Ins Choi, the creator of the Netflix hit comedy series, Kim’s Convenience, talks about getting past stereotypes, keeping audiences on edge and bringing his original Korean-Canadian stage version of the show to the Park Theatre in north London. Tom Sutcliffe asks author and journalist Rachel Cooke and children's author and representative of the Society of Authors Abie Longstaff about the impact of the cyberattack on the British Library. Do we need to set more films and tv series in the present? C...
Jan 09, 2024•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Yorgis Lanthimos’ black comedy Poor Things won Best Film and Best Actress for its star Emma Stone at last night’s Golden Globe awards, so this evening we’re joined by critics Leila Latif and James Marriott for a review of the much hyped film ahead of its release in the UK on Friday. Warhammer 40,000 is one of the most popular games in the world. Recently the makers finalised a deal with Amazon which has the potential to bring its miniature characters and battlefield stories to the big screen. Th...
Jan 08, 2024•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Priscilla is Sofia Coppola’s film about Priscilla Beaulieu who first met Elvis Presley when she was 14 years old and later became his wife. Critics Hannah Strong and Ryan Gilbey review it. They also look at Kagami, a mixed-reality posthumous concert featuring the music of Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. The power of music often relies on the spaces between the notes. Sarah Anderson’s book The Lost Art of Silence explores the quality of absence and she discusses this with the music broadcaste...
Jan 04, 2024•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the work for which he is best known, the multi-award winning television sitcom, Schitt’s Creek, as well as being the show’s creator, Dan Levy played the capricious David Rose whose wedding with his business partner, Patrick Brewer, was the focus of the final episode. He discusses new Netflix movie, Good Grief, which marks his debut as a film director and in which he plays a man blindsided by the unexpected death of his husband. Poets Lemn Sissay and Lily Blacksell join Front Row to reflect on...
Jan 03, 2024•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Boys in the Boat tells the story of the surprise success of the US rowing team at 1936 Munich Olympics. Samira talks to the director George Clooney and its star Callum Turner. Writer Gwyneth Hughes talks about her new ITV production, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, which dramatises what has been called the biggest miscarriage of justice in British legal history, the prosecution of hundreds of sub-postmasters and mistresses as a result of a flawed computer accounting system. The Scala cinema in ...
Jan 02, 2024•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast One of the TV hits of 2023, Ghosts returns for a one-off special on Christmas Day. Festive viewing for many families will also probably include other work by one of its creators, Simon Farnaby, who co-wrote Wonka as well as the Paddington films. Critics Kate Maltby and Boyd Hilton review Donmar Warehouse’s Macbeth starring David Tennant and Cush Jumbo – which includes headphones for the audience. They also give Samira Ahmed their verdict on Next Goal Wins, the film version of the documentary abo...
Dec 21, 2023•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Acclaimed English folk group The Unthanks are currently touring the UK with what they describe as a winter fantasia - a mix of traditional and newly written songs inspired by winter and Christmas. They join Front Row, as the winter solstice draws near, to discuss and perform some of the songs they've been playing. Screenwriter Lucinda Coxon talks to Nick Ahad about her new film One Life which stars Anthony Hopkins as humanitarian Nicholas Winton, who helped to rescue Jewish children from Czechos...
Dec 20, 2023•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Adam Driver stars in Michael Mann’s film Ferrari, set in the summer of 1957 as the ex-racer turned entrepreneur Enzo Ferrari pushes his drivers to the limit on a thousand mile race across Italy while his business and marriage are failing. A poet would never publish a first draft. Well, not until Rosanna McGlone interviewed 15 of our finest poets – Don Paterson, Gillian Clarke and Pascale Petit among them. They revealed their first drafts alongside their finished poems in her book The Process of ...
Dec 19, 2023•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast Helena Bonham Carter and Russell T Davies talk to Samira about their ITV drama series Nolly, in which Bonham Carter plays Crossroads star Noele Gordon. As a new stage adaptation of the hit TV drama Stranger Things opens in London, writer Kate Trefry discusses how she made the much loved TV series work as theatre. And musician Laura Misch explains how technology can bring us closer to nature and performs songs from her debut album, Sample The Sky, live in the Front Row studio. Presenter: Samira A...
