Samira Ahmed talks to Daft Punk's Thomas Bangalter about their new album Mirage Ekow 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 Planet Front Row introduces its AHRC/BBC New Generation Thinker for 2026, Genevieve Robyn Arkle, who is a Lecturer in Music History at King's College London And Opera director David Pountney on John Taverner's last opera Kr...
Jun 08, 2026•42 min
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 s...
Jun 04, 2026•43 min
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 T...
Jun 03, 2026•42 min
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 Ste...
Jun 03, 2026•42 min
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 acti...
Jun 01, 2026•42 min
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 refle...
May 28, 2026•43 min
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 ...
May 27, 2026•42 min
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...
May 26, 2026•43 min
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 gadge...
May 25, 2026•42 min
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...
May 21, 2026•42 min
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 ...
May 20, 2026•42 min
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 bein...
May 19, 2026•42 min
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 ...
May 18, 2026•42 min
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 historica...
May 14, 2026•42 min
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 l...
May 13, 2026•42 min
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 bl...
May 12, 2026•42 min
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 portr...
May 11, 2026•42 min
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 life And a new exhibition: Kew in ...
May 07, 2026•42 min
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...
May 06, 2026•42 min
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 roma...
May 06, 2026•42 min
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, Lizz...
May 05, 2026•42 min
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 Comp...
Apr 30, 2026•42 min
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 ...
Apr 29, 2026•43 min
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...
Apr 28, 2026•42 min
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 significan...
Apr 27, 2026•42 min
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 Sutc...
Apr 23, 2026•42 min
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 ag...
Apr 22, 2026•42 min
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 t...
Apr 21, 2026•43 min
Director Charlotte Regan on her new BBC thriller, Mint Have 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
Apr 20, 2026•42 min
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"
Apr 16, 2026•42 min
