Front Row

Rolling Stones guitarist, Ronnie Wood discusses his parallel career as an artist. As a new exhibition of his work opens at the Andrew Martin showroom in London, Ronnie talks about how he has drawn inspiration from Delacroix, Caravaggio and Picasso. As a new three part series Boybands Forever starts on BBC2 and the iplayer, we explore what was behind the rise and fall of the boybands of the ninetie...

Nancy Durrant and Nii Ayikwei Parkes join Tom Sutcliffe to review The Piano Lesson, the latest August Wilson play to be adapted for the screen by the family of Denzel Washington. Directed by Malcolm Washington and starring John David Washington, Samuel L Jackson and Danielle Deadwyler, a brother and sister argue over the future of an heirloom piano. We discuss Jonathan Coe's return with new novel...

As a documentary about her life reaches cinemas, musician and activist Pauline Black, the lead singer in 2-tone hit band The Selecter, talks about her career. We hear from the curators of the Waters Rising exhibition at Perth Museum, which features representations of flooding in literature and art over many centuries. And as an unfinished play by award-winning writer Oliver Emanuel comes to Radio...

Directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui talk about their new documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, which uses never-seen-before family archive to tell the story of the famed Superman actor. He became a champion of disability rights after being left paralysed from a horse riding accident. The final of Front Row's interviews with the authors on this year's Booker Prize shortlist - Sam...

Actors Eddie Redmayne and Lashana Lynch on their modern day remake of The Day of the Jackal. Political satire in the US Elections: Helen Lewis of the Atlantic and Mike Gillis of the Onion discuss. We take a look at how to write a novel with Hattie Crisell and Sara Collins. and remember the music producer and innovator extraordinaire, Quincy Jones, who’s died at the age of 91. Presenter: Samira Ahm...

Arifa Akbar and Peter Bradshaw join Tom Sutcliffe to review the film Anora which was written and directed by Sean Baker. Set in contemporary New York the romantic drama won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. They also review the stage production of Dr. Strangelove. The original film version of the black comedy starred Peter Sellers in three roles, in this version Steve Coogan takes on four parts. And they...

Actor Billy Crystal talks about his role as a child psychiatrist in Before, the new thriller series from Apple TV. Marina Diamandis on pivoting from songwriting to poetry, as she publishes her first collection, Eat the World. Live music from performers at the Nordic Music Days festival which celebrates contemporary classical music and is in Scotland for the first time. Plus response to Rachel Reev...

Hugh Grant talks about his new psychological thriller Heretic, where he plays a man who lures two young female missionaries into his home for an intense debate about belief and faith that takes increasingly sinister turns. The Government has pledged to build 1.5 million new homes by 2029 - but what will they look like? Winner of the Royal Institute of British Architects' 2024 Neave Brown Award for...

Steve McQueen talks about his new film Blitz, starring Saoirse Ronan and set in London during the Second World War. Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael are among the artists on show in the UK's largest exhibition of drawings from the Italian Renaissance, at the King's Gallery, Buckingham Palace. Samira is joined by the curator Martin Clayton and Renaissance historian Maya Corry. Booker shortlisted aut...

Critic and film producer Jason Solomons and BBC New New Generation Thinker Jade Cuttle join Tom Sutcliffe to review Emilia Pérez. The musical thriller follows a drug cartel leader who wants to fake their death and change gender. They also review Dahomey, an award winning documentary which follows 26 plundered artefacts as they are returned to their African home of Benin. Tim Burton talks about tur...

Musician and novelist Malachy Tallack talks about his new novel That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz, and performs live from the accompanying album. To mark 20 years since Edinburgh became the world's first Unesco City of Literature, we hear about the growth of this international network which celebrates reading, writers and storytelling. Plus a visit to a new exhibition of magnificent textile art drawn...

William Kentridge is one of the major figures in the contemporary art world with an award-winning body of work that includes drawings, films, theatre and opera productions. His latest creation -Self Portrait As A Coffee Pot - is a nine part televisual work of art which, filed with images, music, dancers, and actors, explores the joy and power of making art. Robert Laycock, CEO of Marlow Film Studi...

The acclaimed Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovor talks about this new film The Room Next Door, which won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival the Golden Lion and stars Tilda Swinton as a woman dying of cancer who enlists her friend Julianne Moore to help her end her life at a time of her choosing. The Bloomsbury Group of writers and thinkers that included the likes of Virginia Woolf, Clive Bell a...

