Where The Crawdads Sing: director Olivia Newman on bringing the multi-million copy best-selling novel to the big screen. Cinema Inferno: the new catwalk production by Leeds theatre company Imitating the Dog for fashion house Maison Margiela - combining theatre, film, and fashion show. Is this the future of haute couture? On Sonorous Seas: Hebridean artist Mhairi Killin on her multi-media exhibition on the Isle of Mull. Fusing sound, video, whalebone artefacts, and poetry, the work is inspired by...
Jul 20, 2022•42 min
Reflecting on his 50 years in fashion, designer Jean Paul Gaultier sits down with Samira Ahmed to talk about his life, Madonna, London and how it has inspired his new show at the Roundhouse Fashion Freak Show. An all party parliamentary report has been released documenting the current state of music touring. The Chief Executive of UK Music Jamie Njoku-Goodwin and Jack Brown of the band White Lies join the discussion. Much Ado about Nothing is this year’s Shakespeare play, with a production in St...
Jul 19, 2022•42 min
Karl Bartos, musician and composer, on his life in the German band Kraftwerk - as told in his new memoir The Sound of the Machine. Playwright and screenwriter Lucy Kirkwood on her play Maryland - devised in response to normalisation of violence against women, and originally staged at Royal Court Theatre in London in 2021, it has now been adapted for BBC TV screens. The Spooky Men’s Chorale: the strangely comedic but musically marvellous and popular Australian male voice choir stop off in the mid...
Jul 18, 2022•42 min
The new film Persuasion based on Jane Austen’s novel starring Dakota Johnson and directed by Carrie Cracknell has already attracted a lot of attention for its blend of 21st century millennial dialogue and Austen’s own words. And Peter Morgan, writer of The Crown, returns to the stage for his new play Patriots which looks at the rise of the oligarchs in Russia, in particular Boris Berezovsky, played by Tom Hollander, helping to secure the rise of Putin, played by Will Keen. Guardian foreign corre...
Jul 14, 2022•42 min
In the late 16th century, the Merseyside town of Prescot had the only purpose-built, indoor theatre outside London. Now the Shakespeare North Playhouse, a £38 million architectural representation of a Shakespearean stage, opens there this weekend. Samira Ahmed is joined by Laura Collier, the theatre’s creative director and the writer and performer Ashleigh Nugent who have co-curated Open Up, the opening festival. Front Row is hearing from the five museums nominated to be this year’s Museum of th...
Jul 13, 2022•42 min
Oscar winning Joker composer Hildur Guðnadóttir talks about her new commission for the BBC Proms, inspired by political division, and the difference between writing for films and games, ahead of the first BBC Prom devoted to gaming music. To discuss the government's National Plan for Music Education for schools in England, Tom is joined by Catherine Barker from United Learning, Colin Stuart from the Incorporated Society of Musicians, and Jimmy Rotheram, a music teacher at Feversham Primary Acade...
Jul 12, 2022•42 min
Jack Absolute Flies Again, at the National Theatre, is an adaptation of Sheridan’s comedy of manners The Rivals. Writers Richard Bean (who wrote One Man, Two Guvnors – a big hit) and Oliver Chris keep the original characters – Lydia Languish, Sir Anthony Absolute and the lexically challenged Mrs Malaprop – but move the action from 18th Century Bath to the Battle of Britain. Samira Ahmed talks to director Emily Burns about this, and to Peter Forbes, who plays Sir Anthony, about finding character ...
Jul 11, 2022•42 min
This week’s cultural critics, music journalist Jude Rogers and film critic Rhianna Dhillon, join Tom Sutcliffe to review a new Radio 3 drama, He Do The Waste Land in Different Voices, marking the centenary of poet T.S. Eliot’s Modernist masterpiece The Waste Land. They also discuss the film Brian and Charles, a mockumentary directed by Jim Archer, which follows a reclusive man who builds and befriends a robot in rural Wales. The Story Museum in Oxford is the latest of those to be shortlisted for...
Jul 07, 2022•42 min
The role of National Poet of Wales is demanding: ‘to represent the diverse cultures and languages of Wales at home and abroad, take poetry to new audiences, encourage others to use their creative voice to inspire positive change, be an ambassador for the people of Wales, advocating for the right to be creative and spread the message that literature belongs to everyone.’ Front Row will reveal who will be taking up that challenge, announcing who will be following Ifor ap Glyn as the new National P...
Jul 06, 2022•42 min
The American writer Claudia Rankine is best known for her poetry, which has won critical acclaim and international fans. She discusses her play The White Card, which was written during Donald Trump’s Presidency and examines race and privilege in America and beyond. Front Row is hearing from all the museums shortlisted for this year’s Museum of the Year and tonight it’s the turn of the Museum of Making in Derby. Geeta Pendse takes a walk around the museum and hears about how it’s showcasing the U...
