Zadie Smith talks about the art of the essay, as she publishes a non-fiction collection, Dead and Alive. Brenda Blethyn discusses her new film Dragonfly, for which she's just been nominated for Best Joint Performance at the British Independent Film Awards along with her co-star Andrea Riseborough. In the last of Front Row's interviews with the authors shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Samira talks to Andrew Miller about his novel The Land in Winter, set in the Big Freeze of I962-3. Film scholar ...
Nov 03, 2025•42 min
Tahmima Anam and Tristram Fane Saunders join Tom Sutcliffe to review The Eleventh Hour, a collection of five short stories from Salman Rushdie in his first return to fiction since he was attacked in 2022. Director of Poor Things and The Favourite Yorgos Lanthimos brings more strangeness to cinema screens with Bugonia, a thriller with Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons. And Alan Hollinghurst's Booker Prize-winning novel The Line of Beauty is adapted for the stage by Jack Holden. Plus they discuss censo...
Oct 30, 2025•42 min
Live from Derry. As the climax of the current series approaches, actors Dearbháile McKinney and Martin McCann, two of the cast of hit police series Blue Lights, talk about their roles. Writer John Morton talks to us about his play Denouement, a darkly comic tale set in the run-up to apocalyptic events in 2048 and which is receiving its world premiere at the Belfast International Arts Festival. And as Europe's largest Halloween Festival opens in Derry, writer Jan Carson and Kate Byrne, who teache...
Oct 29, 2025•42 min
In tribute to Prunella Scales, whose death was announced today, Front Row rebroadcasts an interview with the Fawlty Towers star from 2012, recorded on the eve of her 80th birthday. Samira talks to two documentary makers who gained extraordinary access to world leaders for their films. Tommy Gulliksen followed Nato Chief Jens Stoltenberg for his film Facing War, and Petra Costa followed several Brazilian Presidents for her films Apocalypse in the Tropics and The Edge of Democracy. Annemarie Jacir...
Oct 28, 2025•42 min
Actor Reese Witherspoon on why she's teamed up with thriller writer Harlan Coben to write a novel called Gone Before Goodbye, about a struck-off army surgeon who uncovers a global conspiracy. Colin Farrell discusses his new film Ballad of a Small Player, about a gambler on the verge of losing everything, which is directed by Oscar winner Edward Berger. What is the best amount of time to look at a work of art? Professor Jennifer Roberts from Harvard University has the answer. Today University Aca...
Oct 27, 2025•42 min
Tom Sutcliffe and guests review the Bruce Springsteen film, Deliver Me From Nowhere, which tells the story of his recording of the album Nebraska Also there's a new book from the late Harper Lee: The Land of Sweet Forever, comprising newly discovered short stories and previously-published essays and magazine pieces. Is it a posthumous intellectual property trawl or does it offer an insight that can increase our appreciation of her undisputed masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird. And Nick Payne's n...
Oct 23, 2025•42 min
Bestselling thriller writer John Grisham on his latest book, The Widow, in which a smalltown lawyer from Virginia finds himself accused of a serious crime after he develops a professional relationship with a wealthy woman who may not be all that she seems. We hear from writer-director Kelly Reichardt and from actor Josh O'Connor who plays an art thief in her latest film The Mastermind. Dutch art historian and detective Arthur Brand gives an update on the real-life robbery of France's crown jewel...
Oct 22, 2025•42 min
Comedy giant Steve Martin on making new bluegrass music with pioneering banjo player Alison Brown with their new album, Safe, Sensible, and Sane. Filmmaker Nia DaCosta on her cinematic retelling of Ibsen's classic play, Hedda Gabbler. Sharon Heal, Director of the Museums Association on British industrial heritage emerging from the cultural shadows. Senior curator at the Horniman Museum, Heba Abd el Gawad, and Egyptologist Dr Campbell Price on the enduring influence of Egyptology on culture. Pres...
Oct 21, 2025•42 min
Cathy Tyson stars in the Leicester Curve Theatre production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee. She talks about the demanding, drunken role of Martha. Jewellery expert Joanna Hardy discusses the robbery of France's Crown Jewels from the Louvre Museum in Paris. As AI becomes an increasingly powerful tool, we speak to two artists who are experimenting with technology in music production, Todd Rundgren and Holly Herndon. And Samira talks to the Booker shortisted author David Szalay ...
