Front Row
2,238 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★ - 108 ratingsLive magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
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Episodes
The Booker Prize for Fiction 2022
October 17, 2022 22:04 - 42 minutes - 38.5 MBThe live ceremony for the 2022 Booker Prize for Fiction, hosted by Samira Ahmed. The winner of the £50,000 prize will be announced by the chair of judges Neil MacGregor in the presence of Her Majesty The Queen Consort, who will award the trophy. The author Elif Shafak reflects on the recent violent attack on Sir Salman Rushdie, whose novel Midnight's Children was chosen as the Booker of Bookers. And the singer songwriter Dua Lipa gives her thoughts on the power of books. Photographer cre...
Hieroglyphs at the British Museum, Emily Brontë biopic, Shehan Karunatilaka
October 13, 2022 19:17 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBEmily is a new film starring Emma Mackey (of Sex Education fame) as the author of Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë. Emily is as wild as the windswept moorland she lives in; her relationships with her sisters, Anne and Charlotte, her dissolute brother, Branwell, and her lover, the curate Weightman, are as raw as the relentless rain, and as tender as the flashes of sunshine. But writer and Director Frances O’Connor’s debut film is very much an imagined life. So, what will reviewers Samantha E...
Live from Belfast with Ruth McGinley, Conor Mitchell, Claire Keegan
October 13, 2022 09:54 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBFront Row comes from Belfast where Steven Rainey hears about some of the highlights of this year’s Belfast International Festival. Pianist Ruth McGinley talks about her new album AURA, a collection of traditional Irish airs re-imagined for classical piano. Ruth found success at a young age after winning the piano final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition but felt burnt out by the pressure and demands of life as a concert pianist. She discusses her return to playing and the fr...
Camilla George, Elizabeth Strout and Iranian artist Soheila Sokhanvari
October 11, 2022 19:30 - 41 minutes - 38.4 MBJazz saxophonist Camilla George plays live in the studio and talks about her new album Ibio-Ibio - a tribute to her Ibibio roots in Nigerian. Iranian artist Soheila Sokhanvari joins Samira to discuss Rebel Rebel, her first major work in the UK. The exhibition at the Barbican’s Curve features 27 miniature portraits of pioneering female performers who blazed a trail in cinema, music and dance before the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Elizabeth Strout is the latest of the authors shortlisted for...
Alan Garner Booker Shortlisted, Orfeo Reimagined, Baz Luhrmann on Peter Brook
October 10, 2022 19:45 - 42 minutes - 38.6 MBAlan Garner’s 10th novel, Treacle Walker, may be one of the shortest books to make the Booker Prize shortlist but once read the slim volume which explores the nature of time weighs on the reader’s mind. Alan talks to Nick Ahad about the creation of Treacle Walker and what’s it like to be the oldest author ever to be nominated for the UK’s most celebrated literary prize. Monteverdi’s opera, Orfeo, is regarded as the first great opera and while there have been numerous productions since its p...
Booker-nominated author Percival Everett, The Lost King reviewed
October 06, 2022 19:28 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBAuthor Percival Everett talks to Tom Sutcliffe about his Booker Prize nominated novel, The Trees, which uses dark humour to explore gruesome events in Mississippi. Science Fiction writer Una McCormack and historian Prof Anthony Bale review Stephen Frears's new film The Lost King, about the real life search for the remains of Richard III and a new exhibition at the Science Museum devoted to Science Fiction. And writer Hari Kunzru on the life and work of Annie Ernaux, who has been awarded t...
Björk, NoViolet Bulawayo, James Bond at 60
October 05, 2022 19:08 - 41 minutes - 38.4 MBMercurial musician Björk has just released her tenth album Fossora. She discusses the experience of making the album and her interest in mushrooms. Zimbabwean author NoViolet Bulawayo has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize for the second time, this time for her second novel Glory. It recounts the political turmoil of Zimbabwe’s recent past through a cast of animal characters. NoViolet tells Samira what made her want to approach the subject in this way. To celebrate the 60th anniversary ...
