the height of the Troubles it traces the love affair between a y...

Dennis Potter’s newly discovered play, Cathi Unsworth on goth culture, artist Isaac Julien from 2023-05-10T09:06

Samira Ahmed speaks to John Cook, Professor of Media at Glasgow Caledonian University about his discovery of a previously unknown early version of the seminal screenplay The Singing Detective by...

Eurovision comes to Liverpool from 2023-05-08T19:00

Recorded at the Hornby Library inside Liverpool Central Library, in front of a live audience, as Liverpool gears up to host The Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of Ukraine.

Two novelists...

Playwright Jonathan Harvey on A Thong for Europe, Tom Hanks’s new novel reviewed from 2023-05-04T19:12

Merseyside-native Jonathan Harvey discusses his new play, A Thong For Europe, which combines his love of Liverpool with his passion for Eurovision to create an exuberant comedy where the Eurovis...

Writer Jack Thorne, Derek Jarman’s Blue reimagined, music for the King’s coronation from 2023-05-03T19:11

Jack Thorne talks about his new play, The Motive and the Cue, which is about John Gielgud directing Richard Burton in a 1960s production of Hamlet on Broadway. He discusses the relationship bet...

Sir Lenny Henry on his new play, music from the Tashi Lhunpo monastery, publishing and net zero from 2023-05-02T19:25

Sir Lenny Henry is making his debut as a playwright for the stage with August in England, a one-man drama about the Windrush scandal. Tom Sutcliffe meets Lenny to discuss his move from stage to...

Rachmaninoff - the 20th century's great romantic from 2023-05-01T18:17

Samira celebrates the music and life of Sergei Rachmaninoff to mark the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth.

With pianist Kirill Gerstein, who has just released a new recording of R...

Patrick Bringley on being a museum guard and TV drama Citadel reviewed from 2023-04-27T19:14

Patrick Bringley sought solace after the death of his brother and found it as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York where he worked for ten years. He joins Front Row to talk abou...

The making of the new RSC production of Cymbeline from 2023-04-26T19:00

A special edition following the Royal Shakespeare’s Company’s new production of Cymbeline, the final play in Shakespeare’s First Folio - a collection that reaches its 400th anniversary this year...

Playwright Ryan Calais Cameron, musician Stewart Copeland and is Morris dancing having a moment? from 2023-04-25T19:11

The playwright Ryan Calais Cameron's critically acclaimed play For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy has just transferred to London's West End. Samira Ahmed talk...

Patrick Radden Keefe on the Sackler family, Iestyn Davies performs live, sustainable theatre from 2023-04-24T19:47

Patrick Radden Keefe, who has been shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize of Prizes award, discusses his book Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty. It tells the shocking...

Everything But the Girl, French film Pacifiction and TV drama The Diplomat reviewed from 2023-04-20T19:08

Tom Sutcliffe meets Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt of Everything But the Girl as they release Fuse, their eleventh studio album and their first in almost 24 years following 1999’s Temperamental.

Opera composer Jeanine Tesori, Margaret MacMillan on Paris 1919, new ideas in architecture from 2023-04-19T19:14

Composer Jeanine Tesori's Blue for the ENO; Baillie Gifford winner of winners for non-fiction shortlist - Margaret MacMillan; new ideas in architecture discussed

Presenter: Samira Ahmed Pr...

Jazz singer Georgia Cecile, the controversy surrounding Barcelona’s La Sagrada Família from 2023-04-18T19:10

Plans to finish Barcelona’s famous church, La Sagrada Família, have been causing controversy as they involve demolishing apartment blocks to make way for the new entrance. Journalist Guy Hedgeco...

Colin Currie performs live, author Catherine Lacey, the influence of Noel Coward from 2023-04-17T19:24

Percussionist Colin Currie performs live in the Front Row studio. He discusses his new interpretation of one of minimalist composer Steve Reich’s best known works, Music for 18 Musicians.

Front Row reviews Hamnet at the RSC and TV drama Obsession; Michael Frayn on his memoir from 2023-04-13T19:15

The RSC's production of Hamnet brings the bestselling, award-winning novel by Maggie O'Farrell to the stage. To review this reinterpretation of O'Farrell's imagined account of the short life of ...

Max Porter on new novel Shy, Chris Killip exhibition at the Baltic, Kevin Sampson on The Hunt for Raoul Moat from 2023-04-12T19:57

Screenwriter Kevin Sampson on the complexities of his new true crime drama for ITV, The Hunt for Raoul Moat.

Max Porter found huge success with his first book, Grief is the Thing with Feat...

Wade Davis on George Mallory, Benbrick on AI and creativity from 2023-04-11T19:13

A new exhibition of the Pre-Raphaelite Rossettis at Tate Britain in London explores the 'radicalism' of Dante Gabriel, Christina and Elizabeth (Siddal), and their 'revolutionary' approach to lif...

The 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio from 2023-04-10T18:59

Front Row marks the 400th anniversary year of Shakespeare's First Folio with former RSC Artistic Director Greg Doran, Guildhall Principal Librarian Peter Ross, and Shakespeare experts Emma Smith...

Ai Weiwei at the Design Museum and TV drama Rise of the Pink Ladies from 2023-04-06T19:08

Ai Weiwei: Making Sense. We look at the new exhibition which opens at the Design Museum in London tomorrow.

Plus we review the new Grease prequel Rise of the Pink Ladies, streaming on Para...

Boris Becker documentary, Commemorating the Good Friday Agreement in art, Artist-led organisations from 2023-04-05T19:47

For his latest project, the Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney has turned his attention to the original tennis wunderkind Boris Becker. He talks about the making of his documentary, Boom! Boom...

Joe Pearlman on his Lewis Capaldi film, author Craig Brown, Tartan at the V&A from 2023-04-04T20:10

BAFTA-winning director Joe Pearlman talks about his new Netflix documentary on Scottish pop superstar Lewis Capaldi, which is out tomorrow. In Lewis Capaldi: How I’m Feeling Now, Joe follows Lew...

Ria Zmitrowicz on The Power, The ENO’s The Dead City and God’s Creatures reviewed from 2023-03-30T19:13

Ria Zmitrowicz talks about her role in The Power, the TV adaptation of Naomi Alderman’s novel. She plays Roxy Monke, the daughter of a notorious crime boss whose aspirations to join the family...

Cash Carraway on BBC drama Rain Dogs, the might of the UK gaming industry, Kidnapped on stage from 2023-03-29T19:22

Rain Dogs, billed as ‘a love story told from the gutter,’ is a new comedy drama series starring Daisy May Cooper. Shahidha Bari is joined in the studio by the writer and creator of the series, C...

Musician Natalie Merchant, poet Victoria Adukwei Bulley, library funding from 2023-03-28T19:22

Singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant talks to Samira Ahmed about Keep Your Courage, her first album in nearly a decade.

Libraries were awarded the smallest amount of money from the Cultural ...

Barbara Demick on North Korea; Dungeons and Dragons controversy; folk musicians Hack-Poets Guild from 2023-03-27T19:08

Award-winning journalist Barbara Demick’s book 'Nothing to Envy' has been short-listed for this year’s Baille Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction Winner of Winners Award; North Korean defectors spoke ...

Steven Knight on Great Expectations, After Impressionism at the National Gallery from 2023-03-23T20:10

Writer and director Steven Knight, whose work includes Peaky Blinders and SAS Rogue Heroes, discusses his new BBC adaptation of Great Expectations which stars Olivia Coleman as Miss Havisham. Listen

Touchstones Rochdale art gallery's radical 80s history, James Shapiro on Shakespeare from 2023-03-22T20:53

A Tall Order! Rochdale Art Gallery in the 1980s is the name of the show currently on at Touchstones Rochdale, which reflects on the gallery’s radical history supporting those who were, at the ti...

Danny Lee Wynter and play Black Superhero; badly behaved theatre audiences; violinist Pekka Kuusisto from 2023-03-21T20:08

Are theatre audiences behaving badly? After recent complaints, we discuss expectations of audience etiquette. Tom is joined by: Dr Kirsty Sedgman, Lecturer in Theatre at University of Bristol, r...

Lisa O’Neill performs live, Dance of Death from the National Theatre of Norway from 2023-03-20T20:09

Irish singer songwriter Lisa O’Neill talks to Samira Ahmed about her latest album, All Of This Is Chance, and performs live in the Front Row studio.

The National Theatre of Norway have b...

Richard Eyre on his film Allelujah, and climate change TV drama Extrapolations reviewed from 2023-03-16T20:11

Richard Eyre on directing the screen version of Alan Bennett’s play Allelujah, starring Jennifer Saunders, set on the geriatric ward of a fictional Yorkshire hospital, the Bethlehem, and on rais...

Scottish-Iranian film Winners, playwright Calum L MacLeòid, neurodiversity and creativity from 2023-03-15T20:53

Filmmaker Hassan Nazar talks to Kate Molleson about his new film Winners, a love letter to the art of cinema. Set in Iran, it follows two children who find an Oscars statuette.

Playwrigh...

Diversity at the Oscars and Baftas; plays and the cost of living; children's books; Phyllida Barlow from 2023-03-14T20:44

The conclusion of the Oscars marks the end of the film awards season, so Front Row took the opportunity to look at the progress made on representation in film and at awards. Tom is joined by the...

Author Percival Everett, director Pravesh Kumar on Little English from 2023-03-13T20:25

Author Percival Everett on his novel Dr No; Director Pravesh Kumar on his film Little English; the new Yeats Smartphones poetry trail in Bedford

Award-winning US novelist Percival Everett ...

Film My Sailor, My Love; Atwood’s Old Babes In The Wood; Baillie Gifford prize; Nicole Flattery from 2023-03-09T20:31

New Irish film, My Sailor, My Love, by Finnish director, Klaus Härö, and a new collection of short stories, Old Babes in the Wood, by Margaret Atwood. To review, Tom is joined by author Ashley H...

Pioneering play Top Girls turns 40, do publishers owe a duty of care to memoirists? and the benefits of stopping the show from 2023-03-08T20:33

A reimagining of Caryl Churchill’s ground-breaking and celebrated play, Top Girls, opens this week at the Liverpool Everyman which sets the play – about female ambition and success across centur...

Daniel Mays on a new production of Guys and Dolls, and how accessible are venues and film sets for performers? from 2023-03-07T20:19

Daniel Mays talks to Samira Ahmed about starring as Nathan Detroit in a new immersive production of the musical Guys and Dolls at the Bridge Theatre in south London.

Front Row investigates...

Steven Moffat and Lucy Caldwell on writing about the Hadron Collider from 2023-03-06T20:12

Sherlock and Dr Who writer Steven Moffat, and Lucy Caldwell, winner of the BBC National Short Story Award, discuss writing short stories inspired by the science of the Large Hadron Collider for ...

Daisy Jones&The Six on TV. Lukas Dhont’s film Close. Edmund De Waal on potter Lucie Rie from 2023-03-02T20:14

Riley Keough and Sam Claflin star in the 10-part adaptation of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s novel Daisy Jones And The Six, the story of a fictional 70s band loosely inspired by Fleetwood Mac. Belgian d...

Barry Male Voice Choir, new play Romeo and Julie, WNO’s Blaze of Glory and Welsh culture minister Dawn Boden from 2023-03-01T21:17

On St David's Day Front Row is coming from Cardiff with Huw Stephens bringing the latest arts and culture stories of Wales.

Welsh National Opera’s latest production is Blaze of Glory. The...

Tracy-Ann Oberman, Director Michael B Jordan, Oldham Coliseum from 2023-02-28T20:08

Tracy-Ann Oberman on playing a female Shylock in the RSC's new 1936 version of The Merchant Of Venice at Watford Palace Theatre.

As the Oldham Coliseum is forced to close at the end of Mar...

Conductor Antonio Pappano on Puccini’s Turandot and the Ukrainian cabaret artists performing in exile from 2023-02-27T20:08

Conductor Sir Antonio Pappano tells us about his two new versions of Puccini’s opera, Turandot – a revival on stage at the Royal Opera House, and a new recording with tenor Jonas Kaufman, sopran...

Immersive David Hockney art and Korean film Broker reviewed; artist Mike Nelson; AI-generated writing from 2023-02-23T20:09

Reviews of the new immersive show David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away) at Lightroom in London and Korean film Broker, with Larushka Ivan Zadeh and Ekow Eshun.

New film The Strays, artists Chila Kumari Singh Burman and Dawinder Bansal, Janet Malcolm’s photography memoir from 2023-02-22T21:00

Nathaniel Martello-White on making his directorial debut with the psychological thriller The Strays, set between a south London estate and an affluent English suburb.

Chila Kumari Singh Bu...

Michael Douglas, culture in Ukraine a year after invasion, visual effects and animation in the UK from 2023-02-21T20:17

Hollywood star Michael Douglas talks about his double-Oscar winning movie career, how he’s still learning the craft of acting and about his new film, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, which is ...

Hugh Jackman, Kevin Jared Hosein, the future of opera from 2023-02-20T20:14

Hugh Jackman talks to Samira Ahmed about his role in Florian Zeller's new film The Son, in which he plays a father struggling with his child’s mental health issues.

Kevin Jared Hosein, wh...

Marcel The Shell With Shoes On, Alice Neel, Spitting Image from 2023-02-16T20:15

On today's Front Row, Samira Ahmed talks to stand-up comedian Al Murray about putting the puppets of the political satire TV show Spitting Image on stage for the first time, in a new production,...

Asif Kapadia's dance film Creature; the Barbellion Book Prize winner; South Asian and South East Asian galleries in Manchester from 2023-02-15T20:15

The Oscar-winning filmmaker Asif Kapadia tells Tom Sutcliffe about collaborating with the Olivier-winning choreographer Akram Khan on the dance film Creature. Originally conceived for English Na...

Tracy Chevalier on Vermeer exhibition; live v streaming theatre audiences; American poet A. E. Stallings; The King's Singers from 2023-02-14T20:15

Tracy Chevalier discusses a historic Vermeer exhibition at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, the largest collection of his paintings ever assembled including Girl with a Pearl Earring, which was celebrat...

Kate Prince on her suffragette musical, the art of casting, set design at the Brits. from 2023-02-13T20:14

Sylvia is a new hip hop, funk and soul musical telling the story the fight for women’s – and universal – suffrage, through the life of Sylvia Pankhurst. It wasn‘t just the patriarchy she had to ...

Georgia Oakley director of Blue Jean, Burt Bacharach obituary, Salman Rushdie's Victory City and Peter Doig exhibition reviewed from 2023-02-09T20:12

Director and screenwriter Georgia Oakley talks about her BAFTA nominated debut feature film Blue Jean, which tells the story of a female closeted PE teacher in Newcastle in 1988 when Section 28 ...

The Reytons, film-maker Saim Sadiq, The Beekeeper of Aleppo from 2023-02-08T20:46

From a pop-up shop in Meadowhall Shopping Centre in Sheffield to the top spot in the album charts - The Reytons join Front Row to discuss their breakthrough second album, What’s Rock and Roll?, ...

Les Dennis and Mina Anwar, writer Tania Branigan, Kerry Shale on Yentl from 2023-02-08T13:07

Mina Anwar and Les Dennis discuss their new production of Spring and Port Wine at the Bolton Octagon. They explain why the 1960s classic play about a family in Bolton, and tensions between the ...

Costume designer Sandy Powell, playwright Chris Bush, Donatello sculptures at the V&A from 2023-02-06T20:19

Sandy Powell is the first costume designer to receive a BAFTA Fellowship. She talks to Tom Sutcliffe about collaborating with directors Martin Scorsese and Todd Haynes and designing costumes for...

TV drama Nolly and film The Whale reviewed, director M Night Shyamalan from 2023-02-02T20:06

Noele Gordon was the star of Crossroads, the soap that ran on ITV from 1964 to 1988, attracting audiences of 15 million in its heyday. She was sacked from the show in 1981, returning briefly a ...

Sonia Boyce, The Quiet Girl, Theatre Freelance Pay, Oldham Coliseum from 2023-02-01T20:10

Sonia Boyce’s exhibition, Feeling Her Way, won the top prize at the Venice Biennale international art fair. As the sound, video and wallpaper installation arrives at the Turner Contemporary gall...

Beethoven's Für Elise, playwright Garry Lyons, film director Rajkumar Santoshi from 2023-01-31T20:48

Beethoven’s love life has long fascinated music scholars primarily because so little is known about it despite some tantalising clues. In his new book, Why Beethoven, music critic Norman Lebrec...

Film director Sarah Polley, novelist Ann-Helen Laestadius and deep fakes on TV from 2023-01-30T20:10

Director Sarah Polley discusses her latest film, Women Talking, nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Based on the true story of the women in a remote Mennonite colony who discovered men ha...

The Fabelmans and Noises Off reviewed, Joe Cornish on new TV drama Lockwood and Co. from 2023-01-26T20:13

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by critics Karen Krizanovich and Michael Billington to review The Fabelmans and the 40th anniversary production of Noises Off.

Steven Spielberg’s new film, The Fab...

Mel C on dancing with Jules Cunningham, film-maker Laura Poitras, musician Rasha Nahas from 2023-01-25T20:09

Melanie C, aka Sporty Spice, is best known for being in one of the most successful girl groups of all time. But this week she’s swapping the pop world for the dance world and performing a new ...

Artist John Akomfrah, Oscar Nominations, Arts Council England responds from 2023-01-24T21:04

John Akomfrah was announced today as the artist chosen to represent the UK at the next Venice Biennale - the world's biggest contemporary art exhibition. Known for his films and video installati...

The play Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons; conductor Alice Farnham; the short film An Irish Goodbye. from 2023-01-23T20:35

Jenna Coleman (Clara in Dr Who) and Aidan Turner (Poldark) are appearing in a new production of Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons at The Harold Pinter Theatre in London’s West End, before touri...

Spain and the Hispanic World exhibition, new film Holy Spider, artist Clarke Reynolds from 2023-01-19T20:17

Samira Ahmed and guests Maria Delgado and Isabel Stevens review two of the week’s top cultural picks.

They discuss a new exhibition of Spanish art, Spain and the Hispanic World, at the Ro...

Hepworth, Moore, landscape and cows' backs; fiddle player John McCusker; novelist Victoria MacKenzie from 2023-01-18T20:11

A new exhibition at The Hepworth Wakefield celebrates the relationship that two of the UK’s greatest sculptors, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, had with the Yorkshire landscape they grew up in...

Poet Anthony Joseph, new novels about witches and the fall in female film-makers from 2023-01-17T20:13

Over the last three weeks Front Row has broadcast a poem by each of the 10 writers shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize for Poetry. The winner was announced last night: Anthony Joseph, for his col...

Rebecca Frecknall on A Streetcar Named Desire, Rick Rubin, Clarinetist Kinan Azmeh from 2023-01-16T20:20

Nine-time Grammy winning record producer and Def Jam co-founder Rick Rubin has produced hits for artists including Run DMC, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Johnny Cash. He discusses drawing on his ex...

The Last of Us&Enys Men reviewed from 2023-01-12T20:10

The film critic Clarisse Loughrey and literary editor Sam Leith join Tom Sutcliffe live in the studio to review the new HBO series The Last of Us, based on the critically acclaimed video game, a...

Filmmaker Todd Field on Tár, Glyndebourne tour cancellation, Debut novelist Jyoti Patel from 2023-01-11T21:12

Tár is a psychological drama about an imaginary conductor, Lydia Tár, which has already made waves both for its central performance by Cate Blanchett and for its striking, sometimes dreamlike st...

How AI is changing art, the TS Eliot Prize for poetry and the folk music of wassailing from 2023-01-10T20:25

Designer Steven Zapata and artist Anna Ridler discuss whether AI art poses a threat to artists and designers.

Imagine reading more than 200 new books of poetry. That was the task faced by...

The Light in the Hall, The Shipping Forecast photographs, Nell Zink from 2023-01-09T20:09

The Light in the Hall, a crime drama starring Joanna Scanlan, has launched on Channel 4 following its previous incarnation in Welsh on S4C, as Y Golau. Director Andy Newbery joins Shahidha to di...