Oct 20, 2025•42 min
Guillermo Del Toro talks about his new Frankenstein film and our critics deliver their verdict. Julia Roberts plays a college professor whose career becomes entangled in campus sexual politics, in Luca Guadanino's After The Hunt. Hollie McNish's poetry collection "Virgin" unpicks the meaning of the word and the man-made concept beneath it. Presenter Samira Ahmed Reviewers: Larushka Ivan-Zadeh and Lindsay Johns
Oct 16, 2025•42 min
Singer songwriter Richard Ashcroft - former frontman of The Verve - talks about the material on his new album Lovin You, and about supporting Oasis on their reunion tour this summer. A play without a script which questions the impact of AI on our lives and celebrates the ingenuity of human actors: Writer Nathan Ellis and actor Roisin Gallagher join us live to talk about Instructions, which is being performed next week at the Belfast International Arts Festival. As an exhibition of work by the da...
Oct 15, 2025•42 min
Sam Ryder talks to Samira about his career, gaining Eurovision success with Space Man and he performs the song Armour live, a track from his forthcoming album Heartland. With chart topping songs and a global smash hit animated film, directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans talk about creating the phenomenon that is KPop Demon Hunters. The Pulitzer prize winning African American writer Hilton Als and biographer Miranda Seymour discuss author Jean Rhys. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Claire Ba...
Oct 14, 2025•42 min
Pianist Lang Lang's 2019 album Piano Book was one of the best selling classical albums that year, with over a billion streams and counting. He’s now followed it up with Piano Book 2, an eclectic selection of 32 short works from both classical and contemporary composers. He came into the studio to talk to us about the album and to play for us. Diane Keaton passed away on Saturday, at the age of 79. She spoke to Front Row in 2017, where she discussed her philosophy around style and fashion. The Bo...
Oct 13, 2025•42 min
Alexander Larman and Susannah Clapp join Tom to discuss I Swear, a film which tells the life story of John Davidson MBE who was diagnosed with Tourette's age 15. They also talk about Thomas Pynchon's new novel Shadow Ticket. Booker shortlisted novelist Tibor Fischer assesses the Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai who has won the Nobel Prize in Literature. As the complete works of Seamus Heaney is published, Owen McDonnell reads the previously unpublished poem Swallow. Plus, Tom and guests dis...
Oct 09, 2025•42 min
Actor Tamsin Greig discusses her role in Sally Wainwright's latest drama series, Riot Women, in which a group of middle-aged women in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, form a band of anarchist rock musicians. Booker Prize-shortlisted author Susan Choi tells us about her sprawling historical epic, Flashlight, set against the backdrop of the shared history of America, Japan and Korea. Conservation specialist Will Palin on the historic refurbishment of a series of magnificent murals by the great artis...
Oct 08, 2025•43 min
Artist Marina Abramović on the world premiere of her largest-scale performance artwork - Balkan Erotic Epic - at Aviva Studios in Manchester. BBC Culture reporter Noor Nanji on the Riyadh Comedy Festival which has divided the comedy world. Poets Max Wallis and Dr Anna Percy on poetry and mental health as their new poetry magazine, The Aftershock Review, makes an impressive debut. Clare Wood, Artistic Director and Chief Executive of the British Ceramics Biennial on the festival's new internationa...
Oct 07, 2025•42 min
Film director Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win the Best Director Oscar for The Hurt Locker. She discusses her new film A House of Dynamite, which also looks at war, with Samira Booker-winner Kiran Desai has been nominated for her new novel - 2 decades in the writing; The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny. Islam Issa and Ben Luke join Samira to discuss 'what are the humanities for and where are they headed'? And we pay tribute to Dame Jilly Cooper who has died at the age of 88. We speak ...
Oct 06, 2025•42 min
The Smashing Machine director Benny Safdie talks to Tom Sutcliffe about making his biographical drama about the life of mixed martial arts fighter Mark Kerr. Tom is also joined by critics Boyd Hilton and Natalie Jamieson to review Safdie’s film – which stars wrestler turned actor Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson and Emily Blunt. They also discuss a major retrospective of photographer Lee Miller at Tate Britain. Plus they talk about Ben Elton’s autobiography What Have I Done? Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Pr...
Oct 02, 2025•42 min
Steve Coogan on his new spoof documentary series. in which his alter ego Alan Partridge returns from some time in Saudia Arabia to tackle one of the most pressing issues of our time: mental health. In the first of our interviews with writers shortlisted for this year's Booker Prize, American novelist Katie Kitamura discusses her book Audition, a story told through the first person voice of an unnamed actor, which explores the roles we play in public and private. As Black History Month begins, an...
