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Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
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Samira Ahmed is joined by the Guardian’s music editor Ben Beaumont-Thomas plus cultural sociologist and music researcher Dr. Monique Charles to review espionage thriller and cross-culture satire The Sympathizer, a 7-part series based on Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel. They also discuss the winners of the Ivor Novello Awards, and Samira talks to Michelle Terry about playing Richard III at the Globe theatre.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Claire Bartleet
Line of Duty star Vicky McClure on her new TV thriller Insomnia, in which she plays a lawyer losing her grip on the daily juggle of family life and work as old traumas start to make their presence felt.The German writer Jenny Erpenbeck and translator Michael Hofman on winning the International Booker Prize with the novel Kairos which marries a love story with the fall of the Berlin Wall.As a new exhibition - Lowry and the Sea – opens this weekend at the Maltings’ Granary Gallery in Berwick-Upon-Tweed, art historian and Lowry specialist Jonathan Horwich, and contemporary seascape painter Jo Bemis discuss this little-known side of L. S. Lowry's work and the challenge of capturing the everchanging sea on canvas.Presenter: Nick Ahad
Producer: Ekene Akalawu
Colm Tóibín's not a fan of follow-ups so why has he written a sequel to his bestseller Brooklyn, which was made into a film starring Saoirse Ronan? He talks to Tom Sutcliffe about not overwriting sex - and how Domhnall Gleeson's screen performance as a "quiet Irishman" in Brooklyn inspired him. Miranda Rutter and Rob Harbron's new folk album, Bird Tunes, is inspired by birdsong they hear in woods in the Cotswolds. They perform a track on fiddle and concertina and talk about how manipulating the sounds made by blackbirds, wrens and cuckoos helped to inspire musical phrases in different keys. Photographer John Deakin is now often overlooked, but he chronicled the artistic underbelly of mid-century Soho with iconic pictures, including those used by Francis Bacon. Iain Sinclair, whose new book Pariah/Genius revives Deakin, retraces his footsteps around town. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Paula McGrath
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is the latest film from the writer director George Miller, 45 years after the first Mad Max film with Mel Gibson aired. He joins us to talk about where the vision for the film came from and how it's evolved, and about working with stars Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth. The visual artist, filmmaker, and novelist, Miranda July, discusses her second novel “All Fours” where a middle-aged woman’s detour from a planned road trip across America becomes a wry and provocative odyssey of self-exploration.Orchestral Qawaali Project is the brainchild of composer Rushil Ranjan and multi-instrumentalist and singer Abi Sampa. Fusing devotional south Asian qawwali singing with the western classical tradition, it has grown from a lockdown project that went viral to a performance at the Royal Albert Hall later this month involving 135 performers on stage. We hear a taster of their work live in the studio.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Corinna Jones
Tom Sutcliffe is joined by journalist Kevin Le Gendre and critic Hanna Flint to review The Big Cigar, which tells the story of Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton; Elton John’s Fragile Beauty exhibition at the V&A and IF, a family film about imaginary friends. Tom also announces the winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Claire Bartleet
Fawlty Towers arrives on the West End stage nearly 50 years after it first appeared on TV. John Cleese talks about why the sitcom wasn’t initially regarded as a great success, his love and appreciation of comedy as an art form, and how a future project will see Basil running a hotel with his daughter.100 years ago this month, the musician Beatrice Harrison was responsible for a landmark event in BBC history when she persuaded the corporation to broadcast live from her garden as she played her cello, accompanied by nightingales. Writer and cellist Kate Kennedy who has recreated this event for a new Radio 3 documentary and Patricia Cleveland-Peck who has edited a book about Beatrice Harrison join Front Row to discuss the significance of this historic event.Jason Solomons joins us from the Cannes Film Festival to tell us what people there are getting excited about and what's in store over the next ten days.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Bruce Robinson has written a stage adaptation of his cult 1987 film Withnail And I - a tragicomedy that evokes the end of an era as the 60s give way to 70s and dreams collide with reality in the lives of the two main characters. The play has just opened at the Birmingham Rep, directed by Sean Foley. Both of them talk about the challenges of adapting and staging a much loved classic and the degree to which it needed to remain true to the original.Now You See Us - an exhibition spanning 400 years of women in art - opens at Tate Britain this week. Art critic Charlotte Mullins and art historian and biographer Frances Spalding give their verdict on how the collection represents the pioneers from Angelica Kauffman to Laura Knight.