Jul 05, 2022•42 min
Peter Brook: we look back on the life and career of the great theatre and film director, with critic Michael Billington. Gone With the Wind was an instant bestseller when it was published in 1936 and became the most successful Hollywood film ever. In her book, The Wrath to Come, Sarah Churchwell reveals its role in American myth-making, and how it foreshadows the controversies over race, gender, white nationalism, and violence that divide American society to this day. Joseph Coelho: the performa...
Jul 04, 2022•42 min
Best-selling novelist Lawrence Norfolk and award-winning writer Joanna Walsh review a new edition of All Our Yesterdays, a novel by the acclaimed post-war Italian novelist Natalia Ginzburg with a new introduction by author Sally Rooney. Lawrence and Joanna also review Sun & Sea, a Lithuanian opera performance about climate change staged on an artificial beach which the audience view from above, which won the is part of LIFT, London’s biennial international theatre festival. Sun & Sea was...
Jun 30, 2022•42 min
Curator Ekow Eshun on creating In The Black Fantastic: the UK’s first major exhibition dedicated to the work of Black artists who use fantastical elements to address racial injustice and explore alternative realities. With works from 11 contemporary artists from the African diaspora, it delves into myth, science fiction, traditions, and the legacy of Afrofuturism to address colonialism, racial politics and identity. Encompassing painting, photography, video, sculpture and mixed-media installatio...
Jun 29, 2022•44 min
Arthur Hughes, known for his roles in The Archers, in which he plays Ruairi, and the BBC2 drama Then Barbara Met Alan, details the significance of his portrayal as Richard III in the new RSC production as a disabled actor. Earlier this month the literary world was shocked by the announcement that after 50 years the Costa Book Awards, formerly the Whitbread, would be no more. What did this announcement mean and how healthy is the outlook for book prizes in the UK? Damian Barr was a judge last yea...
Jun 28, 2022•42 min
Playwright and BAFTA winning screenwriter Stephen Beresford has returned to writing for the stage with The Southbury Child, a co-production between The Chichester Festival Theatre and The Bridge Theatre in London. Stephen joins Samira to discuss his state of the nation play, focusing on a charismatic vicar at the centre of a controversy, in a Dartmouth parish in decline. Hive explores the life of a beehive over the four seasons of the year. Composer Sally Beamish visits the Front Row studio to t...
Jun 27, 2022•42 min
Critic Ben East and academic Catherine Love review Rock, Paper, Scissors, a trilogy of plays written by Chris Bush to mark the 50th anniversary of Sheffield Theatres and A Film About Studio Electrophonique, a documentary about Ken Patten's influential home studio in Sheffield. The three separate but interlinking plays will be performed simultaneously on the three stages of the Sheffield Theatres complex – Rock at the Crucible, Paper at the Lyceum and Scissors at Studio. A Film About Studio Elect...
Jun 23, 2022•42 min
Rowan Atkinson is associated with a lot of ‘B’s – Blackadder, Bean, bumbling British spies... and now bees. He plays an inept house-sitter in a luxury mansion chasing after an insect in Netflix’s new Man Vs Bee. He talks about this, his iconic characters, and why making comedy isn’t always that fun. Artist Thomas J Price’s Warm Shores, a pair of 9 foot tall bronze figures, have just been installed outside Hackney Town Hall in London to mark Windrush Day. 74 years on from the arrival of the SS Em...
Jun 22, 2022•42 min
As Glastonbury returns this week after a two year pandemic hiatus, a summer of festivals gets under way while some festivals are forced to cancel due to difficult conditions. We look at how the festival sector has struggled through the challenges of the last two years, and consider the importance of live music festivals to the UK economy and culture. Shahidha is joined live by Melvin Benn – Managing Director of Festival Republic and a director of Glastonbury Festival, Paul Reed CEO of the Associ...
Jun 21, 2022•42 min
Director Baz Luhrmann on the making of Elvis, his new biopic of Elvis Presley, starring Austin Butler and Tom Hanks. Director Mathilde Lopez talks about drawing on her heritage for a new production of Bizet's opera Carmen at Longborough Festival Opera. Theresa Heskins, Artistic Director of the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme on Tom, Dick and Harry, a new play about the escape attempt from Stalag Luft III in World War II. And Jessica Moor, author of the feminist thriller Keeper, singles out her 'mo...
Jun 20, 2022•43 min
National Theatre Wales is about to open a new production described as a live documentary performance, Circle of Fifths. With cast and stories drawn from the local community, and taking place inside and out, it combines film, performance, storytelling, live music and dance, to tell stories of life, death and grief. The director Gavin Porter joins Front Row to explain how it will work. Because of the bad behaviour of human the world keeps coming to an end. Fortunately there is an organisation of p...