Viola Davis in The Woman King, playwright Rona Munro and artist Amy Sherald
October 03, 2022 19:25 - 42 minutes - 39.3 MBAmerican actress Viola Davis, who has won an Oscar, Emmy and a Tony for her outstanding performances, plays a female warrior in the historical epic The Woman King. Viola Davis and director Gina Prince-Bythewood discuss bringing the story of a 19th Century female general to life. Rona Munro’s trilogy The James Plays were one of the theatrical highlights of the year when they premiered in 2014. She has now returned to Scottish history with two further monarchal plays – James IV: Queen of th...
A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Shakespeare North Playhouse and artist Samson Kambalu
September 29, 2022 20:04 - 42 minutes - 39 MBArtist Samson Kambalu talks to Shahidha Bari about his sculpture Antelope, a thought provoking commentary on colonialism which has just been unveiled on Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth. Period gangster drama Peaky Blinders has been turned into a ballet by dance company Rambert. As it opens in Birmingham, Rambert Dance's Helen Shute explains how they've interpreted the TV show for the stage. Screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce and critic Helen Nugent review the first Shakespeare production ...
The Blackwater Lightship, Filmmaker Kirsty Bell, Black Art
September 29, 2022 15:52 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBThe Blackwater Lightship is a novel by Colm Tóibín, published in 1999 and shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It was later made into a film and has now been dramatized for the Dublin Theatre Festival. Set in the early nineties, it tells of a young gay man suffering from AIDS who visits his grandmother in rural Wexford and the repercussions his arrival has on her, his mother, and sister. Elle talks to the writer and director David Horan about adapting the novel for the stage, and the issues it ...
Anthony Roth Costanzo, Unboxed's See Monster, and the cost of living crisis
September 27, 2022 19:18 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBLuke Jones meets the countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, whose show Only An Octave Apart is about to begin a month long run at Wilton’s Music Hall in London. He discusses how he discovered his range, why he fuses opera with pop and his return to the ENO next year in Philip Glass’s Akhnaten. Luke takes a tour round See Monster in Weston-super-Mare, a retired North Sea rig that's been turned into one of the UK's largest art installations as part of the Unboxed festival. And a discussion on t...
Michael Winterbottom, Welsh arts project GALWAD, Hilary Mantel remembered
September 26, 2022 19:13 - 42 minutes - 38.5 MBMichael Winterbottom discusses writing and directing a SKY TV drama, This England, starring Kenneth Branagh as Boris Johnson during his tumultuous first months as Prime Minister and the first wave of the COVID pandemic. GALWAD, an ambitious, multiplatform arts project set in Wales, imagines what it would be like if we could receive messages from people living in 2052. Audiences can follow the story as it unfolds across the week, both online and on social media, and watch a broadcast of the ...
Blonde and Inside Man reviewed, Anna Bailey interview
September 22, 2022 19:12 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBCritics Boyd Hilton and Sarah Crompton review Blonde, Andrew Dominik’s film adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ novel about Marilyn Monroe. They also discuss Inside Man, a new drama from Sherlock creator Steven Moffat, starring David Tennant and Stanley Tucci. Anna Bailey is the last of the authors shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award. They’ll be talking about their story Long Way to Come for a Sip of Water, about a man’s road journey across the vast expanses of Texas, which wil...
Beth Orton, Jodi Picoult, South Korean Art
September 21, 2022 19:15 - 43 minutes - 39.6 MBBeth Orton performs two songs from her new album, Weather Alive, and discusses creative partnerships as well as life after being dropped by her record label. American author Jodi Picoult has turned Markus Zusak’s best-selling novel The Book Thief into a musical, which has just had its world premiere at the Bolton Octagon. She discusses adapting a novel for the stage and explains why she feels the UK is a more fertile landscape for launching musicals. Jordan Erica Webber, arts and culture b...
Ralph Vaughan Williams
September 21, 2022 08:35 - 41 minutes - 38.4 MBRalph Vaughan Williams is one of our country's greatest ever composers. Born 150 years ago in 1872, he is known for creating a sense of Englishness in twentieth century music by drawing on his love of folk song, Tudor church music and landscape, in pieces like the perennially popular The Lark Ascending and Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. Samira Ahmed explores his musical language and revels in live performance with her guests, the solo violinist Jennifer Pike , baritone Roderick Wi...
