Front Row

Director Deborah Warner discusses her new production of Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes, which opens at the Teatro Real in Madrid on Monday. The staging of this multinational co-production has become significantly more difficult in the wake of Brexit and more recently she has had to adapt to the numerous challenges posed by Covid. The death was announced today at the age of 52 of Helen McCro...

Paul Theroux talks to Tom Sutcliffe about his latest novel “Under The Wave At Waimea” set in Hawaii where he now lives. Published just as he’s celebrated his 80th birthday - it uses surfing as an allegory for consideration of ageing, contemplation, writing, reading and reflecting on his professional and personal life. The conversation ranges across Theroux's long and successful career as a writer...

Rapper and writer Testament discusses his new work Orpheus in the Record Shop which fuses spoken word and beatboxing with players from the Orchestra of Opera North in an new collaboration that gives the Greek myth of Orpheus a contemporary Yorkshire twist. Festivals this summer are still in doubt as organisers can't secure insurance commercially. Jamie Njoku-Goodwin, CEO of UK Music, discusses how...

Ammonite tells the story of fossil hunter Mary Anning and a young woman sent to convalesce by the sea who develop an intense relationship, altering both of their lives forever. Set in 1840’s England and starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan. The British Council's Director of Film, Briony Hanson reviews. In his early 20s, the actor and producer Jack Holden volunteered for the LGBT+ helpline, Swit...

Leila Latif reviews Too Close, ITV’s new psychological thriller starring Emily Watson and Denise Gough, which will be broadcast on consecutive nights this week. On the day that commercial art galleries are allowed to re-open in England, Rachel Whiteread discusses her new exhibition Internal Objects at the Gagosian gallery in London. The exhibition features new resin sculptures, and the gallery's t...

Taylor Swift, who recently won Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards, has today released a new album called Fearless (Taylor's Version), which is an exact remake of her 2008 breakthrough album, Fearless. Music critic Sophie Harris explains why Taylor is repeating herself and reviews the new record. Tom Sutcliffe discusses HRH the Duke of Edinburgh's interest in art and literature with Jonathan Ye...

Peggy Seeger has just released her latest album, The First Farewell, at the age of 85. She tells us about the pleasures of working on it with her family, her worries about the post-Covid music scene, getting older - and getting younger. Liverpool is about to take part in a pilot scheme testing live events. There will be an open-air film screening, a comedy gig and a club night. We talk to Liverpoo...

Katherine Parkinson is best known as an actress – she won a BAFTA playing Jen in The IT Crowd and warm praise for her performance on stage in Laura Wade’s play Home, I’m Darling. But she has also written a play, Sitting, an interwoven set of three monologues first performed at the Edinburgh Festival and now on BBC4 as part of BBC Lights Up. It is inspired by her own experience sitting for a portra...

Riz Ahmed stars in Sound of Metal as a rock drummer who loses his hearing. The actor and rapper discusses learning American sign language, working with culturally Deaf actors as well as learning about addiction for his Oscar nominated performance. So far, 2021 has seen a large number of novels with a climate change theme being published. Toby Lichtig, Fiction Editor at the Times Literary Supplemen...

A year ago, the writer, poet and broadcaster Michael Rosen was rushed to hospital with Covid. Put into an induced coma in intensive care for 48 days, he underwent weeks of convalescence as he learned to walk again. Following his recovery he wrote a new book, Many Different Kinds of Love: A Story of Life, Death and the NHS, featuring letters written to him by the medical staff who cared for him, as...

Tonight's Font Row is a blue odyssey led by John Wilson as he talks to: Dr Narayan Khandekar, Director of the Forbes Pigment Collection and one of the first people in the world to recognise the significance of the accidental creation of new pigment, YInMn Blue; Artist Idris Khan is known for the use of blue in his work. He accepted Front Row's invitation to play with the newest blue pigment on the...

Minari tells the story of a Korean family who move to a farm in Arkansas in pursuit of the American Dream. The film’s director, Lee Isaac Chung, explains how his own family story inspired events in the film, and the impact Awards nominations have on his career as a director. Pianist and musicologist Samantha Ege has launched an album of piano music from the often overlooked African-American compos...