Two of the year's major films, Till and Empire of Light, reviewed and John Preston on his TV drama Stonehouse. from 2023-01-05T20:10

John Preston, the Costa Award-winning biographer of media tycoon Robert Maxwell, makes his screenwriting debut with a drama about another infamous figure of the 1970s, the MP John Stonehouse. He...

Vocal ensemble Stile Antico, Fay Weldon obituary, director John Strickland from 2023-01-04T20:15

The English composer William Byrd died 400 years ago. To mark this the acclaimed vocal ensemble Stile Antico is about to release an album of his music. Five of the twelve members of the ensembl...

Tom Hanks On A Man Called Otto, Author Deepti Kapoor, The London Ticket Bank from 2023-01-03T20:12

Tom Hanks talks about playing a curmudgeonly older man whose life changes when a young family moves in next door in his latest film, A Man Called Otto. Author Deepti Kapoor on her new novel, A...

Leeds 2023 Year of Culture from 2023-01-02T20:15

Front Row visits Leeds as the city prepares to celebrate culture throughout 2023.

Following Brexit, Leeds’ bid for European Capital of Culture was ruled ineligible. Sharon Watson, Principa...

The Pale Blue Eye and Happy Valley reviewed, Artist Alexander Creswell from 2022-12-22T20:09

Critics Tim Robey and Rhianna Dhillon join Front Row to watch the murder-mystery gothic horror film The Pale Blue Eye, starring Christian Bale, Gillian Anderson and Harry Melling, as Edgar Allan...

Marie Kreutzer on the film Corsage, Film director Mike Hodges remembered, Artistic buzzwords, The T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry from 2022-12-21T20:27

Film director Marie Kreutzer on her new period drama film, Corsage, about the rebellious Elisabeth, 19th-century empress of Austria and queen of Hungary.

Matthew Sweet joins Front Row to...

Terry Hall remembered, state of UK theatre, board games of the last 40 years from 2022-12-20T20:13

Terry Hall of The Specials remembered after his sad passing. We hear him talking to John Wilson in 2019, and Pete Paphides looks back on his life and music.

Plus, the state of UK theatre a...

Lucy Prebble, immersive experiences, what next for ENO from 2022-12-20T14:04

Lucy Prebble, acclaimed playwright and Succession screenwriter, talks to Tom about the return of I Hate Suzie Too, her TV collaboration with Billie Piper about a B-list celebrity making a realit...

Quentin Blake discussion, reviews of Avatar and Magdalena Abakanowicz from 2022-12-15T20:15

For our Thursday review, film critic Leila Latif and art critic Ben Luke join Samira to discuss the much anticipated release of the Avatar sequel, The Way of Water and the exhibition of the late...

Neil Gaiman, China's art censorship in Europe, Decline of the working class in the creative industries from 2022-12-14T20:46

Neil Gaiman reflects on The Ocean at the End of the Lane as the stage adaption of his award-winning novel begins a nationwide tour.

A new report investigating China's art censorship in Eur...

Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance with Somebody; Qatar art, architecture&the World Cup; Hannah Khalil from 2022-12-13T20:15

Director Kasi Lemmons discusses her new film, I Wanna Dance With Somebody, a biopic of the performer Whitney Houston, whose unmatched vocal power saw her become one of the best-selling musical a...

Zadie Smith on The Wife of Willesden, David Tennant on Litvinenko and Rick Wakeman's stolen gear from 2022-12-12T20:10

Zadie Smith talks about her play The Wife of Willesden, a modern re-telling of Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath starring Clare Perkins in the title role at Kiln Theatre, London.

David Tennant ...

Orlando starring Emma Corrin&Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio reviewed, Damian Lewis on A Spy Among Friends from 2022-12-08T20:14

Orlando starring Emma Corrin at the Garrick Theatre in London and Guillermo del Toro’s animated film Pinocchio are reviewed by Shon Faye, author of The Transgender Issue, and Observer theatre cr...

The Turner Prize winner, poet Kim Moore, Razorlight's Johnny Borrell from 2022-12-07T20:12

The winner of this year's Turner Prize will be announced at St George’s Hall in Liverpool. Art critic Louisa Buck reflects on this year’s Turner Prize and responds to the news of the winner of ...

Antoine Fuqua on Emancipation, NDAs in film and TV casting, playwright April De Angelis from 2022-12-06T20:11

Film director Antoine Fuqua discusses his new film, Emancipation, which stars Will Smith. He discusses basing his film on the true story of an enslaved man in 1860s Louisiana.

Earlier ...

Fergus McCreadie, Leyla Josephine, Scottish National Gallery from 2022-12-05T20:49

Jazz pianist Fergus McCreadie performs live from his latest album Forest Floor, which recently won the Scottish Album of the Year award and a Mercury Prize nomination.

Performance poet Le...

Veronica Ryan - shortlisted for the Turner Prize, reviews of new Stormzy album and film White Noise from 2022-12-01T20:12

Veronica Ryan OBE is shortlisted for the Turner Prize. She talks to Front Row about her Windrush Commission sculptures in Hackney that have won the hearts of both the community and critics, how ...

Maxine Peake on Betty! A Sort of Musical, Turner Prize nominee Heather Phillipson, Signal Film and Media in Barrow-in-Furness from 2022-11-30T20:16

Maxine Peake discusses playing Betty Boothroyd, former Speaker of the House of Commons in Betty! A Sort of Musical, which is about to open at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre.

Turner P...

Clint Dyer on Othello, Turner Prize nominee Ingrid Pollard, should museums close controversial galleries? from 2022-11-29T20:08

Clint Dyer discusses directing Othello starring Giles Terera at the National Theatre, the first Black director to do so. He talks about how he is approaching the racism and misogyny in the play...

Turner Prize nominee Sin Wai Kin, Katherine Rundell on John Donne, Ballet Black from 2022-11-28T20:15

Author Katherine Rundell talks to Tom Sutcliffe about her book Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne, which has won this year’s The Baillie Gifford.

In the first in a series ...

Joan Armatrading, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye exhibition and film She Said reviewed from 2022-11-24T20:29

The much-celebrated singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading on her 50-year career, her book of lyrics, The Weakness in Me, and new album Live at Asylum Chapel.

Arts journalist Nancy Durrant, an...

Lady Chatterley's Lover reviewed, Jake Heggie on It's A Wonderful Life, casting Ukrainian actors, Wilko Johnson from 2022-11-23T20:15

Lara Feigel and Tom Shakespeare review Netflix’s new adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, starring Emma Corrin.

The English National Opera stages an operatic reimagining of It’s a Wonder...

Matthew Warchus on Matilda, Kapil Seshasayee performs, climate protests in galleries from 2022-11-22T20:31

Director Matthew Warchus discusses his new film Matilda the Musical. Based on the Tony and Olivier award winning stage play, it brings Roald Dahl’s much loved children’s story to the screen. Listen

Director Luca Guadagnino on Bones and All, Gainsborough’s House, writer Ronald Blythe at 100 from 2022-11-22T09:56

Luca Guadagnino won the Silver Lion for Best Director at this year's Venice Film Festival for his latest film, Bones and All, starring Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell. He talks to Tom Sutcl...

The Wonder, Making Modernism, Frantic Assembly, Opera and elitism from 2022-11-17T20:21

With Samira Ahmed.

Guests Katy Hessel and Lillian Crawford review Florence Pugh's drama The Wonder, based on an Emma Donoghue novel, and the Royal Academy's Making Modernism exhibition, wh...

Football Inspired Art, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Bruntwood Playwriting Prize winner, Chornobyldorf opera from 2022-11-16T20:59

Julie Hesmondhalgh, who played Hayley Cropper on Coronation Street, on writing a survival guide for new actors- An Actor’s Alphabet.

What happens when football is taken from the pitch and ...

BBC Centenary, The Art of Radio, Joy Whitby, Climate Fiction from 2022-11-14T20:22

With Samira Ahmed.

To mark the centenary of the first BBC radio broadcast, Samira Ahmed discusses the art of radio and radio’s influence on art with the novelist and radio enthusiast Tom M...

The Crown, Jafar Panahi's No Bears, Jez Butterworth, Goldsmiths Prize from 2022-11-10T20:13

The Crown: as series five is with us, we review the next ten part instalment of Netflix's royal drama as it slips into more recent territory - the turmoil of the nineties. Plus jailed Iranian fi...

Black Panther Director Ryan Coogler, Photographer Craig Easton from 2022-11-09T21:07

Filmmaker Ryan Coogler discusses returning to Black Panther after the death of Chadwick Boseman and how that experience has inspired the making of the sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

Jennifer Lawrence, mandolin player Chris Thile, Chokepoint Capitalism from 2022-11-08T20:35

Jennifer Lawrence and director Lila Neugebauer discuss their new film Causeway.

Grammy award-winning mandolin player Chris Thile plays live in the studio from his latest album Laysongs, on...

Arts Council Funding, the art of the infographic, film director Tas Brooker from 2022-11-07T20:21

Arts Council England have announced the most dramatic shift in funding for decades, diverting investment from London towards other parts of the country. The Chair of Arts Council England, Sir Ni...

The English and Living reviewed, Royal Opera's Director of Opera Oliver Mears from 2022-11-03T20:28

Joan Bakewell and Hanna Flint give their verdicts on Hugo Blick's new TV Western on BBC2 starring Emily Blunt and Chaske Spencer, 'The English'. They've also watched new film 'Living' starring ...

Live from Cardiff with Connor Allen, Zoë Skoulding and music from Catrin Finch and Aoife Ni Bhriain from 2022-11-02T23:26

Playwright, poet and Children’s Laureate for Wales Connor Allen talks about his grime-theatre mash-up The Making of a Monster, a semi-autobiographical production about a young man struggling to ...

Nick Hornby, dancer Cecilia Iliesiu, Derek Owusu and Anthony Anaxagorou from 2022-11-01T20:08

Author Nick Hornby on the similarities of Dickens and Prince, as he publishes his new book on the “genius” of the Victorian novelist and the sex-funk pop musician.

On the eve of World Ball...

Alison Lapper on Sarah Biffin, Ric Renton, Plastics at the V&A Dundee from 2022-10-31T20:17

Artist Alison Lapper and co-curator Emma Rutherford discuss a new exhibition Without Hands: The Art of Sarah Biffin, which takes a fresh look at the work of the pioneering Victorian painter. Listen

Tammy Faye musical, Paul Newman's memoir, Daniel Arsham, Simon Armitage from 2022-10-27T19:21

Reviewers Karen Krizanovich and David Benedict give their verdicts on Tammy Faye, A New Musical at the Almeida Theatre in London, starring Katie Brayben, and from the combined creative forces of...

Turn It Up: The Power of Music exhibition; The Turner Prize at Tate Liverpool; Linton Kwesi Johnson from 2022-10-26T20:20

Art critic Laura Robertson reviews this year's Turner Prize show at Tate Liverpool.

Presenter Nick Ahad pays a visit to the immersive exhibition, Turn It Up: The Power of Music at the Sci...

Eliza Carthy, Ruben Östlund, Brutalist Architecture from 2022-10-25T19:22

Eliza Carthy is celebrating 30 years as a professional musician with a new album, Queen of the Whirl. She talks about this, the legacy of her musical family – as the daughter of Norma Waterson a...

Taylor Swift and Arctic Monkeys from 2022-10-24T19:15

Taylor Swift and the Arctic Monkeys both released their debut albums in 2006. Their latest studio albums, Swift’s tenth, Midnights, and Arctic Monkeys seventh, The Car, have just been released. ...

Front Row reviews popular culture of 1922 from 2022-10-20T19:27

For the poet Ezra Pound it was ‘year zero for Modernism’ but what were people in Britain really reading, watching, listening to and looking at in 1922?

To mark the BBC’s centenary, Front R...

Martin McDonagh on The Banshees of Inisherin and The Royal National Mòd from 2022-10-19T19:17

Director Martin McDonagh talks about his new film The Banshees of Inisherin.

The former Young People's Laureate for London, Selina Nwulu, discusses her latest collection of poems.

Jo...

New theatre @sohoplace, director Edward Berger, Jenny Beavan on fair pay for costume designers from 2022-10-18T19:09

Theatre producer Nica Burns talks about her brand new theatre building @sohoplace which is about to open in London’s West End.

Film director Edward Berger discusses his German anti-war fil...

The Booker Prize for Fiction 2022 from 2022-10-17T22:04

The live ceremony for the 2022 Booker Prize for Fiction, hosted by Samira Ahmed. The winner of the £50,000 prize will be announced by the chair of judges Neil MacGregor in the presence of Her M...

Hieroglyphs at the British Museum, Emily Brontë biopic, Shehan Karunatilaka from 2022-10-13T19:17

Emily is a new film starring Emma Mackey (of Sex Education fame) as the author of Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë. Emily is as wild as the windswept moorland she lives in; her relationships wi...

Live from Belfast with Ruth McGinley, Conor Mitchell, Claire Keegan from 2022-10-13T09:54

Front Row comes from Belfast where Steven Rainey hears about some of the highlights of this year’s Belfast International Festival.

Pianist Ruth McGinley talks about her new album AURA, a c...

Camilla George, Elizabeth Strout and Iranian artist Soheila Sokhanvari from 2022-10-11T19:30

Jazz saxophonist Camilla George plays live in the studio and talks about her new album Ibio-Ibio - a tribute to her Ibibio roots in Nigerian.

Iranian artist Soheila Sokhanvari joins Samira...

Alan Garner Booker Shortlisted, Orfeo Reimagined, Baz Luhrmann on Peter Brook from 2022-10-10T19:45

Alan Garner’s 10th novel, Treacle Walker, may be one of the shortest books to make the Booker Prize shortlist but once read the slim volume which explores the nature of time weighs on the reader...

Booker-nominated author Percival Everett, The Lost King reviewed from 2022-10-06T19:28

Author Percival Everett talks to Tom Sutcliffe about his Booker Prize nominated novel, The Trees, which uses dark humour to explore gruesome events in Mississippi.

Science Fiction writer ...

Björk, NoViolet Bulawayo, James Bond at 60 from 2022-10-05T19:08

Mercurial musician Björk has just released her tenth album Fossora. She discusses the experience of making the album and her interest in mushrooms.

Zimbabwean author NoViolet Bulawayo has ...

Sarah Solemani on TV's Chivalry; male soprano Samuel Marino performs; Bradford's bid for UK City of Culture from 2022-04-20T19:25

Chivalry, the new Channel 4 comedy which looks at the making of a Hollywood movie in a post MeToo world, has been co-created by its co-stars – Sarah Solemani, and Steve Coogan. Sarah joins Elle Os...

Robert Eggers on The Northman, Oliver Jeffers, the late Sir Harrison Birtwistle from 2022-04-19T19:17

Director Robert Eggers discusses his new film The Northman, set in Iceland at the turn of the 10th century. A Nordic prince sets out on a mission of revenge after his father is murdered. The plot, ...

Abdulrazak Gurnah and the Big Jubilee Read from the Library of Birmingham from 2022-04-18T19:00

The Big Jubilee Read is a reading for pleasure campaign by the Reading Agency and the BBC highlighting 70 books from across the Commonwealth published during the decades of the Queen's reign. To m...

Benedetta film and Let the Song Hold Us exhibition reviewed; Slung Low Theatre from 2022-04-14T19:50

Our Thursday review critics, Dr. Kirsty Fairclough and poet Joelle Taylor, give their assessment of Paul Verhoeven's film Benedetta and the exhibition Let the Song Hold Us at Liverpool's Fact Galle...

Jude Owusu, Operation Mincemeat, Wrexham's bid for UK City of Culture 2025 from 2022-04-13T19:23

Tom Robinson is the black man wrongly accused of raping a white girl in To Kill a Mocking Bird. In Harper Lee's novel and the film he is at the centre of the story but, defended by the white lawyer...

Photographer Edward Burtynsky; Turner Prize shortlist; Novelist Patrick McCabe; Staying well on stage discussion from 2022-04-12T19:13

After being announced as the recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to Photography award at the Sony World Photography Awards 2022, the Canadian photographer and artist Edward Burtynsky talks to...

Richard Cadell and The Sooty Show; The Handmaid’s Tale opera; actor Liz Carr; gender neutral dance calling from 2022-04-11T19:09

70 years after Sooty first appeared with Harry Corbett on the BBC’s Talent Night, presenter and current owner of The Sooty Show Richard Cadell talks to Samira about Sooty’s enduring appeal, as Soo...

Jeremy O. Harris's play Daddy, Walt Disney exhibition&Navalny documentary reviewed; musician Kizzy Crawford from 2022-04-07T19:20

American playwright Jeremy O.Harris discusses his play Daddy, at London’s Almeida Theatre, which explores the romantic relationship between Franklin, a young black artist, and Andre, a wealthy whit...

Ocean Vuong, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore reviewed, Southampton UK City of Culture bid, Nadifa Mohamed from 2022-04-06T19:20

Ocean Vuong is a Vietnamese-American poet whose recent works include a best-selling novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, and a multi-prize-winning volume of verse, Night Sky with Exit Wounds. H...

Mike Bartlett, Hannah Hodgson, Nick Laird from 2022-04-05T19:39

The playwright Mike Bartlett is busy. The 47th, his dark comedy about the next presidential race, with Bertie Carvel giving an uncanny performance as Donald Trump is about to open at the Old Vic in...

Rae Morris performs live, author Ashley Hickson-Lovence, video artist Rachel Maclean from 2022-04-04T19:11

Rae Morris discusses her latest single, ‘No Woman is An Island,’ ahead of the release of her new album. Ludovic Hunter-Tilney joins us to discuss the highlights from last night’s Grammy Awards.Nov...

A Clockwork Orange, the National Poetry Competition winner announced, Slow Horses and Coppelia reviewed from 2022-03-31T19:24

Critics Sarah Crompton and Abir Mukherjee review Slow Horses, the brand new series from Apple TV+ starring Gary Oldman, Kristen Scott Thomas, Olivia Cooke, Jack Lowden, Saskia Reeves and Jonathan P...

Glasgow's Burrell Collection reopens; Orphans the musical; Yoga Concerto; Edinburgh’s new Makar Hannah Lavery from 2022-03-30T20:49

Presented by Kate Molleson from Glasgow. As the Burrell Collection reopens in Glasgow after a £68 million refit, Sunday Post art critic Jan Patience discusses the significance of the gallery, whi...

How to refill theatres; the 2022 Windham Campbell Prizes; crime writing duo Dreda Say Mitchell and Ryan Carter from 2022-03-29T19:25

We look at how audience figures are recovering after two years of shutdown and pandemic restrictions. Carolyn Atkinson reports on the business of seat-filling companies and on new models being cons...

Sonia Boyce, Cellist Laura van der Heijden, the Oscars from 2022-03-28T20:00

Artist Sonia Boyce discusses her new video work, the product of being embedded with social services in Barking and Dagenham, which addresses domestic violence. She also reveals her process as she p...

The Hermit of Treig film and Anne Tyler's novel French Braid reviewed; Erich Hatala Matthes on art and morality from 2022-03-24T20:32

Critics Viv Groskop and Hanna Flint review The Hermit of Treig, a documetary film made by Lizzie Mackenzie who follows Ken Smith, a man who has spent the past four decades living in a log cabin nes...

Bridgerton showrunner Chris van Dusen, choreographer Ivan Michael Blackstock, William Morris wallpaper from 2022-03-23T22:57

Bridgerton is based on Julia Quinn's best-selling novels, set in the competitive world of Regency era London's ton during the season. The series follows the eight close-knit Bridgerton siblings as...

Joachim Trier, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Angus Robertson from 2022-03-22T21:15

Director Joachim Trier has been nominated for the Best Original Screenplay and Best International Film Oscars for The Worst Person in the World. If the title refers to his protagonist that’s rather...

Hew Locke, Ivo Van Hove, Danielle De Niese, Ernesto Ottone and Dr Maya Goodfellow from 2022-03-21T20:19

The latest in Tate Britain’s series of annual commissions is an installation by the artist Hew Locke. It’s called The Procession and is comprised of approximately 150 life-size figures - adults, ch...

Mark Rylance, Julian Knight, Reviews of Hockney's Eye, The Dropout and WeCrashed from 2022-03-17T20:15

Multi award winning actor Mark Rylance on his latest film The Phantom of the Open, a warm hearted comedy about Maurice Flitcroft, a crane operator at the shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness who managed t...

