Front Row

Front Row joins Radio 4's celebration of Bob Dylan, who will be 80 on Monday. John Wilson joined by Bob Geldof, to consider the art and influence of Bob, on Bob. Ann Powers, music critic for National Public Radio joins from somewhere on the Nashville Skyline. On Bob Dylan's first trip to Britain, in the winter of 1962, he and the great English folk singer Martin Carthy, met, became friends and per...

Eleanor Clayton is the curator of the largest publlc exhbition of the work of the sculptor Barbara Hepworth since her death in 1975. She's also written a new biography about the sculptor called Barbara Hepworth Art and Life. She talks to Nick about Hepworth's passion for making sculpture and how her insistence on the best way her work should be presented to the public has influenced the new show a...

The new album of compositions by Roxanna Panufnik performed by the Saconni Quartet features a surprising range of subject material; letters written home during the First World War, Ashkenazi Jewish cantorial chant, Aung San Suu Kyi’s musings on Burma, a celebration of Poland’s EU presidency, a 14th century love story and the heartbeat of a Bulgarian dancing bear. We talk to her about the stories b...

The actress Julie Hesmondhalgh, best known for Coronation Street and Broadchurch on TV, returns to the theatre for the opening night of her new play at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. Modestly titled The Greatest Play in the History of the World… it is not only the first night of the tour but the first night the theatre has been open since last year. Julie takes a break from rehearsals...

Barry Jenkins, the director of the 2017 Oscar-winning film Moonlight, discusses his new ten-part TV adaptation of Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Underground Railroad. The drama series follows two young slaves as they escape their cotton plantation in Georgia and go in search of the fabled railway which they hope will transport them north in their quest for freedom. The directo...

Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland, which recently won best film at both the Oscars and Baftas, is leading the pack as cinemas reopen next week. Film critic Tim Robey and Chinese arts journalist Yuan Ren discuss Nomadland and what else we have to look forward to. St Vincent’s latest album Daddy’s Home is inspired in part by her father’s release from 10 years in prison. The artist discusses getting personal fo...

Author of the Year was announced today at the British Books Awards. Tom speaks to the winner, Richard Osman, game show host and author of the hugely successful crime novel The Thursday Murder Club. In the middle of the forest sits an abandoned toy shop. It appears to be a fairy tale house, but as you inch closer you see that it is defaced and decaying. Inside there are rows of upside down dolls. U...

From next Monday theatres in England will legally be allowed to reopen with social distancing and strict capacity restrictions. We find out what it will be like for audiences and staff as they return to venues. We also hear from one theatre director in Scotland who's not reopening and ask why. The Cultural Recovery Fund has provided a lifeline for some arts organisations who would have gone under...

It was after the death of George Floyd that television writer and producer Travon Free, and filmmaker Martin Desmond Roe came together to create a response to this traumatic event. The result was Two Distant Strangers which won Best Live Action Short Film at this year’s Oscars. Travon and Martin join Elle to talk about making art out of tragedy. NBC has dropped the 2022 Golden Globes Award ceremon...

David Hockney has captured the unfolding of Spring during the pandemic, creating 116 new works on his ipad which have been blown up for a new exhibition at London’s Royal Academy. Art critic Ben Luke reviews the prolific 83 year old’s new work. He also discusses the shortlist for this year’s Turner Prize; for the first time, no one on the list is an individual artist: they are all artist collectiv...

The actress and writer Emily Mortimer discusses her directorial debut The Pursuit of Love, her 3-part adaptation of Nancy Mitford's novel starring Lily James, Emily Beecham and Andrew Scott, which centres on two women born into privilege, trying to seize life and love with both hands but constrained by societal expectations. Today sees the release of Rag ‘n’ Bone Man’s second album Life by Misadve...

Don Warrington stars as the head of a family, united and divided by grief in Sian Davila’s debut play for Radio 4, Running with Lions. We speak to both Sian and Don about the play and its particular significance now. Last Sunday, the doyenne of radio criticism, Gillian Reynolds CBE, wrote her final column for the Sunday Times. She joins Front Row to discuss a career that dates back to the late 196...

A mother and father struggling to come to terms with their trans child are at the centre of Anna Kerrigan’s new film, Cowboys. She talks to Samira about creating a family drama set in the woodlands of Montana. After Liverpool took part in a Covid recovery pilot scheme testing live events over the weekend - including an open-air film screening, a comedy gig and a club night - we talk to the city's...

