Front Row

Critic David Benedict and journalist Muriel Zagha discuss Kristin Scott Thomas in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, adapted by award winning playwright Conor McPherson. They also discuss survival thriller Whalefall, in which a diver is swallowed by a whale. Plus they'll be giving their verdict on Elif Shafak's novel In One Brief Moment All Eternity, which tells the story of Madame Bovary author Gustav...

Comedian Leo Reich, who has been named as one of the "best British talent" by The Times, and who has previously appeared in Lena Dunham's Netflix romcom Too Much, talks to us about creating his own sitcom - It Gets Worse - about a group of dysfunctional BFFs - for Channel 4. It emerged this weekend that almost 100,000 items have gone missing (and are either lost or stolen) from museums in Scotland...

Bad Sisters actress Anne-Marie Duff talks to Samira about her latest role as Julie in Helen Edmundson’s play in Some Woman on stage at the National Theatre in London Booker Prize shortlisted author M John Harrison talks about his novel The End of Everything And in the year of the Bayreuth opera festival's 150th anniversary, Samira discusses its history and significance with Genevieve Robyn Arkle,...

We speak backstage with Christine Baranski and Richard E Grant on appearing in Noel Coward's Hay Fever in London's West End. Writer Douglas Stuart on John of John, nominated for this year's Booker Prize. We find out the big names and important movies to look out for, that are part of this year's London Film Festival. And controversy for the winner of this year's Caine Prize for African Writing, wh...

Zoe Williams and Laurence Scott join Tom Sutcliffe to review: The Social Reckoning, Aaron's Sorkin's new film which revisits the world of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg 16 years after his hit The Social Network. Mikey Madison stars as whistleblower Frances Haugen, who leaked tens of thousands of internal documents to the Wall Street Journal. The 90s: Art and Fashion at Tate Britain, an exhibition cu...

News broke today of a discovery which may rewrite cinematic history. In 1926 Scottish playwright Graham Moffat's film - Till the Bells Ring - using pioneering audio technology which allowed sound and pictures to be synchronised, was premiered in Edinburgh. For decades, Alan Crossland’s 1927 film The Jazz Singer – starring Al Jolson – has been regarded as the world's first talkie, but does this new...

The legendary Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr is back with his fifth solo album The Age of Everything, which he's described as the most cathartic album he's ever written. He joins Samira to talk about road-testing these songs before recording them, why he auctioned off his whole guitar collection and what keeps him making music after five decades in the spotlight. As French Impressionist Claude Monet...

Two of the young stars of Saturday Night Live UK on bringing live satire back to television. Director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, Captain Philips, United 93) on how the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 inspired his new film, Uprising. The British Museum has taken steps to quell public dissent over long queues and ticket cancellations for the Bayeux Tapestry exhibition. And novelist Sarah Hall o...

Susannah Clapp and Nick Hilton join Tom Sutcliffe to review Tom Cruise as a prosthetic laden billionaire oil tycoon in the film Digger, who is out to save humanity after causing a global catastrophe. They also discuss Sky legal drama War – where Sienna Miller and Dominic West play a power couple who are getting divorced. And they offer their verdicts on The Standard of Living, Dear England writer...

Sherwood and Homeland star David Harewood talks to us about his lead role in Channel 4's new legal drama Pierre, which is co-written by John Donnelly and playwright Roy Wiliams. Actor Simon Russell Beale discusses playing Liberace on stage in I'll Be Seeing You, the new play from Martin Sherman (who wrote Bent and Mrs Henderson Presents), a sparkling fantasia which follows a young writer strugglin...

Tom Sutcliffe hosts the ceremony for BBC National Short Story Award and Young Writers Award 2026, in partnership with University of Cambridge, live from BBC Broadcasting House in London. As well as the announcements of the winners of both awards, Tom is joined by judges David Almond, Tahmima Anam and Saba Sams to discuss the key ingredients for a standout short story. They also recommend the short...

The multi-award winning stage designer and artist Es Devlin talks to Samira as a retrospective of her work opens at the Design Museum in London. Devlin has created sets for theatre and opera and also for stadium concerts, fashion shows, and the Olympics opening ceremony. This is her first UK museum show and her first retrospective in Europe, and it celebrates her 30-year creative practice across s...

A special edition of Front Row from the BBC's poetry and performance festival - Contains Strong Language Since self-publishing a poetry pamphlet in 2020, Donna Ashworth has gone on to become the UK's bestselling living poet of the decade. She talks about her new book, The Art of Being Easily Pleased: Words To Unlock A Wonderful life, and shares some of her new poems. The phenomenally successful mu...