Olga reviewed, David Hare on Straight Line Crazy, audio postcard from York from 2022-03-16T20:12

The playwright David Hare talks about the resonances of his new play at the Bridge in London, Straight Line Crazy. It's a drama about Robert Moses, a civil planner who was a powerful and divisive f...

Liv Ullmann, Hilary McGrady, Literary Translation from 2022-03-15T20:45

Over the past 60 years Liv Ullmann has worked in film and throughout April the BFI celebrates her contribution to the medium as actor, writer and director with Liv Ullmann: Face to Face. The season...

The National Theatre's Rufus Norris, smoking on screen, Alison Brackenbury's poetry collection Thorpeness from 2022-03-14T20:17

Rufus Norris’s production Small Island has returned to the National Theatre's Olivier stage, chronicling the experiences of a couple of the Windrush generation. Another epic on the same stage, Our ...

Colin Barrett, reviews of Servant of the People, Run Rose Run and Warsan Shire's new poetry collection from 2022-03-10T19:34

Irish writer Colin Barrett discusses his much anticipated second collection of short stories, Homesickeness, the follow up to his hugely successful 2014 Young Skins. Long before he became the Pre...

Larry Achiampong, Zinnie Harris, Thomas Sanderling from 2022-03-09T20:13

Front Row goes to the seaside and sends a sonic cultural postcard. The first major solo exhibition by British-Ghanaian artist Larry Achiampong opens at the Turner Contemporary Gallery in Margate on...

Howard Jacobson, Russian Cultural Philanthropy, Women's Fiction Prize, Turning Red from 2022-03-08T20:32

Howard Jacobson, who won the Booker prize for his novel The Finkler Question, discusses his new memoir Mother's Boy, an exploration of how he became a writer, of belonging and not-belonging, of bei...

Sean Baker, The Shires, Kaveh Akbar from 2022-03-07T20:21

Director Sean Baker discusses his new film Red Rocket that was nominated for the Palme D’Or - the top prize at Cannes. The Iranian-American poet Kaveh Akbar discusses his new poetry collection, Th...

The 50 year anniversary of The Godfather, Our Generation reviewed, Paul Dano on his role in the new Batman from 2022-03-03T20:18

It’s 50 years since The Godfather was released, the first of three films that have had a huge impact in their own right and on so much that followed them, from The Sopranos to The Simpsons. Christ...

Jane Campion on The Power of the Dog, Ukrainian artist Pavlo Makov from 2022-03-02T21:04

Filmmaker Jane Campion is the first woman to be nominated twice for the Oscar for Best Director and the first woman to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival. Known for her female-centred w...

Tears for Fears, English Heritage, Unboxed Festival, Welsh poetry on St. David's Day from 2022-03-01T20:21

Tears For Fears, the duo who sound-tracked the 1980s with songs such as Shout, Mad World and Everybody Wants to Rule the World, have just released a new album, their first for 17 years. Curt Smith...

Ali&Ava reviewed, Cultural Responses to Ukraine, Cherry Jezebel from 2022-02-28T21:10

On tonight’s Front Row, we take a look at the cultural responses to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with the BBC’s Culture Editor, Katie Razzall. Clio Barnard’s latest film, Ali&Ava, is a love story ...

Mark Neville photographing Ukraine, Whistler's Woman in White exhibition and The Duke film reviewed, Adam McKay on Don't Look Up from 2022-02-24T20:10

Director Adam McKay talks to Tom about his film Don’t Look Up. He discusses why it divided audiences and how he thinks cinema can influence politics. Photographer Mark Neville on the portraits of ...

David Byrne, Arts Minister Lord Parkinson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Agnès Poirier on culture in Paris from 2022-02-23T20:19

Musician, film maker and artist David Byrne discusses his new book A History of the World (in Dingbats) - a collection of more than 100 line drawings he created during the Covid-19 pandemic. The s...

Samuel Bailey, Sensitivity Readers, Social Media Satire from 2022-02-22T20:38

Samuel Bailey’s debut play, Shook, about three young men in a young offender's institution, won the Papatango New Writing Prize in 2019, glowing reviews, and a sell-out run. His new play, Sorry, Y...

Kit Harington, Chris Riddell on Jan Pieńkowski, Jamal Edwards, Surrealism from 2022-02-21T20:21

Game of Thrones star Kit Harington and director Max Webster discuss their new production of Henry V, and why they chose to make Henry a more complex character than the usual patriotic hero. Jan Pi...

Living Sculpture Daniel Lismore, Severance and The Real Charlie Chaplin reviewed, Lady Joker crime thriller from 2022-02-17T20:22

Artist Daniel Lismore describes himself as a ‘living sculpture.’ His elaborate creations have been worn by Naomi Campbell, Boy George and the cast of the English National Opera’s The Mask of Orpheu...

Richard Bean on Hull Truck at 50, portrayal of autism on screen, Sheila Heti from 2022-02-16T20:25

Comedy writer Sara Gibbs and actor and writer JJ Green discuss the portrayal of autistic characters on TV and film and call for change. Half a century ago director Mike Bradwell rented a run-down...

British dance post-pandemic, Pissarro, Florian Zeller and Christopher Hampton from 2022-02-15T20:29

Cassa Pancho and Billy Trevitt on the future of British dance, the "father of Impressionism" Pissarro and Florian Zeller and Christopher Hampton on new play The Forest. Presnter: Kirsty LangProduc...

Michael Morpurgo's Private Peaceful on stage, Barbellion prize-winning author Lynn Buckle, singer-conductor Barbara Hannigan from 2022-02-14T20:14

Michael Morpurgo’s book Private Peaceful has been made into a film, a solo stage show and a radio drama. As a new ensemble version opens at Nottingham Playhouse, before touring the country, the aut...

Kimchilia Bartoli, Reviews of This is Going to Hurt, Flee and Louise Bourgeois from 2022-02-10T20:34

Korean-American countertenor Kangmin Justin Kim gives an insight into the creation of his drag persona, Kimchilia Bartoli, a tribute to the Italian opera diva, mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli. Justin...

Drive My Car film review, Shakespeare's problem plays, the Great Yarmouth arts scene from 2022-02-09T20:42

Japanese film Drive My Car has been nominated for four Oscars, including Best Director for Ryusuke Hamaguchi. With his next film Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy released in the UK on Friday, critic Br...

The resurgence of black and white films, Oscar nominations and Hannah Silva from 2022-02-08T20:17

Monochrome is having a moment at this year’s awards season in films such as Belfast, The Tragedy of Macbeth and C’mon C’mon. To discuss the comeback of black and white and its enduring appeal, Tom ...

Yard Act's debut album, writer Esi Edugyan, Jason Katims on the TV series As We See It from 2022-02-07T20:38

Fresh from a special concert in their home city of Leeds to mark Independent Venue Week, James Smith, lead singer of Yard Act talks to Samira about the group’s success with the release of their deb...

The Eyes of Tammy Faye&novel They reviewed, Brass Eye anniversary from 2022-02-03T20:14

The Eyes of Tammy Faye is a new film starring Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield as televangelists Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker charting their controversial rise and fall in the 1970s and 80s. They ...

Erin Doherty on new drama Chloe, Andrei Kurkov on culture in Ukraine, true crime podcasts from 2022-02-02T20:42

Erin Doherty shot to fame playing Princess Anne in The Crown and joins Tom to discuss her latest role as social media obsessed stalker Becky in BBC drama Chloe. The writer Andrei Kurkov talks abou...

Bastille perform live, independent book sellers, Costa Book Awards Book of the Year Winner from 2022-02-01T20:20

Ahead of the release of their fourth studio album, Give Me the Future, Dan Smith and Charlie Barnes of the alt-pop four piece Bastille perform live in the studio and discuss the creation of this sc...

Van Gogh Self Portraits, Joanna Hogg on The Souvenir Part II, Dr Semmelweis from 2022-01-31T20:16

Van Gogh’s self portraits have defined our sense of his inner life. As a new exhibition gathers many of them together for the first time, The Courtauld’s Curator of Paintings, Karen Serres and the ...

Romola Garai, Almodóvar's Parallel Mothers&Francis Bacon: Man and Beast reviewed from 2022-01-27T20:18

The actress Romola Garai talks about her directorial debut, the horror film Amulet. Critics Maria Delgado and Louisa Buck review Pedro Almodóvar's film Parallel Mothers starring Penélope Cruz - ...

Isabel Allende on her new novel Violeta, Freya McClements on the play The White Handkerchief, William Sitwell and Façade, from 2022-01-26T20:29

Isabel Allende was born in Peru in 1942 and raised in Chile. Most famous for her novel The House of the Spirits, her works have been both bestsellers and critically acclaimed, translated into more ...

Martin Freeman on The Responder and Cultural Levelling Up from 2022-01-25T20:28

The Responder, a five-part BBC drama broadcast on consecutive nights this week, was written by ex-police response officer Tony Schumacher. He joins Samira along with Martin Freeman, who stars as th...

Olly Alexander, Honorée Fannone Jeffers, Femi Elufowoju jr on Rigoletto from 2022-01-24T20:38

The singer and actor Olly Alexander discusses his new album, Night Call, and playing the central role in the Russell T Davies drama acclaimed television drama, It's A Sin; Theatre director Femi El...

Ciarán Hinds, Nightmare Alley and The Gilded Age reviewed, the latest Serpentine exhibition on the gaming platform Fortnite from 2022-01-20T20:11

Belfast-born actor Ciarán Hinds tells Tom Sutcliffe about playing Kenneth Branagh’s grandfather in the director’s semi-autobiographical film Belfast, set in the early years of The Troubles in North...

Munich: The Edge of War, Australia, Jo Browning Wroe on her novel, A Terrible Kindness from 2022-01-19T20:15

Munich: The Edge of War is new film set in 1938 at the time of the Munich Agreement when the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was making a last ditch attempt to avoid war with Hitler’s G...

Tilda Swinton, secrecy in screen casting, proposed cuts at Stoke museums from 2022-01-18T20:05

Tilda Swinton talks to Samira about her new film Memoria, in which she plays a Scottish woman who, after hearing a loud 'bang' at daybreak, begins experiencing a mysterious sensory syndrome while t...

Adrian Lester on Trigger Point; Heal and Harrow perform live; northern writing prizes from 2022-01-17T20:24

Actor Adrian Lester joins Samira to discuss his varied career on stage, in film and now back on UK television in the gripping new ITV police drama, Trigger Point. Scottish musicians Rachel Newton ...

Boiling Point and Hanya Yanagihara's To Paradise reviewed, Costa Children's Award winner Manjeet Mann from 2022-01-13T20:17

Writers Okechukwu Nzelu and Stephanie Merritt join Tom Sutcliffe to review Hanya Yanagihara’s novel To Paradise, eagerly awaited by fans of her Booker-shortlisted A Little Life. Over three distinc...

Ascension, John Preston on Robert Maxwell and is vinyl manufacturing at breaking point? from 2022-01-12T20:00

Kirsty Lang speaks to John Preston who has won the Costa biography award for Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell. As a new vinyl pressing plant opens in Middlesbrough, we hear about the long delay...

Winner of TS Elliot Prize for Poetry, Unboxed, Folk at the Hampstead Theatre from 2022-01-11T20:08

We talk to Joelle Taylor fresh from her win last night of the 2021 TS Eliot Prize for Poetry for her collection of poems which explores her life as a lesbian. 2022 has three big cultural events in...

Sheffield Crucible Theatre at 50, Philosophy in the Gallery, Self Esteem from 2022-01-10T20:00

As Sheffield's Crucible Theatre celebrates its 50th anniversary, Nick Ahad talks to Artistic Director Robert Hastie. Sheffield pop star Self Esteem on her award-winning album Prioritise Pleasure....

Joe Wright on Cyrano, Costa poetry winner Hannah Lowe, A Hero from 2022-01-06T20:12

In his latest film Cyrano, director Joe Wright has tackled the 1897 French verse drama, Cyrano de Bergerac. He joins Tom Sutcliffe to discuss turning a classic into a musical and dispensing with Cy...

Andrea Arnold, Claire Fuller, Afghanistan National Institute of Music from 2022-01-05T20:19

Filmmaker Andrea Arnold on her first documentary film, Cow, about the life of two cows, which one critic described as 'a meaty slice of bovine socio-realism.' We talk to Dr Ahmad Sarmast, found...

The Costa Book Awards, Julia Ducournau on Titane, disabled access to arts and culture from 2022-01-04T20:14

The Costa Book Awards are in their 50th year. Tonight on Front Row, Chair of Judges Reeta Chakrabarti will join Samira Ahmed to announce each of this year’s category winners for First Novel, Novel,...

Joan Didion remembered, Call the Midwife, The Tragedy of Macbeth and a review of the year in culture from 2021-12-23T21:09

Writer and essayist Olivia Laing reflects on the work of the American journalist and essayist Joan Didion, who has died at the age of 87. With the Christmas Special of Call the Midwife taking its ...

Paul Thomas Anderson, Eliza Carthy and Jon Boden, Postcard from Doncaster from 2021-12-22T20:35

Paul Thomas Anderson discusses directing and writing his new romantic comedy, Licorice Pizza, starring Sean Penn, Bradley Cooper and Tom Waits. The film is a coming-of-age story, complicated by the...

Anything Goes, Live arts venues under Omicron, The Princess Bride from 2021-12-21T20:16

Broadway star Sutton Foster and director and choreographer Kathleen Marshall talk to Samira Ahmed about staging the musical Anything Goes, one of the hottest tickets of the year at The Barbican, ah...

Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kehinde Wiley, Christmas book gifts from 2021-12-20T20:15

Maggie Gyllenhaal discusses her new film The Lost Daughter, an adaptation of the novel by Elena Ferrante. Gyllenhaal has written the film and it is her directorial debut, which stars Olivia Colman,...

Don't Look Up, Around the World in 80 Days, Cutting It Fine from 2021-12-16T20:11

Jonathan Freedland, Sarah Churchwell and Leila Latif review Adam McKay's satire Don't Look Up, with a stellar cast including Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio, and Around the World in 80 Days...

Postcard from Scarborough, Derek Jarman Protest!, Benjamin Cleary from 2021-12-15T20:52

A major retrospective of Derek Jarman’s work, Protest!, opens at the Manchester Art Gallery this week. One of the most influential figures in 20th century British culture the exhibition focuses on...

Colm Tóibín from 2021-12-14T20:13

Colm Tóibín on winning the David Cohen prize, the sudden rise in Covid-19 related theatre closures and a seasonal dance round-up with Sarah Crompton.

Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, Sarah Phelps, puppetry on stage from 2021-12-13T20:21

Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, which transforms a West End theatre into a Berlin night club in the late 1920s, stars Eddie Redmayne as the Emcee and Jessie Buckley as chanteuse Sally Bowles. Alice Sa...

Cat Power performs live. Amanda Gorman poetry, Sex And The City follow up and Drive My Car reviewed from 2021-12-09T20:17

What makes a good cover version? And is it an underrated musical genre? American singer-songwriter and queen of the cover-version Cat Power AKA Chan Marshall joins Samira live in the studio to disc...

Musician Carwyn Ellis performs; The Rules of Art? exhibition; filmmaker Rosemary Baker; Port Talbot postcard from 2021-12-08T20:56

Front Row comes from Cardiff this evening. Joining presenter Huw Stephens to play live in the studio is Welsh musician Carwyn Ellis, who has been collaborating with Brazilian musicians and the BBC ...

Steven Spielberg, Working Class Heritage, Will Sharpe from 2021-12-07T20:13

Samira talks to Steven Spielberg about his new version of the musical West Side Story, along with Ariana DeBose who plays Anita. Following the recent demolition of the Dorman Long Tower at the for...

Playwright James Graham on Best of Enemies; Lamb film review; The Belarus Free Theatre; remembering actor Antony Sher from 2021-12-06T20:13

Britain’s foremost writer of political drama, James Graham, has written a new play ‘Best of Enemies’, about the television debates in the US in 1968 between the right wing thinker William Buckley J...

The Hand of God and Dürer exhibition reviewed, Aaron Sorkin on Lucille Ball from 2021-12-02T20:10

Paolo Sorrentino’s film The Great Beauty won an Oscar. Now he has returned to his home city of Naples to make a film based on his own autobiography, The Hand of God, which shows how his passion fo...

The 2021 Turner Prize Ceremony from 2021-12-01T20:36

Front Row is live from the 2021 Turner Prize Ceremony at Coventry Cathedral. Samira Ahmed hears from Turner Prize judges actor Russell Tovey and curator Zoe Whitley, and the director of Tate Bri...

The 2021 Turner Prize Ceremony from 2021-12-01T20:36

Front Row is live from the 2021 Turner Prize Ceremony at Coventry Cathedral.

Samira Ahmed hears from Turner Prize judges actor Russell Tovey and curator Zoe Whitley, and the director of ...

The Parthenon Marbles; Get Back documentary review; Turner Prize nominees Project Artworks; the literary canon from 2021-11-30T20:12

As the debate over the Parthenon Marbles has resurfaced in recent weeks, we take a deep dive into this decades old dispute. Alexander Herman, Assistant Director of the Institute of Art and Law join...

Kelly Lee Owens, Stephen Sondheim, Rowan Williams, Black Obsidian Sound System from 2021-11-29T21:01

The electronic musician Kelly Lee Owens won this year’s Welsh Music Prize for her album Inner Song. She tells Samira Ahmed about her inspiration - and her collaborations with John Cale, Björk and ...

House of Gucci, Adele's 30 and The Every by Dave Eggers from 2021-11-25T20:15

The designer Henry Holland and writers Stephanie Merritt and Tahmima Anam review House of Gucci, The Every by Dave Eggers and Adele's new album 30. In the run up to the Turner Prize, Front Row is ...

Suzanne Lacy, Bishop Auckland, Silent Night from 2021-11-25T10:48

As her first major retrospective in the UK opens in Manchester, the distinguished American artist Suzanne Lacy discusses a career which has seen her standing at the junction of aesthetics and activ...

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Turner Prize nominees Gentle / Radical, Costa Book Awards from 2021-11-23T20:25

During the pandemic Andrew Lloyd Webber has been more of a campaigner than a composer. He talks to Samira Ahmed how to keep theatres open now, taking his show Cinderella to Broadway and his latest ...

The Power of the Dog film review; Turner Prize nominees Cooking Sections; South African literature today from 2021-11-22T20:24

Jane Campion is famous for The Piano and a baby grand plays a crucial role in her new film The Power of the Dog, in which Benedict Cumberbatch plays a heavy smoking, unwashed and deeply troubled ra...

King Richard, Wheel of Time and new Zadie Smith play reviewed, Playwright Moira Buffini from 2021-11-18T20:32

New movie King Richard stars Will Smith and focuses on the father of Venus and Serena Williams. The Wife of Willesden is the first play by Zadie Smith. And Wheel of Time is a new fantasy series on ...

Ralph Fiennes on Four Quartets, Songlines exhibition, art postcard from Plymouth from 2021-11-17T20:19

‘A spiritual enquiry into what it is to be human’ is how Ralph Fiennes describes T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. On the eve of the opening in the West End he tells presenter Elle Osili-Wood about his ...

Céline Sciamma on her film Petite Maman, author Sarah Moss on The Fell, diversity in folk arts from 2021-11-16T20:17

Céline Sciamma’s last film, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, won awards worldwide after its release in 2019. Now the French filmmaker is back with Petite Maman – a meditative film set in the French cou...

Lin-Manuel Miranda, Climate Fiction, Kayleigh Llewellyn from 2021-11-15T20:11

Lin-Manuel Miranda makes his debut as film director with a cinematic retelling of the stage musical - tick, tick…Boom! The film stars Andrew Garfield as a musical theatre composer desperate to suc...

Tori Amos performs, The Courtauld Gallery reopening and Dopesick series reviewed, Heidi Stephens live blogs from 2021-11-11T20:15

Tori Amos plays live and tells presenter Tom Sutcliffe about going from rock bottom to renewal in her lockdown album conceived on the Cornish coast, Ocean to Ocean. The Courtauld Gallery in London...

