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Front Row

<p>Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music</p>

BBC Radio 4

Viv Groskop and Amanda Vickery join Tom Sutcliffe to review:The Bayeux Tapestry as it goes on display to the public in Britain for the first time since its creation almost a millennium ago. Taipei Story, the new novel from bestselling literary phenomenon Rebecca F Kuang, author of Babel and Yellowface, about a young Chinese-American woman studying in Taiwan and grappling with ideas of disapora and identity. Everybody Digs Bill Evans, the debut narrative feature from filmmaker Grant Gee which looks at the life of the legendary jazz musician Bill Evans.And as the BBC National Short Story Award returns, Tom announces the shortlist live - and talks to one of the shortlisted authors.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Tim Bano

Review Show: Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum

Music critic Neil McCormick shares his verdict on the Oasis documentary, Don’t Look Back in Anger about Noel & Liam Gallagher's reunion tour.  Writer Beth Steel talks about her acclaimed play Till The Stars Come Down. The drama is based around a wedding in Mansfield, East Midlands. Originally a sold-out hit at the National Theatre, the production has had a West End Transfer and been performed globally. Beth talks to Samira Ahmed about the show making its regional premiere at the Nottingham Playhouse.This Friday, the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks will be marked by solemn commemorations in the United States.  Since 2001, many writers, artists and filmmakers have created work in response to the attacks, and tonight we speak to historian and writer Simon Schama and to film critic and curator Hugo Emmerzael about how cultural responses have helped shape our understanding of what happened that day and in the aftermath – from Jonathan Safran Foer's novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close to the films of Kathryn Bigelow and the music of avant-garde composer William Basinski.  And Henry Ward, artistic director of the Freelands Foundation discusses their new £100,000 awards for projects around the country which engage communities with art in interesting ways, including a horse box from the Burton Art Gallery and Museum in Bideford in North Devon which takes art into schools.   Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Oasis documentary Don’t Look Back in Anger

Fanny Herrero, writer and creator of the French sitcom Call My Agent, joins Tom Sufcliffe to talk about how her show about the antics of the cut-throat Paris talent agency ASK became a global hit and why, after a five year hiatus, she’s got the agents back together for their first ever film.This year’s unprecedented extreme heat and lack of rain in large parts of the UK has wreaked havoc with gardens big and small. How have the historic landscapes, parks and gardens coped? Historic England and The Heritage Fund have worked together on a report to offer guidance to those who care for them on how to adapt and prepare for our changing climate.Maria Friedman's latest role is in the musical Kimberly Akimbo. She explains what's it like to play a teenager with a rare genetic condition that causes her character to age rapidly, giving her the appearance of an elderly woman.As the Scottish Government announces a minimum income scheme for artists, which will be piloted during the current Parliament, we ask Cleo Goodman, co-founder of the Basic Income Conversation project, what it might look like, how much people can expect, and how ‘artists’ will be defined in the application process.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Claire Bartleet

Call My Agent's writer and creator Fanny Herrero on bringing the French sitcom to the big screen

Ava Pickett discusses her new play Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy at Theatre Royal Stratford East, and the huge success 1536, her Olivier Award-winning play about the Tudors.Louisa Young on her novel The Golden Years, which continues The Cazalet Chronicles, the hugely popular series of books by Elizabeth Jane Howard. With the opening this week of the Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum, Samira talks to Agnes Valencak, Head of Exhibitions at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and art dealer Philip Mould about the challenges of moving priceless pieces of art.  Plus Guy Lodge on the latest news from the Venice International Film FestivalPresenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Andrea Kidd

Helen of Troy - a new play by Ava Pickett

Tom Sutcliffe and guests explore the architecture and culture of Norman Britain as part of a special day of programmes on Radio 4 marking the return of the Bayeux Tapestry.From Durham to Peterborough, Lincoln to Norwich, the Norman invasion shaped British architecture, landscape and culture. Beginning in wood but later cemented in stone, power was expressed in the rounded arches and distinctive ornamentation of cathedrals and castles. Beginning in 1066, the Romanesque style can still be seen all over the country today, and Britain also bears the stamp of Norman cultural influence in other ways too - from illuminated manuscripts to our language and music.With: Helen Carr, writer and historian and author of Sceptred Isle: A New History of the Fourteenth CenturyJanina Ramirez, art historian and author of Legenda: The Real Women Behind the Myths that Shaped EuropeSimon Jenkins, author of many books including England's Thousand Best ChurchesVicky Richardson, curator and writer specialising in architecture.Also - John Goodall, Architectural Editor of Country Life, tours Lincoln cathedral and castle.Producer: Eliane Glaser

Norman Day special

Mark Ravenhill and Leila Latif join Tom Sutcliffe to review:Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar's new film Bitter Christmas, a tragi comedy told across different time frames, and questioning the relationship between reality and fiction in the film industry.   Author of best selling The Immortalists, Chloe Benjamin's new speculative fiction novel is Under Story, which asks if you could turn back the clock, would you live your life a second time?And Ridley Scott's film The Dog Stars, starring Jacob Elordi, set in a post-apocalyptic world.Also, art critic Louisa Buck joins Tom to discuss the life and work of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama who has died at the age of 97.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Andrea Kidd

Review: Pedro Almodóvar's new film Bitter Christmas

Ahead of her sixth performance at the BBC Proms the mezzo soprano star Joyce DiDonato talks to Kirsty about the explosive potential of her voice. VP Head of YouTube EMEA - Pedro Pina - delivers the flagship address of this year's Edinburgh TV Festival. He gives his perspective on the continuing evolution of tv as we know it. Comedy is at the heart of the Edinburgh Festivals, and today the shortlist for the Edinburgh Comedy Award has been revealed. Director of the Edinburgh Comedy Awards Nica Burns is joined by chair of judges Liz Lewin to discuss the names everyone's talking about this year. Life life and work of legendary singer and actor Tim Curry is celebrated by culture critic and broadcaster David Benedict and Tim’s lifelong friend, the gallerist Richard Cork.Presenter: Kirsty Wark
Producer: Caitlin Sneddon

YouTube's Pedro Pina on the future of television, and celebrating Tim Curry

Samira Ahmed spoke to Dolly Parton in 2023.  As her death is announced Front Row pays tribute to the star of country music who sold more than 100 million records and wrote over 3,000 songs in a career that spanned six decades.  A chance to hear Meg Mason, the bestselling author of Sorrow and Bliss, about her new novel, Sophie Standing There, which deals with celebrity obsession and the publishing industry. 
 
A new film looks at the story of the Second World War through General De Gaulle’s eyes. We speak to its director, Antonin Baudry, about De Gaulle: Resistance - this summer's hit in French cinemas.  
 
And we mark sixty years of the Notting Hill Carnival with founder member Allyson Williams and Ricky Belgrave, DJ and chair of the British Association of Sound Systems.Producer: Ruth Watts

Remembering Dolly Parton, Meg Mason and Notting Hill Carnival at 60

Larushka Ivan-Zadeh and William Lee Adams join Tom Sutcliffe to review:The Life of M - the new novel from Rachel Cusk. The book centres on a writer’s attempt to chronicle the life of a globally famous film star, and explores the strangeness of celebrity.Stop! That! Train! - a comedy disaster movie featuring many of the stars from RuPaul's Drag Race.Coyote vs Acme - after a lengthy and tumultuous journey, including being shelved by its studio, the much anticipated Looney Tunes film finally reaches cinemas. The blend of live action and animated film follows Wile E. Coyote as he takes legal action against the Acme Corporation for providing him with defective goods. Chinese animated film Niu Lai has become an unexpected box-office and social media phenomenon. Initially released to little attention, the film gained widespread visibility online, generating debate about independent filmmaking, internet culture and the economics of contemporary cinema in China.And as HMV announces that it wants to become a 'destination' for books on the high street, a group of independent booksellers calls on the Prime Minister to provide the same tax relief that pubs and live music venues have recently been granted. What is the state of bookselling on the high street? Lauren Brown, Deputy News Editor at The Bookseller, joins. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Tim Bano

Review Show: Rachel Cusk's new novel and the return of the Looney Tunes

Ann Droid and Motherland star Paul Ready on his debut one man show Little Animals, a powerful piece of writing on climate, consumerism and the anxieties of being a Dad in today's world. The founder of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales on his book The Seven Rules of Trust, an optimistic view of how technology can impact on our lives. Comedian and actor Rosie Holt on her two shows at this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe - Churchill's Urinal and The Illegal Aliens Have Landed. And Senegalese musician Senny Camara talks to us about performing on the kora, traditionally the preserve of male musicians, and performs for us live. Presenter: Kirsty Wark 
Producer: Mark Crossan.

From the Edinburgh Festivals: Ann Droid and Motherland star Paul Ready; founder of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales; comedian Rosie Holt

As contemporary art venue, The Light, prepares to open in Durham,  its artistic director Tony Guillan, and the art critic Louisa Buck, discuss the new building and its opening exhibition, Victory Over the Sun: Encounters with Light.Comedian Iain Stirling is known to many for narrating Love Island.  He's stepped out from behind the scenes to front new reality tv show Race Against The Tide where participants compete against each other and the shoreline to create sandcastle art.As her latest novel, Little Spark, is published, novelist Jess Kidd explains the appeal of the Victorian century.Presenter: Nick Ahad
Producer: Ekene Akalawu

The Light opens in Durham, and Iain Stirling on the art of sandscastles

The comedian Joe Lycett has long dabbled in art, but it's a serious business now as his first ever solo exhibition ‘Everything Must Go’ has just opened at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. He talks about how this show came together and why its most eye-catching piece is a giant pink and blue woolly mammoth called Martin.Charlotte Higgins talks to Samira Ahmed about her book Ukrainian Lessons, and the role artist's play in the cultural identity of the country. With poetry sales at an all time high, we speak to poets Nikita Gill and Lucas Jones, two writers credited as being part of this boom. Entries for A-level arts subjects continue to fall. However, this year saw a drop of nearly six per cent in entries for A level English Literature. What does this continued decline mean for the health of the arts and humanities? Hetan Shah is Chief Executive of the British Academy and Professor Robert Eaglestone is education policy lead at the English Association. Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Andrea Kidd

