Nikki Giovanni is one of only a handful of poets whose work has been published as a Penguin Modern Classic in their own life time. A key figure of America's Black Arts Movement as both a writer an activist, she speaks to Tom about her life and career. A well-known actor, Andrew Buchan has now turned to writing with Passenger, the new ITV crimes drama set in the gothic landscape of the Lancashire-Yorkshire border. And Oxford's Ashmolean museum has a new exhibition of Flemish drawings, Bruegel to ...
Mar 25, 2024•43 min
The Independent’s chief film critic Clarisse Loughrey and the Telegraph’s film critic Tim Robey review the Oscar-nominated animation Robot Dreams which follows the friendship of a dog and a robot - can their bond survive Robot being locked up on Coney Island beach, after his joints rust over following a paddle in the sea? They also give their verdict on Apple TV’s drama Palm Royale, in which a former beauty queen longs to join the super-rich ladies who lunch in 1960s Florida. And on World Poetry...
Mar 21, 2024•42 min
Writer Kazuo Ishiguro and jazz musician Stacey Kent talk about collaborating on their new book of lyrics, The Summer We Crossed Europe in the Rain. What’s the significance of the hare in art and mythology? To mark the season of the March hare, writer Jane Russ, sculptor Sophie Ryder and musician Fay Hield explain. And following the British Board of Film Classification’s update to their guidance, film critic Larushka Ivan Zedah and professor of film Ian Christie ask what age ratings mean for audi...
Mar 20, 2024•42 min
Marjane Satrapi is best known for being the cartoonist and film maker behind Persepolis. She talks to Samira Ahmed about her new book - Woman, Life, Freedom - which she has created with 17 Iranian and international comic book artists. It documents the story of the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, a woman detained for allegedly not properly wearing the Islamic headscarf in 2022, and the subsequent protest movement which has swept Iran. In the Event of Moon Disaster is part of a new ex...
Mar 19, 2024•42 min
Daniel Libeskind, the architect best known for the Jewish Museum in Berlin and the World Trade Centre masterplan in New York, talks about designing a building to house Einstein’s archive in Jerusalem. As Germany celebrates the 250th birthday of the painter Caspar David Friedrich with three major exhibitions, art historians Louisa Buck and Waldemar Januszczak discuss the significance of the Romantic artist famous for his paintings of people in evocative landscapes. And the musician and composer K...
Mar 18, 2024•43 min
Labour leader Keir Starmer joins to discuss his party's new arts strategy, which he unveiled this morning, aiming to boost access to the arts and grow the creative industries. Writer and theologian Professor Tina Beattie and critic and broadcaster Matthew Sweet review Marilynne Robsinson’s new book Reading Genesis which offers a fresh look at the story of creation as told in the first book of the Bible. They also give their verdict on the Japanese filmmaker Kore-eda Hirokazu's new film Monster. ...
Mar 14, 2024•42 min
Paul Theroux discusses his new novel, Burma Sahib, about George Orwell’s formative years as a colonial police officer in what is now Myanmar. Voice expert Professor Patsy Rodenburg quit her job over fears that actors’ traditional “craft” skills are being lost, as screen acting overshadows theatre work. Sam Lee, Bernard Butler and James Keay perform live and talk about Sam's new album, Songdreaming. Sam draws on traditional songs to explore the richness and fragility of the natural world here in ...
Mar 13, 2024•42 min
Historical novelist Philippa Gregory talks to Nick Ahad about writing her first stage play, Richard, My Richard, for Shakespeare North Playhouse in Prescot. Unlike Shakespeare's, Gregory's play is a tender, passionate, portrait of man in his time, surrounded by the women who influence his fate. With Marvel, DC and Sony superhero films boring fans and the box office, Nick speaks with Comic Crush editor Paul Dunne and film journalist Feyi Adebanjo about what's gone wrong and if these billion dolla...
Mar 12, 2024•42 min
Beth Ditto talks to Tom Sutcliffe about reuniting with her band Gossip for their first new album in nearly a decade. Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke discuss collaborating as a husband and wife team on their new film, Drive Away Dolls. Michael Donkor discusses his new novel Grow Where They Fall, about a young British Ghanian teacher exploring his sexuality, heritage and past. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Paula McGrath
Mar 11, 2024•43 min
The up'n'coming Scottish country singer performs songs from his debut album It Is What It Is ahead of his debut solo performance at the Country To Country Festival in London this weekend. Plus, Susannah Clapp, the theatre critic for the Observer, and Boyd Hilton, the entertainment director of Heat Magazine, join to review the new play Nye at the National, which stars Michael Sheen as the politician who helped found the NHS and to look at the new football documentary Copa 71 about the real life s...