Louise Doughty on her BBC drama Crossfire, singer-songwriter Miki Berenyi from Lush, author Jenn Ashworth
September 20, 2022 19:13 - 41 minutes - 38.2 MBBestselling author Louise Doughty discusses her new BBC One drama Crossfire, a thriller about a terrorist attack in a luxury holiday resort, starring Keeley Hawes. She talks about writing for the screen for the first time, after her novels Apple Tree Yard and Platform 7 were adapted for television. Singer songwriter Miki Berenyi, who is best known as part of the 1980s/90s indie rock band Lush, talks about her memoir Fingers Crossed: How Music Saved me from Success. Her book covers her ...
Ticket to Paradise film, Winslow Homer exhibition, National Short Story Award shortlist announcement
September 15, 2022 19:28 - 42 minutes - 38.9 MBJournalist and author Hadley Freeman, and Art UK editor and art historian Lydia Figes, review Ticket to Paradise starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts, and the Winslow Homer exhibition at the National Gallery. And head judge Elizabeth Day joins Front Row for the announcement of the shortlist for the 2022 BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University. The first two shortlisted authors will be talking about what inspired their stories. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Elian...
Cellist Abel Selaocoe, Art & History, Curlews In Music
September 14, 2022 19:14 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBGenre-defying South African cellist Abel Selaocoe speaks to Samira and performs a piece from his new album Where Is Home (Hae Ke Kae), which will be launched at a performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. He is about to become Artist In Residence at London's Southbank Centre. His inventive and virtuosic compositions and performance style fuse Baroque repertoire with traditional African music, combining classical cello with body percussion and voice. A rich crop of recent books show...
Richard Eyre's The Snail House; Sylvia Anderson and women in TV; the late Jean-Luc Godard
September 13, 2022 19:23 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBSir Richard Eyre is one of the UK’s most distinguished and celebrated directors - equally at home in theatre, film, and television. At the age of 79, he has just made his debut as a playwright with his new play, The Snail House, which has just opened at Hampstead Theatre. He talks to Samira about his late literary blooming and what needs to happen for theatre audiences to return to their pre-pandemic levels. The name Sylvia Anderson was recently invoked by Dr. Lisa Cameron MP, during a de...
Eileen Cooper, Northern Ireland Opera, Basic Income For The Arts In Ireland, Roger McGough
September 12, 2022 19:14 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBEileen Cooper is a painter and printmaker who’s been quietly creating boldly coloured figurative images and ceramics since the 1970s. This year finally sees the first major review of her work which, in magic realist style, encompasses huge themes: sexuality, motherhood, life and death. The show is called Parallel Lines: Eileen Cooper And Leicester’s Art Collection, and places Cooper’s work next to that of LS Lowry, Pablo Picasso, and Paula Rego, among others. Eileen Cooper talks about her li...
Trumpet player Alison Balsom and the campaign to revive the works of author Jack Hilton
September 07, 2022 19:20 - 41 minutes - 38.4 MBThe trumpeter and musician Alison Balsom has performed with some of the world’s greatest orchestras. She talks about her latest album, Quiet City. Jack Hilton was a plasterer from Rochdale whose groundbreaking writing was praised by both WH Auden and George Orwell. His work fell out of print after the Second World War and he has been largely forgotten. Jack Chadwick, who is running a campaign to revive his works, explains why his works need to be revived. Cabaret performer Rhys Hollis,...
Loudon Wainwright III performs live, the Booker Prize shortlist, studying English Literature
September 06, 2022 19:19 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBAmerican singer songwriter Loudon Wainwright III performs live in the studio and talks about his decades-long career, his current UK tour and his latest album titled Lifetime Achievement. Tonight the six books on this year’s Booker Prize for Fiction shortlist will be announced. The literary critic Max Liu joins us to comment. One of these six shortlisted authors will be chosen as the overall winner on 17 October when the ceremony will be broadcast live on Front Row. English Literature has...