Art in Shetland, Timothy Ogene, Sharon Heal and Paul McCartney from 2021-11-10T20:18

For many years Shetlanders with ambitions to become artists had to leave to train and work. Not any longer, and young artists are also returning to the islands. Jen Stout reports on the ancient and...

Venice and climate change, the story that inspired Dostoevsky, Dean Stockwell remembered from 2021-11-09T20:09

The unique cultural heritage of Venice is under threat from increasingly frequent flooding and rising sea levels. Anna Somers Cocks OBE, founding editor of the Art Newspaper and Fellow of the Istit...

Jeymes Samuel on The Harder They Fall, author Sofi Oksanen, John Gilchrist of UK Theatre, Paul McCartney from 2021-11-09T07:22

British filmmaker, singer-songwriter and music producer Jeymes Samuel AKA The Bullitts discusses his new film The Harder They Fall. Finnish-Estonian author Sofi Oksanen on her new novel Dog Park.J...

Spencer, Alan Cumming and Paul McCartney from 2021-11-04T20:24

Alan Cumming discusses his autobiography, Baggage: Tales from a Fully Packed Life. This volume chronicles some of his career highs after Hollywood came calling, including working with Stanley Kubr...

The 2021 Booker Prize Ceremony from 2021-11-03T20:21

Shortlisted authors Anuk Arudpragasam, Damon Galgut, Patricia Lockwood, Nadifa Mohamed, Richard Powers and Maggie Shipstead join Samira Ahmed live in Broadcasting House's Radio Theatre for the anno...

Little Amal, Anne Carson, Paul McCartney and The National Trust from 2021-11-02T20:18

Little Amal, a giant puppet of a refugee girl, will complete her epic journey from Gaziantep on the Turkey/Syria border to Manchester tomorrow. Theatre director David Lan discusses what the projec...

Armando Iannucci, Booker shortlisted author Maggie Shipstead, Paul McCartney on Penny Lane from 2021-11-01T20:25

Meet the anagrammatical Orbis Rex, Queen Dido, Blind Dom’nic, as they battle a wet and withered bat from Wuhan in Front Row as Armando Iannucci, Samira Ahmed’s guest, reads from and talks about Pan...

Passing film, Colin in Black and White, Booker Prize book group on Bewilderment, Paul McCartney from 2021-10-28T19:08

Critics Michael Donkor and Jan Asante review actor Rebecca Hall’s directorial debut feature film Passing and the series Colin in Black and White, about former NFL player Colin Kaepernick. In the f...

The reopening of the Hall for Cornwall, Paul McCartney on Eleanor Rigby and Booker Prize nominated author Nadifa Mohamed from 2021-10-27T19:30

Front Row visits Truro to report on the re-opening of the Hall for Cornwall after a 3 year, £26million refurbishment. The new 1300 auditorium complements the granite of the old building, and the Co...

Booker shortlisted novelist Patricia Lockwood, Science Museum director Ian Blatchford, Paul McCartney from 2021-10-26T19:14

Patricia Lockwood is the latest author to join our Booker Prize Book Groups. Three listeners will ask her about No One Is Talking About This, a novel that’s been described as “ferociously original...

Paul McCartney, Paul Muldoon, Booker Prize Book Group on The Promise from 2021-10-25T19:21

In the first instalment of our new series, Inside the Songs, Paul McCartney talks about his life and song-writing through the prism of ten key lyrics, beginning with The Beatles’ classic All My Lov...

Booker Prize Book Group: Anuk Arudpragasam on A Passage North from 2021-10-21T19:23

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

Bradford Postcard; Ron’s Gone Wrong; Re-directing a play from 2021-10-21T07:00

Producer-director Sarah Smith made her animation debut with the festive favourite, Arthur Christmas. Ten years on she’s back with Ron’s Gone Wrong, a warm-hearted romp with a robot and a critique o...

BBC National Short Story Award and BBC Young Writers' Award winners from 2021-10-19T19:27

We announce the winners of the BBC National Short Story Award 2021 and the BBC Young Writers' Award 2021. Kirsty Lang is joined for the show by National Short Story Award judges James Runcie and Fi...

Arinzé Kene on playing Bob Marley; Clare Norburn sings John Dowland; the first Working Class Writers Festival from 2021-10-18T19:20

Arinzé Kene talks to Samira Ahmed about playing Bob Marley in the new musical Get Up, StandUp! Singer Clare Norburn is live in the studio to perform a piece by 16th Century composer John Dowland a...

The RIBA Stirling Prize for architecture, Succession, John Le Carré’s final novel, The London Film Festival from 2021-10-14T19:33

Front Row goes live to Coventry to announce the winner of the 2021 Riba Stirling Prize and discuss the shortlist with BBC Arts and Media correspondent David Sillito and architecture critic for the ...

Theatre director Emma Jordan, Omagh's Ulster American Folk Park and Ridley Scott from 2021-10-13T19:19

Theatre director Emma Jordan discusses The Border Game, a new play to mark 100 years of the Irish border. We hear from Omagh in County Tyrone as reporter Freya McClement explores a moving new in...

Suzan-Lori Parks, Owen Sheers, stolen artefacts and the portrayal of scientists from 2021-10-12T19:33

Suzan-Lori Parks, the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama on her play White Noise, which has its the UK premier tonight. Life is not so bad for four liberal friends, tw...

Joan Collins, Armistead Maupin and Verbatim Theatre from 2021-10-11T19:27

Joan Collins discusses her memoir My Unapologetic Diaries. Tales of the City author and activist Armistead Maupin on his national tour and why he has moved from his beloved San Francisco to live i...

Nobel Prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah, Cush Jumbo's Hamlet, Poet Laureate Simon Armitage from 2021-10-07T19:26

Cush Jumbo’s long-awaited performance as Hamlet and debbie tucker green’s film ear for eye come under the critical gaze of Ekow Eshun, Vanessa Kisuule and Sarah Crompton. Tanzanian novelist Abdulr...

The Arts in Aberystwyth, The Boy with Two Hearts in Cardiff and Welsh film director Craig Roberts from 2021-10-06T19:19

Broadcaster Huw Stephens sends an audio postcard from Aberystwyth, the small seaside town with the big arts centre mounting exhibitions and concerts, the National Library of Wales, the country's ol...

Wole Soyinka, post-pandemic theatre, Michael Winterbottom from 2021-10-05T19:18

Wole Soyinka, the first African writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, tells Samira Ahmed about what impelled him to write his first new novel in five decades, Chronicles from the Land of the...

Hilary Mantel, Lianne La Havas, Candice Carty Williams, Kieran Hurley from 2021-10-04T19:36

In tonight's new look, 45 minute long Front Row... Hilary Mantel talks about turning her 874 page novel, The Mirror and the Light, the third volume in her Thomas Cromwell trilogy, into a play of j...

No Time To Die, Soul Train, Karl Ove Knausgaard from 2021-10-01T19:33

The new 007 film No Time To Die has had its release pushed back and back and back due to Covid. But now it’s finally here with Daniel Craig playing James Bond for the final time. Critical responses...

Dave Grohl, Jimmy Savile from 2021-09-30T19:30

Widely known as the nicest guy in rock, Dave Grohl has written a memoir ‘The Storyteller’ documenting his life in the rock and roll business, from early days sleeping in the tour van with Scream, t...

David Chase, Laura Lomas, Betty Campbell statue from 2021-09-29T19:38

American screenwriter, show-runner, director, and producer David Chase is best known for writing and producing the HBO drama The Sopranos which aired for six seasons between 1999 and 2007. He talks...

Comedian Njambi McGrath, Turner Prize shortlist review, 25 Years of Buena Vista Social Club from 2021-09-28T18:58

Kenyan British Comedian Njambi McGrath’s work focuses on identity politics, Brexit, colonialism, and race. She joins Kirsty to discuss her 2019 show, Accidental Coconut which opens at the Soho Thea...

Arthur C. Clarke Award winner, K-pop band BTS address the UN and new film, The Man Who Sold His Skin from 2021-09-27T19:04

Front Row announces this year’s winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction and Samira Ahmed interviews the winner. They are joined by Clarke Award judge Stewart Hotston to discuss the...

Dame Elizabeth Blackadder, Megan Swann, Richard Smyth, The Story of Looking. from 2021-09-24T19:09

Megan Swann is the first ever female President of The Magic Circle, and the youngest ever President at just 28 years old. She tells Tom how she got into magic, and how she uses magic to share an en...

The Contains Strong Language Festival from 2021-09-23T20:00

On 6 October 1941 “The Coventry Telegraph” reported that women of Coventry had sent a message of support to the women of Stalingrad. And so began a relationship that became formalised by twin city ...

Spiers and Boden, music streaming economics, Calvin Kasulke, Danny Rhodes from 2021-09-22T18:55

There's some excitement in the world of English traditional music: Spiers and Boden have reunited, recorded a new album and are embarking on a month long tour. Squeezebox player John Spiers met fid...

We announce the winner of the 2021 Art Fund Museum of the Year from 2021-09-21T21:20

We announce the winner of the 2021 Art Fund Museum of the Year, the world’s largest museum prize. Front Row broadcasts a special programme from London's Science Museum, reflecting on the resilience...

Everybody's Talking about Jamie, Rory Gleeson, Grinling Gibbons Exhibition from 2021-09-20T19:08

Everybody’s Talking about Jamie is a feature film based on the stage musical of the same name, which in turn was inspired by the BBC Three documentary Jamie: Drag Queen at 16. It centres on Jamie, ...

Peter Brathwaite, Indecent play review, Small Bells Ring story barge, Lucy Caldwell from 2021-09-17T19:00

Visible Skin: Rediscovering the Renaissance through Black Portraiture is a new outdoor exhibition across King’s College London’s Strand Campus, showcasing artworks by opera singer Peter Brathwaite....

Peaceophobia, Help Review, Georgina Harding, Kurt Elling from 2021-09-16T19:13

If you go down to the Oastler Centre carpark in Bradford over the next few days, you’re sure of a big surprise because this derelict multi-storey is the venue for a new theatrical production - Pea...

Anuradha Roy, Propaganda ceramics, British Ceramics Biennial, a new Culture Secretary from 2021-09-15T19:01

Award-winning author Anuradha Roy crafts pots as well as prose. She joins us live from India to discuss the fusion of ceramics and storytelling, pottery and politics in her new novel, The Earthspin...

Julian Clary, Antonio Pappano, Booker Prize shortlist from 2021-09-14T18:54

The role of Norman, the longsuffering, waspish eponymous dresser in Ronald Harwood's 1980 play, might have been written for Julian Clary. It's about a touring theatre company bringing Shakespeare t...

Liane Moriarty, Matthew Bourne, Igor Levit from 2021-09-13T18:57

Liane Moriarty is the best-selling author of nine novels including, Big Little Lies, and Nine Perfect Strangers, both of which have been adapted for television. Her latest novel, Apples Never Fall,...

BBC National Short Story Award Shortlist, tenor Stuart Skelton, Shang-Chi film review, Girl Bands now from 2021-09-10T19:09

Front Row announces the shortlist for the £15,000, 16th BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University. Judge Fiona Mozley, author of Booker-shortlisted novel Elmet, joins us live to dis...

Elijah Wood, the future of live streaming, Imriel Morgan from 2021-09-09T18:57

Elijah Wood tells Tom Sutcliffe about his new film No Man of God. Elijah Wood plays criminal profiler Bill Hagmaier in a story based on interview transcripts. Hagmaier is sent by the FBI to visit t...

The Chair reviewed, winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction, Timespan shortlisted for Museum of the Year, Punchdrunk from 2021-09-08T18:56

The recent Netflix comedy drama, The Chair, centres on an English professor, played by Sandra Oh who has just been appointed the first female chair of the department and has big dreams about modern...

Photographer/film-maker Shirin Neshat, author Yaa Gyasi, Michael K Williams tribute from 2021-09-07T19:01

Iranian-born artist, photographer and filmmaker Shirin Neshat talk to us about her latest work - a feature film entitled Land of Dreams which premiered at The Venice Film Festival last week -and he...

Cathy Brady, Mick Fleetwood, Jean Paul Belmondo from 2021-09-06T18:56

Guitarist Peter Green last performed with Fleetwood Mac, the band he help found, in 1970. Fellow founding-member Mick Fleetwood has honoured Green's legacy in an all-star concert that will be shown...

Spencer at Venice Film Festival, Sally Rooney review, Mogwai, Redemption through reading, Cornish Ordinalia from 2021-09-03T19:21

Irish author Sally Rooney’s third novel 'Beautiful World, Where Are You' has just been released amid a fanfare of publicity and speculation. It follows the runaway success of the TV adaptation of h...

Quentin Tarantino from 2021-09-02T19:00

When Quentin Tarantino’s debut novel, was published earlier this summer, he gave his only UK broadcast interview to Front Row. Now in a special edition of the programme, Kirsty Lang presents an ext...

Covid pilot events, Ian Rankin, Janine Jansen, Neal Cooper from 2021-09-01T19:06

Ian Rankin, author of the Inspector Rebus crime novels, has recently completed a book left unfinished by the father of the ‘tartan noir’ genre William McIlvanney who died in 2015. Ian explains how ...

Hugh Quarshie and Steve Coogan, the Paraorchestra, Daisy Haggard from 2021-08-31T18:57

The murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993 and the subsequent police investigations threw up a lot of questions about institutional racism and corruption within the force. Another enquiry which began i...

Actor Liz Carr on Silent Witness and Hollywood from 2021-08-30T18:45

Liz Carr's role in Silent Witness was a groundbreaking step in the depiction of disability in primetime TV drama. The actor, comedian and broadcaster, who has used a wheelchair since childhood, loo...

Paula Hawkins, Nia DaCosta, Our Ladies film review, Paralympic dressage music from 2021-08-27T19:07

Paula Hawkins’s novel The Girl on the Train sold 23 million copies and was made into a film starring Emily Blunt. Now she has written A Slow Fire Burning, a who-and-why-dunnit about damaged people...

Underwater Museum in Cyprus, Poet Fred D'Aguiar, Helen Zaltzman on Answer Me This podcast from 2021-08-26T18:54

Jason deCaires Taylor has been working in underwater art for 15 years. Today, he joins us to discuss his new museum Musan, built in the Mediterranean sea off the coast of Cyprus. The Answer Me This...

The Rolling Stones in conversation with John Wilson from 2021-08-25T19:00

Following the announcement of the death of the musician Charlie Watts, tonight’s Front Row is an archive edition featuring John Wilson in conversation with the band he was a member of - The Rollin...

Natalya Romaniw, John Tanner, Josh Azouz, Charlie Watts from 2021-08-24T19:23

Music journalist David Hepworth reflects on the life and drums of Rolling Stone Charlie Watts who has died aged 80. Natalya Romaniw is a soprano on her way to stardom. With numerous Madame Butter...

Kalena Bovell, Don Everly, Jack Thorne, Reza Mohammadi from 2021-08-23T18:56

American conductor Kalena Bovell makes her Proms debut with the Chineke! Orchestra this week. She tells Samira about her path into conducting, and why it’s so exciting to be performing music by Sam...

Nicolas Cage film Pig, Singer-songwriter Moses Sumney, The White Lotus, Sisters from 2021-08-20T19:11

Michael Sarnoski is the director and co-writer of Pig, starring Nicolas Cage and a pig that is brilliant at finding truffles – until it’s stolen. Cage’s trip to the culinary hot spots of the big ci...

Cinderella, Sean Shibe, Censor, Firstsite from 2021-08-19T18:55

At last, Cinderella has made it to the ball. After postponement, rearrangement, and postponement again because of, first the lockdown, then social distancing requirements, Andrew Lloyd Webber's new...

Live from The Edinburgh Festival, including film-maker Isaac Julien from 2021-08-18T19:53

This year's Edinburgh Festival is a smaller affair than normal but it's packed full of delicious cultural goodness. We speak with film director Isaac Julien about Lessons of The Hour- a 10-screen f...

Live from the Edinburgh Festival with Henning Wehn, Frances Poet, Fara and Arusa Qureshi from 2021-08-17T19:39

The Edinburgh Festival is a much more pared-down event this year because of Covid, but despite this there is still plenty on offer. Comedian Henning Wehn is filling the Edinburgh Corn Exchange a...

Music in Afghanistan, The Song Project, Manchester Collective from 2021-08-16T19:15

Dr Ahmad Sarmast, founder and director of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music tells John Wilson of his fears and hopes for music-making as his country falls under the control of the Taliban...

Vikingur Olafsson, Power in publishing, Thackray Museum of Medicine. from 2021-08-13T19:04

Last year, Icelandic pianist Vikingur Olafsson was Front Row's artist-in-residence from Reykjavik. Finally this week, he's able to join John Wilson in the studio, where he talks playing at the Prom...

The Courier, Deceit, 2.22 A Ghost Story review from 2021-08-12T19:02

In 1962 the USA and USSR engaged in one of the most terrifying acts of brinksmanship the world has seen. But few people know of the role played by an ordinary British businessman in bringing the Cu...

Celebrating Stravinsky from 2021-08-11T18:46

Russian composer Igor Stravinsky died 50 years ago this year. Yet his influence is still felt today, whether it's the pounding rhythms of The Rite of Spring or the musical borrowings of The Rake's...

Paradise, John Boyne, Stuart Semple from 2021-08-10T18:57

Paradise opens at the Olivier auditorium of the National Theatre tomorrow. It's a new version of a play that had its premiere, and was acclaimed, in 409BC - Philoctetes by Sophocles. Just before th...

Phil Wang, Shape Open exhibiton, All Bound Together, Lost manuscripts of Louis-Ferdinand Céline from 2021-08-09T19:05

Phil Wang joins us to discuss his stand up show, Philly Philly Wang Wang that he filmed at the London Palladium over the pandemic. Exploring race, romance, politics, and his mixed British-Malaysian...

Sir Tom Stoppard, Ryan Bancroft, Museum of The Year, Nick Laird from 2021-08-06T19:04

Sir Tom Stoppard's Olivier Award-winning play Leopoldstadt closed because of Covid in March 2020. Tomorrow it returns to the same stage and the same cast will tell again the story a Jewish family, ...

Sarah, Duchess of York on her new novel, Max Richter from 2021-08-05T18:53

Sarah, Duchess of York, talks to Nick Ahad about her debut Mills and Boon novel, Her Heart for a Compass, based on the life of her ancestor, Lady Margaret. She talks about the parallels between her...

Repairing Beirut's museum artefacts, Vivo, DCMS performer Visas from 2021-08-04T18:58

On the anniversary of the Beirut port explosion, we talk to representatives from both The British Museum and The Archaeological Museum at the American University of Beirut, who are working together...

Elif Shafak, Jonathon Heyward, Stillwater review from 2021-08-03T19:03

Booker Prize shortlisted Turkish writer Elif Shafak has a new novel: The Island Of Missing Trees. Set in Cyprus it follows lovers who risk everything in a divided island. And one of the narrators i...

Kathleen Marshall and Sutton Foster, Tim Renkow, Scarlett Johansson suing Disney. from 2021-08-02T18:55

Yesterday the audience was on its feet – more than once - to applaud the cast, the band and the design of Anything Goes at the Barbican Theatre in London. On Front Row today Samira Ahmed talks to K...

Billie Eilish reviewed, Sir James MacMillan on the First Night of the Proms, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Edinburgh Art Festival from 2021-07-30T18:55

Ben Okri's new play Changing Destiny is an adaptation of one of the world's oldest known stories, the ancient Egyptian Tale of Sinuhe. Tonight marks not only its opening night at London's Young Vic...

Derby: 300 Years of Making from 2021-07-29T19:00

Geeta Pendse visits the new Museum of Making in Derby - an £18 million redevelopment that celebrates the city's 300-year industrial heritage. Jamie Thrasivoulou, Derby County Football Club's Poe...

Tokyo: Art&Photography, Brett Goldstein and Nick Mohammed, Wellcome Photography Prize from 2021-07-28T19:05

Tokyo: Art&Photography at The Ashmolean in Oxford is a celebration of the city currently hosting the Olympics. The exhibition’s curator Lena Fritsch discusses the show which spans the arts of the E...