Mar 07, 2024•42 min
Ava DuVernay talks to Tom Sutcliffe about her latest film, Origin. It stars Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson, following her journey as she researches her best-selling book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents while dealing with personal tragedy. Gabriel García Márquez’s final novel Until August is being published posthumously today despite his final wishes. His son Gonzalo explains why, and critics Max Liu and Blake Morrison discuss the ethics of d...
Mar 06, 2024•43 min
The acclaimed English folk singer-songwriter Kate Rusby performs live and chats about her new Singy Songy Session Tour. Theatre critic Michael Billington celebrates the life and legacy of the provocative British playwright Edward Bond, whose death was announced today. Dr Stacy Smith, and film data researcher Stephen Follows, discuss Dr Smith's recent report revealing that the number of female film directors in Hollywood has fallen. And playwright Eve Steele on her new play, Work It Out, inspired...
Mar 05, 2024•43 min
Ray Winstone, star of Sexy Beast and Nil By Mouth, talks about new Netflix series The Gentlemen brought to television screens by director Guy Ritchie. K Patrick’s in the studio to read from their first collection of poetry Three Births, which explores nature, contemporary queer experience and pop-culture icons like Catwoman and George Michael. And folk duo Ferris & Sylvester perform live and discuss their new album, Otherness. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Corinna Jones...
Mar 04, 2024•42 min
This week sees the release of the much anticipated Dune part 2, the sequel to 2021’s part 1, a series based on Frank Herbert’s 1960’s sci fi classic. We also look at Marius von Mayenburg’s play Nachtland directed by Patrick Marber at the Young Vic in London and Angelica Kauffman: the Swiss artist finally gets a solo exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, more than 250 years after she was one of its founding members. Seán Williams and Sam Marlowe review. Plus, the 'unofficial poet Laureate of T...
Feb 29, 2024•43 min
Kate Molleson talks to Kaouther Ben Hania about her Oscar-nominated documentary Four Daughters, which explores the impact of two sisters fleeing to join Islamic State, by bringing in actors to play them alongside the rest of their family in Tunisia. We look at two new plays about British composer Benjamin Britten and the light they shed on a life shrouded with mystery and controversy. Kate is joined by Erica Whyman, the director of Ben and Imo by Mark Ravenhill, which is on at the Royal Shakespe...
Feb 28, 2024•42 min
Channel 4’s new reality TV series, The Jury: Murder Trial features a real-life murder case, re-run in front of two juries who are unaware of each other’s existence. Its creator Ed Kellie and BBC News' former legal affairs correspondent Clive Coleman discuss what the TV experiment tells us about how emotions can be swayed in the courtroom - and whether the juries will reach the same verdict. Susannah Gibson’s new book “Bluestockings: The First Women’s Movement” explores the often overlooked femal...
Feb 27, 2024•42 min
In an exclusive for Front Row, Sheridan Smith performs Magic, a song from her new musical Opening Night, which is directed by Ivo Van Hove, with music from Rufus Wainwright. They discuss creating the new musical, which is based on the 1970s film and follows an actress going through a breakdown as she prepares to open a new show on Broadway. Journalist Agnes Poirier on the French film awards the Cesars, and why they were overshadowed by allegations of male directors sexually abusing young female ...
Feb 26, 2024•42 min
Minority report, the Sci-Fi classic by Philip K Dick, has already been adapted for film and television and now it’s a stage play that employs an innovative mix of technology, stagecraft and live performance. As it opens at the Nottingham Playhouse, Mark Burman talks to some of the creatives involved. We review Wicked Little Letters, a black comedy starring Olivia Coleman and Jessie Buckley about a real-life poison pen letter writing campaign that scandalised a small seaside town in Sussex in 192...
Feb 22, 2024•42 min
Wim Wenders on his new Oscar nominated Japanese language film Perfect Days, about a toilet cleaner in Tokyo as he goes about his work. Koji Yakusho won the Best Actor Award when the film premiered at this year’s Cannes film festival, and the film has been dubbed ‘slow cinema’. Len Pennie came to prominence as a poet on social media during the Covid pandemic. As she publishes her first collection, Poyums, the feminist performance poet talks about writing predominantly in the Scots language. Angus...
Feb 21, 2024•42 min
Rhiannon Giddens, the musician, composer and former lead singer of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, performs live with her band. She talks about her work in uncovering the real history of the banjo and writing her first solo album of original material. Peter Sarsgaard discusses playing a man with early onset dementia in Memory, a performance that won him the Best Actor Award at last year’s Venice Film Festival. What is the role of a casting director? As the BBC launches Bring the Drama, a new progr...
