Front Row

The Burning Chambers is the latest historical novel from bestselling author of Labyrinth and co-founder of the Women's Prize for Fiction, Kate Mosse. Set in sixteenth century Languedoc it is the first in a new quartet that covers three centuries of religious conflict. Kate Mosse explains the inspiration for the books and her fascination for medieval France. Kanye West is never far away from contro...

In a BBC national poll Benjamin Zephaniah was voted the nation's third favourite poet of all times, after TS Eliot and John Donne, and the only living one in the top ten. Aged 60, the award winning playwright, novelist, activist and musician has published a memoir, The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah. He talks to John Wilson. Coronation Street has just revealed that the character, Aidan Conn...

Shape of Light: 100 Years of Photography and Abstract Art, a new exhibition at Tate Modern, explores the intertwined stories of the two art forms from the early photographic experiments to the digital innovations of the 21st century. The two curators discuss the relationship between artists, including Jackson Pollock, Georges Braque and Bridget Riley, and photographers, including Man Ray and Edwar...

Plan B - the singer, director and actor, aka Ben Drew - releases his fourth studio album this week. Plan B discusses Heaven Before All Hell Breaks Loose, featuring songs that reflect how his life has changed since his last album six years ago. From Picasso to Grayson Perry, design critic Corinne Julius and the Royal Academy of Art's commercial director Jo Prosser discuss the history and trends in...

Avengers: Infinity War is released in cinemas today. Fans have been counting the days until the film's release, but what does this ambitious high-budget offering reveal about the state of the hugely successful Marvel Cinematic Universe? Mik Scarlet and Larushka Ivan-Zadeh consider the bigger picture. At a time when many libraries across the UK are facing an uncertain future, Salley Vickers has gon...

Janelle Monáe, the American singer and actress, discusses her new album Dirty Computer, working with Prince, and her roles in recent films Hidden Figures and Moonlight. Controversialist Katie Hopkins has said that she might be murdered for her outspoken views. A new musical based on this premise, explores imagined events in the aftermath of her death. The Assassination of Katie Hopkins considers t...

Rodin and the art of ancient Greece is a new exhibition at the British Museum which highlights the influence the Greek Parthenon sculptures had on the French artist on his first visit to the museum in 1881. The show's curators, Ian Jenkins and Celeste Farge, discuss the relationship between Auguste Rodin's works, including The Kiss and The Thinker, and Pheidias's Elgin Marbles. One of Britain's le...

Today the first statue of a woman in Parliament Square in London was unveiled. Millicent Fawcett, the suffragist who fought for women's right to vote in the early 20th century, joins 11 male figures including Sir Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandi. Art critic Estelle Lovatt gives her verdict on the artwork. We talk to dramatist Joe Penhall, writer of the award-winning The Kinks mu...

The shortlist for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2018 has been announced today, critics Alex Clark and Toby Lichtig comment on the six novels that made it through from the longlist of 16. Country band The Shires perform live and discuss their new album, Accidentally on Purpose, working with Ed Sheeran and why country music is having a resurgence in popularity in the UK. Sean O'Brien is a man of let...

Romola Garai is known for her roles in films such as Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights, and in The Hours, Emma and The Miniaturist on television. For her latest role she's on stage in Ella Hickson's new play, The Writer. Garai discusses playing the writer, who battles patriarchy and capitalism in her determination to create a pure art that will change the world. The South African choral group Ladysmi...

When the Empire Windrush docked, the first contribution of the arrivals from the Caribbean was cultural - Lord Kitchener singing his calypso "London is the Place for Me". Stig Abell talks to publisher Sharmaine Lovegrove and calypsonian Alexander D Great about the artistic contribution of the Windrush Generation, and their offspring. Alexander sings 'After the Windrush', a new calypso written espe...

Tina Turner has been closely involved with Tina, the musical which tells the story of her tempestuous life. It has just opened and Front Row has a review. The actor Nicola Walker discusses her role in Abi Morgan's new television drama series about divorce lawyers, The Split, and some of her other roles. A report was published last week looking at booking accessible tickets for people with disabili...