In this week's Review Show, our guest critics Hannah McGill and Fergus Morgan join Kirsty Wark to discuss three dystopian thrillers: Bestselling novelist Emily St John Mandel's latest work of speculative fiction, Exit Party, chronicles how a range of characters respond to a complete collapse in society - in America, where Texas and California are now republics, and militia roam the streets, and in...

Comedian Russell Kane tells us about playing an older Romeo in a new take on Shakespeare’s famous tragedy. Author Samantha Ellis gives her verdict on the new film adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility starring Daisy Edgar-Jones. This week marks 100 years since the birth of John Coltrane. Saxophonist Soweto Kinch and Grammy award winning music historian Ashley Khan discuss Coltrane’s si...

Roger Taylor has been a driving force behind Queen, one of the most successful bands in history. The songwriter, drummer and singer talks to Tom Sutcliffe about his 7th solo album Violence Insane in a Beautiful World. Stars Wars legend George Lucas has long sought to fulfil his dream to open a museum for his vast art collection, which includes everything from the comics of R. Crumb and Moebius to...

Robbie Collin and Sarah Crompton join Samira Ahmed to review: Rose Tremain’s new book, The Housekeeper, which imagines how Daphne du Maurier’s classic novel, Rebecca, came to be written. Queen at Sea, a film starring Juliette Binoche and Tom Courtenay, which takes on the moral quandaries that occur with care in the advanced stages of dementia, when someone has lost the ability to make critical dec...

Twin brothers Craig and Charlie Reid emerged almost 40 years ago with their debut album This Is The Story and Top 3 single ‘Letter from America’. The Proclaimers join Kirsty Wark to discuss their new album, the ambiguously titled, You May Offend. Novelist Kate Atkinson won the Whitbread Book of the Year prize with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum and today she chats about her lates...

Biographer Hermione Lee talks to Tom about her new book Anita Brookner: Art and Life, which explores the career of the famously private art historian and author of 24 novels including the Booker prize-winning Hotel du Lac. Hollywood is enjoying one of its best summers at the box office as a mix of big budget blockbusters and surprise hits by new directors has powered cinema to a record $4.76 billi...

Samira Ahmed talks to Hunter Davies about his new book Get Back: The Boys Who Became the Beatles, Juliette Binoche about her directorial debut on In-I in Motion, Jack Thorne on his speech arguing for the need to protect writers in the age of AI, and National Short Story Award shortlisted author Lucy Caldwell. Producer: Eliane Glaser

Viv Groskop and Amanda Vickery join Tom Sutcliffe to review: The Bayeux Tapestry as it goes on display to the public in Britain for the first time since its creation almost a millennium ago. Taipei Story, the new novel from bestselling literary phenomenon Rebecca F Kuang, author of Babel and Yellowface, about a young Chinese-American woman studying in Taiwan and grappling with ideas of disapora an...

Music critic Neil McCormick shares his verdict on the Oasis documentary, Don’t Look Back in Anger about Noel & Liam Gallagher's reunion tour. Writer Beth Steel talks about her acclaimed play Till The Stars Come Down. The drama is based around a wedding in Mansfield, East Midlands. Originally a sold-out hit at the National Theatre, the production has had a West End Transfer and been performed g...

Fanny Herrero, writer and creator of the French sitcom Call My Agent, joins Tom Sufcliffe to talk about how her show about the antics of the cut-throat Paris talent agency ASK became a global hit and why, after a five year hiatus, she’s got the agents back together for their first ever film. This year’s unprecedented extreme heat and lack of rain in large parts of the UK has wreaked havoc with gar...

Ava Pickett discusses her new play Bloodsport: After Helen of Troy at Theatre Royal Stratford East, and the huge success 1536, her Olivier Award-winning play about the Tudors. Louisa Young on her novel The Golden Years, which continues The Cazalet Chronicles, the hugely popular series of books by Elizabeth Jane Howard. With the opening this week of the Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum, Samira...

Tom Sutcliffe and guests explore the architecture and culture of Norman Britain as part of a special day of programmes on Radio 4 marking the return of the Bayeux Tapestry. From Durham to Peterborough, Lincoln to Norwich, the Norman invasion shaped British architecture, landscape and culture. Beginning in wood but later cemented in stone, power was expressed in the rounded arches and distinctive o...