A memoir about growing up gay in Scotland under the shadow of Thatcherism, Maggie & Me was published to wide acclaim in 2013. Damian Barr joins to discuss how he as adapted it with James Ley for a new National Theatre of Scotland touring production.As Roberto Rossellini's classic 1945 film Rome, Open City (Roma città aperta) is re-released by the BFI, writer Thea Lenarduzzi and film historian Ian Christie reassess its role in launching Italian neorealism and compare it with There's Still Tomorrow (C'è ancora domani), a new film by Paula Cortellesi that borrows many of neorealism's visual and thematic hallmarks.With news last week that fake artworks by Renoir and Monet were being sold online, Samira is joined by art specialist and A.I. expert Dr. Carina Popovici and writer and art crime expert Riah Pyror to discuss the problem and how A.I. is being used to solve it.
La Chimera is a new film directed by Alice Rohrwacher and starring Josh O’Connor as a British archaeologist who gets caught up in a network of stolen Etruscan artefacts in 1980s Italy. Bodkin is a new comedy thriller series from Netflix starring Will Forte about a trio of true crime podcasters who head to rural Ireland to solve a mystery. and Great Expectations, the hotly anticipated debut novel from the New Yorker theatre critic Vinson Cunningham about a young man in America who gets swept up in a presidential campaign. Jo Hamya and Boyd Hilton join Nick Ahad to review.And we take a look at Spotify's latest figures on how it pays the music industry with Will Page.Presenter: Nick Ahad
Producer: Corinna Jones
From winning the piano section of the first BBC young musician of the year as a teen to recording over 60 albums and publishing 40 original works, Stephen Hough was knighted for services to music in 2022. He joins Tom Sutcliffe to talk about the upcoming European premiere of his first piano concerto with the Halle Orchestra in Manchester.American writer Elle Griffin wrote an article titled No one buys books, after studying the publishing industry in the United States. She feels the best way to make money as an author is to serialise her work online. But Philip Jones, Editor of The Bookseller says the UK publishing industry is in good health. Scottish band Arab Strap talk about breaking up, re-forming and their new album – they also play live from Glasgow. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Claire Bartleet
To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, music critic Norman Lebrecht and conductor JoAnn Falletta discuss what makes it revolutionary and why it's so challenging to perform.Michael McManus spent most of his career as a political advisor but has subsequently become a playwright. His new play Party Games is a political comedy that questions the power of AI and the influence of unelected advisors.A new exhibition at the Bodleian Library in Oxford - Write, Cut, Rewrite - looks at the drafts, additions and omissions behind key artistic decisions from great writers. Writer Lawrence Norfolk and poet Alice Oswald talk about the importance of rewriting and editing.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Nick visits Scarborough and talks to Sir Alan Ayckbourn as he rehearses an old play - Things We Do For Love - and looks forward to the staging of his 90th play - Show and Tell.Turner prize winning Artist Jeremy Deller, whose public artworks include We're Here Because We're Here to commemorate the Battle of the Somme, reveals his plans for a new creation for Scarborough's Marine Drive. The Scarborough Spa Orchestra is the UK's only remaining professional seaside orchestra, and Nick meets its two of its members, music director Paul Laidlaw and flautist Kathy Seabrook. Poets Charlotte Oliver and Wendy Pratt discuss finding inspiration in Scarborough.Presenter: Nick Ahad
Producer: Ekene Akalawu
Harvey Keitel stars in The Tattooist of Auschwitz - a six-part Sky Atlantic series based on the best-selling novel by Heather Morris, inspired by the real-life story of Holocaust prisoners Lali and Gita Sokolov. Marc Quinn’s exhibition Light into Life is at Kew Gardens from Saturday (4th May) until Sunday 29 September 2024.The Fall Guy, directed by David Leitch, stars Ryan Gosling as a stuntman and Emily Blunt as his film director ex who entices him out of retirement.All three are reviewed by Naomi Alderman and Jason Solomons.And producer Trevor Horn assesses the legacy of guitarist Duane Eddy whose death was announced yesterday. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Award winning director behind Les Miserables John Caird and co-writing partner Maoko Imai talk about adapting the iconic Studio Ghibli film Spirited Away for stage, as it arrives at the London Coliseum from Japan. Two new documentaries are exploring how dignity, beauty and even joy can be found following a terminal diagnosis. Simon Chambers and Kit Vincent, the filmmakers behind Much Ado About Dying and Red Herring respectively, discuss.And the BBC's Eurovision reporter Daniel Rosney lifts a lid on preparations for the forthcoming song contest in Malmo.Presenter: Antonia Quirke
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham
Historian Andrew Graham-Dixon and art curator Kate Bryan discuss Michelangelo: the last decades, a major new exhibition at the British Museum which focuses on the last thirty years of Michelangelo’s life. Reece Shearsmith discusses the ninth and final series of the BAFTA award winning Inside No. 9. Written with Steve Pemberton, the six episodes will feature new stand-alone stories, starting with ‘Boo To A Goose’ . Guest stars include Charlie Cooper and Katherine Kelly.Jembaa Groove perform live. The Berlin-based band produce Ghanaian highlife/American R&B fusion music, an optimistic and positive sound created when they got together during the covid pandemic.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Claire Bartleet
Hanif Kureishi has joined forces with Emma Rice to adapt his 1990 novel The Buddha of Suburbia into an RSC production that’s just opened at the Swan Theatre, Stratford upon Avon. Kureishi discusses what it feels like to see himself and his fictionalised family onstage, why his first novel remains painfully relevant and how he has been able to continue writing despite the December 2022 accident that left him tetraplegic. Recently on Front Row we heard from some leaders of classical music organisations including the Wigmore Hall and LSO saying that Arts Council England, the body responsible for distributing funding, was putting inclusion before excellence. Today we hear from the Arts Council’s CEO, Darren Henley about Let’s Create, the ten year strategy behind the recent funding decisions.Ingrid Persaud discusses the real man behind her new novel The Lost Love Songs of Boysie Singh, an outlaw figure who looms large in the cultural memory of Trinidad and Tobago - an island nation with a wealth of contemporary novelists, including Persaud herself.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Corinna Jones
The Pet Shop Boys are the most successful duo in UK music history. Forty years after their first hit West End Girls they are about to release their new album Nonetheless. Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant join Samira Ahmed to talk about making sense of life through culture, their music being used in hit films like Saltburn and All of Us Strangers and their gay icon status. Also joining Samira in the studio are art critic Catherine McCormack and writer Jenny McCartney to review the new tennis film Challengers - which stars Zendaya and Josh O'Connor and Tate Modern's new exhibition Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and The Blue Rider.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Paula McGrath
The Legend of Ned Ludd - writer Joe Ward Munrow and director Jude Christian discuss their new play at the Liverpool Everyman theatre which explores the changing nature of work over the centuries and around the world in the the face of automation.The shortlist for the Women's Prize for Fiction was announced today - journalist Jamie Klingler assesses the selection.As the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool prepares to show off its latest acquisitions, curator Kate O'Donoghue explains what the their new Degas and Monet works will bring to their collection.Artist Mohammad Barrangi discusses his new installation - One Night, One Dream, Life in the Lighthoue - at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery in Leeds University, inspired by his residency at the university's Special Collections. Presenter: Nick Ahad
Producer: Ekene Akalawu
The British Library isn’t all books; it has a huge sound archive, one of the largest in the world. It has drawn on this for Beyond the Bassline, the first major exhibition to documenting Black British music. Curators Aleema Gray and Mykaell Riley guide Shahidha Bari through the 500-year musical journey of African and Caribbean people in Britain.Emily Henry is a giant of the Beach Read: indeed one of her best selling novels is literally called that. With her forthcoming Funny Book, she is joined by author of The Garnett Girls Georgina Moore to discuss what goes into an ideal summer book.And on Shakespeare's birthday, we discuss the women who made him as well as his female contemporaries with Charlotte Scott, from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, and Rami Targoff author of Shakespeare's Sisters: Four Women Who Wrote the RenaissancePresenter: Shahidha Bari
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham
Taylor Swift returns with The Tortured Poets Department, a surprise double album that features 31 tracks that fans are saying is her most intimate and lyrically revealing yet. Joining Tom Sutcliffe to discuss the work are Times music writer Lisa Vericco and Satu Hameenho-Fox, whose new book Into The Taylor-Verse is out next month.The Intercity 125 train, the Kenwood mixer, the Morphy Richards iron, the Wilkinson triple razor, bus shelters, the black cab, and the Parker 25 pen all have one thing in common – they were designed by Sir Kenneth Grange. As a new book about his life and work comes out, we went to his house to meet him. Hettie Judah joins us fresh from the famous international cultural exhibition, the Venice Biennale, now in it’s 60th year. She’ll be reviewing the highs and lows.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Julian May
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