David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future, Venice Film Festival, Booker Longlisted Shehan Karunatilaka, Tom Chaplin
September 05, 2022 19:16 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBDavid Cronenberg’s new film Crimes of the Future is a science fiction body parts horror movie starring Viggo Mortensen, Kristen Stewart and Léa Seydoux. In a time when pain no longer exists a couple are using organ removal surgery as performance art. Leila Latif reviews and gives a run down on the films being shown at this year’s Venice Film Festival, including The Whale and Banshees of Inisherin. Tom Chaplin came to fame as the lead singer of Keane. With the release of his third solo albu...
Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power; Three Thousand Years of Longing; Nick Drnaso; the Edinburgh Festivals
September 01, 2022 19:23 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBLord of the Rings: Rings of Power is a prequel and in keeping with the epic scale of Tolkein’s books and their film versions it doesn’t begin a two years before The Hobbit but two thousand. Sci-fi novelist Temi Oh and film critic Tim Robey review the Amazon Prime series. They also consider the merits of another millennia spanning work, George Miller’s film Three Thousand Years of Longing. It’s a radical departure for the director of the Mad Max films; an adaptation of a short story by A. S. ...
Joyce Carol Oates, The comeback of Jungle, RIOPY
August 31, 2022 19:25 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBJoyce Carol Oates’s latest novel, Babysitter, is the story of a woman caught in an abusive relationship with her lover, set against the background of the hunt for a serial killer in 70s Detroit. Its dark themes are not untypical of the subject matter of much of Oates’s long list of successful books which have won her great critical acclaim over the years. Tom Sutcliffe talks to her about her work and her distinctive literary style. Following the first leg of a sold-out European tour, Riopy ...
Best-selling book charts, author Ann Cleeves and Composer James B.Wilson on the last night of the Proms
August 30, 2022 19:19 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBBestselling crime novelist Ann Cleeves joins Samira Ahmed to discuss the return of her no-nonsense Northumberland crime-fighter, Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope, in the Rising Tide. What gets books on the shelves of some of our biggest chain retailers? Tonight Front Row lifts the lid on the behind-the-scenes payments that influence what you get to see and buy. Composer James B.Wilson gives an insight into his writing process, ahead of the premiere of a new piece he's written for the last...
Shelea, Reviewing Official Competition and Red Rose, Gus Casely-Hayford
August 18, 2022 19:12 - 42 minutes - 38.9 MBThe BBC Proms is celebrating what would’ve been Aretha Franklin’s 80th birthday, and leading the tribute is American singer-songwriter Sheléa. She's a protegee of Quincy Jones who also found a mentor in Stevie Wonder, and names Natalie Cole and Whitney Houston as some of her inspirations. Sheléa shares Aretha Franklin’s influences of gospel, jazz and soul, and her skills to play the piano and turn her voice to a variety of styles. She performs live in the studio and demonstrates the power of...
Gregory Doran and the RSC, WASWASA – Whispers in Prayer performance, Taiwan's new cultural landmark
August 17, 2022 19:44 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBWhen Gregory Doran was appointed Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2012, his stated ambition was for the company to stage the entire canon of plays in the First Folio, the first printed collection of Shakespeare’s plays. Ten years on and having just completed his plan, with the premiere of a new production of All's Well That Ends Well, he joins Nick Ahad to reflect on the changing nature of his relationship with the Bard. Nick visits Birmingham to see the rehearsals...
Anne-Marie Duff on Bad Sisters, Returning the Benin Bronzes, Public Service Broadcasting's Prom
August 16, 2022 19:10 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBAnne-Marie Duff talks to Samira about her new Apple TV+ series Bad Sisters, where she plays one of five sisters who is trapped in a coercive marriage, from which her sisters plot to free her by any means necessary. Is the Horniman Museum’s decision to return their Benin Bronzes to Nigeria a watershed moment for UK museums? We speak to Errol Francis, artistic director of Culture&, Dan Hicks, author of The Brutish Museums, and Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, who is leading an All-Party Parliamentary ...
