Front Row
2,238 episodes - English - Latest episode: 28 days ago - ★★★★ - 108 ratingsLive magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
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Episodes
Opera composer Jeanine Tesori, Margaret MacMillan on Paris 1919, new ideas in architecture
April 19, 2023 19:14 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBComposer Jeanine Tesori's Blue for the ENO; Baillie Gifford winner of winners for non-fiction shortlist - Margaret MacMillan; new ideas in architecture discussed Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Jerome Weatherald
Jazz singer Georgia Cecile, the controversy surrounding Barcelona’s La Sagrada Família
April 18, 2023 19:10 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBPlans to finish Barcelona’s famous church, La Sagrada Família, have been causing controversy as they involve demolishing apartment blocks to make way for the new entrance. Journalist Guy Hedgecoe, who reports on Spain for the BBC, and the Twentieth Century Society’s director, Catherine Croft, discuss the issues raised as the completion of the emblematic building draws near. Singer Georgia Cecile topped the Jazz charts with her latest album, Sure of You. She joins Samira Ahmed to perform li...
Colin Currie performs live, author Catherine Lacey, the influence of Noel Coward
April 17, 2023 19:24 - 42 minutes - 38.9 MBPercussionist Colin Currie performs live in the Front Row studio. He discusses his new interpretation of one of minimalist composer Steve Reich’s best known works, Music for 18 Musicians. 50 years on from the death of playwright Noel Coward, biographer Oliver Soden and theatre director Michael Longhurst look at his legacy and ask what he means to theatre audiences today, as a new production of Coward’s Private Lives opens. Author Catherine Lacey on Biography of X, her genre redefining new...
Front Row reviews Hamnet at the RSC and TV drama Obsession; Michael Frayn on his memoir
April 13, 2023 19:15 - 42 minutes - 38.9 MBThe RSC's production of Hamnet brings the bestselling, award-winning novel by Maggie O'Farrell to the stage. To review this reinterpretation of O'Farrell's imagined account of the short life of Shakespeare's son, which also foregrounds his wife Agnes, Tom Sutcliffe is joined by theatre critic Susannah Clapp and the novelist and screenwriter Louise Doughty. Michael Frayn is the author of almost 50 works, including the farce Noises Off, the novel Spies, and translations of Chekhov’s plays. I...
Max Porter on new novel Shy, Chris Killip exhibition at the Baltic, Kevin Sampson on The Hunt for Raoul Moat
April 12, 2023 19:57 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBScreenwriter Kevin Sampson on the complexities of his new true crime drama for ITV, The Hunt for Raoul Moat. Max Porter found huge success with his first book, Grief is the Thing with Feathers, acclaimed as a tender, funny and original story of loss. His latest, Shy, completes the trilogy about grief that began with that book. It tells the story of a teenage boy in the 90s, setting off in the middle of the night from a residential house in the countryside for disturbed children. Opera di...
Wade Davis on George Mallory, Benbrick on AI and creativity
April 11, 2023 19:13 - 42 minutes - 38.6 MBA new exhibition of the Pre-Raphaelite Rossettis at Tate Britain in London explores the 'radicalism' of Dante Gabriel, Christina and Elizabeth (Siddal), and their 'revolutionary' approach to life, love and art in Victorian Britain. It emphasises Elizabeth as artist rather than muse, and charts the emergence of the Pre-Raphaelites through to Gabriel’s famous romanticised female portraits. However, despite their popularity, views of the Rosettis' art are often polarised. To discuss whether the...
The 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio
April 10, 2023 18:59 - 42 minutes - 38.6 MBFront Row marks the 400th anniversary year of Shakespeare's First Folio with former RSC Artistic Director Greg Doran, Guildhall Principal Librarian Peter Ross, and Shakespeare experts Emma Smith, Farah Karim-Cooper and Chris Laoutaris. Without the Folio we might not have had The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure and many others. Front Row considers the rich, complicated and sometimes paradoxical history of its compilation, printing, and significance over the centuries. Presenter...
