Front Row

Labour leader Keir Starmer joins to discuss his party's new arts strategy, which he unveiled this morning, aiming to boost access to the arts and grow the creative industries. Writer and theologian Professor Tina Beattie and critic and broadcaster Matthew Sweet review Marilynne Robsinson’s new book Reading Genesis which offers a fresh look at the story of creation as told in the first book of the...

Paul Theroux discusses his new novel, Burma Sahib, about George Orwell’s formative years as a colonial police officer in what is now Myanmar. Voice expert Professor Patsy Rodenburg quit her job over fears that actors’ traditional “craft” skills are being lost, as screen acting overshadows theatre work. Sam Lee, Bernard Butler and James Keay perform live and talk about Sam's new album, Songdreaming...

Historical novelist Philippa Gregory talks to Nick Ahad about writing her first stage play, Richard, My Richard, for Shakespeare North Playhouse in Prescot. Unlike Shakespeare's, Gregory's play is a tender, passionate, portrait of man in his time, surrounded by the women who influence his fate. With Marvel, DC and Sony superhero films boring fans and the box office, Nick speaks with Comic Crush ed...

Beth Ditto talks to Tom Sutcliffe about reuniting with her band Gossip for their first new album in nearly a decade. Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke discuss collaborating as a husband and wife team on their new film, Drive Away Dolls. Michael Donkor discusses his new novel Grow Where They Fall, about a young British Ghanian teacher exploring his sexuality, heritage and past. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe P...

The up'n'coming Scottish country singer performs songs from his debut album It Is What It Is ahead of his debut solo performance at the Country To Country Festival in London this weekend. Plus, Susannah Clapp, the theatre critic for the Observer, and Boyd Hilton, the entertainment director of Heat Magazine, join to review the new play Nye at the National, which stars Michael Sheen as the politicia...

Ava DuVernay talks to Tom Sutcliffe about her latest film, Origin. It stars Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson, following her journey as she researches her best-selling book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents while dealing with personal tragedy. Gabriel García Márquez’s final novel Until August is being published posthumously today despite his final...

The acclaimed English folk singer-songwriter Kate Rusby performs live and chats about her new Singy Songy Session Tour. Theatre critic Michael Billington celebrates the life and legacy of the provocative British playwright Edward Bond, whose death was announced today. Dr Stacy Smith, and film data researcher Stephen Follows, discuss Dr Smith's recent report revealing that the number of female film...

Ray Winstone, star of Sexy Beast and Nil By Mouth, talks about new Netflix series The Gentlemen brought to television screens by director Guy Ritchie. K Patrick’s in the studio to read from their first collection of poetry Three Births, which explores nature, contemporary queer experience and pop-culture icons like Catwoman and George Michael. And folk duo Ferris & Sylvester perform live and d...

This week sees the release of the much anticipated Dune part 2, the sequel to 2021’s part 1, a series based on Frank Herbert’s 1960’s sci fi classic. We also look at Marius von Mayenburg’s play Nachtland directed by Patrick Marber at the Young Vic in London and Angelica Kauffman: the Swiss artist finally gets a solo exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, more than 250 years after she was one of...

Kate Molleson talks to Kaouther Ben Hania about her Oscar-nominated documentary Four Daughters, which explores the impact of two sisters fleeing to join Islamic State, by bringing in actors to play them alongside the rest of their family in Tunisia. We look at two new plays about British composer Benjamin Britten and the light they shed on a life shrouded with mystery and controversy. Kate is join...

Channel 4’s new reality TV series, The Jury: Murder Trial features a real-life murder case, re-run in front of two juries who are unaware of each other’s existence. Its creator Ed Kellie and BBC News' former legal affairs correspondent Clive Coleman discuss what the TV experiment tells us about how emotions can be swayed in the courtroom - and whether the juries will reach the same verdict. Susann...

In an exclusive for Front Row, Sheridan Smith performs Magic, a song from her new musical Opening Night, which is directed by Ivo Van Hove, with music from Rufus Wainwright. They discuss creating the new musical, which is based on the 1970s film and follows an actress going through a breakdown as she prepares to open a new show on Broadway. Journalist Agnes Poirier on the French film awards the Ce...

Minority report, the Sci-Fi classic by Philip K Dick, has already been adapted for film and television and now it’s a stage play that employs an innovative mix of technology, stagecraft and live performance. As it opens at the Nottingham Playhouse, Mark Burman talks to some of the creatives involved. We review Wicked Little Letters, a black comedy starring Olivia Coleman and Jessie Buckley about a...