Oct 01, 2025•43 min
Tom Sutcliffe hosts the ceremony for the 2025 BBC National Short Story Award and Young Writers Award live from BBC Broadcasting House. Judges William Boyd, Lucy Caldwell, Ross Raisin and Joseph Coehlo discuss what makes a great short story. This is the 20th anniversary of the BBC National Short Story Award and you can hear all the shortlisted stories on BBC Sounds. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Harry Graham
Sep 30, 2025•42 min
Actor Matthew McConaughey talks with Samira about The Lost Bus; a nerve shredding film based on a true story about a school bus driver who rescued 22 children and their teacher from raging wildfires in California Rising British actor Harris Dickinson talks about his debut film as a director; Urchin. It explores homelessness on London’s streets, being in the running to play James Bond and his up-coming role as John Lennon in Sam Mendes' new Beatles biopic out next year. Author of The Rachel Incid...
Sep 29, 2025•42 min
Leonardo DiCaprio and director Paul Thomas Anderson tell Tom about their new film One Battle After Another. Our reviewers tonight are film critic Tim Robey and theatre critic Sarah Crompton. They also review The Land of the Living, David Lan's new play for the National Theatre, directed by Stephen Daldry and starring Juliet Stevenson . And Patricia Lockwood's latest novel Will There Ever Be Another You? Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Eliane Glaser
Sep 25, 2025•42 min
Will & Grace star Eric McCormack tells us about his latest screen role – in the new BBC One thriller series Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue. McCormack plays one of nine people who survive a plane crash in the Mexican jungle, and aren't aware that a murderer might be lurking in their midst. We hear the true story of a bear who was adopted from a Highland wildlife park in the 70s and became a star of stage and screen, caddying for Bob Hope on the golf course and playing a cameo role in a Bond ...
Sep 24, 2025•43 min
Peaky Blinders' screenwriter Stephen Knight on his new TV series, House of Guinness. Indhu Rubasingham talks about her vision as the new Artistic Director for the National Theatre and her first production there - Bacchae Art critic Waldemar Januszczak has been to see the Turner Prize Exhibition for us, which this year is in Bradford. We find out what he makes of it. Former Booker winner Roddy Doyle on the 6 books shortlisted for this year's Booker Prize. Presenter: Samira Ahmed...
Sep 23, 2025•42 min
Johnny Carson, David Letterman and Jay Leno made the late night talk wildly popular viewing for American audiences for decades, but those days are fading fast thanks to declining ratings and ad revenue. Now, with two of today's biggest late night shows are in trouble after offending President Trump, we speak to the New York Times chief TV critic, James Poniewozik after the future of these show. This weekend the sculptor Martin Jennings was announced as the designer of the statue at the new natio...
Sep 22, 2025•42 min
A special edition of Front Row live from the Contains Strong Language Festival, the BBC's annual celebration of poetry, performance and the spoken word. With live music from Antony Szmierek. Jeremy Dyson on his new Radio 4 drama High Cockalorum which spins a new tale out of a visit to Yorkshire made by Hollywood legend James Mason. Poet Emma Conally-Barklem and Kristina Diprose, one of the writers for the Wandering Imaginations project at the Brontë Parsonage, discuss the Brontë sisters as a sou...
Sep 18, 2025•42 min
In our weekly review show, Kirsty Wark is joined by writer and critic Hannah McGill and writer and journalist Alan Taylor to discuss What Can We Know, the latest novel from Booker Prize winning writer Ian McEwan, an epic story set in a largely underwater Britain a hundred years in the future which touches on themes including climate change and great poetry. They also give their verdicts on Frances Poet's Small Acts of Love, a musical theatre production inspired by relationships formed across the...
Sep 17, 2025•42 min
As news has broken of the death of Robert Redford aged 89, Front Row looks back over his astonishing career, from roles in iconic films such as All The President's Men and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, to his environmental activism and his support for independent films through the Sundance Film Festival. Mark Ronson talks about his new memoir, Night People, reflecting on his rise from DJ to superstar producer behind hits such as Uptown Funk and Amy Winehouse's Back to Black album. Caoilinn...
Sep 16, 2025•43 min
Robert Plant on his journey from Led Zeppelin to his latest album of folk songs. Creator of V for Vendetta and Watchmen, Alan Moore is probably the world's most acclaimed writer of comic books, a medium he now eschews. Moving into novels, he has explored his hometown Northampton in widely praised work like Jerusalem, but his latest - The Great When - is an otherworldly exploration of literary London, inspired by the psychogeography of Iain SInclair and horror writing of Arthur Machen. From Seura...
Sep 15, 2025•43 min
Writer Jenny McCartney and journalist and screenwriter Sarfraz Manzoor join Tom Sutcliffe to discuss the David Bowie Centre at the V&A East Storehouse in London – the new home for the Bowie archive, where visitors can book one-on-one time with items. They also discuss the film Spinal Tap II- the sequel to the cult 1984 mockumentary about a heavy metal band. Plus Jung Chang’s Fly, Wild Swans – the follow up to her best-selling family autobiography Wild Swans. And we’ll be revealing the shortl...
Sep 11, 2025•42 min
