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Front Row

BBC Radio 4

Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music

society & culture

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42:31

Review Show: Pulp's new album More

Front Row ·

2025/06/12

Professor John Mullan and writer Lucy O’Brien join Tom to review More, Pulp's first album in nearly 24 years. They also discuss exhibitions by the 20th century British artists Edward Burra and Ithell Colquhoun which are running in parallel at Tate Britain. Plus they give their verdict on Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, inspired by actual experiences of Laura Piani, who is making her directorial debut with this film.Tom also talks to Visual Art Curator Sim Panaser and artist Abi Palmer, about Chapter

42:40

Rachel Whiteread on her spectacular art show in Goodwood

Front Row ·

2025/06/11

Turner Prize winning artist Rachel Whiteread talks about her retrospective exhibition at the brand new Goodwood Art Foundation in Sussex. We celebrate the centenary of the National Library of Scotland and hear about its plans to send important items from its collection to museums around the country - from National Librarian Amina Shah and bestselling writer and Centenary Champion Val McDermid. And writer and curator Lally Macbeth talks about her book The Lost Folk: From the Forgotten Past to the

42:31

Sarah Moss on her new novel, Ripeness

Front Row ·

2025/06/10

Sarah Moss, the celebrated author of Ghost Wall, discusses her new novel Ripeness, which oscillates between tension-filled contemporary Ireland and a heady summer in 1960s Italy. Dylan Jones discusses his new book 1975: The Year The World Forgot and debates whether this was the best year for music with chief music critic of the Daily Telegraph, Neil McCormick. After reports of an emerging deal between the UK and Greece around the status of the Elgin Marbles, we talk to Geoffrey Robertson KC,

42:24

Remembering Twin Peaks

Front Row ·

2025/06/09

Samira Ahmed talks to Twin Peaks' co-creator Mark Frost and podcaster Mike Munser about the show's enduring legacy, 35 years after it began. And Hollywood is under pressure, with financial incentives luring filmmakers elsewhere. Samira also talks to playwright Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti about her new play Marriage Material, which spans decades in the lives of a Sikh family running a corner shop in Wolverhampton.

42:28

Review show: Paris Lees drama What It Feels Like for...

Front Row ·

2025/06/05

Tom and guests review What it Feels Like for Girl, the BBC's coming-of-age drama based on the memoir of Paris Lees; Taylor Jenkins Reid's new novel, Atmosphere, set against the backdrop of the 1980s space shuttle program and new film, Lollipop, about a young woman released from prison battling to regain custody of her children, written and directed by Daisy-May Hudson. We also talk to former Vice President of Washington's Kennedy Center, Marc Bamuthi Joseph about being fired by President Trump and

42:30

Daisy Goodwin on her play about the late Queen and...

Front Row ·

2025/06/04

Daisy Goodwin discusses her debut play, By Royal Appointment, which stars Anne Reid as Queen Elizabeth and Caroline Quentin as her dresser, and which opens this week at Theatre Royal, Bath. The life and legacy of Irish novelist playwright and poet Edna O'Brien is discussed by writer Jan Carson and the director of the documentary Blue Road: The Edna O'Brien Story, Sin?ad O?Shea. And we hear from the curator of Design & Disability, an exhibition at the V&A in London which showcases the

42:20

Nick Mohammed on comedy and improvisation

Front Row ·

2025/06/03

Comedian Nick Mohammed on his stand-up show Mr Swallow, and Deep Cover, his action thriller about a group of comedy improvisers.Kate Wasserberg, Artistic Director of Theatr Clywd on the theatre's £50 million redevelopment, and opening the new auditorium with a production of the musical Tick Tick... Boom!Ulrich Birkmaier, senior conservator of paintings at the J Paul Getty Museum in LA on restoring a work by Artemisia Gentileschi damaged during the catastrophic Beirut explosion in 2020.Theatre critic

42:17

Fiddler on the Roof returns to the stage

Front Row ·

2025/06/02

Samira discusses the Olivier award-winning production of Fiddler on the Roof with its star Adam Dannheisser and director Jordan Fein.Sarah Dunant talks about the women in the Renaissance who became art patrons, as she publishes her novel The Marchesa, about Isabella d'Este of Mantua. Screenwriter Frederic Raphael, whose films include Far From the Madding Crowd, Darling and Eyes Wide Shut, on the art of writing film scripts. Producer: Harry GrahamPresenter: Samira Ahmed

42:25

Imelda Staunton in Mrs Warren's Profession

Front Row ·

2025/05/29

Samira Ahmed and writers Dreda Mitchell and Mark Ravenhill review Imelda Staunton and her daughter, Bessie Carter, in Mrs Warren's Profession.They consider, too, theatre director Marianne Elliott's first foray into film, The Salt Path, based on a Raynor Winn's bestselling memoir of how she and her husband, after they have lost their house and farm and he has been diagnosed with a rare terminal disease, walk the 600 miles of the South West Coast Path. It features Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs -

42:13

Paul Hartnoll of Orbital on the band's Brown album,...