Jacob Collier and Lizzy McAlpine, Abdul Shayek and Ishy Din, Threats to writers
August 15, 2022 19:13 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBJacob Collier has won a Grammy Award for each of his first four albums. In fact, he has five Grammys altogether. He’s back home in London after his recent UK tour and has just brought out a new single, Never Gonna Be Alone. Jacob and his musical collaborators Lizzy McAlpine and Victoria Canal perform the song live in the Front Row studio. Following the attack on Sir Salman Rushdie at the weekend, the writer, human rights activist and PEN International president, Burhan Sönmez, considers the...
Edinburgh Festival: Burn, Counting & Cracking, Aftersun, Festival picks
August 11, 2022 19:36 - 42 minutes - 38.5 MBLive from Edinburgh, with a review of Alan Cumming's one man show, Burn, which sets out to update the biscuit-tin image of Robert Burns. Plus Counting & Cracking - the epic, multilingual life journey of four generations, from Sri Lanka to Australia. To review the Edinburgh International Festival performances, Kate Molleson is joined by Arusa Qureshi, writer and editor of Fest Magazine, and Alan Bissett, playwright, novelist and performer. Plus we speak to Scottish film director Charlotte We...
Immy Humes and Aindrea Emelife, Charlotte Higgins and David Greig, Stefan Golaszewski
August 10, 2022 19:15 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBBoth journalist Charlotte Higgins and playwright David Greig are fascinated by the Roman occupation of Britain. Higgins’s book Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain, an account of her travels to the Roman remains scattered about Britain, is really about how we today relate to Roman Britain. It seems an unlikely subject for a play but Greig has adapted it for the stage and they both talk to Samira Ahmed about the project. Did the Romans bring civilisation to these islands? Were they vi...
Live from the Edinburgh Festival: Matt Forde, Anne Sofie von Otter, Exodus
August 09, 2022 19:41 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBKate Molleson and guests live from Edinburgh Festival. Comedian and impressionist Matt Forde talks about capturing the essence of political figures in his show Clowns To The Left Of Me, Jokers To The Right. Mezzo Soprano Anne Sofie von Otter performs songs by Rufus Wainwright and Franz Schubert on the eve of her Edinburgh International Festival concert. Playwright Uma Nada-Rajah on her topical new farce for the National Theatre of Scotland. Exodus is about the race for political leadersh...
Jordan Peele on Nope, trombonist Peter Moore, Where Is Anne Frank film review, Edinburgh Art Festival
August 08, 2022 19:13 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBNope is the latest film from Oscar-winning writer-director Jordan Peele, whose breakthrough was the critically acclaimed 2017 horror Get Out. Tom Sutcliffe speaks to Jordan about reinventing genre- from black horror to sci-fi-western- and examining the exploitation of black talent in Hollywood's history. When the trombonist Peter Moore plays at the Proms next Tuesday it will be the first time that the trombone has featured as a solo instrument at the Proms in twenty years. The former Young ...
Bullet Train & Mohsin Hamid's The Last White Man reviewed, conductor Semyon Bychkov
August 04, 2022 19:24 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBTom Sutcliffe and guest reviewers Bidisha and Amon Warmann discuss Bullet Train, starring Brad Pitt. It's a vivid mixture of comedy and violence from director David Leitch, and is based on a thriller by Japanese author, Kōtarō Isaka. We also discuss Mohsin Hamid's latest novel, The Last White Man - a fable about what happens when white people's skin begins to turn brown. Conductor Semyon Bychkov conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Proms in a programme of a programme of Czech and Rus...
The National Eisteddfod of Wales, Ted Gioia on Duke Ellington, musician Carolina Eyck performs
August 04, 2022 08:52 - 42 minutes - 38.9 MBHuw Stephens reports from the National Eisteddfod of Wales in Tregaron, Ceredigion, talking to Archdruid Myrddin ap Dafydd, winner of this year’s Novel Prize Meinir Pierce Jones, and folk singer Owen Shiers. In 1965 the jury recommended that the Pulitzer Prize for Music should be awarded to the jazz composer and band-leader Duke Ellington. But he did not receive the honour. The music historian Ted Gioia has started a petition calling for him to receive it posthumously now. Carolina Eyck ...