Ai Weiwei at the Design Museum and TV drama Rise of the Pink Ladies
April 06, 2023 19:08 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBAi Weiwei: Making Sense. We look at the new exhibition which opens at the Design Museum in London tomorrow. Plus we review the new Grease prequel Rise of the Pink Ladies, streaming on Paramount+ from tomorrow. Samira is joined by reviewers Nancy Durrant, Cultural Editor of the Evening Standard, and critic Karen Krizanovich. Plus 25 years of the Good Friday Agreement. Two very different new plays marking the anniversary open this week. Agreement at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast dramatizes...
Boris Becker documentary, Commemorating the Good Friday Agreement in art, Artist-led organisations
April 05, 2023 19:47 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBFor his latest project, the Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney has turned his attention to the original tennis wunderkind Boris Becker. He talks about the making of his documentary, Boom! Boom!: The World vs Boris Becker, and what it was like to follow the sports legend during the period which saw him land in jail. The BBC's Kathy Clugston looks at how artists are commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement and talks to Gail Ritchie and Raymond Watson about the differe...
Joe Pearlman on his Lewis Capaldi film, author Craig Brown, Tartan at the V&A
April 04, 2023 20:10 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBBAFTA-winning director Joe Pearlman talks about his new Netflix documentary on Scottish pop superstar Lewis Capaldi, which is out tomorrow. In Lewis Capaldi: How I’m Feeling Now, Joe follows Lewis as he struggles with his mental health and writing his second album during the pandemic. Tartan, the textile of tradition and rebellion is celebrated at the Victoria & Albert Museum in Dundee, which is apt - Queen Victoria loved tartan and Prince Albert designed several tartan setts. BBC Scotland ...
Ria Zmitrowicz on The Power, The ENO’s The Dead City and God’s Creatures reviewed
March 30, 2023 19:13 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBRia Zmitrowicz talks about her role in The Power, the TV adaptation of Naomi Alderman’s novel. She plays Roxy Monke, the daughter of a notorious crime boss whose aspirations to join the family business are realized when she gains a mysterious new power. Tom Sutcliffe is joined by author Michael Arditti and critic Alexandra Coughlan review the ENO’s new production of Korngold’s opera The Dead City and new film God’s Creatures, which stars Paul Mescal and Emily Watson . Lee Stockdale has ...
Cash Carraway on BBC drama Rain Dogs, the might of the UK gaming industry, Kidnapped on stage
March 29, 2023 19:22 - 42 minutes - 38.9 MBRain Dogs, billed as ‘a love story told from the gutter,’ is a new comedy drama series starring Daisy May Cooper. Shahidha Bari is joined in the studio by the writer and creator of the series, Cash Carraway. Ahead of the BAFTA Games Awards we discuss the state of play in the UK games industry with Chris Allnutt, gaming critic for the Financial Times and with games producer Charu Desodt, whose interactive crime drama As Dusk Falls is nominated for Best Debut Game. Robert Louis Stevenson’s ...
Musician Natalie Merchant, poet Victoria Adukwei Bulley, library funding
March 28, 2023 19:22 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBSinger-songwriter Natalie Merchant talks to Samira Ahmed about Keep Your Courage, her first album in nearly a decade. Libraries were awarded the smallest amount of money from the Cultural Investment Fund, which was announced last week. Front Row speaks to Nick Poole, Chief Executive of CILIP, the Library and Information Association. And Victoria Adukwei Bulley discusses winning the Rathbones Folio Prize for poetry for her collection Quiet. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Kirsty McQuire
Barbara Demick on North Korea; Dungeons and Dragons controversy; folk musicians Hack-Poets Guild
March 27, 2023 19:08 - 42 minutes - 39 MBAward-winning journalist Barbara Demick’s book 'Nothing to Envy' has been short-listed for this year’s Baille Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction Winner of Winners Award; North Korean defectors spoke about love, family life and the terrible cost of the 1990’s famine. Front Row examines the controversy surrounding Dungeons and Dragons, the world's most popular table-top role playing game and now a Hollywood film, as fans protest against a clampdown on fan-made content. Professional Dungeons and Dr...