Joe Lycett on his first solo exhibition, Everything Must Go

Academic and critic Maria Delgado and writer and producer Jake Cunningham join Tom Sutcliffe to discuss the film Tony, a film about the early career of food writer Anthony Bourdain, who is played by Dominic Sessa. The film also stars Antonio Banderas, who becomes an unexpected mentor for the young chef.They also talk about Death Note: The Musical. Based on the best-selling Manga series of the same name, the Barbican show tells the story of a student who discovers a notebook which gives him the power to kill. The final item for review is Nobel Prize in Literature winner Mario Vargas Llosa’s final novel, I Give You My Silence, where a  music journalist is on a quest to tell the story of an unforgettable musician. The book is also a love letter to Peruvian culture. Sarah Ditum discusses Jason Arday's memoir, Great and Unfortunate Things. This programme was broadcast before the announcement of Jason Arday's death. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Claire Bartleet

Review Show: Tony, film about the early life of chef Anthony Bourdain

Australian writer and performer Hannah Reilly talks to us about her much-anticipated one woman show about sex, power and authenticity, Roleplay, which is produced by the team behind Fleabag and Baby Reindeer and which has sold out in Edinburgh but is heading to London for a run in the autumn.  Critic Fergus Morgan talks us through the other shows which are making a splash at this year's Edinburgh Festivals - from a radical sequel to Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, which stars Golden Globe-winning actor Wagner Moura, and in which 12 members of the audience are brought on stage to deliver a verdict in A Trial, to a reimagining of Virginia Woolf's The Waves - presented to audiences in a sauna.   The first international exhibition from Alabama's Legacy of Slavery Museum has come to Edinburgh this month, and we're joined by its founder, eminent lawyer and activist Bryan Stevenson to talk about how it depicts the international slave trade and racial brutality over centuries. We're also joined by writer and director Zora Howard whose powerful production Hang Time sees three performers talk about their lives and loves as they appear to be hanging from a tree, and which is inspired in part by the deaths of two men in Southern California in recent years.    And director Louis Paxton talks to us about debut feature film The Incomer, which opens this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival tomorrow night.  It's a darkly comic fable in which an awkward council worker (played by Domnhall Gleeson) is sent to a remote Scottish island to relocate a pair of siblings (Gayle Rankin from GLOW and Grant O’Rourke from Outlander), to the mainland, but let's just say things don't quite go to plan. Presenter: Kirsty Wark 
Producer: Mark Crossan

The best theatre at this year's Edinburgh Festivals

Steph McGovern, presenter of new BBC show The Big Deal, is joined by Marie Le Conte to discuss how to buy art.Fleabag actor Sian Clifford on her lead role in "Lady", a new mockumentary film about a fading aristocrat.Why has a new show at Edinburgh about Amanda Knox been so controversial? Tristram Fane Saunders gives his assessment live from the Fringe Festival.And Colin Thubron, both a travel writer and novelist, has a new book which journeys into Egypt and the human mind - literally. He talks about how witnessing brain surgery influenced his novella Passage.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham

Steph McGovern on how to buy art

What's the Royal Shakespeare Company's much anticipated stage adaptation of Game of Thrones like? Critics Boyd Hilton and Kate Maltby give their verdict. Conductor Marin Alsop on what makes American classical music sound American, ahead of her American Classics Prom on 24 August. TS Eliot Prize-winning poet Anthony Joseph discusses his new collection, Haunting the Black Air, which journeys from the Trinidad of his childhood to the dancefloors of New York.And following the news of the death of the music producer William Orbit, music jpurnalist Kate Hutchinson discusses his career, including his work on Madonna's Ray of Light album. Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Andrea Kidd

Game of Thrones at the RSC first night review

Suzi Feay and John-Paul Stonard join Samira to review:Can Nothing Save Us?, the new novel from Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh, a state-of-the-nation thriller set in the US.The Summer Book, a new film starring Glenn Close and based on the beloved novel by Moomins creator Tove Jansson. And Richard Dadd: Beyond Bedlam at the Royal Academy, featuring paintings by the 19th century painter who specialised in pictures of fairies, killed his own father and spent the rest of his life in Bethlem and then Broadmoor psychiatric institutions. Plus the Guardian's Stephanie Convery discusses the news that AI companies have been buying up rare books and 'destructively scanning' them - removing their spines, scanning, then shredding them - in order to train their large language models. Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Tim Bano

Review Show: Irvine Welsh's new novel and Glenn Close's new film

In the first of our special programmes from the Edinburgh Festivals, actress Stockard Channing - star of Grease, Six Degrees of Separation and Practical Magic - joins us alongside her friend, actor David Westhead, to discuss their production of Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, in which a cynical and disillusioned older man reflects on his early life as an ambitious and idealistic writer.Jeff Whitty, Tony Award winning creator of the hit musical Avenue Q, which is currently running until 2027 in London's West End, tells us about Midsummer!, his new production inspired by Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's dream, set in the Gilded Age and performed in a contemporary verse translation.   We have a live performance from siblings Maddie and Marcus Rice from their show with songs Goodbye Dandelion, an exploration of an unlikely friendship between an 87 year old and their much younger friend, which is the recipient of the inaugural Underbelly Futures Fund Award. And we hear how deaf actors and artists are taking centre stage at this year's Festival, with Stijn Van Opstal, the director of the acclaimed production [seagull], performed in Flemish sign language by Belgian company Olympique Dramatique - and with director Cora Bissett and deaf performer Jamie Rea, whose gig theatre production The Singer, centres on Joe, a deaf artist who 'sings' with his hands, and Andy, a washed-up musician seeking a comeback, and features music by KT Tunstall.  Presenter: Kirsty Wark 
Producer: Mark Crossan

Live from the Edinburgh Festivals: Stockard Channing on directing Krapp's Last Tape

Samira is joined by two magicians live in the studio, from the stage show "Now You See Me Live". And then she takes part in a trick and is bamboozled!
Jacqueline Crooks' latest novel Sky City follows a young woman and her friends in 1990's London, as they struggle to carve out lives for themselves in the shadow of their pasts. Jacqueline explains why literature is the perfect place to discuss difficult themes. 
We look at the French government's multi-million Euro national security plan to beef up museum security, following a spate of audacious robberies across the country.
Tribute bands generate millions of pounds, playing live each year in the UK; from The Bootleg Beatles to Oasish. We speak with two tribute acts 'with a twist', Elvana and Nic-Cage Against The Machine, about the flourishing facsimile pop scene.  This programme has been edited since broadcastPresenter: Samira Ahmed

Magic live in the studio

John Hannah plays a washed-up former detective who has moved to Spain to run a pub in the new Channel 5 comedy drama Benidorm is Murder. He discusses the appeal of television crime series, and why working-class settings are underrepresented on the small screen.Hull Maritime Museum reopens after a £20 million refurbishment.  Director Gillian Osgerby on why this museum is such an important feature of Hull's cultural landscape.Critic Benji Wilson, author of Rate This Book: How Star Ratings Took Over The World, and journalist, Helen Nugent, editor of online magazine Northern Soul, on the power of star ratings.Stephen Ellery on his new appointment as chief conductor of the Dnipro Philharmonic in Ukraine.Presenter: Nick Ahad
Producer: Ekene Akalawu

John Hannah on his new comedy crime drama set in Benidorm

Rhianna Dhillon and Sarfraz Manzoor join Tom Sutcliffe to review:Childhood in War, an exhibition at the Imperial War Musuem exploring how children have experienced conflict from 1914 to the present day. Ish, the debut feature film from multimedia artist Imran Perretta which follows two boys in Luton as they navigate childhood against a backdrop of political tension and personal loss.And Children of Wolves, the new novel from Lawrence Osborne (Ballad of a Small Player), about a private investigator sent to Turkey to find a 27-year-old woman who has disappeared. Plus Laura Barton discusses this year's Mercury Prize shortlist.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Tim Bano

Review show: Childhood in War, Children of Wolves and kids in Luton

Composer Missy Mazzoli discusses her opera The Galloping Cure, which fuses a live orchestra with electronic beats and features a charismatic antihero and talking dogs. An allegory for a crisis which has become a worldwide epidemic, the production by Opera Ventures Productions and Scottish Opera receives its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival and is a reimagining of a story by Franz Kafka.  Artist Joyce W Cairns is one of Scotland's most renowned painters, and in 2018 she was elected the first President of the Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture. She talks to us about making the move from mythological to autobiographical painting and about how she was inspired to create her impressive War Tourist series of paintings - drawn from research in Normandy and Tunisia - after inheriting a suitcase of her father's World War II memorabilia.  And as the heatwave continues across parts of the UK and Europe, we ask how cultural institutions are responding. Is the closure of galleries due to uncomfortable temperatures going to become the norm? Presenter: Kirsty Wark 
Producer: Mark Crossan

How the opiod crisis inspired an opera

Professor Dame Mary Beard reveals the 2026 Booker longlist and how she has found the process of being Chair of the judges.British contemporary pop artist Philip Colbert’s latest installation has just been unveiled amidst the historic ruins of Pompeii.  Philip talks to Samira Ahmed about being inspired by an ancient mosaic featuring a lobster, a symbol he frequently includes in his work, and how he adapted his process for the UNESCO heritage site.Hollywood actor Bill Pullman, known as the fictional US President Whitmore in Independence Day, Meg Ryan’s spurned beau in Sleepless in Seattle and many more roles, is currently appearing at the RSC in Stratford in a production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. He talks with Samira about his work on stage in the UK and the US, his favourite film roles and why he feels uniquely qualified to be playing Gayev in this production.As reports say that around half of all new music uploaded to streamers is made with A.I., music economist Will Page discusses what this means for the music industry and for listeners who may not know that they're listening to something that wasn’t made by a real person.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Andrea Kidd

Mary Beard reveals the Booker Prize longlist, plus Bill Pullman on taking on Chekhov

Graeme Garden remembers his friend and Goodies colleague, Bill Oddie.Frank Miller reimagined Batman as a tougher, grittier sort of comic book hero: The Dark Knight. He has written a memoir and a guide for fans.The new Children's Laureate, writer Patrice Lawrence tells us about taking on such a prestigious role.And 850 years of the Eisteddfod - Archdruid Mererid Hopwood and Marc Rees discuss the importance of this centuries-old Welsh celebration of music, poetry, art literature.Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Bill Oddie, remembered by his friend Graeme Garden