David Lan on The Walk, The 2021 Booker Prize longlist, David Livingstone birthplace re-opening from 2021-07-27T19:00

As a 3.5 metre tall puppet called Little Amal begins an 8,000km journey from Turkey to Manchester to highlight the difficulties faced by refugee children, Samira talks to theatre director and produ...

Morris Hayes on posthumous Prince album, reopenings in Northern Ireland, actor Amir El-Masry on new film Limbo from 2021-07-26T19:01

Five years after Prince's death, the musician's music director of over 20 years, Morris Hayes, discusses Prince's posthumous new album Welcome 2 America. Recorded in 2010 and archived in the singer...

April De Angelis, Tokyo Olympics, Jordan Tannahill, Neil Mendoza from 2021-07-23T18:59

Playwright April De Angelis joins Tom to talk about her new musical Gin Craze! Described as 'a booze soaked love ballad from the women of Gin Lane.' The Tokyo Olympics 2020 Opening Ceremony took ...

McKellen's Hamlet reviewed, Mercury Prize nominees, Alex Von Tunzelmann on statues from 2021-07-22T19:02

Susannah Clapp, theatre critic of The Observer reviews the new age-blind production of Hamlet starring Ian McKellen, which officially opened up at the Theatre Royal Windsor last night, 50 years sin...

Jon Batiste, Museum of the Year shortlist, The Humboldt from 2021-07-22T08:26

American musician Jon Batiste has many strings to his bow – he’s an activist, recording artist, band leader for a daily TV late night chat show, a singer, pianist and an Oscar-winning film composer...

Ivorian director Philippe Lacôte on his film Night of the Kings, Best Pick podcast, Tirtzah Bassel Canon in Drag from 2021-07-20T19:00

Ivorian director Philippe Lacôte talks about his film Night of the Kings, set in a notorious Abidjan prison run by the inmates, in which he explores the West African tradition of the griot or story...

Debbie Harry on a new Blondie album, 'Reclaiming Amy', Reassessing Amy Winehouse's musical legacy from 2021-07-19T18:53

Chart-topping New York post-punk group Blondie have more than 40 years of chart success under their belts and in 2019 they decided to travel to play some concerts in Havana Cuba. We speak with sing...

Quentin Tarantino, YA Fiction, Report from Cannes, The Vegetable Seller from 2021-07-16T19:03

Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino is a Hollywood veteran and it was the ending of Hollywood’s golden age that was the subject of his last film – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. He’s now returned to the st...

Anna Meredith on Bumps Per Minute, British Podcast Awards, Generational Differences in Publishing from 2021-07-15T18:54

This summer Somerset House in London will be home to a new work by composer Anna Meredith, Bumps Per Minute, which has a distinctly fairground feel. It uses the random interactions of dodgem cars t...

Documentary Witches of the Orient, Antonia Fraser's verse and who should be writing book reviews? from 2021-07-14T18:52

A new documentary Witches Of The Orient' looks back at the last time that Tokyo acted as host. Volleyball made its debut in The 1964 Summer Olympics. And the success of the home team in women’s vol...

Nowhere Special, Art and ecology with George Monbiot and Ruth Maclennan, "Mid-list" novelist Chris Paling from 2021-07-13T18:56

Uberto Pasolini made his name in the film industry as a producer with the international success of his film - The Full Monty. He’s continued to produce but in recent years he’s also turned his hand...

Marcus Rashford mural, Ian McMillan, gender split in publishing from 2021-07-12T19:00

The mural of footballer Marcus Rashford which was defaced with racist graffiti after England lost the Euro 2020 final last night was part of Withington Walls, a community street art project in the ...

Llangollen bridge wrapped in patchwork for its Eisteddfod, Cannes Film Festival, Zaida Bergroth on film Tove from 2021-07-09T19:04

Film critic Jason Solomons brings a touch of glamour to tonight’s proceedings with his report from this year’s Cannes Film festival which opened this week. Tove Jansson was the Finnish creator of ...

Laura Mvula, Michael Spicer, Anthony Bolton from 2021-07-08T19:04

Laura Mvula’s first two albums were Mercury-Prize nominated, and now 5 years later she has returned with ‘Pink Noise’, an 80’s-inpsired-synth-inflected album full that’s perfect for dancing to. She...

Ola Ince on Romeo&Juliet, harassment and bullying in the acting profession, BFI's Ben Roberts from 2021-07-07T18:58

British director Ola Ince discusses her new stage production of Romeo&Juliet, currently on at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. Ince has given it a contemporary setting, but she doesn’t shy away from ...

Manchester International Festival from 2021-07-06T19:48

With her new sound and light installation, Arcadia, Theatre and Opera director Deborah Warner has brought the feel of the field into The Factory – the new home for MIF. The Factory is still very m...

Paula Rego at Tate Britain, Black Widow, Cultural Recovery Fund a year on from 2021-07-05T18:45

The largest ever UK retrospective of the Portuguese-born artist Paula Rego opens at Tate Britain this week. Featuring over 100 works, many not seen before, the show spans Rego’s early work from the...

Giles Terera, Chi-chi Nwanoku, The 2021 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Reviewing Another Round from 2021-07-02T18:57

Actor Giles Terera tells us about his new book Hamilton and Me: an Actor’s Journal, his inside account of preparing for, rehearsing and performing in the West End production of the smash hit musica...

Bobby Gillespie, Karla Black, Audience Anxiety from 2021-07-01T18:53

We speak with Bobby Gillespie, front man of Primal Scream who has released a new album, Utopian Ashes, comprised of duets with French singer Jehnny Beth from Savages. Themed around a disintegrating...

Mark-Anthony Turnage, V&A East, Patricia Lockwood from 2021-06-30T18:52

Composer and Arsenal fan Mark-Anthony Turnage will be setting a football game to music. Not just any game, but Arsenal’s title-winning 1989 final game of the season. He tells fellow fan John Wilson...

Dickens readings, Smart Fund, Randall Goosby from 2021-06-29T18:55

Later in his career Dickens toured the country doing hugely popular dramatic readings of his works. For his last tour he added in the scene where Bill Sykes murders Nancy but had concerns about how...

Simon Russell Beale, French Exit, Lisa Taddeo from 2021-06-28T19:20

Simon Russell Beale was a choral scholar and the actor remains a serious musician who can play a Bach fugue. Now he is taking the role of Johann Sebastian in Nina Raine’s new play Bach and Sons and...

Siân Owen on Under Milk Wood, Nick Broomfield, Essex stereotypes in culture from 2021-06-25T19:00

It’s third time lucky for the National Theatre: it tried to re-open the Olivier, its largest auditorium, with The Death of England – Delroy in October. The first night was a triumph but, because of...

Marianela Núñez, Charlotte Perriand exhibition review, Latitude Festival from 2021-06-24T18:55

Ninety years since Dame Ninette de Valois founded what we know now as the Royal Ballet and 75 since her post war production of Sleeping Beauty, Tom Sutcliffe talks to Marianela Núñez, Principal Ba...

The Overseas Student, Cherie Jones, India's Parliamentary District row from 2021-06-23T19:02

We're speaking to all the authors shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021 and tonight it's the turn of Cherie Jones. Her novel, How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House, is set on and a...

Joan Armatrading, Erland Cooper, EU cultural quotas from 2021-06-22T18:55

Joan Armatrading discusses her 22nd album, Consequences, and writing songs about love inspired by observation rather than personal experience and how, despite recording every element herself at her...

Lauryn Redding, Claire Barnett-Jones, Supernova film, Venice Biennale from 2021-06-21T19:33

In two days' time, the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester will open its doors to an audience for the first time in over a year. And the first show to be presented will be a one-woman gig musical,...

Ian McKellen on playing Hamlet from 2021-06-18T18:45

50 years after last playing the Danish prince, Sir Ian McKellen is returning to the role of Hamlet, in an age, colour gender-blind production. At the age of 82, he has new insight to the characte...

Lisa Dwan on Beckett's Happy Days, the winner of the Walter Scott Prize from 2021-06-17T18:53

We announce and speak to the winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. Peggy Ashcroft said that Winnie, in Happy Days by Samuel Beckett, ‘is one of those parts…that actresses will ...

Colin Macleod, Jason Reynolds, Hanna Flint reviews 'Together' from 2021-06-16T19:03

Starring James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan, Together is a new BBC2 drama following a couple forced to re-evaluate their relationship during lockdown. Polar opposites in personality and political opini...

Timothy Spall, Shaan Sahota, Universal Basic Income for artists from 2021-06-15T18:49

To play the celebrated British painter, J.M.W. Tuner, for Mike Leigh’s film, Mr Turner, the actor Timothy Spall learned to paint. Four years later, it was the paintings he created while playing the...

Lin-Manuel Miranda, Gerda Stevenson, Implications of the Covid restrictions extension from 2021-06-14T18:57

Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegria Hudes discuss the new screen version of their smash hit musical, In the Heights, which celebrates the intertwined lives of Latino immigrants and their children...

Simon Armitage, After Life, The Disciple from 2021-06-11T19:14

Poet Laureate Simon Armitage reflects on the experience of the pandemic in new BBC film, A Pandemic Poem: Where Did The World Go? Interspersed with interviews from people across the UK, the poem ch...

Noel Gallagher, Amanda Whittington, Mount Recyclemore from 2021-06-10T18:58

Noel Gallagher discusses his new album Back the Way We Came: Vol 1, a Greatest Hits compilation from a decade of his band High Flying Birds that he formed once Oasis broke up in 2011. In the week ...

Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, Danny Elfman, Emily Davison statue from 2021-06-09T19:07

Danny Elfman has composed the score for over 100 films including Batman, Men in Black, Edward Scissorhands, as well as writing The Simpsons theme tune. Before he worked in film he was a rock musici...

Ai Weiwei, Claire Fuller, Seamus Heaney's poetry on location from 2021-06-08T18:56

The artist Ai Weiwei has just unveiled his seven-metre-tall Gilded Cage at Blenheim Palace, a sculpture which addresses the international migrant crisis. He discusses this, as well as the largest e...

Florian Zeller on The Father; Jeffrey Boakye; Ita O'Brien from 2021-06-07T18:58

Florian Zeller’s play The Father was hailed as a masterpiece. Zeller made his debut as a director with his film of it, and Sir Anthony Hopkins won an Oscar for his performance as the patriarch slid...

Joanna Scanlan, Kneehigh, Chibundu Onuzo, Time Review from 2021-06-04T19:01

Actress and writer Joanna Scanlan - best known for her comedic roles in tv series such as The Thick of It, Getting On and No Offence - talks to Tom about her role as Mary Hussain an Islam convert i...

Sorious Samura, Susanna Clarke, Edinburgh Fringe, Liverpool Biennial from 2021-06-03T18:57

Sierra Leone’s best-known journalist, Sorious Samura, discusses his documentary, Sing, Freetown. After growing tired of hearing only negative stories from Africa, the film follows Sorious and playw...

Es Devlin on Forest for Change, artist Phoebe Boswell, Covid amateur choirs update from 2021-06-02T19:02

Es Devlin, who designed sets for Hamlet with Benedict Cumberbatch and Stormzy at the Britz, has created something more quietly contemplative as artistic director of the London Design Biennale, fill...

Films Gunda and First Cow reviewed, Actor and writer Amy Trigg, Composer Dan Jones from 2021-06-01T19:03

Briony Hanson joins Tom to review two extremely different films starring animals as their central characters. First Cow - directed by Kelly Reichardt - is set in Oregon in the 1820s, in which two p...

Paulette Randall from 2021-05-31T18:44

Paulette Randall MBE celebrates her 60th birthday this year. Her career highlights include her role as Associate Director of the unforgettable London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony and being playwr...

Pianist Mitsuko Uchida, Bolton Octagon reopens, Ghazal poetry, Anne Boleyn reviewed from 2021-05-28T18:57

The pianist Mitsuko Uchida returns to the Wigmore Hall in London next week where she’ll be marking five decades since she first performed there. She discusses her love for the Schubert Impromptus t...

Chris Addison on Breeders; Nadifa Mohamed's new novel; BBC Proms 2021 debuts from 2021-05-27T18:57

Breeders is a highly successful TV comedy series that looks honestly and unflinchingly at the difficulties (and rewards) of parenting. It’s just about to return for a second series and we speak wit...

101 Dalmations prequel, Cruella; Two Tone Exhibition in Coventry, City of Culture; new play The Merthyr Stigmatist from 2021-05-26T19:04

Disney’s much-anticipated 101 Dalmatians prequel Cruella is the visually stunning origin story of the woman who becomes the puppy-stealing force of evil from Dodie Smith’s original 1956 story. Star...

Slavery exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, Grime artist Bugzy, the decline or resurgence of crafts from 2021-05-25T18:57

As the Rijkmuseum in Amsterdam opens a landmark exhibition, Slavery, exploring the Netherlands’ 250 years involvement in the trade of human beings, the Director, Taco Dibbits, joins Front Row to ex...

David Weil on Solos, Novelist Brit Bennett, Great British Photography Challenge from 2021-05-24T18:56

David Weil is the showrunner for Hunters, a TV series which imagined the work of Nazi hunters in 1970s New York . The large cast included Al Pacino in his first ever TV lead role. When Covid closed...

Front Row on Bob Dylan at 80 from 2021-05-21T19:18

Front Row joins Radio 4's celebration of Bob Dylan, who will be 80 on Monday. John Wilson joined by Bob Geldof, to consider the art and influence of Bob, on Bob. Ann Powers, music critic for Nati...

Barbara Hepworth retrospective, Broadening museum boards, Othello as a woman from 2021-05-20T19:30

Eleanor Clayton is the curator of the largest publlc exhbition of the work of the sculptor Barbara Hepworth since her death in 1975. She's also written a new biography about the sculptor called Bar...

Composer Roxanna Panufnik, Science meets music at The Brighton Festival, Eileen Agar retrospective from 2021-05-19T19:04

The new album of compositions by Roxanna Panufnik performed by the Saconni Quartet features a surprising range of subject material; letters written home during the First World War, Ashkenazi Jewish...

Julie Hesmondhalgh, Christina McMaster, James Barnor from 2021-05-18T18:53

The actress Julie Hesmondhalgh, best known for Coronation Street and Broadchurch on TV, returns to the theatre for the opening night of her new play at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. Mo...

Director Barry Jenkins on The Underground Railroad from 2021-05-17T18:45

Barry Jenkins, the director of the 2017 Oscar-winning film Moonlight, discusses his new ten-part TV adaptation of Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Underground Railroad. The dram...

Cinemas Reopen, St Vincent, Maylis de Kerangal, Festival Ticketing from 2021-05-14T19:02

Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland, which recently won best film at both the Oscars and Baftas, is leading the pack as cinemas reopen next week. Film critic Tim Robey and Chinese arts journalist Yuan Ren discu...

Rachel Maclean, arts education cuts, Richard Osman, British Book Awards Author of the Year from 2021-05-13T18:57

Author of the Year was announced today at the British Books Awards. Tom speaks to the winner, Richard Osman, game show host and author of the hugely successful crime novel The Thursday Murder Club....

As theatres in England reopen soon, we ask what the experience will be like for audiences and staff? from 2021-05-12T19:04

From next Monday theatres in England will legally be allowed to reopen with social distancing and strict capacity restrictions. We find out what it will be like for audiences and staff as they retu...

Two Distant Strangers, Golden Globes, Resident Evil, U.Me The Musical from 2021-05-11T19:12

It was after the death of George Floyd that television writer and producer Travon Free, and filmmaker Martin Desmond Roe came together to create a response to this traumatic event. The result was T...

David Hockney, TV drama Three Families and novelist Rónán Hession from 2021-05-11T12:12

David Hockney has captured the unfolding of Spring during the pandemic, creating 116 new works on his ipad which have been blown up for a new exhibition at London’s Royal Academy. Art critic Ben Lu...

Emily Mortimer on The Pursuit of Love, Jupiter's Legacy, Rag'n'Bone Man from 2021-05-07T19:01

The actress and writer Emily Mortimer discusses her directorial debut The Pursuit of Love, her 3-part adaptation of Nancy Mitford's novel starring Lily James, Emily Beecham and Andrew Scott, which ...

Don Warrington, Gillian Reynolds, Benjamin Myers from 2021-05-06T18:57

Don Warrington stars as the head of a family, united and divided by grief in Sian Davila’s debut play for Radio 4, Running with Lions. We speak to both Sian and Don about the play and its particula...

Anna Kerrigan, events testing, Sunjeev Sahota from 2021-05-05T18:57

A mother and father struggling to come to terms with their trans child are at the centre of Anna Kerrigan’s new film, Cowboys. She talks to Samira about creating a family drama set in the woodlands...

Essay collections from novelists and poets. Review of TV series Bloods, New Pokemon Snap explored from 2021-05-04T19:05

This year sees a number of writers we know primarily as poets or novelists releasing collections of essays - from Jeanette Winterson to Lucy Ellman and Karl Ove Knausgaard. Tom talks to two of them...

How should we memorialise in the 21st century? from 2021-05-03T18:45

The National Covid Memorial Wall on the bank of the Thames opposite the Houses of Parliament is an unofficial site of remembrance and reflection for the 150,000 or so individuals who've died from C...

Theresa Lola and 70 years of the RFH; The Mosquito Coast reviewed; Royal Blood's new album; Andrew Miller on events pilots from 2021-04-30T19:01

Adapted from Paul Theroux’s bestselling book, The Mosquito Coast follows a family on the run from the US government and seeking escape in Mexico, where they hope to build a simpler life away from A...

Raoul Peck, Camilla Greenwell and Tufting on TikTok from 2021-04-29T19:06

Raoul Peck is a Haitian filmmaker whose documentary I Am Not Your Negro, based on the words of James Baldwin, was Oscar-nominated and won a Bafta in 2018. Now he has made a new documentary series i...

Women's Prize Shortlist, Jamie MacDonald, Rotten Tomatoes from 2021-04-28T18:53

Today the shortlist for the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction is revealed. Chair of judges Bernardine Evaristo joins Front Row to talk through the chosen books and explain why they’re worth their pla...

Shadow and Bone, Lemn Sissay, Gwendoline Riley from 2021-04-27T18:54

We review new Netflix fantasy series Shadow and Bone. It's being touted as the new Game of Thrones but is it worth the hype? Children's and YA author Katherine Webber Tsang gives her verdict. This...

Nicola Benedetti, Mark Simpson, Oscars roundup, Mr Wickham from 2021-04-26T18:57

Violinist Nicola Benedetti is performing a new concerto by Mark Simpson, who was winner of both the BBC Young Musician of the Year (as clarinettist) and the BBC Proms/Guardian Young Composer of the...

Tom Jones looks back at his life and career from 2021-04-23T18:45

In a wide ranging extended interview, Sir Tom Jones looks back at his life and career, from his coal-mining upbringing in South Wales to global superstardom. He talks about the therapy he underwe...

Rose Matafeo, Isobel Waller-Bridge, Ninebarrow from 2021-04-22T19:05

Rose Matafeo discusses her new BBC3 comedy Starstruck. It follows Jessie, a millennial living in East London juggling two dead end jobs and navigating the awkward morning-after-the-night-before, w...

Actor and director Noel Clarke reflects on his career from 2021-04-21T18:45

Actor, writer and director Noel Clarke discusses his latest role in the new five-part ITV drama series Viewpoint, in which he plays a surveillance detective tracking the movements of the prime susp...

Kayo Chingonyi; Joyce DiDonato; The Importance of Being Earnest reviewed from 2021-04-20T19:11

Kayo Chingonyi is an award-winning poet, producer, DJ and lyricist. Kayo joins Tom to talk about his much anticipated new collection A Blood Condition, exploring family, identity and his Zambian he...

London Grammar, Frank of Ireland, Photographer of the Year Craig Easton from 2021-04-19T18:52

London Grammar's debut album in 2013 won an Ivor Novello Award for Best Song. Their follow up four years later topped the album charts. Singer and songwriter Hannah Reid talks about their latest al...

Deborah Warner on Peter Grimes, Helen McCrory remembered, Mare of Easttown from 2021-04-16T19:01

Director Deborah Warner discusses her new production of Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes, which opens at the Teatro Real in Madrid on Monday. The staging of this multinational co-production ha...