Following last night's broadcast of The Queen's Green Planet on ITV, which features the Queen in intimate conversation with Sir David Attenborough, we talk to the documentary's director Jane Treays about working with the Queen and look back over the history of royal TV projects with critic Chris Dunkley. Luke Evans has featured in many Hollywood films including The Girl on the Train, Fast & Fu...

Mike Newell discusses his film The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which stars Lily James as a writer uncovering a mystery from World War II on the Channel island. The director looks back at his career which includes Four Weddings and a Funeral, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Donnie Brasco. Joanna Walsh is one of the UK's leading experimental writers. She discusses her new...

Sharlene Teo on her debut novel Ponti, an account of teenage friendship and fraught mother/daughter relationships set in a sweltering Singapore, that's been called remarkable by Ian McEwan. Is Coronation Street the most feminist soap on television? Emma Bullimore makes the case. Radio 4 poet-in-residence Alice Oswald and artist William Tillyer discuss their collaboration Nobody. Both a book and an...

As singer Janelle Monaé's video for her new single PYNK goes viral, music journalist Ruth Barnes looks back at other game-changers in the genre. The new Young People's Laureate for London was announced yesterday evening as Momtaza Mehri. We bring her together with the outgoing post holder Caleb Femi to discuss what he learnt in the role and ask Momtaza what she hopes to achieve. The soundtrack to...

Actress Naomie Harris talks about her latest role in Brad Peyton's big-screen video game adaptation Rampage, which sees her fighting a trio of oversized genetically-modified predators alongside Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. Has it got harder for working class talent to make a career on stage and screen? This week the Anna Scher Theatre School, which is responsible for launching the careers of working...

Viv Albertine was the guitarist in the cult punk band The Slits and a key player in British counter culture before working as a film maker and launching a solo career. Her new memoir, To Throw Away Unopened, unpicks family secrets which shaped her childhood and her early creative influences. This book begins when she is at the launch party for her hugely successful first book Clothes, Clothes, Clo...

Tate Liverpool's arts handler Ken Simons has just retired after working there since its opening 30 years ago. To mark his retirement, Tate have allowed him to curate his own exhibition, Exploring the Unseen, using works from the Tate collection. He explains how he chose the 30 works - one for each of his years at the gallery. As Audible launches three new podcasts featuring original short stories...

To mark 20 years of Front Row Kirsty Lang and John Wilson host a celebratory extended edition live from the Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House in London. Liz Carr, Bob Geldof, Lionel Shriver and Testament make their case for what they think is the most significant art work of the last 20 years. Neil MacGregor, the former director of the British Museum and familiar voice to Radio 4, considers cult...

Actor David Morrissey, well known for his roles in TV dramas like State of Play, The Deal, Red Riding, The Walking Dead and Britannia. He talks about his latest role is as Inspector Tyador in BBC Two's adaption of the China Miéville's novel The City and The City. The drama is a speculative science-fiction meets police procedural, set in two cities which share a geographical location but whose resi...

Cuba Gooding Jr is taking to the stage in the new West End production of one of the world's most successful musicals - Chicago. He talks to Stig Abell about his role as the lawyer Billy Flynn and his career; starring in Boyz n the Hood, playing OJ Simpson, the impact of winning an Oscar for Jerry Maguire, and how Hollywood is changing its attitude to black actors. Bob Honey who Just Do Stuff is a...

Prize-winning author Aminatta Forna on the many different ingredients that make up her new novel, Happiness, a multi-layered story set in modern London, seen from the perspective of those passing through. The Alpha male sweeping a woman off her feet has long been a common trope in romantic fiction but can it survive in a world where the #MeToo movement has transformed the debate around gender poli...

Ever since the legendary heroic outlaw Robin Hood first stole from the rich to give to the poor, Nottingham has had a tradition of political defiance, addressing social injustice and encouraging free expression. Sandeep Mahal, Director of Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature, assesses to what extent that still holds today in the city's rich cultural landscape, and talks to writers, poets, singers...

This year marks the centenary of Leonard Bernstein's birth and to celebrate the occasion Front Row explores his life and music. John Wilson is joined by his son, Alexander Bernstein, who remembers his father composing at home, and who attended many of his Young People's Concerts; by his friend and biographer, Humphrey Burton, who discusses Bernstein's multiple talents as a conductor, composer and...