Jun 16, 2022•42 min
Operatic tenor Freddie De Tommaso on his overnight breakthrough to stardom and performing at the First Night Of The Proms. We announce and speak to the winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction. John Byrne, the Scottish artist, playwright and theatre maker: arts critic Jan Patience reviews the new retrospective of his work, A Big Adventure, open now at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow. Plus, Kate visits the British Museum in London to see a collection of Ukrainian artefacts trafficked...
Jun 15, 2022•42 min
Chicago based artist Theaster Gates on The Black Chapel - his design for this year’s Serpentine Gallery pavilion, which is created each year by world class artists who have included Ai Wei Wei, Olafur Eliasson, Zaha Hadid, and Rem Koolhaus. The latest Pixar film is Lightyear, which tells the story of Buzz, the square-jawed astronaut, before he touched down in Andy’s toybox in Toy Story. After being marooned on a hostile planet with his commander and crew, Buzz valiantly tries to find his way bac...
Jun 14, 2022•42 min
Fresh from performing at the Queen's platinum jubilee concert, singer-songwriter George Ezra plays in the Front Row studio from his new album, Gold Rush Kid. James Graham's new BBC drama, Sherwood, is set in a Nottinghamshire mining village still scarred by the 1984 strike. Former BBC correspondent and journalist Triona Holden, who reported on the disputes at the time, joins Samira Ahmed live to review the new series. The new £500 million National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design has just ...
Jun 13, 2022•42 min
On our Thursday review panel this week: the film critic Leila Latif and Simon Goldhill, Professor of Greek Literature and Culture at the University of Cambridge, review the British comedy horror film All My Friends Hate Me, directed by Andrew Gaynord and Howard Brenton's play Cancelling Socrates, directed by Tom Littler at the Jermyn Street Theatre in London. And the last of our author interviews with the writers shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Ruth Ozeki is a novelist, filmmaker ...
Jun 09, 2022•42 min
Artist Paula Rego remembered. Following the sad news today of the death of one of the most important figurative painters of our times, we look back on her life and work with art critic Louisa Buck. Outgoing Children’s Laureate Cressida Cowell on why she’s pushing the government to invest £100 million in primary school libraries. Stones in his Pockets. 25 years on, the celebrated stage play returns to the Lyric Theatre in Belfast, with several Northern Irish stars making cameo appearances, includ...
Jun 08, 2022•42 min
Ayanna Witter-Johnson is a singer-songwriter, cellist and composer blurring the boundaries of classical, jazz, reggae and R&B. Performing live in the Front Row studio with Stephen Upshaw, viola player with the Solem Quartet, Ayanna reworks the roots reggae sound of The Abyssinians and shares part of her Island Suite, inspired by the poetry and storytelling traditions of Jamaica. During the height of pandemic lockdowns streaming of plays from theatres became popular – making them more accessi...
Jun 07, 2022•42 min
Africa Oyé, the UK's largest festival of music from the continent of Africa, celebrates its 30th anniversary in Liverpool's Sefton Park this month. Its Artistic Director, Paul Duhaney, discusses the festival's history and chooses three tracks of music that reflect Africa Oyé's growth and reputation. What is a queer poem? Poets Mary Jean Chan and Andrew McMillan talk to Nick Ahad about how they explore that question in their new anthology, 100 Queer Poems - poems from across the twentieth century...
Jun 06, 2022•42 min
To celebrate the Queen’s platinum jubilee, Front Row discusses some of the cultural highlights of 1952. Samira Ahmed is joined by broadcaster Dame Joan Bakewell, historian Matthew Sweet, film critic Anil Sinanan and the 20th Century Society’s Catherine Croft. They discuss Barbara Pym’s novel Excellent Women, the Bollywood classic Aan, surreal sounds of The Goon Show, how the emerging architecture and style of 1952 influenced the rest of the decade and BBC radio's Caribbean Voices....
Jun 02, 2022•42 min
Anthony Joseph – poet, musician, and academic – joins us to talk about his new poetry collection, Sonnets for Albert, which considers the personal impact of his absent father, and performs a selection of pieces. Tracey Emin talks to Natasha Raskin Sharp at Jupiter Artland sculpture park near Edinburgh, where her new exhibition includes a giant bronze female figure lying down in the woods, paintings of beds, and other work reflecting on the possibility of love after hardship. Director of Film at ...
Jun 01, 2022•42 min
Actor Rory Kinnear plays ten characters- all the male roles but one- in the new psychological horror film from Alex Garland, Men. He joins Samira Ahmed to discuss how he approached playing multiple roles in this exploration of fear and loathing in the English countryside. The UK’s new City of Culture 2025 is announced. The Minister of Arts, Lord Parkinson reveals which bid from the shortlist of Bradford, County Durham, Southampton and Wrexham County Borough has been successful and what the title...
May 31, 2022•42 min
