Front Row

Michael Keaton on his new film Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, coming over 35 years after the original film and which reunites him with director Tim Burton. Tim Minchin, the comedian, actor, musician, and songwriter behind the musicals Matilda and Groundhog Day, talks about how his experiences have shaped his first non-fiction book You Don’t Have To Have A Dream. On the eve of a British and American tour...

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Leila Latif and Dorian Lynskey to review Kneecap, a debut film from Rich Peppiatt about a trio of Irish language rappers from West Belfast, Ootlin, a memoir from author and poet Jenni Fagan recounting her traumatic childhood in care and Bad Monkey, a television comedy cop drama set in Florida starring Vince Vaughn. George Orwell’s biographer D J Taylor considers the impo...

Sherwood writer James Graham argues that TV has a problem with working class representation, both in front of and behind the screen, as he delivers this year's MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival. Sherwood Series 2 starts on BBC1 on Sunday. Alexander McCall Smith, best-selling author of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, on his new stand alone novel set in Edinburgh, The Winds from Fur...

Fran Healy, lead singer of indie-rock band Travis, on why their tenth album LA Times is the most personal since their breakthrough album, The Man Who, and why Los Angeles is a good place to be an artist. As Equity calls for better guidelines for how the video games industry treats actors and performers, Rebecca Yeo, a member of the union's Video Game Working Party discusses what's needed. Brian Wa...

Samira Ahmed talks to Pat Barker about the final part of her Troy trilogy, The Voyage Home. Alain Delon has died at the age of 88 - President Macron called him a French monument. Film critic Ginette Vincendeau assesses his impact on French film. At the Proms two orchestras are set to play works by Beethoven and Mozart from memory - conductor Nicholas Collon from the Aurora Orchestra explains how m...

Kirsty Wark reviews highlights from the Edinburgh Festival, joined by critics Ian Rankin, Chitra Ramaswamy and Dominic Maxwell. They discuss two adaptations of Amy Liptrot's bestselling memoir about addiction, The Outrun. The film version opens the Edinburgh Film Festival tonight and stars Saoirse Ronan in the lead. The stage play The Outrun is a Royal Lyceum Theatre production for the Edinburgh I...

David Morrissey stars as a hapless father in the new BBC comedy Daddy Issues - alongside Sex Education's Aimee Lou Wood as his pregnant daughter. Samira Ahmed asks him about playing for laughs - as well as reprising his role in James Graham's Sherwood, which is about to return to BBC1, featuring local gangs in Nottinghamshire and a proposed new coal mine, an unwelcome reminder of past rivalries. A...

This programme has been edited since broadcast. Kirsty Wark launches Front Row's regular Scottish editions with a live show from the Edinburgh Festival. Kirsty's guests are the comedians Rose Matafeo and Nish Kumar, Miriam Margolyes performs Dickens, and the Scottish band Teenage Fanclub play a song from their latest album. Plus Charlene Boyd performs a number from her hit show about the American...

This year’s WorldCon - the World Science Fiction Convention - took place in Glasgow and pop culture critic Gavia Baker-Whitelaw reports on the international gathering where the winners of the Hugo Awards 2024 were announced last night. Emily Tesh on winning the Best Novel prize at this year’s Hugo Awards with her debut novel, Some Desperate Glory. Young playwright Kelly Jones discusses her Edinbur...

Critics Susannah Clapp and Tim Robey join Tom to review a new RSC production at Stratford of one Shakespeare’s less performed plays Pericles, the pregnancy comedy film Babes directed by Pamela Adlon and Michael Longley’s retrospective collection of poems, The Ash Keys. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producers: Harry Parker and Natasha Mardikar

Ex-Wife, a 1929 novel by Ursula Parrott, about the failure of a young couple’s marriage and the subsequent promiscuous partying of the wife in New York, was a huge bestseller when it came out. For many years it was out of print but has now been re-issued. Novelist and screenwriter Monica Heisey and American literature professor Sarah Churchwell judge whether it is one of the hidden gems of the jaz...

Joan Baez on her poetry collection inspired by her diagnosis of multiple personality disorder, called When You See My Mother Ask Her to Dance. Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London has a new bilingual production of Antony and Cleopatra in English and British Sign Language. Tom talks to Blanche McIntyre, the director and Charlotte Arrowsmith, actor and associate director. Charlotte Mendelson on her...

Directors Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry on Kinsuke's Kingdom, their hand-drawn animated film which features a shipwrecked boy who learns about the natural world from a Japanese soldier who's been living secretly on an island since the end of World War II. How closely do we watch trailers when deciding which film to watch next? Film critic Larushka Ivan Zadeh and Sam Cryer from Intermission Trailer Ho...