Paul Theroux on his new novel, Under The Wave at Waimea from 2021-04-15T18:16

Paul Theroux talks to Tom Sutcliffe about his latest novel “Under The Wave At Waimea” set in Hawaii where he now lives. Published just as he’s celebrated his 80th birthday - it uses surfing as an ...

Testament, diversity in nature writing, festivals insurance update from 2021-04-14T19:09

Rapper and writer Testament discusses his new work Orpheus in the Record Shop which fuses spoken word and beatboxing with players from the Orchestra of Opera North in an new collaboration that give...

Ammonite; Jack Holden's play Cruise; Voices from the Peak from 2021-04-13T18:58

Ammonite tells the story of fossil hunter Mary Anning and a young woman sent to convalesce by the sea who develop an intense relationship, altering both of their lives forever. Set in 1840’s Engla...

Too Close, Rachel Whiteread, Chloe Zhao, Rosa Rankin Gee from 2021-04-12T18:52

Leila Latif reviews Too Close, ITV’s new psychological thriller starring Emily Watson and Denise Gough, which will be broadcast on consecutive nights this week. On the day that commercial art gall...

Taylor Swift's Fearless, Prince Philip portraitist Jonathan Yeo, David Almond, Them from 2021-04-10T15:23

Taylor Swift, who recently won Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards, has today released a new album called Fearless (Taylor's Version), which is an exact remake of her 2008 breakthrough album, Fe...

Peggy Seeger, Liverpool pilot of arts events, Fiction writers of faith from 2021-04-08T19:34

Peggy Seeger has just released her latest album, The First Farewell, at the age of 85. She tells us about the pleasures of working on it with her family, her worries about the post-Covid music scen...

Katherine Parkinson, Louise Kennedy, TikTok and bands from 2021-04-07T19:14

Katherine Parkinson is best known as an actress – she won a BAFTA playing Jen in The IT Crowd and warm praise for her performance on stage in Laura Wade’s play Home, I’m Darling. But she has also ...

Riz Ahmed, Climate change books, Paul Ritter remembered, Israel covid passports from 2021-04-06T19:02

Riz Ahmed stars in Sound of Metal as a rock drummer who loses his hearing. The actor and rapper discusses learning American sign language, working with culturally Deaf actors as well as learning ab...

Author Michael Rosen on his experience of Covid and his tribute to the NHS from 2021-04-05T18:45

A year ago, the writer, poet and broadcaster Michael Rosen was rushed to hospital with Covid. Put into an induced coma in intensive care for 48 days, he underwent weeks of convalescence as he learn...

Front Row: The Blue Edition from 2021-04-02T18:45

Tonight's Font Row is a blue odyssey led by John Wilson as he talks to: Dr Narayan Khandekar, Director of the Forbes Pigment Collection and one of the first people in the world to recognise the si...

Director Lee Isaac Chung, Samantha Ege, Jane Austen's Persuasion, musicians selling back catalogues from 2021-04-01T19:22

Minari tells the story of a Korean family who move to a farm in Arkansas in pursuit of the American Dream. The film’s director, Lee Isaac Chung, explains how his own family story inspired events in...

Future of Disabled Theatre, Disability Champion Andrew Miller, London Symphony Orchestra from 2021-03-31T18:53

Andrew Miller, the Government’s first Disability Champion for Arts and Culture, is stepping down after three years in the post. He discusses the challenges facing disabled people in the creative in...

International Booker Prize longlist reviewed, Joanne Harris, Who should translate work? from 2021-03-30T18:54

Novelist Nadifa Mohamed and translator Maureen Freely review the just-announced longlist for the International Booker Prize 2021. Author Joanne Harris talks to her Italian translator Laura Grandi,...

Tahar Rahim in The Mauritanian, Charlie Carroll, Greenborne from 2021-03-29T19:01

Kevin Macdonald’s new film The Mauritanian is based on the true story of a prisoner held in Guantánamo Bay for 14 years but never charged. The French-Algerian actor Tahar Rahim, recently seen in th...

Tina Turner and Demi Lovato documentaries, author Dean Koontz, poet Marvin Thompson, artists on the high street from 2021-03-26T20:10

For our Friday Review, critics Jacqueline Springer and Sophie Harris give their verdict on two new documentaries, Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil and Tina. Both detail each of the star’s respec...

Emerald Fennell, Benin Bronzes, Winner of the Sarah Maguire Prize for Poetry in Translation from 2021-03-25T20:06

Emerald Fennell is the director and writer of Promising Young Woman, a darkly comic revenge thriller starring Carey Mulligan. The film is nominated for five Academy Awards and six BAFTAs. Emerald ...

Playwright Mark Ravenhill, The Future of Festivals, 2021 Rathbones Folio Prize. from 2021-03-24T20:01

The playwright Mark Ravenhill joins us to talk about his new play Angela. It is a tender portrait of his parents; his mother, Angela, who died in 2019, and of his father, Ted. Angela had dementia a...

Orlando Bloom; Liverpool Biennial; Elizabeth Knox from 2021-03-23T19:55

Orlando Bloom talks to Samira Ahmed about taking on a very different kind of role in his intense and visceral film Retaliation, and the new career challenges he’s excited about. As the delayed Liv...

Nile Rodgers on his digital portrait, composer Hannah Peel from 2021-03-22T20:00

Nile Rodgers – guitarist, producer, songwriter, arranger, and co-founder of Chic in the 1970s – is the subject of what claims to be the world’s first voice-interactive digital portrait, In the Room...

Giles Terera, Griff, Line of Duty reviewed, Harriet Harman on touring musicians from 2021-03-19T19:59

Today, Griff was awarded the 2021 BRITs Rising Star prize. The 20 year old singer-songwriter joins us to discuss how she writes her lyrics including to her breakout single Black Hole, making music ...

Michael Rosen, Chris Bush, Zack Snyder’s Justice League from 2021-03-18T20:04

A year ago, the poet and former Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen was admitted to hospital with Covid-19. Against all the odds, after months in hospital, including 48 days in intensive care and in ...

No Ordinary Man, Dream, Lofi Hip Hop, James Levine from 2021-03-17T19:57

Director Chase Joynt joins us to talk about his film No Ordinary Man, an in-depth look at the life of musician and trans culture icon Billy Tipton. Tipton was born in Oklahoma in 1914, and with the...

Theatre one year on - what now? from 2021-03-16T22:12

One year after theatres closed due to the Covid pandemic, leading figures from the industry join Front Row to look at how the past year has impacted upon theatres and the people who work in them. ...

Sarah Gavron and Theresa Ikoko on Rocks, Oscar nominations, Emma Stonex from 2021-03-15T20:04

Inspired by the real-life story of three men in a lighthouse who mysteriously vanished, Emma Stonex’s novel The Lamplighters is part thriller, part history and part ghost story. She explains why sh...

Aria Code podcast, Yaa Gyasi's new novel, Sky drama The Flight Attendant reviewed from 2021-03-12T20:41

The podcast ‘Aria Code’ from WQXR and the Metropolitan Opera aims to pull back the curtain on some of operas most well-known moments. Each episode “decodes” one aria, with academics and opera singe...

The rise, fall and rise again of audio cassettes, poet Luke Wright, film director Shaka King from 2021-03-11T20:10

The recent death of Lou Ottens - the inventor of audio cassettes who later went on to work on the development of CD technology - gives us the opportunity to look back at the glory days of cassettes...

The One on Netflix, Women's Prize for Fiction longlist, Samuel West rebooting regional theatre, Kieran Hodgson's moment of joy from 2021-03-10T19:57

Netflix’s new drama, The One, set five minutes in the future, depicts a world where a DNA test can find your perfect partner. Kohinoor Sahota joins us to discuss its mix of sci-fi and romance, as w...

Hilary Hahn; BAFTA nominations; competitive reading from 2021-03-09T19:55

The Bafta Film Awards have unveiled a highly diverse nominations list, with 16 of the 24 acting nominees this year coming from ethnic minority groups. This follows criticsm in previous years about ...

Oana Aristide, Remembering Stevie Smith, and what is an NFT? from 2021-03-08T20:14

Novelist Oana Aristide discusses her debut novel Under the Blue, about a reclusive artist forced to abandon his home and follow two young sisters across a post-pandemic Europe in search of a safe p...

David Mamet; The Glorias and Moxie reviewed; Danielle Evans from 2021-03-05T20:07

David Mamet's latest play, The Christopher Boy’s Communion is about a couple in New York whose son is facing trial charged with an appalling crime. First performed on the stage in Los Angeles last...

MC Grammar, Bookshop.org, proposed changes at the V&A from 2021-03-04T20:16

As World Book Day we’re speaking to teacher turned rapper turned internet sensation MC Grammar. He's created lots of videos setting information about grammar to a rap beat. He joins us to explain...

Guitarist Pat Metheny, Budget news for the arts, Translation from 2021-03-03T20:25

Pat Metheny has won 20 Grammy Awards, predominantly for his work as a jazz guitarist, but also for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, and Best Instrumental Composition. His latest work is as a com...

Guitarist Pat Metheny, Budget news for the arts, Translation from 2021-03-03T20:25

Pat Metheny has won 20 Grammy Awards, predominantly for his work as a jazz guitarist, but also for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, and Best Instrumental Composition. His latest work is as a com...

The Anchoress; Your Honour; Stories That Get Us Through from 2021-03-02T20:32

Your Honour is a new Showtime miniseries starring Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston as a respected New Orleans judge whose son is involved in a hit-and-run. He faces a series of impossible choices que...

Review of Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun, Adrian Younge - The American Negro, Springtime in poetry from 2021-03-01T19:56

Kazuo Ishiguro has just published his eighth novel, the first to be written since he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017 and was knighted. Klara and the Sun is about an Artificial Friend, a ...

The United States vs Billie Holiday reviewed, Adrian Scarborough, Ronald Pickup remembered, Joanna Pocock from 2021-02-26T19:56

We review a new biopic of jazz singer Billie Holiday, directed by Lee Daniels, which tells the story of the FBI’s campaign against her. They were afraid that performing her most famous song Strang...

Gilbert&George, Ryan Calais Cameron, Jadé Fadojutimi from 2021-02-25T20:03

Artists Gilbert&George open a new exhibition at the White Cube next week. The pair first met in 1967 whilst studying sculpture at Central St Martin’s art college. They’ve lived and worked together...

Martina Cole, Sam Lee, opening date for museums from 2021-02-24T19:56

As she is awarded one of British crime writing’s top accolades, the Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger, Samira talks to crime novelist Martina Cole. Hailed as the Queen of Crime Drama, Cole ...

Keats, Bonnie Tyler, Museums and contested heritage from 2021-02-23T19:59

John Keats was just 25 when he died in Rome 200 years ago. To mark the anniversary The Poetry Society has commissioned new work from award-winning contemporary poets responding to Keats’s work, and...

Huw Stephens on The Story of Welsh Art, Prequels, reaction to the covid roadmap from 2021-02-22T19:51

As the Prime Minister sets out his roadmap to ending the Covid lockdown we get reaction from Dominique Frazer, Founder of the Boileroom, a music venue in Guildford, and Hamish Moseley, Managing Dir...

The Color Purple, Niven Govinden, U-Roy remembered, John Barber from 2021-02-19T20:07

Leicester Curve’s recent award-winning revival of the musical The Color Purple, based on Alice Walker’s novel, has been reimagined, filmed and is being streamed for audiences. Dreda Say Mitchell an...

Wagner's Ring, Bloodlands, Victor Ambrus, Jessie Brennan from 2021-02-18T20:05

Dame Sarah Connolly sings the role of the goddess Fricka in the Royal Opera House's production of Wagner's The Ring Cycle, currently being broadcast on BBC Radio 3. She discusses the challenge of p...

K-Pop and the South Korean music industry, poet Kate Fox, touring shows in Europe post Brexit from 2021-02-17T20:04

Is listening to K-Pop like buying sweatshop-made clothes? From rigorous childhood performance academies to long, labour-intensive contracts for young idols, does the South Korean music industry hav...

Good Grief, Shalom Auslander, National Galleries from 2021-02-16T19:57

In 2006 a friend of the actor and writer Lorien Haynes died. Haynes's grief has found unusual expression - in a romantic comedy starring Sian Clifford and Nikesh Patel. In Good Grief the central ch...

Lolita Chakrabarti on her play Hymn, literature about waiting, The Silence of the Lambs 30 years on from 2021-02-15T19:54

As the nation waits for the vaccine and lockdown restrictions to ease, what can literature teach us about the art of waiting? Writer Rebecca Stott, critic Alex Clark and poet Anthony Anaxagorou dis...

Chick Corea, Barbellion Prize winner Riva Lehrer, Sia's film Music reviewed&Schneel Malik from 2021-02-12T19:57

British jazz pianist and broadcaster Julian Joseph joins us to look at the life and music of his good friend; pianist and composer Chick Corea. Chick began his career in the early 60’s, released hi...

Ben Hopkins, Luke Jerram, Winsome Pinnock, Rex Obano from 2021-02-11T19:59

Screenwriter and novelist Ben Hopkins talks to Tom about his ambitious new novel, Cathedral. It's a portrait of the construction of the medieval period's greatest buildings, featuring a cast of int...

Adam Curtis, Welcome to Your Fantasy, true crime podcasts from 2021-02-10T20:03

Documentary-maker Adam Curtis crafts densely-constructed, visually-fragmented work so packed full of ideas and images that you can’t take your eyes off the screen for a moment. He pulls together di...

News of the World, Mary Wilson tribute, songwriter Roger Cook, Jean-Claude Carrière remembered from 2021-02-09T20:03

Tom Hanks stars in Paul Greengrass's new film, News of the World. Hanks plays Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a Civil War veteran who crosses paths with Johanna (Helena Zengel), a 10-year-old taken in...

Cathy Yan on her film Dead Pigs from 2021-02-08T19:52

Twenty years ago this week, the artist Michael Landy famously destroyed every single one of his 7,227 possessions in an artwork called Break Down. The artist looks back on the 14-day event which to...

Luke Jerram's Vaccine Artwork, Remembering Christopher Plummer, Malcolm&Marie from 2021-02-05T20:03

In April the artist Luke Jerram spoke on Front Row about his sculpture of the Covid-19 virus. Since then he has been ill with Covid and has created another sculpture - unveiled today - this time of...

Sam Neill On New Film Rams from 2021-02-04T20:05

Hollywood star Sam Neill joins us from his home in New Zealand to discuss the perils of acting with sheep in his new film Rams, based on an acclaimed Icelandic drama about two estranged brothers an...

Golden Globes, Sundance, K-Ming Chang and literary scouts from 2021-02-03T20:14

Film critic Leila Latif joins us to discuss today’s Golden Globe nominations, and gives us an overview of some of the highlights from the first ever online Sundance Festival. The folklore of Taiwa...

Kevin MacDonald Jakuta Alikavazovic from 2021-02-02T20:01

The Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald discusses his follow-up to his YouTube film Life In A Day from 2010, where he invited the public to upload their own footage of their lives taken on one s...

Jill Halfpenny in new drama, The Drowning from 2021-02-02T13:52

Jill Halfpenny stars in a new tv thriller The Drowning. Nine years ago, Jodie’s little boy disappeared on a picnic by the lake, presumed drowned, and she’s never been able to accept his loss. Now, ...

John Grisham, re-opening of museums and galleries, the best of theatre online from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Bestselling author John Grisham on his new novel Camino Winds, a sequel to Camino Island, in which a coterie of crime authors discover one of their colleagues has been murdered during a hurricane....

Simon Russell Beale; Costa Book Awards shortlists; Guy Garvey from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

We exclusively reveal and analyse the 2020 Costa Book Prize shortlists. Critics Alex Clark and Jade Cuttle discuss the books chosen in the five categories: Novel, First Novel, Poetry, Biography and...

Sarah Williams - Flesh and Blood, Todd Haynes - Dark Waters, Bradford Library Funding, Murder 24/7 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Film director Todd Haynes talks to Samira about his latest film Dark Waters. Starring Tim Robbins, it's a tale of environmental catastrophe, corporate greed and an attempt to harness the power of t...

Pet Shop Boys, Emotional risk taking in the arts, The Eye As Witness from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Pet Shop Boys talk about their highly anticipated new studio album Hotspot, which is released today. Hotspot is the duo’s final release with producer Stuart Price who ushered in a period of ‘el...

Laurie Nunn on Sex Education, Mary Jean Chan, Podcast news from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

A teenage sex therapist on a high school campus is the premise of the hit Netflix series Sex Education. Starring Asa Butterfield and Gillian Anderson, its first season attracted 40m viewers in the...

Freddie Fox, Costa Children's Prize winner Jasbinder Bilan, theatre ticket pricing from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Freddie Fox on playing Jeremy Bamber in ITV's new six part factual drama White House Farm, about one fateful night in August 1985 when five members of the same family were murdered at an Essex farm...

BAFTAs so white, Adam Sandler, Costa First Novel winner Sara Collins, Fidelio reinvented from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

We discuss the controversy over this years BAFTA nominations. The most prominent categories - Best Film, Best Actor, Best Actress – remain predominantly white. There’s not a woman on the Best Direc...

Sam Mendes on WWI movie 1917, Costa Book Awards 2019 winners from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Suzannah Lipscomb (Chair of Costa Biography Award) announces the category winners of the five 2019 Costa Book Awards exclusively on Front Row and Stig talks live to the winner of the Best Biography...

Hugh Grant and Matthew McConaughey, Daisy Coulam, Bill Bryson from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Hugh Grant and Matthew McConaughey discuss working with Guy Ritchie on his new gangster film The Gentlemen, but never actually sharing a scene. Television writer Daisy Coulam, whose credits includ...

Jojo Rabbit reviewed, Alex Michaelides, protecting artworks from light damage from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Taika Waititi’s new film Jojo Rabbit is a satire about a 10-year-old budding Nazi who falls under the spell of his imaginary friend Adolf Hitler, played by the New Zealand writer and director. Jaso...

Beethoven at 250 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

A celebration of Ludwig van Beethoven, marking the composer's 250th anniversary year. To discuss what sets Beethoven apart from other composers, John Wilson is joined by pianist Stephen Hough, po...

Cultural Quiz of 2019 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Writer Juno Dawson, critic Sarah Crompton, comedian Ayesha Hazarika and folk musician Matthew Crampton battle it out to see who'll be crowned champion in our cultural quiz of the year. Plus, as it'...

A decade of TV, Ballet podcast Tom and Ty Talk, Long Day's Journey into Night reviewed, Neil Innes from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How has TV changed in the last decade, from what we watch to how we watch it. Critics Boyd Hilton and Eleanor Stanford discuss, alongside contributions from screen writers Mark Gatiss, Amanda Coe a...

Art and Churches from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The most recent statistics released by the Church of England reveal record cathedral attendance, despite falling numbers in many Anglican parish churches. Cathedrals are increasingly programming cu...

Candice Carty-Williams in conversation with Bernardine Evaristo from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

A sparkling and razor-sharp conversation marks the end of a remarkable year for two authors. Queenie has been one of the breakthrough novels of the year, winning over readers with its compassion...

Motown legends Brian and Eddie Holland from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Three names on the Motown label, Holland-Dozier-Holland, were behind a string of hits including 13 number 1s in a row. The songs they wrote included Reach Out (I'll Be There), Stop! in the Name of...

Screenwriter Amanda Coe, Bad films we love, Diana Evans from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Amanda Coe, novelist and screenwriter of Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story, Room at the Top and Apple Tree Yard talks about her latest television drama series, The Trial of Christine Keeler. It's th...

The Goes Wrong Show, Slow Painting, Reviving the high street with culture from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Mischief Theatre team – Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields have had an amazing year with their Play That Goes Wrong theatre franchise – three productions on at the West End, one tou...

JJ Abrams, musicals moving from stage to screen, Derek Owusu from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

JJ Abrams on overcoming his initial qualms about directing The Rise of Skywalker, the epic conclusion of the 42 year Star Wars saga. A huge juggling act, the film must satisfy fans, financiers and ...

Robert De Niro on The Irishman, subverting the gaze, The Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Robert De Niro discusses reuniting with Martin Scorsese after nearly 25 years for The Irishman, the big-budget epic Netflix saga about organised crime over five decades, also starring those classic...