Feb 20, 2024•42 min
Sir Peter Blake is famous for his Pop Art paintings, collages and album covers – and not just Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. But the artist, now 91, has throughout his career made three dimensional works. For the first time in two decades there is an exhibition devoted to these. Samira Ahmed meets the artist in the gallery on the eve of the opening of Peter Blake: Sculpture and Other Matters. Actor David Harewood is appointed the new President of RADA – the Royal Academy for the Dramatic...
Feb 19, 2024•42 min
The writer of Line of Duty, Jed Mercurio, a former doctor, turns his attention to the impact of the Covid pandemic on NHS staff and patients in the ITV drama Breathtaking. Tom Sutcliffe talks to him and co-writer Prasanna Puwanarajah, who’s also an ex-doctor, about the power of drama depicting recent events. The Arts Council England has come in for criticism for new guidance about “overtly political” art, guidelines that some artists felt could amount to censorship. Darren Henley, the Chief Exec...
Feb 15, 2024•42 min
Andrew Harding on the Radio 4 drama, A Small Stubborn Town, inspired by his work as the BBC Ukraine correspondent Emma Rice is one the UK’s most celebrated theatre-makers known for her musical and comedic approach, and with numerous innovative and successful productions such as Brief Encounter, The Red Shoes, and Tristan and Yseult, under her belt. As her latest production goes on a UK tour, she talks to Nick about reimagining that darkest of fairy tales, Blue Beard, as a feminist cri de coeur. ...
Feb 14, 2024•42 min
Stephen Sanchez found fame on Tik Tok, bringing his 1950s inspired music and style to an audience of young fans. At just 20 years old, he was Elton John’s guest on the main stage at Glastonbury. He talks to Samira Ahmed about his UK tour and performs two songs from his new album, Angel Face. What do Gen Z’s viewing habits mean for the future of TV and film? Dr Antonia Ward, Chief Futurist at Stylus, and Entertainment Reporter Palmer Haasch explain how the preferences of younger viewers are shapi...
Feb 13, 2024•42 min
Director Reinaldo Marcus Green talks to Tom Sutcliffe about One Love, his biopic about the legendary reggae singer-songwriter Bob Marley and his music. Bryce Dessner, the guitarist of the award-winning rock band The National, discusses his other life in classical music and writing a new concerto for pianist Alice Sara Ott, which is having its UK premiere at the Royal Festival Hall. This week the liturgical calendar marks the moment when Joseph was warned by an angel of King Herod’s intent to har...
Feb 12, 2024•43 min
Tom Sutcliffe talks to the Evening Standard’s Arts Editor Nancy Durrant and art historian and curator Catherine McCormack about a new adaptation of David Nicholls’s book, One Day, which is released on Netflix today. It follows Emma and Dexter who meet at their graduation in Edinburgh in the late 80s, as they weave in and out of each other’s lives. They also discuss Beyond Form: Lines of Abstraction, a new exhibition featuring the work of women artists who pushed at the boundaries of art-making i...
Feb 08, 2024•42 min
The Chosen, a self-funded TV drama about the life of Christ, has become an international hit with over 100 million views. The creator Dallas Jenkins explains why he wanted to make a bingeable series about Jesus and Priest Lucy Winkett and historian Joan Taylor discuss its impact and significance. The 1970s Soul Funk band Cymande has had a lasting influence on music globally, but they are little known in the UK where they first formed. Director Tim McKenzie Smith explored their music and impact i...
Feb 07, 2024•42 min
The Reytons' second album, What's Rock and Roll, debuted at No 1 in the charts - a rare feat for a band without a label. They discuss following it up with Ballad of a Bystander which features songs about pulling and politics. Phoebe Eclair-Powell on her Bruntwood Prize-winning play, Shed: Exploded View, which was inspired by the work of art Cornelia Parker created when she asked the British Army to blow up a garden shed, capturing the fragments in a frozen moment. The play centres on three coupl...
Feb 06, 2024•42 min
Oscar-winning director and artist Steve McQueen has collaborated with his partner, the writer and historian Bianca Stigter, to document the hidden histories of World War Two beneath the streets of modern day Amsterdam. The couple join Samira to discuss their mesmerising and poetic new film. Mojo brought him great success when he was just 26. Later came Jerusalem, the greatest play of the 20th century in the Daily Telegraph theatre critic’s opinion. Then, The Ferryman, also highly acclaimed. He h...
Feb 05, 2024•43 min
Today the British Museum unveils a new exhibition – Legion: Life in the Roman Army – on the lives of soldiers who helped conquer more than a million square miles of land, settling in communities from Scotland to the Red Sea. Elodie Harper – author of the Wolf Den trilogy - and critic Amon Warmann give their verdict on the exhibition as well as the new Amazon Prime spy comedy Mr & Mrs Smith - and how it compares with the 2005 Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie film version. And Tom Sutcliffe talks ...
Feb 01, 2024•42 min