Disabled-access ticket booking, Writer Will Ashon, Artists Jane Darke and Andrew Tebbs
August 02, 2022 19:21 - 42 minutes - 38.6 MBDisabled-access ticket booking – for concerts, comedy clubs, theatre, festivals, and more. Carolyn Atkinson reports on problems with new initiatives to make access to the arts much easier for disabled people: the big delays to the National Arts Access Card, and inconsistencies in purchasing ‘companion’ tickets. Will Ashon is a novelist and non-fiction writer whose latest book, The Passengers, is a compilation of voices he recorded with 180 people he came across through chance and random met...
Beyoncé's album Renaissance, poet Don Paterson, the New Diorama Theatre, Free-for-All exhibition, Nichelle Nichols remembered
August 01, 2022 19:55 - 42 minutes - 38.5 MBBeyoncé's Renaissance: we discuss Beyoncé's house and disco inspired new album – her first solo material in six years - and her huge significance as an artist and cultural icon. Nick is joined by Jacqueline Springer – curator, music journalist and lecturer- and by the writer and editor Tara Joshi. The Arctic is Don Paterson’s new collection of poems. The title refers not to the polar region but the third worst bar in Dundee, the resort of survivors of various apocalypses. Other poets are ...
Beyoncé's album Renaissance, poet Don Paterson, the New Diorama Theatre, Free-for-All exhibition, Nichelle Nichols remembered
August 01, 2022 19:55 - 42 minutes - 38.5 MBBeyoncé's Renaissance: we discuss Beyoncé's house and disco inspired new album – her first solo material in six years - and her huge significance as an artist and cultural icon. Nick is joined by Jacqueline Springer – curator, music journalist and lecturer- and by the writer and editor Tara Joshi. The Arctic is Don Paterson’s new collection of poems. The title refers not to the polar region but the third worst bar in Dundee, the resort of survivors of various apocalypses. Other poets are a p...
Hit the Road & Mercury Pictures Presents reviewed, Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, Bernard Cribbins remembered
July 28, 2022 19:08 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBPanah Panahi is the son of acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi. Panah's film Hit the Road is a road movie with a difference as a family travel through Iran without acknowledging the real purpose of their trip. It's reviewed by Diane Roberts and Leila Latif. They've also been reading Mercury Pictures Presents by Anthony Marra, a novel set in wartime Hollywood where a new arrival is trying to escape her past. As the newly formed Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra prepares to perform at the B...
Sister Act, Dramatising the Ugandan Asian exodus, David Olusoga
July 27, 2022 19:44 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBSister Act the Musical is returning to the London stage, after two years of Covid delays and thirty years after the much loved Whoopi Goldberg film. Tom Sutcliffe met the stars of the new Hammersmith Apollo production, Beverley Knight who plays singer on the run Deloris and Jennifer Saunders who takes on the role of Mother Superior, to discuss mixing secular and sacred musical traditions with comedy and choreography. Curve Theatre, Leicester, has commissioned a series of plays called Findi...
Mercury Music and Booker Prize longlists; museums’ funding; new LGBTQ+ museum
July 26, 2022 19:23 - 42 minutes - 38.5 MBThe Mercury Music and Booker Prize lists - we discuss the albums and books nominated this year for these two major prizes. We're joined by writer and critic Alex Clark, and Ludovico Hunter Tilney, music journalist for the Financial Times, to discuss today's announcements. Queer Britain – the dedicated LGBTQ+ museum, recently opened in London’s King’s Cross. We speak to curator Dawn Hoskin, and to director and founder Joseph Galliano. The complex picture of museum economics. Why are museums...
Singer Bella Hardy, Poet Thomas Lynch, Birmingham 2022 Festival
July 25, 2022 19:24 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBSinger and fiddle player Bella Hardy talks about her new album – her tenth – Love Songs, which sees this adventurous musician return to where she began, with the traditional songs she’s known all her life. Thomas Lynch is an American poet with strong connections to Ireland. He is, too, an undertaker, a career that has informed his verse and essays, which dwell on life and death, faith and doubt, and also place. From his ancestral cottage in County Clare Lynch talks to Shahidha Bari about th...