Wim Wenders on his new Oscar nominated Japanese language film Perfect Days, about a toilet cleaner in Tokyo as he goes about his work. Koji Yakusho won the Best Actor Award when the film premiered at this year’s Cannes film festival, and the film has been dubbed ‘slow cinema’. Len Pennie came to prominence as a poet on social media during the Covid pandemic. As she publishes her first collection,...

Rhiannon Giddens, the musician, composer and former lead singer of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, performs live with her band. She talks about her work in uncovering the real history of the banjo and writing her first solo album of original material. Peter Sarsgaard discusses playing a man with early onset dementia in Memory, a performance that won him the Best Actor Award at last year’s Venice Fil...

Sir Peter Blake is famous for his Pop Art paintings, collages and album covers – and not just Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. But the artist, now 91, has throughout his career made three dimensional works. For the first time in two decades there is an exhibition devoted to these. Samira Ahmed meets the artist in the gallery on the eve of the opening of Peter Blake: Sculpture and Other Matte...

The writer of Line of Duty, Jed Mercurio, a former doctor, turns his attention to the impact of the Covid pandemic on NHS staff and patients in the ITV drama Breathtaking. Tom Sutcliffe talks to him and co-writer Prasanna Puwanarajah, who’s also an ex-doctor, about the power of drama depicting recent events. The Arts Council England has come in for criticism for new guidance about “overtly politic...

Andrew Harding on the Radio 4 drama, A Small Stubborn Town, inspired by his work as the BBC Ukraine correspondent Emma Rice is one the UK’s most celebrated theatre-makers known for her musical and comedic approach, and with numerous innovative and successful productions such as Brief Encounter, The Red Shoes, and Tristan and Yseult, under her belt. As her latest production goes on a UK tour, she t...

Stephen Sanchez found fame on Tik Tok, bringing his 1950s inspired music and style to an audience of young fans. At just 20 years old, he was Elton John’s guest on the main stage at Glastonbury. He talks to Samira Ahmed about his UK tour and performs two songs from his new album, Angel Face. What do Gen Z’s viewing habits mean for the future of TV and film? Dr Antonia Ward, Chief Futurist at Stylu...

Director Reinaldo Marcus Green talks to Tom Sutcliffe about One Love, his biopic about the legendary reggae singer-songwriter Bob Marley and his music. Bryce Dessner, the guitarist of the award-winning rock band The National, discusses his other life in classical music and writing a new concerto for pianist Alice Sara Ott, which is having its UK premiere at the Royal Festival Hall. This week the l...

Tom Sutcliffe talks to the Evening Standard’s Arts Editor Nancy Durrant and art historian and curator Catherine McCormack about a new adaptation of David Nicholls’s book, One Day, which is released on Netflix today. It follows Emma and Dexter who meet at their graduation in Edinburgh in the late 80s, as they weave in and out of each other’s lives. They also discuss Beyond Form: Lines of Abstractio...

The Chosen, a self-funded TV drama about the life of Christ, has become an international hit with over 100 million views. The creator Dallas Jenkins explains why he wanted to make a bingeable series about Jesus and Priest Lucy Winkett and historian Joan Taylor discuss its impact and significance. The 1970s Soul Funk band Cymande has had a lasting influence on music globally, but they are little kn...

The Reytons' second album, What's Rock and Roll, debuted at No 1 in the charts - a rare feat for a band without a label. They discuss following it up with Ballad of a Bystander which features songs about pulling and politics. Phoebe Eclair-Powell on her Bruntwood Prize-winning play, Shed: Exploded View, which was inspired by the work of art Cornelia Parker created when she asked the British Army t...

Oscar-winning director and artist Steve McQueen has collaborated with his partner, the writer and historian Bianca Stigter, to document the hidden histories of World War Two beneath the streets of modern day Amsterdam. The couple join Samira to discuss their mesmerising and poetic new film. Mojo brought him great success when he was just 26. Later came Jerusalem, the greatest play of the 20th cent...

Today the British Museum unveils a new exhibition – Legion: Life in the Roman Army – on the lives of soldiers who helped conquer more than a million square miles of land, settling in communities from Scotland to the Red Sea. Elodie Harper – author of the Wolf Den trilogy - and critic Amon Warmann give their verdict on the exhibition as well as the new Amazon Prime spy comedy Mr & Mrs Smith - a...