Steven Knight on Great Expectations, After Impressionism at the National Gallery
March 23, 2023 20:10 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBWriter and director Steven Knight, whose work includes Peaky Blinders and SAS Rogue Heroes, discusses his new BBC adaptation of Great Expectations which stars Olivia Coleman as Miss Havisham. Tom Sutcliffe is joined by critics Ben Luke and Isabel Stevens to review some of the week’s cultural highlights including Spanish film The Beasts, the After Impressionism exhibition at the National Gallery and the return of TV drama Succession. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Sarah Johnson
Touchstones Rochdale art gallery's radical 80s history, James Shapiro on Shakespeare
March 22, 2023 20:53 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBA Tall Order! Rochdale Art Gallery in the 1980s is the name of the show currently on at Touchstones Rochdale, which reflects on the gallery’s radical history supporting those who were, at the time, overlooked by the mainstream of the art world, some of whom have gone on to prestigious careers. Co-curators Derek Horton and Alice Correia join Front Row to discuss the show. We begin our interviews with the writers shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize’s Winner of Winners Award. The award ...
Danny Lee Wynter and play Black Superhero; badly behaved theatre audiences; violinist Pekka Kuusisto
March 21, 2023 20:08 - 42 minutes - 38.9 MBAre theatre audiences behaving badly? After recent complaints, we discuss expectations of audience etiquette. Tom is joined by: Dr Kirsty Sedgman, Lecturer in Theatre at University of Bristol, researcher of audiences, and author of The Reasonable Audience: Theatre Etiquette, Behaviour Policing, And The Live Performance Experience; Lyn Gardner, theatre critic and Associate Editor of The Stage; and by front of house worker Bethany North. British composer Anna Clyne and Finnish violinist and c...
Lisa O’Neill performs live, Dance of Death from the National Theatre of Norway
March 20, 2023 20:09 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBIrish singer songwriter Lisa O’Neill talks to Samira Ahmed about her latest album, All Of This Is Chance, and performs live in the Front Row studio. The National Theatre of Norway have brought their production of Strindberg’s Dance of Death to the UK. Director Marit Moum Aune explains what led her to delve into the work of Strindberg, and acclaimed Norwegian actor Pia Tjelta reveals how she connected to her character. Africa’s biggest film festival, FESPACO, has just taken place in Bur...
Richard Eyre on his film Allelujah, and climate change TV drama Extrapolations reviewed
March 16, 2023 20:11 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBRichard Eyre on directing the screen version of Alan Bennett’s play Allelujah, starring Jennifer Saunders, set on the geriatric ward of a fictional Yorkshire hospital, the Bethlehem, and on raising questions about how society cares for its older population. We review the star-studded Apple TV+ climate change series Extrapolations, and a new exhibition at the Royal Academy in London, Souls Grown Deep like the Rivers - Black Artists from the American South. Our reviewers are writer and comic ...
Scottish-Iranian film Winners, playwright Calum L MacLeòid, neurodiversity and creativity
March 15, 2023 20:53 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBFilmmaker Hassan Nazar talks to Kate Molleson about his new film Winners, a love letter to the art of cinema. Set in Iran, it follows two children who find an Oscars statuette. Playwright Calum L MacLeòid on his new Western, Stornaway, Quebec, which is set in 1880s Canada and performed in Gaelic, Québécois, and English. And to mark Neurodiversity Celebration Week, Front Row discusses neurodiversity and creativity with impressionist Rory Bremner, stand-up comedian Ria Lina, and psychologi...
Diversity at the Oscars and Baftas; plays and the cost of living; children's books; Phyllida Barlow
March 14, 2023 20:44 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBThe conclusion of the Oscars marks the end of the film awards season, so Front Row took the opportunity to look at the progress made on representation in film and at awards. Tom is joined by the film critic Amon Warmann, Katherine Pieper of LA's Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, which looks at equalities at the Oscars, and Marcus Ryder of the Lenny Henry Centre For Media Diversity. Plus, with a host of new productions exploring the cost of living crisis, we look at how playwrights are tacklin...