This year sees a number of writers we know primarily as poets or novelists releasing collections of essays - from Jeanette Winterson to Lucy Ellman and Karl Ove Knausgaard. Tom talks to two of them: Kei Miller, whose latest collection is called Things I have Withheld, and Rachel Kushner, whose new collection is called The Hard Crowd. Dreda Say Mitchell reviews new Sky TV series, Bloods. Samson Kay...

The National Covid Memorial Wall on the bank of the Thames opposite the Houses of Parliament is an unofficial site of remembrance and reflection for the 150,000 or so individuals who've died from Covid. Artists and writers consider the role and design of memorials in the 21st century, from the poppies at The Tower of London in 2014 which toured the UK, to the recent controversy of the toppling of...

Adapted from Paul Theroux’s bestselling book, The Mosquito Coast follows a family on the run from the US government and seeking escape in Mexico, where they hope to build a simpler life away from American consumerist culture. Critics Tanya Motie and Kohinoor Sahota join Tom to discuss the new TV series and to share their cultural picks of the week. Royal Blood is a 2 piece rock band from Brighton...

Raoul Peck is a Haitian filmmaker whose documentary I Am Not Your Negro, based on the words of James Baldwin, was Oscar-nominated and won a Bafta in 2018. Now he has made a new documentary series in 4 parts, Exterminate All the Brutes, looking at the impact of colonialism and the development of racist ideas using a mixture of voice-over, dramatisation, animation and Hollywood movies. He talks abou...

Today the shortlist for the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction is revealed. Chair of judges Bernardine Evaristo joins Front Row to talk through the chosen books and explain why they’re worth their place on the list and literary critic Alex Clark gives her reactions. Citizen Kane has been knocked off the top spot on Rotten Tomatoes as a unfavourable review from 1941 has been found ruining its 100% crit...

We review new Netflix fantasy series Shadow and Bone. It's being touted as the new Game of Thrones but is it worth the hype? Children's and YA author Katherine Webber Tsang gives her verdict. This weekend the Brighton Festival opens and will be the first UK city festival since lockdown. Last year the guest director Lemn Sissay was ready to launch the festival when Lockdown restrictions meant the w...

Violinist Nicola Benedetti is performing a new concerto by Mark Simpson, who was winner of both the BBC Young Musician of the Year (as clarinettist) and the BBC Proms/Guardian Young Composer of the Year. Commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra, Mark wrote it specifically with Nicola in mind. We speak with both of them ahead of this Thursday's premiere. Adrian Lukis discusses his one man show...

In a wide ranging extended interview, Sir Tom Jones looks back at his life and career, from his coal-mining upbringing in South Wales to global superstardom. He talks about the therapy he underwent to restore his ability to sing after the death of his wife and the two year quarantine he endured as a child because of tuberculosis. He recalls the time he lost his temper with John Lennon, and the sin...

Rose Matafeo discusses her new BBC3 comedy Starstruck. It follows Jessie, a millennial living in East London juggling two dead end jobs and navigating the awkward morning-after-the-night-before, when she discovers the complications of accidentally sleeping with a famous film star. She talks about creating a rom-com, diversity and why her comedy hero is the Dude in the Big Lebowski. The composer Is...

Actor, writer and director Noel Clarke discusses his latest role in the new five-part ITV drama series Viewpoint, in which he plays a surveillance detective tracking the movements of the prime suspect in the disappearance of a young woman. In the interview he looks back over a career which started with his breakthrough role in Kidulthood in 2006, which he wrote and starred in, and his further succ...

Kayo Chingonyi is an award-winning poet, producer, DJ and lyricist. Kayo joins Tom to talk about his much anticipated new collection A Blood Condition, exploring family, identity and his Zambian heritage. Plus his new music podcast series Decode, which takes a deep dive into Dave’s Mercury Prize-winning debut album Psychodrama, revealing its musicality and lyricism over 11 episodes. Schubert’s son...

London Grammar's debut album in 2013 won an Ivor Novello Award for Best Song. Their follow up four years later topped the album charts. Singer and songwriter Hannah Reid talks about their latest album Californian Soil, about sexism in the music industry, and using lockdown as a chance to learn to read music. Craig Easton was last week announced as Photographer of the Year at the Sony World Photogr...