Front Row reviews the week’s cultural highlights. Samira Ahmed is joined by critics Sarah Crompton and Isabel Stevens to discuss William Oldroyd’s new film Eileen and a production of The House of Bernarda Alba at the National Theatre. The Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan, who is often described as one of the 20th Century’s greatest song-writers, has died age 65. Irish broadcaster John Kelly remembers him. Ian Youngs reports from Bristol’s new music venue Bristol Beacon, formerly Colston Hall, whic...
Nov 30, 2023•42 min
Since 1994 Sir Richard Mantle has been General Director of Opera North. He's led the company through the creation of a new home in Leeds; the establishment of the Howard Assembly Room - a performance space for all kinds of music; and many award-winning opera productions. As he leaves the company, at a time when cuts to opera funding have been making headlines, he joins Front Row to discuss why he thinks opera has much to contribute to culture in the UK. Singer-songwriter Billie Marten, from Ripo...
Nov 29, 2023•42 min
Michael Connelly is one of several authors suing the tech company OpenAI for "theft" of his work. Nicola Solomon, outgoing Society of Authors CEO, and Sean Michaels, one of the first novelists to use AI, discuss the challenges and opportunities facing writers on the cusp of a new technological era. What makes a great piece of terrible album artwork? The Williamson Gallery & Museum in Birkenhead is currently displaying nearly 500 albums which have been collected over a seven year period by St...
Nov 28, 2023•42 min
For what would have been the 100th birthday of soprano Maria Callas, Front Row brought together singer Dame Sarah Connolly and music critic Fiona Maddocks to reassess her achievements and influence in the world of opera. After successfully teaming up during the pandemic to create the album, Lost in the Cedar Wood, musician and actor Johnny Flynn and nature writer and poet Robert Macfarlane talk to Tom about their second collaboration – The Moon Also Rises, and Johnny performs live in the Front R...
Nov 27, 2023•42 min
A special edition of Front Row, live from the Booker Prize for Fiction. Samira Ahmed is joined on stage by Booker Prize judges actor Adjoa Andoh and Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro to discuss this year’s shortlist, before the chair of judges, novelist Esi Edugyan, announces the winner live on air. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who spent six years in detention in Iran, gives the keynote speech about the power of literature to take us to another world. Front Row will also hear from all this year’s ...
Nov 26, 2023•29 min
Bradley Cooper’s prosthetic nose has attracted a lot of media attention for Maestro, his portrayal of the composer Leonard Bernstein. Tom Sutcliffe asks music critic Nicholas Kenyon and writer and cultural commentator Zoe Williams what they thought of Cooper’s directorial debut – which he spent years preparing for, studying his speech patterns and copying how he conducted Mahler symphonies. They also review Netflix’s Squid Game: The Challenge – a new reality TV spin-off of the hit Korean drama. ...
Nov 23, 2023•43 min
In her acclaimed films Joanna Hogg blurs the lines between her art and her life. As she releases her first ghost story film, The Eternal Daughter - an exploration of a mother and daughter relationship with Tilda Swinton playing both roles, she talks to Antonia Quirke about the craft involved in making art inspired by her life. Satellite imagery might make maps today more accurate, but we haven’t stopped wanting to see creative, imaginative maps that are also about story telling, from illustratio...
Nov 22, 2023•42 min
Tom Sutcliffe talks to director Ridley Scott about his new film Napoleon - a subject that takes him back to an actor who’s played an emperor for him before – Joaquin Phoenix was Commodus in Gladiator – and back to the period in which his very first film. The Duellists was set. A fifth of the seats at the Royal Albert Hall are owned by just over 300 people - who can choose to enjoy performances or sell the tickets on at a profit. We hear from Richard Lyttelton, a former President of the Royal Alb...
Nov 21, 2023•42 min
Thomas Guthrie and “The Alehouse Boys” bring the music of Schubert to pubs with their new album Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin. Their arrangements of Schubert’s song cycle intend to break free from the formality of established lieder recitals, returning to its original improvisational form. In the last of our Booker shortlist series this week, Samira interviews Canadian 2023 Giller Prize-winning novelist Sarah Bernstein. Her second novel, Study for Obedience, explores the inner thoughts of its u...
Nov 20, 2023•42 min
Annette Bening and Jodie Foster star in a new sports biopic Nyad, the eponymous story of Diana Nyad who attempted to swim between Cuba and Florida in her 60s. In an exclusive interview for Front Row, Tom Sutcliffe talks to them about meeting their real-life counterparts, the importance of on screen friendship and getting time to train in the ocean. Briony Hanson, British Council’s Director of Film and Kevin Le Gendre, author and journalist, review Rustin, a film about Bayard Rustin, the influent...