Saoirse Ronan, The Book People goes into administration, How to paint babies from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Saoirse Ronan stars as Jo March in Greta Gerwig’s new film adaptation of Little Women. The Irish actress, who’s tipped for an Oscar for the role, discusses how the film draws out the connection bet...

Taron Egerton, A Christmas Carol, Joe Stilgoe from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Taron Egerton, whose performance as Elton John in the film Rocketman has already earned him Golden Globe and SAG nominations for Best Actor, talks about channelling the flamboyant performer on scre...

Mark Gatiss, Kate Rusby, Creating New Traditions from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Stories from Mark Gatiss will dominate the small screen once again this festive season. Gatiss joins Kirsty to talk about his new adaptation of Dracula, in 3 hour and a half episodes, starring John...

Jonathan Pryce, Survival literature, Fictional politicians from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Two Popes is a based on true events, the resignation of Pope Benedict and the election of his successor, Francis. It's also a double act by two great Welsh actors, Jonathan Pryce, Francis, and ...

Francesca Hayward on Cats and Romeo and Juliet, Joker composer Hildur Guðnadóttir from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Ballet star Francesca Hayward on the Royal Ballet's Romeo and Juliet: Beyond Words, filmed on location, and her lead role as Victoria The White Cat in the new film musical Cats. The Icelandic com...

Mike Bartlett, staging of art exhibitions, Any One Thing from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The work of the playwright and screenwriter Mike Bartlett has become a staple of the theatre and television landscape with his plays, such as Bull, winning prizes, his television dramas, such as Dr...

Teenage Dick, Traces review, Olga Neuwirth, Nobel Prize for Literature controversy from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Controversy surrounds this year's Nobel Prize for Literature; unusually there are two winners, Polish Olga Tokarczuk and Austrian Peter Handke. Handke has been vocally supportive of the Serbs durin...

Gender Imbalance in Art Collections, Whitechapel Bell Foundry, Three Sisters Rewired from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Last month Baltimore Museum of Art announced that in 2020 it would only collect works of art by women, because in the last decade just 2% of global art auction spending was on work by women? At 26...

Inua Ellams on Three Sisters, Noah Baumbach on Marriage Story, Art goes Bananas from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Inua Ellams, writer of the hit play Barber Shop Chronicles, has transposed Chekhov's Three Sisters to 1960s Nigeria, on the brink of the Biafran Civil War. His new version of Three Sisters is at Lo...

Front Row at BBC Music Introducing Live from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Sarah Gosling is joined by Ferris & Sylvester, music director Kojo Samuel and composer Tom Foskett-Barnes, in a show recorded at the recent BBC Music Introducing Live weekend in London's Tobacco Do...

Lesley Manville, Turner Prize, Bat for Lashes from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Lesley Manville, who was nominated for an Oscar for her last screen role in Phantom Thread, talks about her new film, Ordinary Love, which co-stars Liam Neeson and which explores the impact a diagn...

Difficult comedy audiences, Netflix v cinema?, Honey Boy, Romesh Gunesekera from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Stand up comedian Nish Kumar was booed off stage at a charity gig for The Lord's Taverners. How do comedians cope when the audience disagrees with their political stance or just takes against them?...

Edward Norton, Elizabeth is Missing, artist Luke Jerram from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Edward Norton on his new film Motherless Brooklyn, which he wrote, directed, produced and stars in, as a lonely private detective with Tourette Syndrome in 1950s New York. The film also stars Bruce...

The Boy in the Dress, Turner Prize Shortlisted Artists, The First Nowell from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Boy in the Dress is a major new musical at the RSC in Stratford based on the book by David Walliams, with songs by Robbie Williams and Guy Chambers, a script by Mark Ravenhill and directed by G...

Atlantics, Scheherazade and 1001 Nights, Political parties' arts manifestos from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Atlantics is a Senegalese supernatural romantic drama directed by Mati Diop. She made history when the film premiered at Cannes, becoming the first black woman to direct a film featured In Competit...

Tributes to Clive James and Sir Jonathan Miller from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The deaths of two giants of the arts were announced today. The Australian poet, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and essayist, Clive James, and the theatre and opera director, actor, author an...

Costa Book Prize shortlist, Rian Johnson on Knives Out, art theft from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

We exclusively reveal and analyse the 2019 Costa Book Prize shortlist. Critics Alex Clark and Sarah Shaffi discuss the books chosen in the five categories: novel, first novel, poetry, biography and...

Rapper Wretch 32, Hamlet on the Faroe Islands, Blue Story controversy from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Rapper Wretch 32 discusses his new memoir, Rapthology. Part autobiography, part guide to creativity and part cultural history, Rapthology unpacks the songs that have shaped him over the last 30 yea...

Coldplay and Leonard Cohen albums, Norman Cornish, Roy Chubby Brown controversy from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Coldplay's new album Everyday Life is released today after a performance at sunrise in Jordan this morning. Also out is Leonard Cohen's posthumous album Thanks for the Dance, completed by his son A...

Harriet, Les Misérables and social realist films, risk in publishing, street art from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The story of the slave abolitionist Harriet Tubman has finally made it to the big screen where she is played by Cynthia Erivo. Gaylene Gould reviews. After France’s President Macron was reportedly...

Frozen's Idina Menzel, Dora Maar, power in publishing from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Idina Menzel, famous for singing Let It Go from the film Frozen, provides the voice once more of Elsa, now Queen of Arendelle and still with magical powers, in the sequel Frozen 2. The singer discu...

Taylor Swift rights row, RJ Palacio, Nan Goldin and Judy Chicago reviewed, Le Mans '66 reviewed, Amazon's impact on publishing from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

RJ Palacio’s first novel Wonder has been published in 45 languages, sold 5 million copies worldwide and been made into a film starring Julia Roberts. We speak to RJ about her new graphic novel Whi...

Dear Evan Hansen, Emmanuel Jal, How to Make a Living as a Writer from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Dear Evan Hansen is the Tony award winning musical about a socially anxious teenager who, via a web of lies, gets caught up in social media adulation following a classmate’s suicide. As the musical...

Northern Ballet at 50, Art B&B, Iced Bodies from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

As Northern Ballet reaches its half century, the company's Artistic Director David Nixon discusses his love of telling stories through Dance. Ever fancied sleeping in an artwork? Soon you’ll be a...

Floods and art, Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries, Tom Rosenthal from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

With Italy set to declare a state of national emergency in Venice after the Unesco world heritage site was engulfed by a 6ft 'acqua alta', flooding its historic basilica and many other sites of gre...

Tobias Menzies plays Prince Philip; Six, a musical about the wives of Henry VIII; and Rapman from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

This edition of Front Row has a regal air. As the third series of The Crown airs next week, with Olivia Coleman taking over the role of Queen Elizabeth from Claire Foy, Stig Abell talks to Tobias M...

Lorna May Wadsworth, Marriage Story, My Mother Said I Never Should, I Feel Pretty from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Portrait painter Lorna May Wadsworth has forged a remarkable career with subjects including David Tennant, Michael Sheen, David Blunkett and Baroness Thatcher. As a major retrospective of her work...

War Of The Worlds re-imagined, Stephen Bourne- Playing Gay, Museum Funding from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

HG Wells’ classic novel The War of the Worlds has been adapted many times including the infamous occasion on which Orson Welles’ radio version convinced some American citizens that Martians really ...

Emilio Estevez, 100 Novels That Shaped Our World, David Attenborough's Gamelan music from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Emilio Estevez discusses his forthcoming film The Public which he has written, directed and stars in, along with Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater, set in Cincinnati Public Library in the middle of...

Emilia Clarke on Last Christmas, Theatre ceiling collapse, End of the F***ing World returns from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Emilia Clarke talks about her new film Last Christmas, inspired by the music of George Michael and destined to be one of the major movies of the season. It's written by and also stars Emma Thompso...

Alison Balsom, Fez, Robert MacFarlane from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Alison Balsom, Britain's leading trumpet soloist, talks about her new album Royal Fireworks, a collection of Baroque pieces by Bach, Telemann, Handel and Purcell, played on the "natural" trumpet, a...

The Irishman, Abomination opera, Murder In The Cathedral, The joy or blight of fireworks from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

With a reported budget of $160m, Martin Scorsese returns to the familiar territory of The Mob and organised crime in America in his new Netflix film The Irishman. The three-and-a-half-hour-long dra...

Scott Z Burns, writer and director of The Report, poet Katrina Porteous and the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting winner from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

New Amazon Original docudrama The Report sees an idealistic Washington staffer played by Adam Driver tasked by his senator boss to lead an investigation of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Pro...

Patti Smith, Tom Harper, Doctor Sleep reviewed from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Patti Smith, legendary musician and poet, looks back at a troubled year, 2016, in a new memoir, Year of the Monkey. Director Tom Harper discusses his new film The Aeronauts set in 1862, starring...

Jack Thorne on His Dark Materials, Sorry We Missed You, Emily Howard from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Screenwriter Jack Thorne discusses his new HBO/BBC adaptation of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, said to be the BBC's most expensive drama yet. Ken Loach’s new film Sorry We Missed You conce...

Ian McKellen; theatre director Sarah Frankcom; Guilt reviewed from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In their new film, The Good Liar, Ian McKellen plays Roy Courtnay, a con artist who when he meets Betty McLeish, a well-to-widow played by Helen Mirren, can't believe his luck. Sir Ian talks to Jo...

Introducing New Artists from Devon from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Recorded in front of an audience at the Barbican Theatre in Plymouth, Sarah Gosling introduces and showcases the artists and performers making a name for themselves in Devon, in collaboration with ...

David Baddiel, Apple TV+, Wellcome Collection's scary podcasts from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

David Baddiel has had a varied career. He's been a (Wembley Arena-filling) stand-up comedian, a chart-topping performer (3 times with the same song Three Lions), a TV chat show presenter, a prize-w...

Harry Hill, Peter Brook, film podcasts from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Harry Hill's Clubnite is a new cabaret TV show from the comedian featuring his choice of comic entertainers. Harry talks to Stig about what he looks for in comedians, what makes him laugh and the ...

24/10/2019 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Multi BAFTA-winning writer Jack Thorne returns to our TV screens tonight with the latest in his trilogy exploring life in modern Britain. "The Accident" on Channel 4, starring Sarah Lancashire, is ...

Bruce Springsteen's Western Stars, Harold Bloom, Islamic folios, new 'Monuments Men' from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Bruce Springsteen is about to release a film of his latest album, Western Stars. In the hayloft of his 100-year-old barn in New Jersey, he performs the album alongside a full orchestra, featuring b...

Joy Labinjo, By The Grace of God reviewed, Alastair Sooke, actors doing other jobs from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at this year's Berlin Film Festival, By the Grace of God is Francois Ozon's new feature film about sexual abuse hidden by the Catholic Church in France. Briony Hanson...

David Attenborough's cameraman, Bridget Riley exhibition, Forward Poetry winner from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

David Attenborough's new documentary series Seven Worlds, One Planet has been four years in the making, we speak to Bertie Gregory, a wildlife cameraman who was at the heart of the show. The new r...

Scooby Doo at 50, Poetry in endangered languages, Composer Judith Weir from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

There is much concern about the loss of biodiversity. But what of the linguistic and cultural ecosystem? It is thought that half of the world's 7,000 languages might not survive into the next centu...

Gavin Hood, Moving to Mars, Salvator Mundi, Winsome Pinnock & Amit Sharma from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Gavin Hood, director of Tsotsi and Eye in the Sky, discusses his new film Official Secrets, which stars Keira Knightley as the GCHQ whistleblower who was taken to court by the British government fo...

Víkingur Ólafsson, social housing on screen, Hannah Khalil from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Having won several album of the year awards for his recording of works by J.S Bach, Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson performs and talks about reinventing Bach for a new generation. This year th...

Aisling Bea, Booker Prize Double, Zawe Ashton from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Aisling Bea, writer and star of the recent hit Channel 4 comedy This Way Up, on her new Netflix drama Living with Yourself, in which she plays the wife of a man who undergoes a mysterious treatment...

Margaret Atwood book group, LA artist Mark Bradford, Peanut Butter Falcon review from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Ahead of the announcement of the 2019 Booker Prize winner tonight, it's the final Front Row Booker Prize Book Group with shortlisted author Margaret Atwood, in which she meets a group of readers to...

Sienna Miller, Elif Shafak, Giri/Haji from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Sienna Miller discusses her latest role as a mother whose daughter goes missing, in her new film American Woman, directed by Jake Scott. Our latest Front Row Booker Prize Book Group puts its ques...

When Mary Beard met Margaret Atwood from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Mary Beard meets the acclaimed Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood. As her sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale – The Testaments – is published, in a wide-ranging encounter Mary talks to her about how Gilea...

Nobel Prizes in Literature, Goldie's Drum'n'Bass picks, artist Es Devlin from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Swedish Academy today announced the winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Winners, not winner, because, embroiled in a scandal over allegations of sexual assault by the husband of one of it...

Salman Rushdie, playwright Katori Hall, computer games tax avoidance from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The latest Front Row Booker Prize Book Group features Salman Rushdie answering listeners’ questions about his shortlisted novel Quichotte, a satire on current politics, the opioid crisis and the in...

Extinction Rebellion, Staging Shakespeare, Timothee Chalamet in The King, Dancer/choreographer Dada Masilo from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The dancer and choreographer Dada Masilo grew up dancing to Michael Jackson songs on the streets of Soweto. She later trained as a ballerina and contemporary dancer. Now she creates very modern tak...

The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Economics of Publishing, Ravel's Bolero from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Following a Best Director win at Sundance, Joe Talbot discusses his film The Last Black Man in San Francisco, along with its star Jimmie Fails. Based on Jimmie Fail's own life, it's about his attem...

Booker Book Group with Chigozie Obioma, RuPaul's Drag Race UK, Kurt Weill's The Silver Lake from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Our latest Front Row Booker Prize Book Group puts its questions to shortlisted author Chigozie Obioma about his book An Orchestra of Minorities, the story of chicken farmer Chinonso whose aspiratio...

Debbie Harry, the Portraits of Gauguin, the best political podcasts from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Debbie Harry is one of the defining musical artists of her age, known of course for her work with Blondie crafting and performing hits such as Heart of Glass, Dreaming and One Way or Another. As h...

Rupert Goold on his film Judy, Kara Walker reviewed, Booker Book Group with Bernardine Evaristo from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Director Rupert Goold discusses his new film Judy. Starring Renée Zellweger as legendary singer Judy Garland, the movie examines the final year of the star's life when, despite struggling with ill ...

The BBC National Short Story Award ceremony from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Five authors have been shortlisted for the 2019 BBC National Short Story Award and the Young Writers' Award, the winners of which will be announced in front of a live audience in the BBC Radio Thea...

Helen Mirren, Joker, Rona Munro from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Helen Mirren discusses taking on the role of notorious Russian empress Catherine the Great, Russia’s longest-ruling female leader for a new TV miniseries. She talks about the preparation for the ro...

Poetry and performance from Hull's Contains Strong Language festival from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Stig Abell talks to John Godber, one of the most-performed playwrights in the English language and somebody who has been interpreting the city of Hull in his plays for over thirty years, from Bounc...

Derek Paravicini, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Booker Book Group with Lucy Ellmann from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Front Row begins a series of unique book groups with each of the authors shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2019. Today novelist Lucy Ellmann, whose epic 1000 page novel Ducks, Newburyport is told in...

The Dig reviewed, Arts Foundation Futures Award winner Tanoa Sasraku, Novelist Max Porter, Moments of Joy: Walt Whitman from 2021-01-29T19:58

We review The Dig, starring Carey Mulligan, Ralph Fiennes and the Suffolk landscape, a film about the excavation of the Anglo-Saxon burial site at Sutton Hoo. It's also a revealing excavation of cl...

Edmund de Waal launches our #FrontRowGetCreative challenge, Hafsa Zayyan, Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Hung Parliament from 2021-01-28T19:56

The ceramicist, artist and writer Edmund de Waal today launches the #FrontRowGetCreative project, where artists will be encouraging you, our listeners, to try their hand at creating an artwork with...

Celeste, poet Brian Bilston, new film Palmer reviewed from 2021-01-27T20:02

Celeste talks to Front Row about her career from making tracks on a laptop in her bedroom to successes at the Brit and BBC Music Awards, composing and performing the music for last year's John Lew...

Jenny Eclair, Jon Brown, Costa Book of the Year winner from 2021-01-26T20:06

Can you use craft to help make the world a better place, one stitch at a time? In her new BBC Four documentary, Craftivism: Making a Difference, writer, comedian and art lover Jenny Eclair meets pe...

Jonzi D and Pawlet Brookes on Black dance, TS Eliot Prizewinner Bhanu Kapil, portraying politicians from 2021-01-25T20:03

Choreographer Jonzi D has created a new work for Dancing Nation, the all-day digital festival of dance which is streamed on BBC iPlayer this Thursday. Jonzi discusses the state of Black dance with ...

The White Tiger, the TS Eliot Prize shortlist, sculptor Denise Dutton from 2021-01-22T20:12

The White Tiger is a new Netflix film based on Aravind Adiga’s 2008 Booker Prize-winning novel, directed by Ramin Bahrani. It explores Indian society and how hard it can be to climb the social lad...

It's a Sin, how Aids has been depicted in culture, Glastonbury Festival cancellation, London International Mime Festival from 2021-01-21T19:53

After weeks of speculation, we heard today that the 2021 Glastonbury festival is to be cancelled amidst uncertainly due to Covid. Tom talks to the Chairman of the Department of Culture Media and Sp...

Schubert's Winterreise, novelist Olivia Sudjic, new US administration and the arts, performers' travel post-Brexit from 2021-01-20T20:03

Singers Roderick Williams and David Webb discuss Schubert’s celebrated 1827 song-cycle Winterreise, about a man dealing with rejection and loneliness who journeys through the winter snow. Roderick ...

Patricia Highsmith centenary, Caroline Shaw, Baby Done comedy reviewed from 2021-01-19T19:53

John is joined by composer, vocalist, violinist and producer Caroline Shaw – the youngest ever winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music, winner of a Grammy in 2018 for her album Orange with Attaca Qu...

Ashley Walters makes his directorial debut from 2021-01-18T19:57

English rapper, songwriter and actor Ashley Walters has now turned his hand to directing with a short film called BOYS. Shot in London it follows Noah, who – whilst trying to fulfil a request from ...

Music festivals, Keeley Hawes, WandaVision reviewed from 2021-01-15T20:14

What will happen with music festivals this year? For Front Row, DJ Emily Dust talks to some of those involved. Keeley Hawes is one of the most in-demand British actors for TV and film, with exce...

Stardust, The world's oldest painting, Jenni Fagan, Arts Students from 2021-01-14T19:57

Stardust is the new film about David Bowie’s promotional tour of the United States in 1971 during which he began to develop the concept of Ziggy Stardust. Bowie is played by musician and actor Joh...

Drag kings, Courttia Newland, wintry podcasts from 2021-01-13T20:00

As RuPaul’s Drag Race UK returns for a second season and the US series welcomes its first trans man as a competitor, are the ironically gendered boundaries of drag breaking down and what about the ...

Regina King, classical music for kids, Northern Irish literature from 2021-01-12T21:06

Oscar winning actress Regina King tells Kirsty about her debut film as a director, One Night in Miami, inspired by the real-life meeting between Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown on ...

Ben Okri, The Pembrokeshire Murders, Michael Berkeley from 2021-01-11T19:55

Ben Okri published his poem 'Grenfell Tower, June 2017' in the Financial Times a few days after the inferno. On Channel 4's Facebook page it was played more than 6 million times. This is but one of...

We commemorate the fifth anniversary of David Bowie's death and consider his continuing musical influence and legacy from 2021-01-08T19:59

Five years ago, on 10th Jan 2016, David Bowie died, just two days after his 69th birthday. To mark the anniversary, we revisit John Wilson's 2002 interview with him, recorded in New York. Two compo...

BBC Sound of 2021 Winner Pa Salieu, Finnish TV drama, Natasha Farrant from 2021-01-07T20:03

Pa Salieu, the Gambian-British artist from Coventry, has been named as the winner of the BBC Sound of 2021. His single Frontline was the most played track on BBC Radio 1Xtra in 2020. In 2019 he was...