Author Percival Everett, director Pravesh Kumar on Little English
March 13, 2023 20:25 - 42 minutes - 38.6 MBAuthor Percival Everett on his novel Dr No; Director Pravesh Kumar on his film Little English; the new Yeats Smartphones poetry trail in Bedford Award-winning US novelist Percival Everett on his surreal new book, Dr No – in which unlikely heroes and uber-wealthy super villains chase after a box containing absolutely nothing. Pravesh Kumar has been running a theatre company for over two decades and last year received an MBE in the New Year Honours List for services to theatre. As he makes h...
Film My Sailor, My Love; Atwood’s Old Babes In The Wood; Baillie Gifford prize; Nicole Flattery
March 09, 2023 20:31 - 41 minutes - 38.3 MBNew Irish film, My Sailor, My Love, by Finnish director, Klaus Härö, and a new collection of short stories, Old Babes in the Wood, by Margaret Atwood. To review, Tom is joined by author Ashley Hickson-Lovence and academic Sarah Churchwell. Plus the Baillie Gifford prize – the six books shortlisted for the ‘winner of winners’ award. And Irish author Nicole Flattery on her debut novel Nothing Special. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Paul Waters
Pioneering play Top Girls turns 40, do publishers owe a duty of care to memoirists? and the benefits of stopping the show
March 08, 2023 20:33 - 36 minutes - 33.4 MBA reimagining of Caryl Churchill’s ground-breaking and celebrated play, Top Girls, opens this week at the Liverpool Everyman which sets the play – about female ambition and success across centuries and cultures - in Merseyside. Playwright Charlotte Keatley and theatre critic Susannah Clapp discuss the play’s themes and its continuing impact forty years after its premiere. Prince Harry’s book Spare and the ripples it’s created have led to questions about the writing and publication of memoi...
Daniel Mays on a new production of Guys and Dolls, and how accessible are venues and film sets for performers?
March 07, 2023 20:19 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBDaniel Mays talks to Samira Ahmed about starring as Nathan Detroit in a new immersive production of the musical Guys and Dolls at the Bridge Theatre in south London. Front Row investigates how accessible theatres and gig venues are, not just for audiences but for performers. Reporter Carolyn Atkinson talks to a comedian and a DJ who have struggled with access and asks how venues should be addressing the problem. And actor Julie Fernandez and producer Sara Johnson discuss a new scheme to ...
Steven Moffat and Lucy Caldwell on writing about the Hadron Collider
March 06, 2023 20:12 - 42 minutes - 38.9 MBSherlock and Dr Who writer Steven Moffat, and Lucy Caldwell, winner of the BBC National Short Story Award, discuss writing short stories inspired by the science of the Large Hadron Collider for a new collection called Collision. The project pairs a team of award-winning authors with Cern physicists to explore some of the discoveries being made, through fiction. From interstellar travel using quantum tunnelling, to first contact with antimatter aliens, to a team of scientists finding themselv...
Daisy Jones & The Six on TV. Lukas Dhont’s film Close. Edmund De Waal on potter Lucie Rie
March 02, 2023 20:14 - 42 minutes - 38.9 MBRiley Keough and Sam Claflin star in the 10-part adaptation of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s novel Daisy Jones And The Six, the story of a fictional 70s band loosely inspired by Fleetwood Mac. Belgian director Lukas Dhont’s film Close, about two teenage boys whose close friendship is challenged by their schoolmates, won the Grand Prix at Cannes. Critics Tim Robey and Kate Mossman join Front Row to review both. Plus Edmund de Waal on late fellow potter Lucie Rie's life and work as a new retrospectiv...
Barry Male Voice Choir, new play Romeo and Julie, WNO’s Blaze of Glory and Welsh culture minister Dawn Boden
March 01, 2023 21:17 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBOn St David's Day Front Row is coming from Cardiff with Huw Stephens bringing the latest arts and culture stories of Wales. Welsh National Opera’s latest production is Blaze of Glory. The librettist Emma Jenkins and composer David Hackbridge Johnson talk to Huw Stephens about their new opera. Set in a Welsh Valleys’ village in the 1950s, it follows the a group of miners who raise spirits following a pit disaster by reforming their male voice choir. Dawn Bowden, Deputy Minister for Arts a...