Nov 16, 2023•43 min
Ian McMillan explains the challenge of translating Rossini's comedy opera, The Barber of Seville, into Yorkshire dialect and singers Oscar Castellino and Felicity Buckland along with pianist Pete Durant perform two of the Yorkshire-ised arias from this new production live in the Front Row studio. Our relationships with art objects is a subject that many visual artists are currently exploring. Two such artists are Johanna Billing and Stuart Semple who joined Nick in the Front Row studio to discus...
Nov 15, 2023•43 min
Emerald Fennell’s follow-up to her award-winning film Promising Young Woman aims to have cinema-goers squirming in their seats. The mystery drama Saltburn explores class, as an awkward outsider spends the summer at a large country house. The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the Rt Hon Lucy Frazer KC MP discusses her plans to reach the targets set out in the Government’s Creative Industries Sector Vision. In this week’s interview with a Booker shortlisted author, Tom speaks to the...
Nov 14, 2023•42 min
The UK’s first art, film and photography galleries dedicated to war and conflict have just opened at the Imperial War Museum. Al Murray, who has made several documentaries about Britain’s wars, and Rachel Newell, Head of Art at the Imperial War Museum, join Samira Ahmed to discuss the new galleries. Director Todd Haynes talks about his new film May December which stars Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman. The black comedy drama follows an actress who travels to Georgia to meet a controversial wom...
Nov 13, 2023•42 min
Tonight on Front Row - reviews of something old and something new. At this year's Cannes Film Festival, Anatomy of a Fall, a whodunnit fused with a portrait of a marriage and wrapped up in courtroom drama, won the Palme d'Or, and thirty years ago today, hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan released their seminal debut album, Enter The Wu-Tang Clan (36 Chambers). Musician and writer Bob Stanley, and music journalist Vie Marshall have been watching and listening and share their thoughts On the side of a pub...
Nov 09, 2023•42 min
To mark 400 hundred years to the day since the First Folio of Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies was published according to the True Original Copies, the BBC is celebrating this with a season of Shakespeare programmes. Front Row is looking aslant at the other artistic, literary and cultural events of 1623. Tom Sutcliffe hears from artist historian Karen Hearn about the impact of the first Palladian building in England and what was being painted. Lucy Munro traces the ...
Nov 08, 2023•42 min
Singer, songwriter and activist Billy Bragg joins Samira Ahmed to perform live in the Front Row studio and discuss The Roaring Forty, a box set and nationwide tour to mark his forty years in the music industry. Women in Revolt, a new exhibition of Feminist art of the 70s and 80s, opens this week at the Tate Britain in London. Musician and punk artist Helen McCookerybook and art historian Catherine McCormack discuss the impact of the era. In the latest in Front Row’s series of interviews with the...
Nov 07, 2023•43 min
Rebecca Lucy Taylor also known as Self Esteem is making her stage debut in the Olivier-award winning production of Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club in London as Sally Bowles, the English nightclub singer in thirties Berlin. She tells Samira how the late Paula Yates was an inspiration. The details of a long awaited UK wide Arts Access Scheme are finally being revealed tonight on Front Row. The scheme aims to improve the experience of people with disabilities and neurodivergent people going to creative...
Nov 06, 2023•42 min
Coming under the Front Row spotlight today are: Kenneth Branagh’s new stage production of King Lear, in which he both stars and directs, and How to Have Sex, a new coming of age film about the trend for post-exam holidays abroad, by first time director Molly Manning Walker, and which won the Un Certain Regard award at Cannes this summer. Theatre critic Susannah Clapp and journalist and Good Bad Billionaire podcast host Zing Tsjeng review. A new track by The Beatles dubbed their “final song” has ...
Nov 02, 2023•42 min
From 1974 to 1984 Henry Winkler played the character of Arthur Fonzarelli, “The Fonz”, in the hit American sitcom, Happy Days. The role dominated the public’s perception of him, but despite being seen as the epitome of cool, he had many of his own demons to wrestle with. Henry joins Front Row to discuss his new autobiography, Being Henry: The Fonz…and Beyond. The composer David Fennessy on his piece Conquest of the Useless which is being performed in Glasgow this weekend. It was inspired by Wern...
Nov 01, 2023•42 min
To mark Halloween, Duran Duran have released Danse Macabre, a “spooky concept” album. Samira talks to Simon Le Bon and John Taylor about working with Nile Rogers, covering The Specials’ Ghost Town and taking pop music seriously. This evening Filkin’s Drift play the last of almost 50 concerts, concluding their two month that has seen them travel 870 miles…on foot. The duo has walked from gig to gig, carrying their instruments. As they reach Chepstow they tell Samira about their approach to sustai...