Lee Lawrence, the impact of Brexit on classical music, Twelfth Night tradition at Theatre Royal Drury Lane from 2021-01-06T20:02

On 28th September 1985 Lee Lawrence’s mother Cherry Groce was shot by police during an armed raid on her Brixton home. Lee Lawrence talks to Samira Ahmed about his Costa Biography award winning me...

The Great, Eavan Boland, the origin of the blues from 2021-01-05T19:53

The Great, a new ahistorical comedy from The Favourite writer Tony McNamara arrives on Channel 4 this month. Describing itself as “an occasionally true story”, it is a satirical drama about the ris...

Dante's Divine Comedy 700 years on with Katya Adler; Costa Book Awards category winners from 2021-01-04T19:54

Suzannah Lipscomb, Chair of Judges for the Costa Book Awards 2020, joins us to reveal exclusively the winners in each of category: Novel, Children’s, Poetry, Biography and Debut Novel. This is fol...

Art that brightened the year - violinist Tasmin Little, Baillie Gifford winner Craig Brown, actress Rochenda Sandall from 2020-12-31T20:02

Front Row celebrates some of the art that brightened a dark year. British violinist Tasmin Little has hung up her violin and retired from the concert stage in 2020. It’s the last night of the last...

Evelyn Glennie, The Serpent's Tom Shankland, chosen families in culture from 2020-12-30T20:07

The family you choose, rather than the family you’re born into, is fertile territory for writers. From Henry V, to The Lord of the Rings, to Josie and the Pussycats, family dynamics between those w...

Pianist Lang Lang on Bach's Goldberg Variations from 2020-12-29T19:45

The pianist Lang Lang this year released his first recording of Bach's 1741 keyboard masterpiece, Goldberg Variations, feeling he was finally ready to do so 20 years into his own musical career. A...

A poetry edition, with Simon Armitage, Vanessa Kisuule, Anthony Anaxagorou, Em Power, Anna Selby, Daphne Astor, talking, reading from 2020-12-28T19:45

The pandemic is having a profound impact on the arts. But you don't need to go anywhere, involve other people or need many materials, to write or read poetry, and during the lockdown people have tu...

Australian composer, musician and actor, Tim Minchin from 2020-12-25T19:45

Tim Minchin, the Australian stage performer with unkempt long hair and black mascara eyes, looks back over his career since his early days trying to scrape a living in Perth and Melbourne. As he ...

Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones - Death to 2020 from 2020-12-24T19:45

Black Mirror creators Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones discuss their new Netflix mocumentary Death to 2020, a documentary-style film that tells the story of the year we’ll be glad to put behind us...

Mackenzie Crook, Collaborative board games, Janey Godley, Zing Tsjeng's party choice from 2020-12-23T19:55

Mackenzie Crook talks about Saucy Nancy, the latest episode in his festive revivals of the children’s TV series Worzel Gummidge, which originally aired in the late 1970s. Saucy Nancy sees the child...

Bridgerton, Rachel Joyce, The custodians of our cultural institutions from 2020-12-22T20:09

Creator Chris van Dusen on Bridgerton, Netflix’s new drama series set in Regency England, about the daughter of a powerful family as she makes her debut onto London’s competitive marriage market. ...

21/12/2020 from 2020-12-21T20:04

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

George C Wolfe on Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Let Him Go reviewed, Winifred Atwell celebrated from 2020-12-18T19:56

Director George C. Wolfe on his new film Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, in which Viola Davis stars as the legendary “Mother of the Blues” Ma Rainey, alongside the late Chadwick Boseman, in his final rol...

David Fincher from 2020-12-17T20:10

Visionary director David Fincher on Mank, his new film about 1930s Hollywood, as seen through the eyes of screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) as he races to finish Citizen Kane with Ors...

Boris Giltburg, Christmas films, Party season substitutes from 2020-12-16T19:54

2020 marks Ludwig Van Beethoven’s 250th birthday, and pianist Boris Giltburg has taken on the mammoth task of learning, performing and recording all 32 of Beethoven’s piano sonatas. What does it ta...

The Lark Ascending at 100, Wonder Woman 1984 reviewed, reading outside your comfort zone from 2020-12-15T19:45

Wonder Woman was the film that turned the reputation of DC Comics’ foray into big budget movies around in 2017. Director Patty Jenkins and star Gal Gadot return for the sequel which sees Wonder Wom...

John le Carré tribute; Comedy double act The Pin; Aliza Nisenbaum from 2020-12-14T19:59

Novelist William Boyd and Timothy Garton Ash, Professor of European Studies at Oxford, reflect on the work of John le Carré exploring why he was more than a spy novelist, and how history shaped his...

Barbara Windsor remembered, Vaughan Williams, Cultural Recovery Fund loans, American Utopia reviewed, Zaina Arafat from 2020-12-11T19:56

The death of actress Barbara Windsor was announced today. A household name from EastEnders and the Carry On films, she was also acclaimed for her early performances at Joan Littlewood's Theatre Ro...

10/12/2020 from 2020-12-10T19:55

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

George Clooney's The Midnight Sky. Cyberpunk 2077. The debate on the National Trust from 2020-12-09T19:55

The Midnight Sky is George Clooney’s post-apocalyptic new film, which he directs and stars in alongside Felicity Jones and David Oyelowo. Is this Clooney’s Magnum Opus? Larushka Ivan-Zadeh reviews ...

Julia Hart on her film I'm Your Woman, Benjamin Britten's Owen Wingrave from 2020-12-08T20:15

Writer and director Julia Hart joins Samira to talk about I'm Your Woman, a gritty crime drama set in the 1970s. Rachel Brosnahan (Marvellous Mrs Maisel) stars as a woman forced to go on the run af...

Ryan Murphy’s new film starring Meryl Streep, James Corden and Nicole Kidman, reviewed from 2020-12-07T20:03

Ryan Murphy’s new film, The Prom, bursts into song and dance as four down-on-their-luck Broadway stars descend on a small Indiana town in support of a girl who just wants to go to the high school P...

Viggo Mortensen, Alex Wheatle, William Hill Sports Book of the Year from 2020-12-04T19:59

Viggo Mortensen joins us live to talk about his new film, Falling, his debut as a director, which he also wrote. It's the story of a conservative father moving from his rural farm to live with his ...

New Tracey Emin exhibition, The Crown controversy, Walter Presents: The Announcer from 2020-12-03T19:58

The fourth in the Netflix series of The Crown, written by Peter Morgan and starring Olivia Coleman as the Queen, has raised questions about its historical accuracy, including from Britain’s Culture...

Katie Melua, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Crimes Against Christmas from 2020-12-02T20:09

Seventeen years after achieving global success with her debut album, Katie Melua talks about her latest record Album No.8, and how she took a course in short fiction writing before embarking on the...

Yazz Ahmed, Lucy Bailey, The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone from 2020-12-01T20:11

Yazz Ahmed, trumpeter and composer, and winner of the Innovation Award at tonight’s Ivors Awards, joins us in the studio. Yazz’s music blends jazz, arabic scales and rhythms, electronics, and the m...

Henry Blake on County Lines; museums and galleries post Covid; re-reading Jane Austen's Emma from 2020-11-30T19:51

As museums and galleries in tiers one and two prepare to reopen on Wednesday, we consider what the future might look like for these much loved institutions. Has the pandemic changed their fundament...

Mandolin player Avi Avital, Marina Abramovi?, Possessor reviewed from 2020-11-27T21:02

Avi Avital., the world's leading mandolin player, on his new album The Art of the Mandolin, in which he performs music specially written for the instrument by Vivaldi, Beethoven and Scarlatti throu...

Hollywood star Amy Adams, Corrie at 60 and Musician Jake Blount from 2020-11-26T20:10

The actress Amy Adams is one of Hollywood’s brightest stars with multiple Oscar nominations and a roster of unforgettable roles to her name from the adorable pregnant teenager in Junebug, to the lo...

Playwright Roy Williams, Poet Fred D'Aguiar, Defending Digga D documentary from 2020-11-25T20:09

Roy Williams joins Samira Ahmed to talk about Death of England: Delroy. Just before Lockdown 2, this play’s opening night became its closing night. The understudy Michael Balogun had just stepped i...

Booker Prize winner Douglas Stuart on Shuggie Bain from 2020-11-24T09:46

On Front Row last week, Douglas Stuart was awarded the 2020 Booker Prize for Fiction for Shuggie Bain, his debut novel about a boy in 1980s Glasgow who supports his mother as she struggles with add...

Tim Minchin, Jan Morris remembered, new gaming consoles, Nicholas Pinnock from 2020-11-20T20:12

Tim Minchin - the Australian actor, comedian, performer, musician, and composer and lyricist of the Olivier Award-winning RSC stage show Matilda The Musical – discusses his first solo album Apart T...

The 2020 Booker Prize Ceremony from 2020-11-19T20:40

Live from the Roundhouse, London, Front Row brings you the 2020 Booker Prize ceremony. Who will be the winner of the £50,000 prize for fiction in this extraordinary year?

Taking part in ...

Gillian Anderson, South Georgia artist commission, the role of literary prizes from 2020-11-18T20:03

Gillian Anderson on her technique for perfecting Margaret Thatcher’s distinctive voice in the fourth season of The Crown, and the recent debate the TV series has ignited over what is fact and ficti...

Patrick, Colm Tóibín on James Joyce, Amy Macdonald, Christopher Reid from 2020-11-17T19:54

Patrick is a black comedy from Belgium set in a woodland nudist camp. After his father dies and leaves him to run the campsite, Patrick’s favourite hammer is stolen, and he finds himself on an exis...

Fela Kuti documentary; writing and reading trauma; The Queen's Gambit review from 2020-11-16T19:58

Fela Kuti was the creator of Afrobeat – a blend of traditional Yoruba and Caribbean music with funk and jazz that exhilarated the global music scene in the 1970s and gave rise more recently to the ...

Steve McQueen, The Simpsons, Brutal North, Jenny Sturgeon from 2020-11-14T10:30

The Simpsons is the longest running scripted primetime TV show ever. As season 31 kicks off in the UK we explore its potent popularity with comedian and fan David Baddiel and writer, producer, and ...

Booker Prize Book Group, Julian Lloyd Webber on Malcolm Arnold, Nick Park's lockdown discovery from 2020-11-12T19:53

We conclude our tour of the novels shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2020 tonight with a final book group where listeners put their questions to Brandon Taylor, author of Real Life. A campus novel a...

Tana French, Mary Wollstonecraft statue, Industry, Ralph McTell's The Unknown Warrior from 2020-11-11T20:14

Tana French is the creator of the Dublin Murder Squad crime books, that inspired the 2019 BBC TV series. Her gritty urban mysteries have been translated into 37 languages and sold around 7m copies ...

Abel Selaocoe, Billie Holiday, Edoardo Ponti on Sophia Loren from 2020-11-10T20:19

The cellist and singer Abel Selaocoe grew up in a township in the south of Johannesburg and creates music that draws on classical, African and contemporary music. He talks to Samira about As You Ar...

The Voices of the Women in Classical Myths in 15 Heroines; Front Row's Book Group with Booker Nominee Douglas Stuart from 2020-11-09T19:55

Ulysses, Hercules, Jason and Achilles - classical mythology is all about men of action. The women tend to have things - often horrible - happen to them: they get kidnapped, raped, abandoned. The Ro...

Dame Judi Dench and Wendy Craig remember Geoffrey Palmer; Ruth Wilson; Graeae; Kylie and Little Mix albums; Ted Hughes's Crow from 2020-11-06T19:58

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 Cou...

Could being visually impaired enhance an artist’s work? from 2020-11-05T20:00

Could being visually impaired enhance an artist’s work? We’ll discuss that with Richard Butchins who’s made a BBC 4 documentary - The Disordered Eye - arguing just that. He looked at the work of a...

Alice Oswald's Weather Anthology, What a Carve Up!, Memoir writing from 2020-11-04T20:06

We can't go to the movies for a fix of action now. We can, though, witness spectacle that even the biggest budget blockbusters can't match - by simply going outside into the weather. 'Use should be...

Kristin Scott Thomas talks about playing Mrs Danvers in Rebecca from 2020-11-03T19:50

In an extended interview, Dame Kristin Scott Thomas talks about relishing her latest role as the scary housekeeper Mrs Danvers in the new Netflix adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca.
Listen

Cellist Steven Isserlis plays, the lockdown's impact on the arts and Booker shortlisted Avni Doshi from 2020-11-02T19:52

Steven Isserlis tells John Wilson about his new album of late works by Sir John Tavener. It is a very personal project: Tavener and Isserlis were friends, the composer wrote pieces for the cellist ...

Sam Smith, Turner's Modern World, Cold War Steve, US elections on film from 2020-10-30T20:11

When the singer Sam Smith came out as non-binary last year it was headline news around the world. After two global number one albums, an Oscar, a Golden Globe, multiple Grammys and 3 Brit awards, t...

Dawn French talks about her comedy and novel writing careers from 2020-10-30T09:15

Samira Ahmed talks to comedienne, actress and writer Dawn French. Dawn became famous with her comedy performimg partner of many decades; Jennifer Saunders. Together they won British Comedy Awards ...

His House director Remi Weekes, Booker Prize Book Group with Tsitsi Dangarembga from 2020-10-28T19:53

For the second of Front Row's Booker Prize Book Groups, listeners put their questions to Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga whose novel This Mournable Body is shortlisted for the title. It’s the...

Elisabeth Moss, Julia Bullock, memorialising loved ones in video games from 2020-10-27T20:02

Elisabeth Moss on her latest role as the horror and mystery writer Shirley Jackson in the new film Shirley. And she discusses the new series of The Handmaid’s Tale, which she’s now directing as wel...

Sofia Coppola, Booker Book Group with Diane Cook, Olivier Awards from 2020-10-26T20:06

Film-maker Sofia Coppola talks about reuniting with Bill Murray for her new film On The Rocks, a comedy about a martini-drinking playboy father who reconnects with his daughter (Rashida Jones) on a...

Frankenstein, William Boyd, Rachel Whiteread, The Sister from 2020-10-23T19:15

In Frankenstein: How to Make a Monster, six performers from Battersea Arts Centre's Beatbox Academy interpret Mary Shelley’s classic novel from their own perspective; as young people growing up in ...

James Graham, Nottingham's Rock City celebrates 40 years, Liam Bailey, Phoebe Boswell from 2020-10-22T19:58

Geeta Pendse presents Front Row live from Nottingham in a shared broadcast with BBC Radio Nottingham.

In spite of virus restrictions, Nottingham Playhouse goes live for the first time sin...

Francois Ozon's Summer of '85; Acclaimed violinist Tasmin Little; Derry International Choir Festival from 2020-10-21T18:53

Acclaimed violinist Tasmin Little announced her retirement from the stage recently. The musician is selling her beloved violin to focus on teaching. She will perform her final UK recital at London'...

Aké Festival special: Tayari Jones, Derek Owusu, Victor Ehikhamenor, Sara-Jayne Makwala King from 2020-10-20T18:15

A collaboration with the Aké Festival: leading black writers and artists discuss Black Lives Matter and related issues of this year in connection to their work. With Tayari Jones, Derek Owusu, Vict...

Nicole Kidman, Professional magicians and COVID, Birmingham Royal Ballet from 2020-10-19T18:59

Nicole Kidman talks about starring in new thriller The Undoing. A therapist's life unravels after she learns that her husband might be responsible for a horrific murder. Left behind in the wake of ...

Roddy Doyle, Gairloch Museum, Kronos Quartet, Dr Blood's Old Travelling Show from 2020-10-16T19:08

Roddy Doyle talks about his latest novel, Love. In the course of one summer’s evening in Dublin, two old drinking buddies revisit the pubs and the love affairs of their youth, and talk openly about...

Anais Mitchell on creating her musical, Hadestown from 2020-10-15T18:50

Anaïs Mitchell took the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice and turned it into Hadestown, which became an immensely successful musical at the National Theatre and on Broadway. Now she has written Working ...

Jodi Picoult, Science Museum, winners and losers of the Cultural Recovery Fund from 2020-10-14T19:21

The global bestselling author Jodi Picoult discusses her 26th novel The Book Of Two Ways. It’s the story of a hospice worker who - when her plane crashes in the opening pages -is surprised at the l...

Hugh Laurie on new drama Roadkill, Aberdeen Art Gallery, Arts degrees and Covid from 2020-10-13T19:01

Hugh Laurie talks about Roadkill, a major new political drama for BBC One written by David Hare. Roadkill is a four-part fictional thriller about a self-made, forceful and charismatic politician tr...

Museum of the Year recipients. Arts minister Caroline Dinenage on the Cultural Recovery Fund results from 2020-10-12T19:02

This year’s Art Fund Museum of the Year Prize will be split 5 ways rather than a winner being chosen from a shortlist. Jenny Waldman, director of Art Fund, announces the museums who will each recei...

Alex Wheatle, Miranda July, Football club appoints Artistic Director, London Film Festival roundup from 2020-10-09T18:58

Alex Wheatle discusses his new novel Cane Warriors, based on the true story of a group of slaves in Jamaica who, in 1760, rose up against their white British slavemasters in a fight for the freedom...

Skunk Anansie's Skin on her new memoir from 2020-10-08T18:45

Skin - the singer, songwriter, DJ and lead vocalist of the multi-million-selling British rock band Skunk Anansie - looks back over her life in her new memoir It Takes Blood and Guts.

Born ...

Melanie C, live music industry in crisis, Johnny Nash remembered from 2020-10-07T19:06

We discuss the future of music making in the UK.

We speak to Mel C, formerly Sporty Spice, about her eighth studio album, Melanie C, which reflects her new influences – as a dance music D...

2020 BBC National Short Story Award and the BBC Young Writers' Award from 2020-10-06T19:01

We announce the winner of the 2020 BBC National Short Story Award and the Young Writers' Award on its 15th anniversary.

Judges Irenosen Okojie and Jonathan Freedland discuss the merits of ...

Grace Jones exhibition, Steve McQueen's film Mangrove, A newly rediscovered work by Henry Purcell from 2020-10-05T19:02

The London Film Festival opens this week with Mangrove, by the Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen. It’s the first in an ambitious five-part film series looking at individual stories about the Wes...

Radha Blank, Chuck D, Dramas The Trial of the Chicago 7 and The Comey Rule reviewed from 2020-10-02T19:01

Radha Blank won the Directing Prize at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival for her debut film, The 40-Year-Old Version. She also wrote and stars in the movie which is inspired by her own experiences a...

An extended interview with Graham Norton from 2020-10-01T18:45

Graham Norton is one of the most successful entertainment presenters in British broadcasting. He has a popular Radio 2 show, is the face of the BBC's Eurovision song contest coverage and, above all...

Miss Virginia, Helen Reddy remembered, Sarah Nicolls, Gary Clarke from 2020-09-30T18:54

Miss Virginia is a new film based on the story of Virginia Walden Ford’s fight to create positive educational opportunities for African-American students in Washington D.C. and stars Uzo Aduba. Ell...

Little Mix: The Search, Artemisia Gentileschi, No Masks from 2020-09-29T19:01

The 17th Century Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi is the subject of a major new exhibition at London's National Gallery. Critic Waldemar Januszczak considers the importance of the artist who st...

2020 Booker shortlist, Nicholas Serota, author Sarah Hall from 2020-09-29T17:19

Earlier today the shortlist for the 2020 Booker Prize for Fiction was announced. Two time winner Hilary Mantel has not made the list for the final part of her Cromwell series and four out of six of...

Michael Kiwanuka, Boys in the Band film, the future for arts freelancers from 2020-09-28T19:42

Michael Kiwanuka said he was seriously surprised when he won the 2020 Mercury Prize last week. Tom Sutcliffe talks to the singer-songwriter about dropping out of his music degree, hanging out in Ha...

Poetry and performance from Cumbria's Contains Strong Language festival from 2020-09-25T20:26

Dove Cottage Grasmere is the heart of Romantic poetry and is hosting part of this year's Contains Strong Language festival. We'll be asking what the Romantics have to tell us now, with the poet Kat...