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Rhianna Dhillon and Viv Groskop to review novel Echoes by Evie Wyld, which focuses on Max, a ghost who, stuck in the flat they had shared, watches his girlfriend grieving and discovers secrets about her. Pianist Benjamin Grosvenor talks about his upcoming performance of the longest concerto ever written, the Piano Concerto by Ferruccio Busoni, whose centenary is celebrat...

Labour MPs are having a moment on the stage with Jennie Lee, the UK's first Arts Minister, the subject of Lindsay Rodden's eponymous new play for Mikron Theatre, and Education Minister Ellen Wilkinson the focus of Paul Unwin's new play, The Promise, about the 1945 Labour Government. Lindsay and Paul join Front Row to discuss dramatizing parliamentary politics. Acclaimed music journalist writer Jon...

A new production of The Grapes of Wrath opens at the National Theatre with Cherry Jones taking on the role of matriarch Ma Joad. She joins Samira to talk about Steinbeck's tale of poverty and the hostility the poor face in America - plus her thoughts on art, violence and America today. Deadpool & Wolverine is the new Marvel film, its director Shawn Levy discusses the latest in the superhero fi...

A new production of The Grapes of Wrath opens at the National Theatre with Cherry Jones taking on the role of matriarch Ma Joad. She joins Samira to talk about Steinbeck's tale of poverty and the hostility the poor face in America - plus her thoughts on art, violence and America today. Deadpool & Wolverine is the new Marvel film, its director Shawn Levy discusses the latest in the superhero fi...

Colm Toibin, Bonnie Greer and Mendez join Samira Ahmed to celebrate the life and work of the American writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin, author of the landmark gay novel Giovanni's Room, as part of a series of programmes on BBC Radio 4 and 3 marking the 100th anniversary of his birth. Colm Toibin is author of the book On James Baldwin Bonnie Greer is writing a memoir of her own person...

Novelist Stephanie Merritt and literary editor of the Spectator Sam Leith are Tom Sutcliffe's guest reviewers. They give their verdict on the new production of Hello Dolly at London's Palladium starring Imelda Staunton, Netflix's The Decameron - which depicts the haves and the have-nots in plague-ridden 14th century Florence - and the 3 hour long Turkish film, About Dry Grasses, which features the...

Hollywood star Keanu Reeves and award-winning author China Miéville have joined forces for The Book of Elsewhere, which is based on Keanu's hit comic book series BRZRKR and tells the story of an immortal warrior and his journey through time. As Paris prepares to welcome the world for the Olympic and Paralympic Games this week, the writer and broadcaster Agnés Poirier reports on the City of Light's...

Samira discusses the perilous situation facing arts sponsorship in the UK, amid growing protests and campaigns, with leading figures from the worlds of arts and finance. As literary and music festivals have been engulfed in sponsorship rows this summer, resulting in many severing ties with major donors such as the investment firm Baillie Gifford. what are the implications for the future of arts in...

Tom talks to the creators of the hit Australian musical Fangirls, Yve Blake and Paige Rattray, as it opens in London. Countertenor Jakub Jozef Orlinski makes his Proms debut tomorrow night, and talks about combining his career as a top international soloist with breakdancing and modelling. Actor Samuel West discusses a new report from Campaign for the Arts, which reveals new findings about the sta...

Jason Solomons and Kate Maltby join Tom to review Those About to Die, the new 10-part ‘sword and sandal’ series from Amazon Prime, directed by Roland Emmerich and starring Anthony Hopkins. The film Thelma which follows an elderly grandmother who turns action hero to track down her scammer, inspired by her favourite film series – Mission Impossible. And Echo at the Royal Court, the new play from th...

Writer actor Ryan Sampson and actor Danny Dyer on their new sky comedy series Mr Bigstuff which explores the relationship between two brothers and masculinity . Pete Bellotte is one of the world’s greatest songwriters. With a catalogue of over 500 songs he is best known for his work with Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder. Earlier this year he won a Grammy after the 1977 song “I Feel Love” was induc...

As Disco makes its debut at the Proms, conductor Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser, who will be leading the BBC Concert Orchestra at Saturday’s Everybody Dance! The Sound of Disco Prom, talks about the link between the music which dominated the 1970s pop charts and the orchestral world. Today the Welsh First Minister, Vaughan Gething and four of his cabinet ministers including the Culture Secretary resign...