Front Row ·

2025/05/28

Paul Hartnoll of electronic music duo Orbital talks about the reissue of the band's Brown album which was originally released in 1993, with the addition of 23 extra tracks of rarities and previously unreleased material and about the intersection between dance music and politics. Frances Wilson, who has previously published acclaimed biographies of D H Lawrence and Thomas De Quincy tells us about her latest book Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark, about the great Scottish writer, poet and

42:23

Will Butler formerly of Arcade Fire on his play set...

Front Row ·

2025/05/27

Stereophonic is a play about the creative process, power dynamics and fraught personal relationships of a 1970s rock band. It won a Tony and many other awards on Broadway. Now Stereophonic has come to the West End. Playwright David Adjmi and Will Butler, sometime of Arcade Fire, who has written the music, discuss their own artistic process as they created it. Plus Skin from Skunk Anansie on their first LP in almost a decade, news of a new exhibition shedding light on painter Joseph Wright of Derby's

42:23

Alison Steadman live from Hay Festival

Front Row ·

2025/05/26

Live from the Hay Festival, Alison Steadman talks to Samira about her career, from Abigail's Party to Gavin and Stacey. Laura Bates and Gwyneth Lewis discuss Arthurian Legends and The Mabinogion. Hisham Matar champions the Egyptian Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz. And transatlantic husband and wife country duo Outpost Drive perform on stage. Presenter: Samira AhmedProducer: Oliver Jones

42:35

Mission Impossible & Benicio Del Toro

Front Row ·

2025/05/22

Benicio Del Toro talks about playing a business tycoon in Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme. This aesthetically stylised film, by the director who also made The Royal Tenenbaums and The Grand Budapest Hotel, is reviewed by Tom and critics Larushka Ivan-Zadeh and Rachel Cooke. They also give their verdict on Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, the 8th and final film in the franchise, and discuss fictional portrayals of food as Aftertaste by Daria Lavelle is published.Presenter: Tom

42:18

Shirley Manson of Garbage

Front Row ·

2025/05/21

Frontwoman of Garbage, Shirley Manson talks about the band's latest album Let All That We Imagine Be The Light, which is inspired by contemporary events including the killing of George Floyd in Los Angeles, but which presents an optimistic perspective on a dystopian world. We hear from the winner of the International Booker Prize, which was announced at a ceremony last night. And Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller talks about how he has curated joyful and exuberant events in towns and

42:26

Musician Rhiannon Giddens on returning to her North...

Front Row ·

2025/05/20

Musician Rhiannon Giddens on returning to her North Carolina roots after working with Beyoncé. As a huge retrospective of the work of the artist Helen Chadwick opens at The Hepworth Wakefield, art critic Louisa Buck and the exhibition's curator, Laura Smith, discuss why Chadwick should be viewed as the godmother for a golden generation of British contemporary artists, and another chance to hear Daniel Swift, author of The Dream Factory: London's First Playhouse and the Making of William Shakespeare,

42:21

Joanne Harris on the return of Chocolat

Front Row ·

2025/05/19

25 years after Joanne Harris introduced readers to the soothing delights of Chocolat, she's released her new book Vianne. It’s the prequel that explains how her heroine found her way into the world of high end French confectionery. A new exhibition at the British Museum sheds light on the provenance of popular images of the Hindu god Ganesha, the Buddha and Jain enlightened teachers. We talk to curator Sushma Jansari about Ancient India: living traditions, alongside expert in Indian ritual art,

42:31

Review: Sondheim's final musical Here We Are, The...

Front Row ·

2025/05/15

David Benedict and Viv Groskop review Stephen Sondheim’s final musical, Here We Are, a surreal story of brunch and existential dread; French film about about grassroots music, The Marching Band and Daniel Kehlmann’s new novel, The Director, about a real life German filmmaker navigating the Third Reich.Presenter: Tom SutcliffeProducer: Simon Richardson

42:43

Ocean with Attenborough, Garden Design, Turning...

Front Row ·

2025/05/14

Colin Bulfield, Executive Producer of the new film Ocean With Attenborough, talks about working with the celebrated broadcaster and filmmaker Sir David Attenborough on his latest project, an exploration of the vital importance of healthy oceans to our planet which is in cinemas around the country now. Current exhibitions at V&A Dundee and the British Library in London shed light on the history and future of garden design. Curator James Wylie and academic and author Becca Voelcker discuss how

42:22

Morcheeba perform, Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway...

Front Row ·

2025/05/13

Novelist Elif Shafak, artist and writer Edmund de Waal and Professor Rachel Bowlby join Samira to discuss the centenary of Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. As the Semi Finals of Eurovision start tonight in Basel, Switzerland, Paddy O'Connell talks about this year's contest. Four hundred leading British Artists such as Paul McCartney and Kate Bush have been giving their support to a campaign to try and stop tech films being able to use their work for AI training. Film director and peer Baroness Beeban

42:22

Suzanne Vega sings in the studio, P Diddy trial,...

Front Row ·

2025/05/12

Suzanne Vega has just released her first album of all-new material for nearly a decade. "Flying With Angels" continues her folk-influenced sound and introduces influences of soul as well as a song in tribute to Bob Dylan's "I Want You". She performs in the studio with guitarist Gerry Leonard.Sean Combs aka P Diddy is on trial in New York, charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution. We look at the first day's proceedingsAnd there's a unique

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