Mel Giedroyc and Sarah Crompton join Samira to review The Franchise, the new comedy series from Armando Iannucci offering a behind the scenes look at the filming of a superhero film franchise. They also review Tim Winton’s epic new novel Juice, set in the future of a climate change ravaged Australia. And Francois Ozon's new comedy film The Crime is Mine, which sees an actress charged with murder f...

Actor Rupert Everett on his debut collection of stories, The American No. Carla J Easton talks about her music documentary Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland's Girl Bands. And Lung Leg perform in the studio. And artist Everlyn Nicodemus on her belief that "art is resurrection" at her first retrospective, at the National Galleries of Scotland. Presenter: Kirsty Wark Producer: Mark Crossa...

Jodie Whittaker talks to Tom Sutcliffe about returning to the stage for the first time in over a decade to star in an updated version of John Webster's 17th-century revenge tragedy The Duchess [of Malfi]. The super-realism of Japanese food replicas is on show in London exhibition Looks Delicious! Curator Simon Wright and Japanese food expert Akemi Yokoyama reflect on this distinctive art. Baroness...

Forty years ago Bronski Beat released Age of Consent, a record so loud and proud that it become an era-defining moment of gay liberation. We look back at the record's music, legacy and politics with novelist Matt Cain and Laurie Belgrave, who has produced the new 'The Age of Consent 40' concert at the Southbank Centre. Samira talks to Percival Everett about his Booker-shortlisted James, a potent r...

Tom Sutcliffe and his guests journalist Stephen Bush and theatre critic Kate Maltby review the latest cultural releases. These include Apple TV's thriller Disclaimer which stars Cate Blanchett and Sacha Baron Cohen, Alice Lowe's comedy sci-fi film Timestalker and Alexander Zeldin's modern reworking of Antigone at the National Theatre, The Other Place. And after today's announcement that Han Kang h...

Booker Prize-shortlisted author Charlotte Wood talks about her novel Stone Yard Devotional. In the month that marks 100 years since the publication of poet André Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism, artist Gavin Turk and art historian Professor Alyce Mahon discuss the significance and impact of surrealism on art over the past century. And playwright Tim Price on Odyssey '84, an epic retelling of the...

Rick Astley on his new autobiography, Never, which reflects on hitting the big time twice courtesy of his debut hit single, Never Gonna Give You Up. The West Wing is 25 - television critic Scott Bryan and columnist Sonia Sodha discuss why the glossy American political drama series continues to inspire politicians worldwide. Artist Barbara Walker on drawing the Black British experience in her new e...

Alison Moyet joins us in the studio to talk about her career, from Yazoo to going solo and a new album. Fashion renegades of the 1980s via Leigh Bowery, Taboo and the Blitz nightclub, we take a look at a new exhibition with Pam Hogg and Sue Tilley. War Horse composer Adrian Sutton on going back to his classical roots with his latest composition, a violin concerto. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer:...

This week's big cinema release Joker: Folie a Deux is under scrutiny from Tom Sutcliffe's reviewers, broadcaster Ayesha Hazarika and film critic Tim Robey. They have also read Alan Hollinghurst's new novel Our Evenings. Gramophone Artist of the Year soprano Carolyn Sampson performs in the Front Row studio - and on National Poetry Day Tom and the critics pick their favourite poems. Presenter: Tom S...

Bestselling writer Paula Hawkins, whose book The Girl on the Train was a publishing phenomenon back in 2015, discusses her latest novel, The Blue Hour, a thriller set in the contemporary art world. As a new book of photographs of America by Magnum photographers is published, two photographers discuss the role of photojournalism in the contemporary world. And as three exhibitions of Tape Letters fr...

Tom presents live from The Radio Theatre in Broadcasting House the BBC National Short Story Award and the Young Writers' Award, now in it's tenth year. Chair of NSSA judges and presenter of Broadcasting House Paddy O'Connell, and chair of the YWA, Radio 1's Katie Thistleton tell us about this year's entries and announce the winners. We discuss the art of the short story with writers and judges Mic...

David Oyelowo talks about playing Coriolanus in the National Theatre's new production. He explains why it's the role he's always wanted to take on - encompassing tragedy, politics and the challenge of stage combat. Dame Eileen Atkins talks about her late friend, the great actress Dame Maggie Smith. We visit the studio of cartoonist Ralph Steadman and get an insight into the range of his work from...