Tracy-Ann Oberman, Director Michael B Jordan, Oldham Coliseum
February 28, 2023 20:08 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBTracy-Ann Oberman on playing a female Shylock in the RSC's new 1936 version of The Merchant Of Venice at Watford Palace Theatre. As the Oldham Coliseum is forced to close at the end of March, reporter Charlotte Green updates the story of the diversion of Arts Council funding from the theatre to the local council. Actor Michael B Jordan tells Samira about making his directorial debut with Creed III, while reprising the role of boxing champion Adonis Creed in the third sequel to the Rocky f...
Conductor Antonio Pappano on Puccini’s Turandot and the Ukrainian cabaret artists performing in exile
February 27, 2023 20:08 - 42 minutes - 38.9 MBConductor Sir Antonio Pappano tells us about his two new versions of Puccini’s opera, Turandot – a revival on stage at the Royal Opera House, and a new recording with tenor Jonas Kaufman, soprano Sondra Radvanovsky and the Orchestra dell’ Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. A year on from the invasion of Ukraine, Luke Jones hears from some of the Ukrainian performers living and working in exile. He joins Hooligan Art Community, a performance group that started in the bomb shelters of Kyi...
Immersive David Hockney art and Korean film Broker reviewed; artist Mike Nelson; AI-generated writing
February 23, 2023 20:09 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBReviews of the new immersive show David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away) at Lightroom in London and Korean film Broker, with Larushka Ivan Zadeh and Ekow Eshun. Installation artist Mike Nelson on the art in his new retrospective at the Hayward Gallery in London and the challenge of reconstructing such epic work. Plus AI writing. Neil Clarke, Editor of The American science fiction and fantasy magazine Clarkesworld, on suspending new submissions after being swamped by A...
New film The Strays, artists Chila Kumari Singh Burman and Dawinder Bansal, Janet Malcolm’s photography memoir
February 22, 2023 21:00 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBNathaniel Martello-White on making his directorial debut with the psychological thriller The Strays, set between a south London estate and an affluent English suburb. Chila Kumari Singh Burman’s show at FACT in Liverpool, Merseyside Burman Empire, references her MBE for services to Visual Art, awarded last year in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, and her experiences growing up in Bootle as the daughter of Punjabi-Hindu parents. Dawinder Bansal’s Jambo Cinema installation, which explored her li...
Michael Douglas, culture in Ukraine a year after invasion, visual effects and animation in the UK
February 21, 2023 20:17 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBHollywood star Michael Douglas talks about his double-Oscar winning movie career, how he’s still learning the craft of acting and about his new film, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, which is in cinemas now. As the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine approaches, we hear from two artists working in the country under conflict - Oksana Taranenko, director of the opera Kateryna in Odesa and Hobart Earle, Conductor of the Odessa Philharmonic. William Sargent, the founder of ...
Hugh Jackman, Kevin Jared Hosein, the future of opera
February 20, 2023 20:14 - 42 minutes - 38.5 MBHugh Jackman talks to Samira Ahmed about his role in Florian Zeller's new film The Son, in which he plays a father struggling with his child’s mental health issues. Kevin Jared Hosein, who won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2018, talks about his first novel for adults. Hungry Ghosts tells the stories of the marginalised Hindu people of Trinidad, focusing on a family who, close by a luxurious estate, live in poverty in a ‘barrack’, in the early 1940s. Philip Oltermann, the Guardian’...
Marcel The Shell With Shoes On, Alice Neel, Spitting Image
February 16, 2023 20:15 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBOn today's Front Row, Samira Ahmed talks to stand-up comedian Al Murray about putting the puppets of the political satire TV show Spitting Image on stage for the first time, in a new production, Spitting Image - Idiots Assemble, at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. And she discusses the Oscar and Bafta-nominated animation Marcel The Shell With Shoes On, and a new exhibition of work by the American visual artist, Alice Neel, which opens at the Barbican in London today, with arts critics Hann...
Asif Kapadia's dance film Creature; the Barbellion Book Prize winner; South Asian and South East Asian galleries in Manchester
February 15, 2023 20:15 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBThe Oscar-winning filmmaker Asif Kapadia tells Tom Sutcliffe about collaborating with the Olivier-winning choreographer Akram Khan on the dance film Creature. Originally conceived for English National Ballet on stage, Creature is inspired by Georg Büchner’s play Woyzeck and Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. Today Letty McHugh was announced as the winner of the Barbellion Book Prize, awarded annually to an author whose work has best represented the experience of chronic illness and / or dis...