Notre-Dame On Fire and novel Milk Teeth reviewed; Jennifer Walshe performs live; writer Alan Grant remembered
July 21, 2022 19:37 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBNotre-Dame On Fire, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, is a film dramatising the events of the horrifying night on April 15, 2019 when the cathedral that symbolises so much in France and beyond started to burn. Milk Teeth is the second novel from Jessica Andrews, whose debut Saltwater won the Portico Prize in 2020. It explores appetite, control and desire in a young woman from the north of England who finds herself in the heat of Spain. The writer Sarah Hall and the journalist Agnès Poirier re...
Where The Crawdads Sing; On Sonorous Seas; Maison Margiela's Cinema Inferno
July 20, 2022 19:38 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBWhere The Crawdads Sing: director Olivia Newman on bringing the multi-million copy best-selling novel to the big screen. Cinema Inferno: the new catwalk production by Leeds theatre company Imitating the Dog for fashion house Maison Margiela - combining theatre, film, and fashion show. Is this the future of haute couture? On Sonorous Seas: Hebridean artist Mhairi Killin on her multi-media exhibition on the Isle of Mull. Fusing sound, video, whalebone artefacts, and poetry, the work is in...
Jean Paul Gaultier, Much Ado About Nothing, Music Tours
July 19, 2022 19:26 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBReflecting on his 50 years in fashion, designer Jean Paul Gaultier sits down with Samira Ahmed to talk about his life, Madonna, London and how it has inspired his new show at the Roundhouse Fashion Freak Show. An all party parliamentary report has been released documenting the current state of music touring. The Chief Executive of UK Music Jamie Njoku-Goodwin and Jack Brown of the band White Lies join the discussion. Much Ado about Nothing is this year’s Shakespeare play, with a producti...
Kraftwerk's Karl Bartos, the Spooky Men’s Chorale, playwright Lucy Kirkwood
July 18, 2022 19:20 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBKarl Bartos, musician and composer, on his life in the German band Kraftwerk - as told in his new memoir The Sound of the Machine. Playwright and screenwriter Lucy Kirkwood on her play Maryland - devised in response to normalisation of violence against women, and originally staged at Royal Court Theatre in London in 2021, it has now been adapted for BBC TV screens. The Spooky Men’s Chorale: the strangely comedic but musically marvellous and popular Australian male voice choir stop off in ...
Persuasion & Patriots reviewed, Durham Brass Festival, Museum of the Year winner
July 14, 2022 19:11 - 41 minutes - 38.1 MBThe new film Persuasion based on Jane Austen’s novel starring Dakota Johnson and directed by Carrie Cracknell has already attracted a lot of attention for its blend of 21st century millennial dialogue and Austen’s own words. And Peter Morgan, writer of The Crown, returns to the stage for his new play Patriots which looks at the rise of the oligarchs in Russia, in particular Boris Berezovsky, played by Tom Hollander, helping to secure the rise of Putin, played by Will Keen. Guardian foreign...
Shakespeare North Playhouse, Tŷ Pawb in Wrexham, The Railway Children Return
July 13, 2022 19:17 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBIn the late 16th century, the Merseyside town of Prescot had the only purpose-built, indoor theatre outside London. Now the Shakespeare North Playhouse, a £38 million architectural representation of a Shakespearean stage, opens there this weekend. Samira Ahmed is joined by Laura Collier, the theatre’s creative director and the writer and performer Ashleigh Nugent who have co-curated Open Up, the opening festival. Front Row is hearing from the five museums nominated to be this year’s Museum ...
Hildur Guðnadóttir, National Plan for Music Education, Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time
July 12, 2022 19:08 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBOscar winning Joker composer Hildur Guðnadóttir talks about her new commission for the BBC Proms, inspired by political division, and the difference between writing for films and games, ahead of the first BBC Prom devoted to gaming music. To discuss the government's National Plan for Music Education for schools in England, Tom is joined by Catherine Barker from United Learning, Colin Stuart from the Incorporated Society of Musicians, and Jimmy Rotheram, a music teacher at Feversham Primary...