Oct 31, 2023•42 min
Backstairs Billy is a new play about Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon, the Queen Mother, and her loyal, camp and working class servant, William Tallon. Penelope Wilton, who plays the Queen Mother, and Luke Evans, who plays her Steward and Page, talk to Tom Sutcliffe about creating these characters. Jonathan Escoffery has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his novel If I Survive You. Through a series of interlinked short stories it explores issues of race, masculinity and living in t...
Oct 30, 2023•43 min
The Killer, starring Michael Fassbender, has been hailed as a return to tense and stylish form for the director David Fincher. Critics Rhianna Dhillon and John Mullan join Tom Sutcliffe to give their views on this new take on the assassin genre. They also venture into uncanny realms with a review of Fantasy: Realms of Imagination, a new exhibition at the British Library which charts tales of fairies, folklore and flights of fancy from Ancient Greece to the modern day. Comedian and gamer Ellie Gi...
Oct 26, 2023•43 min
Daniel Rachel’s book Too Much Too Young: The 2 Tone Records Story is a new history of the iconic record label. He’s joined by Pauline Black, lead singer of The Selecter, to discuss the cultural impact of the Ska music it released. Actor Martin Shaw remembers the late, great theatre impresario Bill Kenwright, whose productions included Willy Russell's Blood Brothers and Andrew Lloyd-Webber's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, who has died at the age of 78. The game of squash and a fami...
Oct 25, 2023•42 min
Sir Patrick Stewart's memoir Making It So looks back over his long and eclectic acting career encompassing stage, film and television and video games. He has played roles in productions as varied as I, Claudius, Shakespeare and Star Trek: the Next Generation. Samira talks to him about his journey from a poor childhood in Yorkshire to Hollywood. The history and culture of the skateboard is the subject of an exhibition at London's Design Museum. Associate curator Tory Turk and film-maker and skate...
Oct 24, 2023•42 min
Aviva Studios, a reportedly £240 million pound arts complex, has opened in Manchester with Free Your Mind, an immersive stage version of The Matrix from Oscar winning director Danny Boyle. Joining presenter Nick Ahad to discuss the arrival of the UK’s biggest new cultural venue - and its inaugural production- are playwright and critic Charlotte Keatley and architecture writer and lecturer Paul Dobraszczyk. The Chemical Brothers- AKA Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons- reflect on their 30 year journey fr...
Oct 23, 2023•42 min
Film critic Ryan Gilbey and music and club culture writer Kate Hutchinson deliver their verdict on Hackney Diamonds - the first new Rolling Stones album for 18 years – and Garth Davis’ film Foe, which is based on a sci-fi novel by Iain Reid and stars Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal. Lessons in Chemistry was 2022’s hit novel about a thwarted chemist who becomes an early TV cook. It’s now been turned into a series for Apple TV, starring Brie Larson, complete with authentic 1950s food. Chef and cookb...
Oct 19, 2023•42 min
Musical theatre legend Bonnie Langford performs Stephen Sondheim's I'm Still Here from the musical Follies, in tribute to the late composer and lyricist. The actress, singer and dancer reflects on her career from West End child star to appearing in Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends, the starry revue show running at London's Gielgud Theatre. Documentary filmmaker Maysoon Pachachi makes her feature film debut with Our River…Our Sky, set in Baghdad during the winter of 2006, three years after the US-l...
Oct 18, 2023•42 min
Two adaptations of Rhinoceros by Eugène Ionesco open this month, one in Belfast and a Welsh language adaptation in Cardiff. The adaptors Patrick J O’Reilly and Manon Steffan Ros both join Kathy Clugston to discuss how this 1950s play about the rise of Fascism speaks to audiences now. Singer Cara Dillon is known globally for her interpretations of traditional Irish songs. As she performs at the Belfast International Arts Festival, she explains why she’s taking a new direction with her upcoming al...
Oct 17, 2023•43 min
Madonna is still in the spotlight 45 years after bursting onto the pop scene in the 1980s, inspiring fashion, dance and youth culture, as well as being the world’s best-selling female artist of all time. Author of the biography Madonna: A Rebel Life, Mary Gabriel explores what’s behind her enduring influence and music critic Pete Paphides assesses last night’s Celebration tour performance, rescheduled after her recent serious health scare. The latest film from director Martin Scorcese focuses on...
Oct 16, 2023•43 min
Samira Ahmed is joined by critics Anne Joseph and Nancy Durrant to review some of this week’s cultural highlights. They discuss the new series of the classic TV comedy Frasier, which is returning to our screens after nearly two decades, and a new exhibition, Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style. Martin Hayes has gone from playing the fiddle in his father’s ceilidh band in County Clare to performing for President Obama at the White House. Martin brings his band, The Common Groun...
Oct 12, 2023•42 min