Hanna Flint and Chris Power join Tom Sutcliffe to review:The new stage musical adaptation of Irvine Welsh's novel Trainspotting, featuring famous songs from the 1996 Danny Boyle film as well as new compositions to bring Renton, Begbie, Sick Boy and Spud to life.On the Sea, a film by novelist and director Helen Walsh about a mussel fisherman in northern Wales and the romance that he kindles with a new itinerant worker called Daniel. Cool Machine, the final part of Colson Whitehead's Harlem trilogy, which began with Harlem Shuffle and was followed by Crook Manifesto, and continues the adventures of Ray Carney, furniture store owner who lives a double life as a part-time criminal fence.Tom also talks to novelist Kate Mosse about the news that Anthropic has created a $1.5 billion fund to settle a class action lawsuit brought by authors whose copyrighted works were scraped in order to train the company's AI chatbot Claude. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Tim Bano

Review Show: Trainspotting the Musical, Colson Whitehead's new novel

In 1985, Wham were the first Western pop group to perform in communist China, and the tour changed people's lives. As a new documentary about this landmark moment in pop lands in cinemas - and screens on BBC Two next month - Andrew Ridgeley tells the story.From Merchant Ivory period dramas to Peaky Blinders, the art of costume making is celebrated in a new exhibition - Costume Couture - at Edinburgh's Dovecot Studios. We're joined by John Bright, the founder of Cosprop, the pre-eminent costume making company in the UK and by historian Jade Halbert, whose new book about 250 years of costume making is Britain is soon published, to hear about how costume helps actors inhabit roles, and to hear about the history of this often neglected craft.   Fleabag premiered ten years ago this week on BBC 3. In the highly acclaimed dark comedy, writer and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge frequently spoke directly to the audience and created an unapologetically flawed protagonist. BBC New Generation Thinker, and Salford University lecturer, Dr Laura Minor, and journalist and broadcaster Julia Raeside talk about the impact Fleabag has had on TV since.Plus, 8 years since the second devastating fire struck architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh's masterpiece, Glasgow School of Art, an update on its future has just been announced, but is a full restoration now looking less likely? We discuss.  Presenter: Kirsty Wark 
Producer: Mark Crossan

Andrew Ridgeley on Wham in China

Actor Ruth Madeley on starring in new TV drama The Rapture - a psychological thriller where the competing interests of an oil company, a religious cult, a protest group and a disturbed young woman convicted of murdering her mother, are  set against a backdrop of climate change. Singer Nadine Shah on her homecoming BBC Prom in Gateshead.After a three year standoff, Northern Ballet reaches an agreement with the Musicians' Union.  Naomi Pohl, General Secretary of the Musicians' Union on the significance of the new deal.Abandoned in 1929, the film Queen Kelly became the most infamous unfinished film in cinema history.  Film historian Pamela Hutchinson on its torrid scenes on and off the screen.Presenter: Nick Ahad
Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Ruth Madeley on new TV drama The Rapture, Nadine Shah on her BBC Prom

Trent Park, the House of Secrets is a new museum in north London which explores the story of the secret listeners who eavesdropped on the conversations of German senior military prisoners of war. Samira is joined by Helen Lederer, whose grandfather who served as a WW2 secret listener, and the Chairman of Trent Park, Jason Charalambous.As Andy Burnham becomes the first Prime Minister to study English Literature at University, Samira talks to his former English Professor at Cambridge, John Mullan.Broadway star Ben Platt discusses his new musical at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London, Midnight at the Never Get, where he plays a crooner in a New York dive-bar in the mid-60s who begins a decades long relationship with his male pianist. 
 
Playstation has made headlines with its new announcement that it would end making physical discs in 2028. Video game writer and broadcaster Jordan Erica Webber joins to discuss what this means for the culture of gaming and why gamers have responded to it so badly.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Ruth Watts

The first PM with an English degree, plus a new museum of WWII espionage

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by film critic Tim Robey and classicist Edith Hall to discuss:Christopher Nolan's much anticipated film version of Homer's epic The Odyssey, shot with IMAX cameras and with a stellar cast which includes Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya and Samantha Morton.A new production of The Oresteia directed by acclaimed Australian director Simon Stone at the Bridge Theatre, London.  Updated to the contemporary world, the play stars David Morrissey and Mary-Louise Parker.Booker-shortlisted for her novel Burnt Sugar, author Avni Doshi's new book The First House focuses on the impact of a disintegrating marriage. Also, theatre critic Matt Wolf talks to Tom about the state of Broadway musicals after Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats: The Jellicle Ball announced it will be closing early.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Lucy Collingwood

Review: Christopher Nolan's film The Odyssey with Matt Damon and Zendaya

The coming-of-age series Heartstopper has been a phenomenon with young readers and viewers in recent years. Its creator Alice Oseman joins us as the film Heartstopper Forever lands on Netflix, and as the final graphic novel in her series is published. JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye is one of the all-time greats of American literature and has inspired many writers including George Saunders, Dave Eggers and Sally Rooney.  On the eve of the 75th anniversary of the book's publication, the author's son Matt Salinger talks to us about the universal appeal of the novel, the protagonist Holden Caulfield and his father's reputation as a recluse. And prog rock gets the Proms treatment! As a Prom this Saturday evening at the Royal Albert Hall sees work by Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Mike Oldfield and Renaissance performed by a full-scale orchestra, Stuart Maconie, who is hosting the concert, and founder member of ELP Carl Palmer discuss prog rock's significance and legacy.  Presenter: Kirsty Wark 
Producer: Mark Crossan

Heartstopper creator Alice Oseman

British director Christopher Nolan discusses his biggest cinematic blockbuster yet: The Odyssey, which stars Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland and more, in his retelling of Homer’s epic poem about the warrior Odysseus’s battles with ancient Greek monsters like the Cyclops, Circe and the Sirens on his quest to return to his family after the Trojan War.We talk with Tom Kiehl, CEO of the industry body UK Music, about the government’s recent announcement of plans ‘to turn up the music business,’ with new powers and investment. Is it something new or a rehash of old ideas?  A new adaptation of Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder has just been released on Netflix.  Samira is joined by author Tracy Chevalier and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s biographer Pamela Smith-Hill to discuss the series and the enduring appeal of the stories.Candice Carty-Williams' breakthrough 2019 novel Queenie became a bestseller, made the publishing industry sit up and was adapted into series for Channel 4. Now she is back with her trademark blend of comedy and politics with Queenie is Working on It, a sequel which explores topics of fertility, sex and body image for a young black woman in contemporary Britain. Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Andrea Kidd

Christopher Nolan on his film The Odyssey, Little House on the Prairie, novelist Candice Carty-Williams

Diane Morgan on her BBC TV comedy series Ann Droid, in which she stars as the eponymous robot helper to Sue Johnston. We pay tribute to actor Sam Neill, who has died at the age of 78. His screen work stretched from blockbusters like Jurassic Park to small independent New Zealand releases.Anna Reynolds, Surveyor of the King's Pictures, on the rehang of Buckingham Palace Picture Gallery. Reopened recently, it has doubled the number of stunning works on display to the public; from Vermeer to Stubbs to Canaletto.Saxophonist Emma Rawicz won UK Jazz Act of the Year at 2026 Jazz FM Awards. She's currently touring with a range of projects, which includes her 20-piece Jazz Orchestra, which she manages as well as composing and arranging original music.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

Diane Morgan on playing a robot in TV comedy Ann Droid.

Critic and columnist Dr Kate Maltby and author Michael Donkor join Tom Sutcliffe to review Robota, the inaugural large-scale production at the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities in Oxford. The production explores what happens to humanity when the line between human and machine blurs. They also discuss Country People by Pulitzer Prize nominated author Daniel Mason. The novel explores a year in the life of a family as they strike out into the unknown. And talk about Foreign Tongues the 25th studio album by the Rolling Stones. Plus, as the 2016 global hit Moana is turned into a live action film, critic Larushka Ivan- Zadeh assesses why Disney remakes films and whether they are any good.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Claire Bartleet

Review Show: The Rolling Stones album Foreign Tongues

Lynval Golding of two-tone and ska legends The Specials , on the band’s final album, Live from the Cathedral, which was recorded in Coventry Cathedral. and which pays tribute to the band's late frontman Terry Hall. Photographers Tish Murtha and Sandra George, whose work represented disadvantaged and marginalised communities in Newcastle and Edinburgh respectively, were not given the recognition they deserved in their lifetimes.  Now with major exhibitions at Baltic Gateshead and City Art Centre in Edinburgh, we discuss the significance of their work. David Thomson is renowned as the doyen of film criticism, but his latest book - A Sudden Flicker of Light - is billed as a revisionist history of the movies and asks us whether the film industry has given us false expectations of life.  He speaks to us from California. And we're joined live in the studio by the artist who's won an international competition to create a permanent memorial to author Dame Muriel Spark in Edinburgh, the city of her birth. Presenter : Kirsty Wark 
Producer : Mark Crossan

Lynval Golding of The Specials on the band's swansong album

Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei has just created his largest site-specific exhibition - Ai Weiwei: Button Up!  - which has now opened at Aviva Studios in Manchester.  Xiaowen Zhu, Director of esea contemporary art gallery, has been to see the monumental works on show and shares her thoughts on whether in this case bigger is truly better.
 
Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour on his ground-breaking play, White Rabbit Red Rabbit.  He's joined by  the actor Lucian Msamati who has taken on one of the performances in the latest run of the play in which neither the actor or the audience know what the play is about until the actor opens an envelope on stage.Journalist Stephen Armstrong reflects on the Jackass phenomenon as Jackass: Best and Last, the final film in the franchise, is released.  As Discofoot, a fusion of dance and football, premieres in the US as part of the country's World Cup celebrations,  visual artist Alina Akbar, winner of this year's Football Art Prize with her video piece - Footwork - discusses why football and dance make great partners.Presenter: Nick Ahad
Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Ai Weiwei in Manchester

Confessions II is Madonna's first album in 7 years. Novelist Matt Cain and journalist and broadcaster Miranda Sawyer discuss going back to the dancefloor.Sky TV  has offered £1.6 bn pounds for ITV's free to air channel and its streaming platform ITVX. Jake Kanter, journalist for the screen industry website Deadline, considers what it will mean for British television.  With a new play about Daphne du Maurier - Daphne, The Secret Lives of Daphne Du Maurier -  at the Northcott Theatre in Exeter, the playwright Rosie Race joins Samira Ahmed, along with Helen Taylor, author of a detailed biographical guide to her work, The Daphne du Maurier Companion to discuss her life and work. And with last weekend’s 4th of July celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of US independence from Britain, actor and filmmaker Tara Gadomski looks at the impact of the cultural events taking place across the country.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Andrea Kidd

Madonna's Confessions II album, Daphne du Maurier, Sky buying ITV

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by critics Bidisha and David Benedict to review:The Invite, a new film directed by Olivia Wilde about two couples who join each other for dinner, starring Seth Rogan and Olivia Wilde as hosts and Edward Norton and Penélope Cruz as their guests.Pride the Musical, created by the same team as the hit 2014 film, which tells the true story of a group of LGBT activists who support a Welsh mining community during the 1980's miners' strikes. And the novel Trouble Was by Charlotte Edwardes which is told from the perspective of young schoolboy Frank whose family leaves their home to move in with their aunt in her farmhouse, during the 1976 heatwave.Tom also talks to journalist William Lee Adams about the news that Canada is joining Eurovision.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Lucy Collingwood

Review Show: Penélope Cruz in The Invite, Pride the Musical

The acclaimed novelist Kazuo Ishiguro talks about how he went about curating a season of films featuring trains for the BFI - from classics such as Shanghai Express by Josef von Sternberg and Sidney Lumet's Murder on the Orient Express to lesser known gems - and about how trains have inspired his own work - including songs, and his forthcoming novel, Miss Lambert Steps Aboard Danger.   Actresses Maureen Beattie and Tracy-Ann Oberman discuss why they've changed the gender of popular roles for stage productions which are opening soon - Lear at Pitlochry Festival Theatre which sees one of Shakespeare's greatest tragic figures portrayed as a matriarch in decline, and at the Theatre Royal Bath, Garry Essendine in Noel Coward's comedy about the perils of celebrity Present Laughter is now Gerri Essendine, an ageing actress desperately clinging on to her youthful beauty. Author Stuart Cosgrove hails Village People frontman Victor Willis (whose death has just been announced) as one of the finest soul voices of his generation, whose talents were perhaps overlooked due to the novelty reputation which came to be associated with the group.   And Dr Sonke Prigge tells us why - and how - he has preserved the sound of the clattering mill, traditionally used in Germany to scare away birds from cherry orchards, for the British Library's sound archive.   Presenter: Kirsty Wark 
Producer: Mark Crossan

Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro on his passion for films featuring trains

Author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and The Circle, Dave Eggers is back with a new novel about a young aspiring artist. Contrapposto follows Cricket, an insular smalltown boy, enchanted by drawing, as well as an older girl, and in part draws on Eggers’ on experiences of the art world. Visiting the UK for the first time in over a decade, he speaks to Samira Ahmed in a rare interview.As an officially licensed AI Michael Caine narrated audiobook The Odyssey has recently been released, Media and AI lawyer Kelsey Farish and Guardian Film Editor Catherine Shoard discuss why a number of high profile actors, or their estates, have signed up to have their images and voices cloned for use by AI and what it means for the future of the industry.Jamir Nazir has won this year's Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Called The Serpent in the Grove, he explains how his childhood observations of rural life in his native Trinidad inspired the story, and describes the impact of winning on him and his family.Craig Gillespie talks about his new film Supergirl, a space adventure starring The House of Dragon actress Milly Alcock as Superman's mighty cousin. The I, Tonya and Cruella director reveals how this movies was inspired by the western True Grit and why he wanted to make the last daughter of Krypton a more complex and flawed character than has been shown on screen before.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Andrea Kidd

Dave Eggers on his new novel Contrapposto and Supergirl director Craig Gillespie

We mark the passing of actress Dame Penelope Keith, speaking with John Lloyd and Mel Giedroyc about her long career. Actor Russell Tovey plays a troubled police officer dealing with a late night emergency in The Guilty at The Donmar Warehouse in London.Katherine Rundell on updating Cinderella for a contemporary audience, as part of Radio 4's Once Upon a Time series.  We discover the photographic genius of Jacques Henri Lartigue, whose work spanned almost the entire 20th century. An exhibition of his colour photographs has just opened in Milton KeynesPresenter: Samira Ahmed

Penelope Keith tribute, Russell Tovey, Katherine Rundell on fairy tales

Writer Charlotte Mullins and author Viv Groskop join Tom to discuss the Frida Kahlo exhibition at Tate Modern in London. It's the highest pre-selling exhibition in Tate's history, and contains 30 significant works, has her clothes on display, and looks at the artist's life and impact on contemporaries and later generations.They also offer their verdict on the Danish black comedy The Last Viking, which is the 6th film by director/actor trio Anders Thomas Jensen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Mads Mikkelsen. Finally, they talk about Lisa Owens' novel Natural Disaster which dissects the last 24 hours before a mother goes back to work after maternity leave. Plus The Box in Plymouth is revealed as the winner of the UK Museum of the Year, with Chair of Judges Jenny Waldman. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Claire Bartleet

Review Show: Frida Kahlo, Mads Mikkelsen in The Last Viking, Museum of the Year

25 years since she published her first Charlie and Lola book, former Children's Laureate Lauren Child returns with a new friendship-focused series featuring best-friends Lotta and Lola.  She joins us to talk about her approach to writing for children and about the importance of reading together as a family.  Refik Anadol, one of the creative team behind Dataland, a vast new museum dedicated to AI art which opened this weekend in Los Angeles, tells us about the multi-sensory experiences visitors walk through on their journey through the building and how the Museum embraces and celebrates digital art while finding solutions to energy usage and volumes of data. Turner Prize winning artist Jasleen Kaur's new trail of sculptures on the banks of the River Clyde in Glasgow take the form of weather vanes and question the city's links to trade and colonialism. She tells us more about this commission to mark Glasgow 2026, the cultural festival which complements this summer's Commonwealth Games. And as an exhibition of theatrical portraits of stars of stage and screen by Cecil Beaton go on display at Harewood House in Yorkshire, curator Bryony Smith and design historian Stephen Bayley explain why everyone who was anyone wanted to sit for the legendary photographer, and how his photographs also changed public perceptions of the monarchy.  Presenter: Kirsty Wark 
Producer: Mark Crossan

Lauren Child on 25 years of Charlie & Lola

Bill Nighy joins to talk about his new family drama 500 Miles, where he plays a reclusive painter on the west coast of Ireland who gets an unexpected visit from his two Sheffield-based grandsons. He also discusses his early days in acting, his famous role in Love Actually, and why he's become an agony uncle in a new podcast.
 
Today, the Carnegie Medal for Writing was awarded to Beth O’Brien for her debut YA novel Wolf Siren, and Kate Rolfe won the Carnegie Medal for Illustration for her book Wiggling Words. Both join Front Row to discuss their books
 
Hold To This Earth: Works by Contemporary Indigenous North American Artists from Tia Collection is the new show at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Art critic Veronica Simpson reviews.
 
Merky Books Prize-winning writer, and filmmaker, Sufiyaan Salam, on the inspiration behind his debut novel, Wimmy Road Boyz, which follows three young males pushed to the limits of their masculinity during a life-altering night out.
 
Presenter Nick Ahad
Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Bill Nighy on acting, podcasting and style tips

Linda Perry came to fame as lead singer of the all-female band Four Non-Blondes. She went on to be a hugely successful songwriter and producer, writing hits for the likes of Pink and Christina Aguilera, and collaborating with Dolly Parton. She's now released her first solo album for 27 years - Let It Die Here  - and a documentary film of the same name. Linda came to perform for Front Row and explain why she’d stepped back into the limelight.Mel Brooks is the filmmaker who gave us such comedies as Blazing Saddles and The Producers. He turns 100 on Sunday so we're celebrating it with his son Max Brooks, and the writer and culture journalist Hadley Freeman.James Burrows, who died at the weekend at the age of 85 directed more than a thousand episodes of many classic American sitcoms – such as Friends, Will and Grace and The Big Bang Theory.  The writer and TV Critic Scott Bryan remembers James Burrow's life and career.And Glenn Tillbrook from Squeeze tells us about The Everywhere At Once Festival, a special music event this weekend that’s celebrating  grassroots venues around the UK.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Andrea Kidd

Linda Perry sings live, and we celebrate Mel Brooks' 100th birthday

Writer Stephanie Merritt and Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin join Tom to review Anish Kapoor’s immersive exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London, which includes huge red sculptures, black holes and boundless mirrors that challenge perspectives. They also discuss The End Of Everything by M. John Harrison, a post-apocalyptic novel where the nature of the crisis remains unclear. And they review Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day – a film adaptation of her novel with a cast including Haley Bennett, Timothy Spall, Jennifer Saunders and Lily Allen.  Plus, Toy Story 5 director Andrew Stanton talks about the latest film in the franchise, and as a co-writer for all the films in the series he talks about how they've changed over the years.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Claire Bartleet

Review: Anish Kapoor, Virginia Woolf's Night and Day, Toy Story 5

Priya Parmar's novel The Original tells the story of how actor Katharine Hepburn set out to become one of the true movie icons of the 20th century and succeeded. She's joined to talk about Hepburn's life and career by film historian Pamela Hutchinson.   As the Obama Presidential Center opens later this week in Chicago, we hear how its architecture is being viewed in the city, how it compares with other presidential libraries and what it might do for the people of Chicago.  As the National Library of Scotland's new exhibition showcases how artists, filmmakers and poets across the centuries have been inspired by rain, poet Don Paterson and head of collections at the library Alison Stevenson join us to discuss why we're conditioned to think about rain in particular ways and about the best creative responses to a weather condition we know all too well. Presenter: Kate Molleson 
Producer: Mark Crossan

Katherine Hepburn novel, plus the Obama Presidential Center opens

The Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, is widely regarded as the man who helped the band break through. He's inspired plays, films, and even an artistic installation by the Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller. He's now the subject of a new biography, Mr Moonlight, by Philip Norman.A Unesco-listed cathedral in Kyiv went up in flames on Sunday night after an intense Russian bombing attack. The Ukrainian government sees the attack on the historic Pechersk Lavra monastery complex as part of a sustained campaign to destroy the nation’s cultural landmarks and identity. And in Kharkiv, workers at the state art museum have just moved its collection after a bombing raid caused fires. The Baltic republic of Estonia, which has an Eastern border with Russia, say it is planning for such attacks too. Samira Ahmed talks to its culture minister, Merilin Piipuu.Tributes have been pouring in for the Oscar-winning special effects pioneer Brian Johnson, who’s died at the age of 87. He worked on the British television shows Thunderbirds and Space:1999, the latter taking him to Hollywood, and The Empire Strikes Back. One of those who has been influenced by his craft is the visual effects designer and filmmaker Paul Franklin, who explains why Brian Johnson changed the sci-fi landscape.What is it like to grow up in a town which lost its industry decades before you were even born? That’s the story of Effie o Blaenau, Effie in Blaenau, a Welsh language film about a young woman looking for love to escape her weekly routine of unemployment and drinking. Lead actor Leisa Gwenllian joins Samira in the Front Row studio to discuss her role.   When the Barbie film was released in 2023, it made over a billion dollars in just 17 days – making director Greta Gerwig the first ever woman to reach that milestone as a solo director. Now an exhibition charting the evolution of Barbie from her creation in 1959 to the present day is opening in Glasgow. It was first shown at London’s Design Museum, where it proved one of the venue’s most popular ever shows. Senior curator Danielle Thom and writer and fan Sara Sheridan discuss Barbie as art. Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Andrea Kidd

