Front Row

Jack Absolute Flies Again, at the National Theatre, is an adaptation of Sheridan’s comedy of manners The Rivals. Writers Richard Bean (who wrote One Man, Two Guvnors – a big hit) and Oliver Chris keep the original characters – Lydia Languish, Sir Anthony Absolute and the lexically challenged Mrs Malaprop – but move the action from 18th Century Bath to the Battle of Britain. Samira Ahmed talks to d...

This week’s cultural critics, music journalist Jude Rogers and film critic Rhianna Dhillon, join Tom Sutcliffe to review a new Radio 3 drama, He Do The Waste Land in Different Voices, marking the centenary of poet T.S. Eliot’s Modernist masterpiece The Waste Land. They also discuss the film Brian and Charles, a mockumentary directed by Jim Archer, which follows a reclusive man who builds and befri...

The role of National Poet of Wales is demanding: ‘to represent the diverse cultures and languages of Wales at home and abroad, take poetry to new audiences, encourage others to use their creative voice to inspire positive change, be an ambassador for the people of Wales, advocating for the right to be creative and spread the message that literature belongs to everyone.’ Front Row will reveal who w...

The American writer Claudia Rankine is best known for her poetry, which has won critical acclaim and international fans. She discusses her play The White Card, which was written during Donald Trump’s Presidency and examines race and privilege in America and beyond. Front Row is hearing from all the museums shortlisted for this year’s Museum of the Year and tonight it’s the turn of the Museum of Ma...

Peter Brook: we look back on the life and career of the great theatre and film director, with critic Michael Billington. Gone With the Wind was an instant bestseller when it was published in 1936 and became the most successful Hollywood film ever. In her book, The Wrath to Come, Sarah Churchwell reveals its role in American myth-making, and how it foreshadows the controversies over race, gender, w...

Best-selling novelist Lawrence Norfolk and award-winning writer Joanna Walsh review a new edition of All Our Yesterdays, a novel by the acclaimed post-war Italian novelist Natalia Ginzburg with a new introduction by author Sally Rooney. Lawrence and Joanna also review Sun & Sea, a Lithuanian opera performance about climate change staged on an artificial beach which the audience view from above...

Curator Ekow Eshun on creating In The Black Fantastic: the UK’s first major exhibition dedicated to the work of Black artists who use fantastical elements to address racial injustice and explore alternative realities. With works from 11 contemporary artists from the African diaspora, it delves into myth, science fiction, traditions, and the legacy of Afrofuturism to address colonialism, racial pol...

Arthur Hughes, known for his roles in The Archers, in which he plays Ruairi, and the BBC2 drama Then Barbara Met Alan, details the significance of his portrayal as Richard III in the new RSC production as a disabled actor. Earlier this month the literary world was shocked by the announcement that after 50 years the Costa Book Awards, formerly the Whitbread, would be no more. What did this announce...

Playwright and BAFTA winning screenwriter Stephen Beresford has returned to writing for the stage with The Southbury Child, a co-production between The Chichester Festival Theatre and The Bridge Theatre in London. Stephen joins Samira to discuss his state of the nation play, focusing on a charismatic vicar at the centre of a controversy, in a Dartmouth parish in decline. Hive explores the life of...

Critic Ben East and academic Catherine Love review Rock, Paper, Scissors, a trilogy of plays written by Chris Bush to mark the 50th anniversary of Sheffield Theatres and A Film About Studio Electrophonique, a documentary about Ken Patten's influential home studio in Sheffield. The three separate but interlinking plays will be performed simultaneously on the three stages of the Sheffield Theatres c...

Rowan Atkinson is associated with a lot of ‘B’s – Blackadder, Bean, bumbling British spies... and now bees. He plays an inept house-sitter in a luxury mansion chasing after an insect in Netflix’s new Man Vs Bee. He talks about this, his iconic characters, and why making comedy isn’t always that fun. Artist Thomas J Price’s Warm Shores, a pair of 9 foot tall bronze figures, have just been installed...

As Glastonbury returns this week after a two year pandemic hiatus, a summer of festivals gets under way while some festivals are forced to cancel due to difficult conditions. We look at how the festival sector has struggled through the challenges of the last two years, and consider the importance of live music festivals to the UK economy and culture. Shahidha is joined live by Melvin Benn – Managi...