Tracy Chevalier on Vermeer exhibition; live v streaming theatre audiences; American poet A. E. Stallings; The King's Singers
February 14, 2023 20:15 - 42 minutes - 38.9 MBTracy Chevalier discusses a historic Vermeer exhibition at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, the largest collection of his paintings ever assembled including Girl with a Pearl Earring, which was celebrated by Chevalier's 1999 novel of the same name. Bristol Old Vic is collaborating with four universities in the West Country for a major study into audience reactions in the theatre. Do reactions in the auditorium differ from those watching it online? Melanie Abbott investigates, talking to Iain Gilch...
Kate Prince on her suffragette musical, the art of casting, set design at the Brits.
February 13, 2023 20:14 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBSylvia is a new hip hop, funk and soul musical telling the story the fight for women’s – and universal – suffrage, through the life of Sylvia Pankhurst. It wasn‘t just the patriarchy she had to struggle with, but her family, especially her mother, the indomitable Emmeline. Kate Prince has co-written, choreographed and directed it. She talks to Samira Ahmed about the story and the contemporary resonances of her show. In 2021, casting director Lucy Pardee won her first BAFTA for her work on t...
Georgia Oakley director of Blue Jean, Burt Bacharach obituary, Salman Rushdie's Victory City and Peter Doig exhibition reviewed
February 09, 2023 20:12 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBDirector and screenwriter Georgia Oakley talks about her BAFTA nominated debut feature film Blue Jean, which tells the story of a female closeted PE teacher in Newcastle in 1988 when Section 28 came into effect. The death of Burt Bacharach has been announced. The acclaimed lyricist Don Black pays tribute to the extraordinary composer and we hear archive of him talking on Front Row. Salman Rushdie was violently attacked last summer but before that had completed the novel Victory City, abo...
The Reytons, film-maker Saim Sadiq, The Beekeeper of Aleppo
February 08, 2023 20:46 - 42 minutes - 38.6 MBFrom a pop-up shop in Meadowhall Shopping Centre in Sheffield to the top spot in the album charts - The Reytons join Front Row to discuss their breakthrough second album, What’s Rock and Roll?, making their music videos with family and friends, and the power of telling your own story. Since Saim Sadiq’s feature film debut, Joyland, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year, it has swung between celebration and controversy. It was awarded the Jury Prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard c...
Les Dennis and Mina Anwar, writer Tania Branigan, Kerry Shale on Yentl
February 08, 2023 13:07 - 42 minutes - 38.5 MBMina Anwar and Les Dennis discuss their new production of Spring and Port Wine at the Bolton Octagon. They explain why the 1960s classic play about a family in Bolton, and tensions between the generations, still has resonance today. Writer Tania Branigan talks about her new book Red Memory. Based on her research as a journalist in China, it tells the story of the Cultural Revolution through the memories of individuals including a composer, an artist and a man who denounced his own mother...
Costume designer Sandy Powell, playwright Chris Bush, Donatello sculptures at the V&A
February 06, 2023 20:19 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBSandy Powell is the first costume designer to receive a BAFTA Fellowship. She talks to Tom Sutcliffe about collaborating with directors Martin Scorsese and Todd Haynes and designing costumes for films including Velvet Goldmine and Shakespeare in Love. Postponed the pandemic, and after a second run at the Crucible in Sheffield, the musical At the Sky’s Edge at last reaches the National Theatre in London. Playwright Chris Bush tells Tom Sutcliffe about the new production of her love letter t...
TV drama Nolly and film The Whale reviewed, director M Night Shyamalan
February 02, 2023 20:06 - 42 minutes - 38.9 MBNoele Gordon was the star of Crossroads, the soap that ran on ITV from 1964 to 1988, attracting audiences of 15 million in its heyday. She was sacked from the show in 1981, returning briefly a few years later. What happened? And what was the role of TV soap at that time, with women at the heart of its casts and audience? Russell T Davies' new drama, Nolly, starring Helena Bonham Carter, tells the story. Our critics David Benedict and Anna Smith review that and new film The Whale. Brend...