A new Brian Epstein biography and how Estonia is protecting its cultural treasures from potential attack

Tom Sutcliffe presents a special edition of Front Row on the art of David Hockney. The artists Maggi Hambling and Tacita Dean and Andrew Marr speak to Tom about Hockney's career and innovations.Tom also speaks to art critic Rachel Campbell-Johnston and the art critic and author James Cahill, author of The Beverley Hills Housewife: Hockney’s Californian Muse and the World Beyond the Pool, published later this year.The programme also features excerpts from interviews with Hockney.Producer: Eliane Glaser

David Hockney special

Film producer Jason Solomons and Guardian columnist Zoe Williams join Tom Sutcliffe to discuss Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day – a film which looks at whether aliens are really out there.    John D. MacDonald’s psychological thriller The Executioners has inspired two Cape Fear films and now there’s a 10-part TV series starring Amy Adams and Javier Bardem. Jason and Zoe give their verdicts.   They also talk about M. C. Escher’s major exhibition at Somerset House. Famous for drawing optical illusions, impossible buildings, and endless patterns, the Dutch artist’s work has inspired film scenes in Labyrinth and Christopher Nolan’s Inception.    Plus we will be revealing the winners of the Women’s Prize for Fiction and Non-Fiction.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Claire Bartleet

Review: Steven Spielberg's alien film Disclosure Day

Scotland's Makar Peter Mackay on his poems honouring Scotland's football team as they head to the FIFA World Cup - one, his own work, the other curated from lines submitted by members of the public. Can they help propel the team to victory in their first tournament in many years? Crime writer Denise Mina tells us about the extraordinary true crime case that inspired her book The Last Drop, now adapted into a theatre production at Glasgow's Citizens Theatre. Outdoor theatre takes place across the summer, around the UK. But what are the challenges it presents, given our 'unpredictable' climate? Gordon Barr of Bard in the Botanics in Glasgow and James Pidgeon of Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in London discuss.   And as Pope Leo celebrates mass in architect Antoni Gaudi's unfinished masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, we speak to the author of a new biography of Gaudi, Peter Stanford about the building's cultural and religious significance, and turbulent history. Presenter: Kate Molleson 
Producer: Mark Crossan

Scotland's National Poet Peter Mackay honours the country's football team

Barry Manilow on maintaining his musical curiosity as he releases his 33rd studio album, What A Time, and what it's like to have one of his biggest hits, Copacabana, sung by Sabrina Carpenter.With the start of the World Cup this week, sports photographer Tom Jenkins, and Tim Marlow, Director of The Design Museum and one of the judges for this year's Football Art Prize at the Millennium Gallery in Sheffield, discuss the art of making art out football.As the Rambert dance company turns 100, Amanda Britton, one of its former leading dancers and now Principal and Artistic Director of Rambert School, reflects on the company's distinctive approach to dance.For 400 years the largest collection of notes - the Codex Atlanticus - by Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci have remained divided with those deemed artistic kept in the UK in the Royal Collection, and those with a scientific focus retained in Italy.  Leading authority on all matters Leonardo, Professor Martin Kemp on the new digital platform, the Leonardotheka, which has just reunited the notes and made them publicly accessible.Presenter: Nick Ahad
Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Barry Manilow brings the Manilow magic to Front Row

Samira Ahmed talks to Daft Punk's Thomas Bangalter about their new album MirageEkow Eshun, writer and broadcaster, and Polly Savage, Lecturer in the Art History of Africa at SOAS, University of London, discuss an exhibition of Pan African art at the Barbican, Project a Black PlanetFront Row introduces its AHRC/BBC New Generation Thinker for 2026, Genevieve Robyn Arkle, who is a Lecturer in Music History at King's College LondonAnd Opera director David Pountney on John Tavener's last opera Krishna, performed as a world premiere at Grange Park OperaProducer: Eliane Glaser

Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter, Pan African art and John Tavener's opera Krishna

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by writer Alexander Larman and critic Arifa Akbar to discuss:A new production of High Society, Cole Porter's musical showcase at London's Barbican, starring Call the Midwife's Helen George in the role of the amorously vexed Long Island socialite Tracy Lord who finds her heart pulled in every which direction. Also starring Freddie Fox and Felicity Kendal.The film Savage House starring Richard E. Grant and Claire Foy, a dark satire telling a cautionary tale of greed and social climbing, set against the backdrop of 18th century England, a Pox outbreak and Jacobite Uprising. And Fiona Mozley's new book about memory, Awake Awake, in which protagonist Mary is struggling to decipher whether her recollections are fact or fiction. We also speak to the CEO of Arts Council England about their new direction.

Review: High Society and film Savage House

As the Belfast Book Festival opens Kirsty Wark is joined by a range of guests at the Crescent Arts Centre. She'll be discussing reading and freedom of expression with Hilary McCollum, whose new book As A Lover is inspired by the scandal which followed the publication of Radclyffe Hall's story of lesbian love The Well of Loneliness in 1928, and by novelist and short story writer Lucy Caldwell whose work often examines what were once taboo subjects.  Head of Cuba Pictures Dixie Linder, who's made TV adaptations of work by Marian Keyes, MIsha Glenny and Susanna Clarke talks about her approach to adapting much-loved books, and Andrew Reid of Northern Ireland Screen will explain how the Game of Thrones effect has made an enormous cultural and economic impact on the local industry. The director and one of the cast of Bold Girls - Rona Munro's play about how women held families together during The Troubles - also join us live, as does Donegal-based poet Annemarie Ní Churreáin, who will be reading live from her latest collection Hymn To All the Restless Girls.   Producer: Mark Crossan

Live from the Belfast Book Festival

Award winning jazz saxophonist and broadcaster Soweto Kinch and writer and director of new film Köln 75, Ido Fluk, join Tom to explore the importance of Keith Jarrett’s seminal performance at the Cologne Opera House in 1975, and its subsequent album, which became the bestselling solo album in jazz history.Sex Education and Rivals writer Sophie Goodhart on her award-winning comedy-drama Alice and Steve, starring Nicola Walker and Jemaine Clement. It’s about best friends turned enemies, after Steve starts dating Alice’s 26-year-old daughter.Cultural historian Thomas W. Laqueur talks about depictions of dogs in art, as he publishes his new book The Dog's Gaze.Critic Clarisse Loughrey talks about how small screen directors and creators on YouTube have made the leap to Hollywood's big leagues, with films like Obsession and Backrooms breaking box office records and driving Gen Z to the cinemas.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Presenter: Claire Bartleet

Rivals writer Sophie Goodhart on new TV series Alice and Steve; depictions of dogs in art

On what would have been her 100th birthday, we look at the enduring popularity of Marilyn Monroe, with film journalist and fan Kim Morgan and reviewer Angie Errigo Sathnam Sanghera talks about the meaning of George Michael.Jazz legend and saxophonist Courtney Pine talks about his career, forty years after his seminal debut album Journey to the Urge Within.And poet Joelle Taylor, author of Maryville and TS Eliot Prize-winning collection C+nto & Othered Poems, pays tribute to writer and activist Maureen Duffy - one of the first publicly "out" lesbian women, who has died aged 92.Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Marilyn Monroe at 100

Rachel Lloyd, Deputy Culture Editor of The Economist, and writer Lawrence Norfolk join Tom to discuss Channel 4's new queer drama Tip Toe, which is the latest series by Russell T Davies and stars Alan Cumming as a gay bar owner in Manchester and David Morrissey as his long-standing neighbour whose previously friendly relationship takes a dark turn. They also talk about Paul McCartney’s 18th studio album The Boys of Dungeon Lane which was 5 years in the making and includes tracks where Paul reflects on his pre-fame world in Liverpool.  And they assess Land by Hamnet author Maggie O’Farrell. This multi-generational epic novel is about families, mapping and connections to land.Plus, Roger McGough talks about his latest role as an ambassador for A Poet In Every Port, and reads a new poem. The project is a key part of the Southbank Centre's 75th anniversary national programme. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Claire Bartleet

Review Show: Paul McCartney, Russell T Davies, Maggie O'Farrell

Nashville-based novelist Ann Patchett tells us about her tenth novel, Whistler, in which a chance encounter between a woman and her stepfather after many years leads to unexpected revelations. As a new publisher - Conduit Books - launches with the intention of promoting work by male authors, we discuss why this might be needed, with its founder, the writer Jude Cook, and with Ellah Wakatama, Editor-at-Large at Canongate Books, who has worked in the publishing industry for many years. Pioneering photographer Wendy McMurdo's exhibition The Digital Mirror opens at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh this weekend, and shows a body of work which responds to how digital technology such as computers, tablets and gaming has impacted on children's lives since the mid 1990s.  She joins us live in the studio.  And a new survey by the organisation Age Without Limits has found that hit movies are four times more likely to feature a talking animal than a female actor aged over 60.  We ask why that might be, and how representation of older women on screen might be improved. Presenter: Kirsty Wark 
Producer: Mark Crossan

Ann Patchett, plus why launch an all-male publishing house?