Director Baz Luhrmann on the making of Elvis, his new biopic of Elvis Presley, starring Austin Butler and Tom Hanks. Director Mathilde Lopez talks about drawing on her heritage for a new production of Bizet's opera Carmen at Longborough Festival Opera. Theresa Heskins, Artistic Director of the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme on Tom, Dick and Harry, a new play about the escape attempt from Stalag Luf...

National Theatre Wales is about to open a new production described as a live documentary performance, Circle of Fifths. With cast and stories drawn from the local community, and taking place inside and out, it combines film, performance, storytelling, live music and dance, to tell stories of life, death and grief. The director Gavin Porter joins Front Row to explain how it will work. Because of th...

Operatic tenor Freddie De Tommaso on his overnight breakthrough to stardom and performing at the First Night Of The Proms. We announce and speak to the winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction. John Byrne, the Scottish artist, playwright and theatre maker: arts critic Jan Patience reviews the new retrospective of his work, A Big Adventure, open now at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow....

Chicago based artist Theaster Gates on The Black Chapel - his design for this year’s Serpentine Gallery pavilion, which is created each year by world class artists who have included Ai Wei Wei, Olafur Eliasson, Zaha Hadid, and Rem Koolhaus. The latest Pixar film is Lightyear, which tells the story of Buzz, the square-jawed astronaut, before he touched down in Andy’s toybox in Toy Story. After bein...

Fresh from performing at the Queen's platinum jubilee concert, singer-songwriter George Ezra plays in the Front Row studio from his new album, Gold Rush Kid. James Graham's new BBC drama, Sherwood, is set in a Nottinghamshire mining village still scarred by the 1984 strike. Former BBC correspondent and journalist Triona Holden, who reported on the disputes at the time, joins Samira Ahmed live to r...

On our Thursday review panel this week: the film critic Leila Latif and Simon Goldhill, Professor of Greek Literature and Culture at the University of Cambridge, review the British comedy horror film All My Friends Hate Me, directed by Andrew Gaynord and Howard Brenton's play Cancelling Socrates, directed by Tom Littler at the Jermyn Street Theatre in London. And the last of our author interviews...

Artist Paula Rego remembered. Following the sad news today of the death of one of the most important figurative painters of our times, we look back on her life and work with art critic Louisa Buck. Outgoing Children’s Laureate Cressida Cowell on why she’s pushing the government to invest £100 million in primary school libraries. Stones in his Pockets. 25 years on, the celebrated stage play returns...

Ayanna Witter-Johnson is a singer-songwriter, cellist and composer blurring the boundaries of classical, jazz, reggae and R&B. Performing live in the Front Row studio with Stephen Upshaw, viola player with the Solem Quartet, Ayanna reworks the roots reggae sound of The Abyssinians and shares part of her Island Suite, inspired by the poetry and storytelling traditions of Jamaica. During the hei...

Africa Oyé, the UK's largest festival of music from the continent of Africa, celebrates its 30th anniversary in Liverpool's Sefton Park this month. Its Artistic Director, Paul Duhaney, discusses the festival's history and chooses three tracks of music that reflect Africa Oyé's growth and reputation. What is a queer poem? Poets Mary Jean Chan and Andrew McMillan talk to Nick Ahad about how they exp...

To celebrate the Queen’s platinum jubilee, Front Row discusses some of the cultural highlights of 1952. Samira Ahmed is joined by broadcaster Dame Joan Bakewell, historian Matthew Sweet, film critic Anil Sinanan and the 20th Century Society’s Catherine Croft. They discuss Barbara Pym’s novel Excellent Women, the Bollywood classic Aan, surreal sounds of The Goon Show, how the emerging architecture...

Anthony Joseph – poet, musician, and academic – joins us to talk about his new poetry collection, Sonnets for Albert, which considers the personal impact of his absent father, and performs a selection of pieces. Tracey Emin talks to Natasha Raskin Sharp at Jupiter Artland sculpture park near Edinburgh, where her new exhibition includes a giant bronze female figure lying down in the woods, painting...

Actor Rory Kinnear plays ten characters- all the male roles but one- in the new psychological horror film from Alex Garland, Men. He joins Samira Ahmed to discuss how he approached playing multiple roles in this exploration of fear and loathing in the English countryside. The UK’s new City of Culture 2025 is announced. The Minister of Arts, Lord Parkinson reveals which bid from the shortlist of Br...

Immersive digital art in Coventry, the British Art Show, & music from Jasdeep Singh Degun.