Sonia Boyce, The Quiet Girl, Theatre Freelance Pay, Oldham Coliseum
February 01, 2023 20:10 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBSonia Boyce’s exhibition, Feeling Her Way, won the top prize at the Venice Biennale international art fair. As the sound, video and wallpaper installation arrives at the Turner Contemporary gallery in Margate, Sonia tells Samira why she wanted to form her own girl band and help them to achieve imperfection through improvisation. Director Colm Bairéad on his film The Quiet Girl – a small scale Irish-language drama, but the highest grossing Irish-language film in history, and the first to be ...
Beethoven's Für Elise, playwright Garry Lyons, film director Rajkumar Santoshi
January 31, 2023 20:48 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBBeethoven’s love life has long fascinated music scholars primarily because so little is known about it despite some tantalising clues. In his new book, Why Beethoven, music critic Norman Lebrecht, identifies the dedicatee of Beethoven’s well-loved melody Für Elise, while Jessica Duchen has written a novel, Immortal, which provides one answer to the question, who was Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved”? Both join Front Row to discuss why their explorations bring us closer to the composer. Garry...
Film director Sarah Polley, novelist Ann-Helen Laestadius and deep fakes on TV
January 30, 2023 20:10 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBDirector Sarah Polley discusses her latest film, Women Talking, nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Based on the true story of the women in a remote Mennonite colony who discovered men had been attacking the women in their community, the film focuses on their debate about what to do next. Deep Fake Neighbour Wars, the new ITVX comedy which uses digital technology to place international celebrities in suburban Britain, arrives at a time when the technology is under increasing scrutin...
The Fabelmans and Noises Off reviewed, Joe Cornish on new TV drama Lockwood and Co.
January 26, 2023 20:13 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBTom Sutcliffe is joined by critics Karen Krizanovich and Michael Billington to review The Fabelmans and the 40th anniversary production of Noises Off. Steven Spielberg’s new film, The Fabelmans, is a portrait of the artist as a young man, chronicling the development of Sam Fabelman, a boy drawn irresistibly to film-making. He finds meaning, and achieves some power, through his art. Critics Karen Krizanovich and Michael Billington assess Spielberg’s fictional autobiography. They also revi...
Mel C on dancing with Jules Cunningham, film-maker Laura Poitras, musician Rasha Nahas
January 25, 2023 20:09 - 42 minutes - 38.6 MBMelanie C, aka Sporty Spice, is best known for being in one of the most successful girl groups of all time. But this week she’s swapping the pop world for the dance world and performing a new contemporary piece by the choreographer Jules Cunningham at Sadler’s Wells. Melanie C and Jules Cunningham discuss their collaboration, How Did We Get Here? Rasha Nahas is a Palestinian singer-songwriter who was born in Haifa and now lives in Berlin. She tells Samira about her new album, Amrat, whic...
Artist John Akomfrah, Oscar Nominations, Arts Council England responds
January 24, 2023 21:04 - 42 minutes - 39.1 MBJohn Akomfrah was announced today as the artist chosen to represent the UK at the next Venice Biennale - the world's biggest contemporary art exhibition. Known for his films and video installations exploring racial injustice, colonial legacies, migration and climate change, he discusses why watching a Tarkovsky film as a teenager opened his mind to the possibilities of art. Film critics Jason Solomon and Leila Latif discuss the nominations for this year's Oscars, which are led by Everythin...
The play Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons; conductor Alice Farnham; the short film An Irish Goodbye.
January 23, 2023 20:35 - 41 minutes - 38.4 MBJenna Coleman (Clara in Dr Who) and Aidan Turner (Poldark) are appearing in a new production of Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons at The Harold Pinter Theatre in London’s West End, before touring to Manchester and Brighton. Playwright Sam Steiner tells Samira Ahmed about his romantic comedy in which the characters are restricted to speaking just 140 words a day. And the director, Josie Rourke, talks about bringing the play to the stage, and how, in the theatre, language isn’t everything. ...