Writer and broadcaster Kevin Le Gendre, and trumpeter and composer Yazz Ahmed on 100 years of Miles Davis - the musician regarded as the Picasso of jazz.Artist Keith Tyson has just donated a quarter of a million pounds for an astronomy post at Oxford University.  He's joined by Professor Ken Arnold, director of the Medical Museum at the University of Copenhagen, to discuss the relationship between art and science.Playwright Rory Mullarkey on his new play at the Royal Exchange, Even These Things, which marks the thirtieth anniversary of the bombing of Manchester by the IRA.Jazz's "Saxophone Colossus", Sonny Rollins, remembered.Presenter: Nick Ahad
Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Jazz legend Miles Davis at 100

Live from Hay, celebrating reading and writing in many different forms, Samira is joined on stage by Jack Thorne - multi-award-winning screenwriter of the TV sensation Adolescence and his newest drama Falling, about a nun and a priest who fall in love.Also, Tartan Noir titan Val McDermid speaks about crime fiction and her 40 years of writing.The Ian Fleming estate has granted novelist Vaseem Khan permission to write a book in the Bond-iverse. This time, it's set in the world of Q, Bond's gadget supplier.And Hanan Issa, the National Poet of Wales, joins us to explore Welsh/Iraqi storytelling and poetry.Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Live from Hay with Jack Thorne and Val McDermid

Samira Ahmed is joined by writer Matt Cain and critic Suzi Feay to review:Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart's new novel John of John, set on the Isle of Harris. New series The Boroughs, which stars Alfred Molina and Geena Davis in a retirement community, executive produced by Stranger Things' Duffer Brothers. And Holy Pop!, a new exhibition at Somerset House in London that celebrates fandom.Also, film critic Tim Robey joins Samira from the Cannes Film Festival to talk through some of his highlights.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Lucy Collingwood

Review Show: Douglas Stuart's John of John and Cannes Film Festival

Canadian author Rachel Reid talks to us about the the phenomenon which has followed the publication of her books about the romantic relationship between rival ice hockey players.We speak to author Yang Shuang-zi and translator Lin King, the author and translator of this year's International Booker Prize winning book, Taiwan Travelogue.   And Mull Historical Society's latest album In My Mind There’s A Photograph sees singer-songwriter Colin Macintyre work with lyrical contributions from a panoply of world-leading authors.  He reveals his collaborative process with the likes of Irvine Welsh, Ali Smith, Irenosen Okojie, Yiyun Lee, and Sir Alexander McCall Smith, and performs a track live in the Front Row studio.   Presenter: Kirsty Wark 
Producer: Mark Crossan

Heated Rivalry author Rachel Reid

The paintings of Winston Churchill are being exhibited at the Wallace Collection in London. Xavier Bray, Director of the Wallace Collection, and Katharine Carter, curator at Chartwell, Churchill’s country house in Kent, discuss what we learn about Churchill from his art.Creator and star Phil Dunning talks about series two of Smoggie Queens, which follows a close-knit group of friends; it’s a celebration of queer culture and a love letter to Middlesbrough and its community.As questions are being asked about the use of AI in one of the regional winning entries of a prestigious short story prize for unpublished fiction, writer and journalist Hari Kunzru talks about the impact of AI on writing.And Tom visited the RHS Chelsea Flower to see the Tate Britain show garden, which offers a taster of the forthcoming Clore Garden.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Claire Bartleet

Winston Churchill: The Painter, and Smoggie Queens creator and star Phil Dunning

Leo Woodall stars in the film Tuner, about a young piano prodigy who turns to crime, in cinemas on the 29th May.The classical music world has been paying tribute to the soprano Dame Felicity Lott, who died on Friday at the age of 79. Critic David Benedict joins us to discuss her life in music.Ronald Firbank is considered a pioneering queer voice of modernist fiction, but he's often overlooked. Sir Alan Hollinghurst and the poet and critic Jack Parlett join us to assess his literary impact and his legacy, a century on from his death.Mary Astell championed women’s education and spoke out against what she saw as the tyranny of marriage in the early 18th century. But despite her impact she's in danger of being forgotten. Now a new play imagines her in conversation with another famous feminist philosopher, Virginia Woolf, encountering each other in a celestial waiting room.  We speak to the playwright, Shelagh Stephenson about her play Astell & Woolf, playing now at Newcastle's Live Theatre.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Harry Graham

White Lotus and Bridget Jones star Leo Woodall on his new film

Observer Theatre critic Susannah Clapp and Heat's Entertainment Director Boyd Hilton join Samira to discuss The Christophers - Steven Soderbergh’s film about an ageing artist and a young forger hired to copy his work, starring Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel. They also discuss the second series of Rivals, based on Jilly Cooper’s bonkbuster novel which was set in the affluent 80s world of commercial TV. Plus, they talk about the West End transfer of 1536.  It's Ava Pickett’s award-winning historical debut play about female friendship set around the backdrop of Anne Boleyn’s arrest for treason.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Claire Bartleet

Review Show: Rivals and Ian McKellen in The Christophers

From landmark releases to hidden treasures, director Mark Cousins on his 16-hour epic The Story of Documentary Film, which is screening at the Cannes Film Festival this week. A hundred years since Virginia Woolf published her essay On Being Ill, writer Darcey Steinke is presenting a newly commissioned work in response at the Charleston Festival this week. She joins us alongside poet Jade Cuttle to discuss the challenges of writing about pain and sickness and about the most visceral examples in literature.And with a raft of stage musical productions inspired by films opening around the country, Tony and Olivier Award-winning director John Tiffany, whose production Once is at Pitlochry Festival Theatre later this month and critic David Benedict discuss why certain scripts are deserving of multiple incarnations. Presenter: Kirsty Wark 
Producer: Mark Crossan

Mark Cousins on his 16-hour epic documentary

This year marks the tercentenary of polymath Sir John Vanbrugh, regarded as the rockstar architect of the Baroque era. Art historian Sir Charles Saumerez Smith, co-curator of the Vanbrugh exhibition at the Sir John Soane’s Museum, and Rory Fraser who is writing a biography on Vanbrugh, discuss the man happy creating dramas for the British stage and dramatic buildings on the British landscape.Turner Prize-winning artist Lubaina Himid is known for her distinctive brightly coloured paintings of black characters. She reflects on representing Great Britain at this year's Venice Biennale, and her ambition as a painter to capture the awkward moment.Marking tonight's first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest, television critic Scott Bryan assesses this year's runners and riders aiming to win the song for Europe.Theatre and opera director Kip Williams on directing the UK premiere of the Pulitzer prize-winning opera Angel's Bone which has its UK premiere in Manchester tonight. Fresh from directing one-woman shows with Cynthia Erivo in Dracula, and Sarah Snook in The Picture of Dorian Gray, he talks about juggling the challenges of a contemporary genre-fusing opera.Presented by Nick Ahad
Produced by Ekene Akalawu

The rock star architect of the Baroque age, Sir John Vanbrugh

Critics Ben Luke and Aviva Dautch bring us all the news from The Venice Biennale.
 
Following the death of the great Shakespearean actor Michael Pennington, we speak to former RSC Director Gregory Doran about his impact on the stage. A new small exhibition Elizabeth I: Queen and Court Is running in London. It includes rarely seen portraits of The Virgin Queen that are normally held in private collections. Historians Tracy Borman and Siobhan Clarke join Tom to talk about the crossover between portraits and propaganda for 16th century monarchs   Hilary Mantel's controversial 2015 short story, The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, has been adapted for stage at the Liverpool Everyman Theatre. We speak to playwright Alexandra Wood about why she chose to re-tell this story now.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

Highs, lows and naked jet-skiers at the Venice Biennale

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by journalist and podcaster Nick Hilton and writer and historian Catherine McCormack to review a selection of cultural items from this week:They'll look at The Sheep Detectives, starring Hugh Jackman, a live-action film in which a group of ovine sleuths attempt to solve the murder of their shepherd. Elizabeth Strout's latest novel, The Things We Never Say, about a Massachusetts school teacher dealing with major changes and crises in his lifeAnd a new exhibition: Kew in London is staging the largest ever presentation of outdoor artworks by Henry Moore; 30 of his sculptures among the glorious gardens.Presenter Tom Sutcliffe

Reviewing The Sheep Detectives, Elizabeth Strout and Henry Moore at Kew

Acclaimed author Siri Hustvedt on Ghost Stories, her memoir of her marriage to novelist, poet and filmmaker Paul Auster and her grief following his death in 2024. Following last night's live report on the controversies surrounding this year's Venice Biennale, we are joined by one of the curators of the Ukrainian Pavillion, to hear how a concrete sculpture of a deer rescued from the frontline of the conflict in Ukraine forms the centrepiece of their exhibit. As a new documentary - Salm Nan Daoine (Psalms of the People) explores how the Gaelic Psalm singing tradition is being kept alive in communities across Scotland and Ireland, singer and musician Rob MacNeacail talks about the history of the tradition and gives us a live demonstration in the studio.   And as a major new project is launched by the National Theatre of Scotland to enable care-experienced people to tell authentic stories about their lives,, playwright Nicola McCartney is joined by the artistic director of The Big House, a London-based charity which empowers young care-experienced people through theatre to fulfil their potential through impactful stage productions.    Presenter: Kate Molleson
Producer: Mark Crossan

Author Siri Hustvedt on her memoir, Ghost Stories

Antony Gormley joins Samira Ahmed. The sculptor and artist is best known for landmarks such as Angel of the North or the beach figures of Another Place, in Liverpool. But Antony has also been exhibiting drawings since the 80s and with the publication of the book Drawing he tells Samira what this art means to him.After the Devil Wears Prada 2 topped the box office this week, BBC New Generation Thinker Dr. Sarah Smyth and author and critic Hanna Flint discuss how films depict women, work and romance.Following the resignation of the entire jury last week, we discuss the fraught politics of the Venice Biennale with Ed Behrens, editor of visual arts magazine Apollo.Bruce Dickinson joins Samira to talk about the new documentary Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Harry Graham

Antony Gormley in 2D

As the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration prepares to open in London, we find out how illustrators are adapting to a changing world.Starting with a rare interview from Quentin Blake, we'll hear how this once undervalued side of the visual arts still creates the defining images of childhoods, whilst also now playing a central role in the visual language of the internet. Featuring voices working across illustration, including Posy Simmonds, Chris Riddell, Michael Rosen, Christoph Niemann, Lizzy Stewart, Benji Davies, Murugiah, Chie Kutsuwada and Jane Rosenberg and Olivia Ahmad. The Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration opens 5th June. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Harry Graham

Celebrating the art of Illustration, with Sir Quentin Blake and Posy Simmonds

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by playwright Mark Ravenhill and academic and critic Maria Delgado to review:The first major UK exhibition of Spanish master Francisco de Zurbarán at the National Gallery.A new Spanish language series adaptation of Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits on Amazon Prime video.Please Please Me by Tom Wright, a play about manager Brian Epstein and The Beatles at the Kiln Theatre in London.Plus Tom speaks to the winner of the prestigious Donatella Flick Conducting Competition, seen on the series Making of a Maestro. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Lucy Collingwood