Dec 18, 2023•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Front Row reviews some of the week’s cultural highlights. Tom Sutcliffe is joined by film critic Hanna Flint and Will Hodgkinson, chief pop and rock critic for The Times, to discuss Cold War, a new musical with music from Elvis Costello, and animated film Chicken Run: Return of the Nugget. Luke Jones reports on the super-fans of the musical Operation Mincemeat, who have been investigating the story of one of the real characters involved, an MI5 secretary called Hester Legett. As a plaque is unve...
Dec 14, 2023•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Bradley Cooper directs and stars in the new film Maestro about the hugely influential American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein alongside Carey Mulligan as his wife, the actor Felicia Montealegre. Nick Ahad speaks to both of them about portraying a ‘marriage through music’ and how Cooper spent six years preparing to conduct Mahler’s Resurrection with the London Symphony Orchestra. Fifty years after his death, for many the playwright and composer Noel Coward is very much a figure of the B...
Dec 13, 2023•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Margaret Cavendish was born exactly 400 years ago, and her many achievements include writing The Blazing World, arguably the first ever sci-fi novel. Novelist Siri Hustvedt and biographer Francesca Peacock discuss the enduring legacy of this pioneering woman, with extracts read by Rhiannon Neads Margreth Olin tells Samira about her film Songs of Earth, for which she returned to the valley in Western Norway where she grew up, and the year she spent learning from her elderly parents and from natur...
Dec 12, 2023•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Tom Sutcliffe talks to Andy Serkis and Louisa Harland about Ulster American, a new play in which they star at Riverside Studios with Woody Harrelson. It's panto season (oh no it isn't), a form that has always played with ideas of gender. Megan Lawton explores how this year's crop continue that tradition. Plus Rachel Cooke and Ian Dunt choose their graphic novels of 2023, and we announce the winner of this year's First Graphic Novel Award. Rachel's picks of the year: Monica by Daniel Clowes Roami...
Dec 12, 2023•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Fred D'Aguiar discusses the life and poetry of Benjamin Zephaniah, whose death was announced today. Tom Sutcliffe reviews Wim Wenders' film about the artist Anselm Kiefer and the BBC's adaptation of Enid Blyton's The Famous Five, with film critic Leila Latif and children's author Candy Gourlay. Which is the standout Christmas TV advert this year? Tom discusses the art of selling Christmas with Matt Gay, creative director of several high-profile John Lewis ads and media journalist Liz Gorny. Pres...
Dec 07, 2023•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Paddington director Paul King returns with Wonka starring Timothée Chalamet in the title role. He talks with Samira about exploring the backstory of Willy Wonka and Roald Dahl’s surprising vision for fiction’s greatest confectioner. Front Row rounds up the best non-fiction books of 2023 with Caroline Sanderson - non-fiction books editor for The Bookseller and chair of judges for the Baillie Gifford Prize in 2022, Stephanie Merritt - critic and novelist, and John Mitchinson - cofounder of Unbound...
Dec 06, 2023•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Shane Meadows talks about his unconventional journey into the British film industry and his vision for more diversity in film, as he prepares to give the David Lean lecture at BAFTA. The founders of independent publishers Oneworld, Juliet Mabey and Novin Doostdar, discuss their Booker Prize hat trick as Paul Lynch becomes the third of their authors to win the prestigious literary prize. Which books will be a hit with the children in your life this Christmas? Children’s broadcaster Bex Lindsay ha...
Dec 05, 2023•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Julia Roberts, and the director of her latest project, Sam Esmail, discuss their new film, Leave The World Behind - a psychological thriller which explores what happens when all the things that make modern life possible stop working. With their last film, the much-garlanded ‘Loving Vincent’, an exploration of the life and work of Vincent Van Gogh, the co-directors and co-writers Dorota and Hugh Welchman created what has been described as the world’s first oil-painted feature film. Hugh joins Fro...
Dec 04, 2023•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 