Review: Spanish master Zurbarán at the National Gallery

From the rebellious spirit of The Jam in the 1970s to the soulful sound of The Style Council and mellow ballads as a solo artist, singer-songwriter Paul Weller is about to release Weller At The BBC Volume 2 - a series of session recordings of his classic hits and interpretations of other artists' songs.  He .discusses his musical evolution and his influences. She's been rather overshadowed by fellow writers such as James Kelman and Alasdair Gray, but in her centenary year Scottish novelist Agnes Owens (who died in 2014) is being celebrated with two exhibitions, and the republication of out-of-print books with new introductions by contemporary writers.  Owens' son and literary executor John Crosbie and novelist Kirstin Innes discuss her significance as a writer and her trademark tone.  Writer Fran Kranz discusses his play Mass, in which the parents of a school shooter meet those of a victim, and which is currently running at the Donmar Warehouse in London.  Presenter: Kirsty Wark 
Producer: Mark Crossan

Paul Weller on his musical evolution

Children's Laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce launches the Children's Booker Prize and discusses some of the themes of his forthcoming Waterstones Children's Laureate Lecture - The Kids Are Not Alright- which calls for the reading of physical books to made a central part of childhood. Soap writer and aficionado Sharon Marshall on how long-running television dramas are employing bold storytelling techniques to retain and attract audiences.Ukrainian Culture Minister Tetyana Berezhna on how her country's artworks have been targeted by the Russians.Poet, playwright, and musician Kae Tempest on his new novel, Having Spent Life Seeking, which centres on the character of Rothko as they search for a way to be at peace with who they feel themselves to be.Presenter: Kirsty Wark
Producer: Front Row Production Team

Children's Laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce on the new Children's Booker Prize

The Devil Wears Prada 2 director David Frankel on why it was time to bring the old gang back together again.
David Haig's new play "Magic" imagines the real life friendship between Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 
A new play "Stage Kiss" looks at what kissing on stage entails. Playwright Sarah Ruhl and actress Emma Fielding discuss how to do it well (and badly).
And Luke Roberts, lecturer in Modern Poetry at KCL, pays tribute to J.H. Prynne, considered by many to be one of the most significant post-War English poets.
Presenter: Samira Ahmed

The Devil Wears Prada 2, with director David Frankel

Critics Larushka Ivan-Zadeh and Ludovic Hunter-Tilney join Tom to review Half Man, Richard Gadd’s follow up to his hit Baby Reindeer. They also discuss Anne Hathaway as a faded pop star looking to make a comeback in supernatural thriller Mother Mary. Plus they assess Deborah Levy’s book My Year in Paris With Gertrude Stein: a fiction. To celebrate Shakespeare's birthday, author and translator Daniel Hahn reveals the challenges of translating the Bard into different languages.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Claire Bartleet

Review: Half Man, Richard Gadd’s follow up to Baby Reindeer

A new biopic chronicles one of the 20th century’s biggest and most controversial music icons, but appears not to paint the whole picture about his life. We discuss Antoine Fuqua's Michael, which stars the pop legend Michael Jackson's nephew Jaafar in the lead role. Stand and Deliver is a National Theatre of Scotland production which tells the story of a legendary industrial dispute. In 1981, workers at a Lee Jeans factory in Greenock, barricaded themselves inside for seven months in a protest against the proposed closure of the factory and the loss of 240 jobs.  We hear from the play's writer, Frances Poet, and journalist Paul English, whose writing about the women's stories inspired the production. Director Mark Jenkin tells us about his unique approach to filmmaking, using a clockwork camera and recording sound months after the initial shoot, and about his latest film Rose of Nevada, a mysterious tale of a long-lost fishing boat which returns to a Cornish port decades after disappearing, which stars Callum Turner and George Mackay.Presenter: Kirsty Wark 
Producer: Mark Crossan

Michael Jackson biopic controversy

Primavera, a new film about Vivaldi tells the story of his composing for pupils of an institution for abandoned girls. We speak to the film's director Damiano Michieletto, better known as an award-winning opera director, about his film and about Vivaldi himself.
The Music is Black is the inaugural exhibition at London’s new V&A East Museum and it celebrates 125 years of Black British music. Lead curator Jacqueline Springer joins us to discuss the show and wealth of music it showcases, from the early days of jazz via calypso, reggae, two-tone, pop and grime. 
Ben Lerner, the Pulitzer-nominated author of Leaving the Atocha Station and The Topeka School, discusses his latest novel Transcription; an exploration of loss, technology and “fiction”. 
The Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities in Oxford officially opens its doors next weekend. It combines seven academic faculties with performance spaces including the world’s first ‘Passivhaus’ concert hall, certifying its sustainability.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

Vivaldi film, author Ben Lerner and V+A East's Music Is Black exhibition

Director Charlotte Regan on her new BBC thriller, MintHave heterosexual male novelists stopped writing sex scenes? We discuss with writer Luke Kennard, author of Black Bag, and editor of the Erotic Review Lucy Roeber.Poet Laureate Simon Armitage plays live in studio with his band L.Y.R.Video game writer and critic Cara Ellison joins us to run through the highlights from the recent BAFTA Games Awards.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Harry Graham

Are straight male novelists avoiding sex scenes? Plus new BBC drama Mint

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by reviewers Dreda Say Mitchell and Viv Groskop to consider Lena Dunham's controversial memoir - Famesick. A new adaptation of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - directed by Clint Dyer at London's Old Vic Theatre. And Dan "Schitts Creek" Levy has a new dark comedy series on Netflix; "Big Mistakes"

Reviewing Lena Dunham's memoir, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Big Mistakes

Scottish Ballet's Starstruck honours Gene Kelly's creative legacy and his passion for creating "dance for the common man". His wife Patricia Ward Kelly tells us about this fusion of ballet, jazz, tap and tango danced to the music of Chopin, Ravel and Gerswhin. As the winner of the inaugural Sherborne Prize for Travel Writing is announced as Adam Weymouth for his book Lone Wolf, about a journey from Slovenia to Italy across the Alps, Adam joins us along with veteran writer Colin Thubron to discuss the art of travel writing. And as he receives an Outstanding Contribution to Photography prize and as his work goes on show at the Sony World Photography Awards exhibition in London, photographer Joel Meyerowitz talks to us about his career - documenting everything from London in the swinging sixties to New York in the aftermath of 9/11. Presenter: Kirsty Wark 
Producer: Mark Crossan

Dancer and choreographer Gene Kelly's wife and biographer Patricia Ward Kelly on Starstruck

Jack Savoretti sings a song from his latest album We Will Always Be The Way We Were, which is leading the race to top the charts this week. David Szalay's Booker Prize-wnnning novel Flesh is currently at the centre of a debate around inspiration and homage, as critics point to similarities between his novel and Stanley Kubrick's film Barry Lyndon.  Literary critics Aled Maclean-Jones and Alex Clark discuss.Turner Prize-winning artist Veronica Ryan on her new show at the Whitechapel Gallery which brings together work that spans the many decades of her career.David Austin, Chief Executive of the British Board of Film Classification on creating a new AI tool to help with their work.Presenter Samira Ahmed
Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Jack Savoretti sings live, plus Turner Prize winner Veronica Ryan

Mark Gatiss takes on the role he's always wanted to play, the lead in Brecht's Hitler satire The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. As the Government considers charging tourists to visit England's national museums, we discuss these proposals with TV executive and arts advocate Sir Peter Bazalgette, who’s been an advisor to the DCMS, and Alison Cole - Director, The Cultural Policy Unit think tank. As she releases her new collection of short stories and memoir pieces, The Great Good Places, Dame Margaret Drabble speaks to us about her extraordinary life and career. Legendary playback singer Asha Bhosle has died. Her voice was heard in countless Bollywood films, often lip-synced by the most famous actresses of the day And she inspired UK band Cornershop's song Brimful of Asha. Joining us to discuss her life and glittering career is BBC presenter Nikki Bedi. Presenter: Samira Ahmed 
Producer: Harry Graham

Mark Gatiss at the RSC and novelist Margaret Drabble

On the review show this week: critics Muriel Zagha and Tahmima Anam review Francois Ozon's film The Stranger., based on the Albert Camus novel which has often been described as unfilmable.Amitav Ghosh's  novel Ghost Eye, set in India and dealing with parallel timelines, multiple global locations, environmental catastrophe and a young girl with mysterious powers. Jim Jarmusch's latest film Father Mother Sister Brother won the Golden Lion award at Venice. Are our critics won over?Plus, is it ok for theatre audiences to take pictures at curtain calls? Following Lesley Manville's complaints on last week's Front Row, Tom Sutcliffe debates the issue with theatre critics David Benedict and Kate Maltby. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Oliver Jones

Review: Is it ok to film theatre curtain calls on your phone?

Writer and director John Morton, one of the team behind 2012 and W1A, on the new comedy Twenty Twenty Six, set in the run up to this year's football World Cup.Artist Lachlan Goudie's new book The Secrets of Painting explores the creative big bangs in art over the centuries which have given us artistic movements - from Giotto and Rembrandt's use of oil paint to Berthe Morisot's use of an outdoor easel and Jackson Pollock's use of materials intended for industrial use, Goudie tells us how he has undergone a series of experiments to inform his understanding of pioneering techniques.  A new gig theatre production at The Mac in Belfast honours the Women's Coalition in Northern Ireland whose activism was an important force behind the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Writer Vittoria Cafolla joins us to tell us their story.  And as we go on air, the winners of this year's Windham-Campbell Awards for writing are announced. Each recipient receives $175,000, and we'll hear from one of the winners, as well as the Director who heads up the judging panel. Presenter: Kirsty Wark 
Producer: Mark Crossan

W1A creator John Morton on Twenty Twenty Six

Writer Daisy Goodwin on Victoria: A Queen Unbound. Was the marriage between Victoria and Albert as idyllic as it has been portrayed? Her new play explores the idea that Prince Albert exerted coercive control over Queen Victoria. Following the launch of the Official UK Christian & Gospel Singles Chart, we speak to the founder of the chart's partner organisation, O'Neil Dennis, and Mobo winning Christian rapper Guvna B, who's playing live in studio.Tayari Jones, Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction, discusses on her new novel, Kin.Ben Beaumont-Thomas reports on the cancellation of this year's Wireless festival following the row over Kanye West as the headlining artist. Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer Harry Graham

Was Queen Victoria coercively controlled by Prince Albert?

100 years ago, inventor John Logie Baird demonstrated his new 'televisor' to the public for the first time. In this special edition of Front Row, Samira Ahmed and guests explore the origins of television in the UK, charting how those early experimental days set a template for this exciting new medium. Guests:
TV producer and historian Professor John Wyver, whose new book Magic Rays of Light tells the story of the early days of TV
Lisa Kerrigan, senior curator of TV at the BFI
Francis Spufford, whose new novel Nonesuch is partly set in the BBC studio at Alexandra Palace in 1939
Joy Whitby, TV producer and creator of iconic programmes including Play School and JackanoryPresenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Tim Bano

The Birth of Television: A Forgotten History

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by critics Tim Robey and Nancy Durrant to review:Robert Pattinson and Zendaya's new film The Drama about a young couple in the lead up to their wedding.Life of Pi author Yann Martel's novel Son of Nobody about a newly discovered classic text with the story partly told in footnotes.And from the creator of Mum and Him and Her, Stefan Golaszewski's new BBC drama series Babies which follows one couple's experience of pregnancy loss.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Lucy Collingwood

Review: The Drama starring Robert Pattinson and Zendaya

In venues around the UK and here on BBC Radio 4 and on BBC Sounds, it’s Live Comedy Day today – a celebration of live comedy and grassroots clubs.  We’re joined by two of the cast of the new Saturday Night Live UK, Emma Sidi and Hammed Animashaun, and by Amanda Dwyer, who won the Sir Billy Connolly Spirit of Glasgow Award at the Glasgow Comedy Festival this weekend, to discuss the stand-up landscape right now. Mink Stole is an icon of “trash cinema” and has appeared in every one of filmmaker John Waters’ features, from the infamous cult classic Pink Flamingos to mainstream hits Hairspray and Serial Mom.  She talks about her long association with Waters and his ensemble of Dreamlanders, and about her show Idol Worship in which she and actor and drag queen Peaches Christ reflect on her career in front of an audience.And live from opening night at the V&A Dundee where Catwalk – The Art of The Fashion Show celebrates over a hundred years of spectacular fashion displays, from Frederick Worth to Vivienne Westwood and Versace, curator Kirsty Hassard talks us through the history of the runway. And we are also joined by curator Rachel Whitworth from the Bowes Museum in County Durham to discuss one of the modern day pioneers of the fashion show, Vivienne Westwood, as the exhibition Rebel, Storyteller, Visionary opens there.  Presenter: Kirsty Wark 
Producer: Mark Crossan

SNL UK Cast, plus Trash Cinema Icon Mink Stole

Writer Robert Macfarlane on the world underground as a new documentary, Underland, inspired by his award-winning book of the same name is released in cinemas. The film explores how mankind has often explored some of the spaces miles beneath our feet.Dancer and choreographer Meryl Tankard on creating a new work, Echoes of '78, which pairs the original dancers of a work created by German choreographer Pina Bausch with their younger selves.Singer Hak Baker and journalist Ludovic Hunter-Tilney on the evolving nature of the protest song plus a live performance from Hak of his song Windrush Baby.Translator and judge Sophie Hughes on the International Booker Prize shortlist 2026 which was announced today.
The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar, translated by Ruth Martin
She Who Remains by Rene Karabash, translated by Izidora Angel
The Director by Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Ross Benjamin
On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia, translated by Padma Viswanathan
The Witch by Marie NDiaye, translated by Jordan Stump
Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin KingArtist Glen Baxter remembered.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Robert Macfarlane on the revelations to be found underground

Lesley Manville, on appearing in Les Liaisons Dangereuses at London's National TheatreArt In Space: As Nasa prepares to send people back to the Moon, former astronauts Helen Sharman and Cady Coleman talk us through the books & music they took with them into space. Do classicists underestimate how difficult it is to read Homer's Odyssey? Ahead of Christopher Nolan's new adaption, we'll discuss with Mary Beard and Professor Emily Wilson about reading and translating one of the oldest surviving works of literature. Should Russia be readmitted to The Venice Biennale? A public letter signed by dozens of MEPs is calling for EU funding to be suspended if Russia is allowed to participatePresenter: Samira Ahmed

Lesley Manville, and what do astronauts listen to in space?

On this week's review show, critic and broadcaster Rhianna Dhillon and fashion historian and writer Amber Butchart join Tom Sutcliffe to discuss Riz Ahmed's new comedy series Bait, which follows a struggling actor who auditions for the role of James Bond and has to deal with the fallout. They give their verdicts on Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art at the V&A in London, featuring the work of designer Elsa Schiaparelli. And they review Two Prosecutors, the new film from Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa, a bleak comedy following a prosecutor as he attempts to help a political prisoner during the Stalinist Purge of 1937. Plus, the ongoing story of the novel that was pulled by its publisher after allegations that it was partly written by AI. Tom talks to Alexandra Alter, the New York Times journalist who broke the story, and Anna Ganley from the Society of Authors. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Tim Bano

Review: Riz Ahmed comedy Bait, Schiaparelli at the V&A

Actor Forbes Masson on the National Theatre of Scotland's stage musical revival of cult sitcom The High Life in which he starred alongside Alan Cumming as air stewards working the commuter route between London and Scotland. The writers behind the hotly anticipated whodunnit novel The Ending Writes Itself - billed as being by Evelyn Clarke but in fact written by Cat Clarke and VE Schwab - talk about satirising the publishing industry and about the challenges and pleasures of writing collaboratively. And as The Coming of Age - a new exhibition at the Wellcome Collection in London - explores experiences and perceptions of ageing, art historian Richard Cork and artist Clare Shenstone reflect on how older people have been represented in art and culture. Plus why is the V&A Dundee seeking a design team to makeover its galleries less than ten years since it opened? Architect and former editor of The Architects Journal Rory Olcayto explains. Presenter: Kirsty Wark 
Producer: Mark Crossan

Actor Forbes Masson on the stage production of cult sitcom The High Life

The much anticipated, Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning medical drama The Pitt finally hits HBO max screens in the UK this week.  Samira talks to lead actor Noah Wyle who plays Dr ‘Robby’ Robinavitch, about being back in a high octane emergency department drama decades after making his name as Dr Carter in ER.The Elizabethan composer John Dowland died 400 years ago this month. Next weekend there will be a celebratory Weekend of his music performed at London's Wigmore Hall. We speak with two musicians who will be celebrating Dowland's music: Counter tenor Iestyn Davies and lutenist Elizabeth Kenny.Does opera need to be telling new stories? The ENO’s former artistic director John Berry, and playwright Mark Ravenhill join us to discuss. Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Noah Wyle on hit hospital drama The Pitt

The UK now has its own SNL, 50 years after the US original. But is it funny? Culture journalist Natalie Jamieson gives her verdict. As the BFI begins a season of boxing films, we explore why the sport has inspired so much influential cinema, with BFI curator Dr Clive Chijioke Nwonka and boxing broadcaster Steve Bunce.Phil Dunster, best known for his role in Ted Lasso, discusses his new comedy Rooster.Folk trio Leveret improvise live in the Front Row studio.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Harry Graham

Saturday Night Live arrives in the UK

Writer Alexander Larman and journalist Zoe Williams join Tom Sutcliffe to discuss the film La Grazia - which was written and directed by The Great Beauty’s Paolo Sorrentino, and stars Toni Servillo as a fictional Italian President.  They also review Summerfolk at the National Theatre in London. Brother and sister writers Moses and Nina Raine have adapted this version of Maxim Gorky’s play which centres around a privileged group of friends at a country retreat. Will Page, industry analyst and former Chief Economist for Spotify, discusses the impact of AI generated fake music as Sony Music requests the removal of more than 135,000 songs impersonating its artists on streaming services.Finally, Tom reviews The Tribe by Michael Arditti, an epic family drama which spans five decades and three continents.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe 
Producer: Claire Bartleet

Review: La Grazia, the latest film from The Great Beauty director Paolo Sorrentino

From bellringing to beekeeping - Author Helen Bain talks about the highly detailed research she conducted for the writing of her The Daffodil Days, inspired by Ted Hughes and Sylvia Pllath's year in North Tawton in Devon in 1962, and on why she has told the story in reverse, through the observations of the locals who came into contact with them at the time.  Hue & Cry, who first made their name in the mid 80s and who won the Outstanding Contribution prize at last year's Scottish Music Awards, are back with a new single, a 16th studio album and a UK tour. We speak to brothers Pat & Greg Kane about their four decades in the music business, and about fusing acoustic and synth technologies and the duo perform one of their biggest hits in the Front Row studio. At the height of the AIDS crisis in the 1990s, American photographer Catherine Opie honoured members of the gay community with portraits inspired by court artist Hans Holbein. Since then she's become known as an "all-American subversive" for her groundbreaking depictions of queer America.  A retrospective of her work - To Be Seen - which also features a new commission of a portrait of Sir Elton John and his family - has opened at the National Portrait Gallery in London and she joins us live to talk about it. Plus the Artistic Director of Edinburgh's Royal Lyceum Theatre, James Brining, and The Scotsman's theatre critic, Joyce McMillan, discuss the theatre's decision not to let critics from UK-wide media in to review the world premiere of the new stage production One Day, adapted from David Nicholls' bestselling book.   Presenter: Kirsty Wark 
Producer: Mark Crossan

Sylvia Plath's final year, and Hue and Cry perform Labour of Love

Anne Lister, the 19th century landowner and diarist, better known by her nickname, Gentleman Jack,  has inspired folksongs, television dramas, and now a ballet.  As Northern Ballet begin a UK tour of their new Gentleman Jack production, Belgian-Colombian choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa explains how she translated Lister's diaries into dance.As K-Pop super band BTS are set to return with a new album on 20th March and a live streamed concert and a documentary on Netflix, we hear from Julie Yoonnyung Lee from the BBC Korean Service and music journalist Katie Hawthorne about their comeback. We’ll also hear what’s been popular in K-Pop during their absence - including Korean Trot music which is having a resurgence.New anthology, Banshee, aims to cast a feminist light on the female figures in Irish myths.  Editor of the anthology, Ailbhe Malone, and  one of the contributing writers, Salma El‑Wardany, discuss reimagining some of Ireland's oldest stories.And we remember the writer Len Deighton whose death was announced today.  He was the author of The Ipcress File along with over thirty other novels, cookbooks, and graphic novels.  Fellow crime writer Martin Edwards reflects on Len Deighton's influential career.Presenter: Nick Ahad
Producer: Ekene Akalawu