Andrew Miller, the Government’s first Disability Champion for Arts and Culture, is stepping down after three years in the post. He discusses the challenges facing disabled people in the creative industries and his hopes for the future. Jenny Sealey is Artistic Director of deaf and disabled theatre company Graeae and Robert Softley Gale is Artistic Director of Birds of Paradise, Scotland’s first to...

Novelist Nadifa Mohamed and translator Maureen Freely review the just-announced longlist for the International Booker Prize 2021. Author Joanne Harris talks to her Italian translator Laura Grandi, her collaborator of 22 years, about their special partnership. Plus writer and artist Khairani Barokka and Maureen Freely explore the question of how to choose who is the best person to translate each te...

Kevin Macdonald’s new film The Mauritanian is based on the true story of a prisoner held in Guantánamo Bay for 14 years but never charged. The French-Algerian actor Tahar Rahim, recently seen in the TV drama series The Serpent, discusses the challenges of playing Mohamedou Slahi, who was shackled, beaten and waterboarded by the US authorities. The Lip depicts a hidden Cornwall, the one we rarely s...

For our Friday Review, critics Jacqueline Springer and Sophie Harris give their verdict on two new documentaries, Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil and Tina. Both detail each of the star’s respective troubles with abuse and drug addiction while in the limelight, and our reviewers discuss their candid telling of trauma. The Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition winner was announced this Th...

Emerald Fennell is the director and writer of Promising Young Woman, a darkly comic revenge thriller starring Carey Mulligan. The film is nominated for five Academy Awards and six BAFTAs. Emerald is also a successful actress, most recently starring as the then-Camilla Parker Bowles in The Crown as well as a cameo in the movie. We hear about what sparked the film, reactions to it and what it’s like...

The playwright Mark Ravenhill joins us to talk about his new play Angela. It is a tender portrait of his parents; his mother, Angela, who died in 2019, and of his father, Ted. Angela had dementia and the play is about the memories that make us, and how time is more fluid than we might think. Ravenhill began Angela as a play for the stage that he was going to act - and even dance - himself. But Cov...

Orlando Bloom talks to Samira Ahmed about taking on a very different kind of role in his intense and visceral film Retaliation, and the new career challenges he’s excited about. As the delayed Liverpool Biennial gets underway – showing only online and outdoor work for the moment because of the restrictions on galleries opening – art critic and editor of The Double Negative cultural website Mike Pi...

Nile Rodgers – guitarist, producer, songwriter, arranger, and co-founder of Chic in the 1970s – is the subject of what claims to be the world’s first voice-interactive digital portrait, In the Room with Nile Rodgers, in association with the National Portrait Gallery. Nile Rodgers and the project's director, Sarah Coward, discuss and explain the ambitious artwork. Hannah Peel’s latest album Fir Wav...

Today, Griff was awarded the 2021 BRITs Rising Star prize. The 20 year old singer-songwriter joins us to discuss how she writes her lyrics including to her breakout single Black Hole, making music in lockdown and what the future holds for her now she’s won this award. Line of Duty returns to our screens this weekend. Crime writers Dreda Say Mitchell and Abir Mukherjee review Jed Mercurio’s sixth s...

A year ago, the poet and former Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen was admitted to hospital with Covid-19. Against all the odds, after months in hospital, including 48 days in intensive care and in an induced coma, he returned home and has written a new collection of prose poems and words about the experience. The poet discusses Many Different Kinds of Love: A Story of Life, Death and the NHS and h...

Director Chase Joynt joins us to talk about his film No Ordinary Man, an in-depth look at the life of musician and trans culture icon Billy Tipton. Tipton was born in Oklahoma in 1914, and with the limited resources of the 1930s, had no choice but to transition alone. Entering the heady world of jazz as a pianist and band leader, he enjoyed a long and successful career, becoming a husband and fath...

One year after theatres closed due to the Covid pandemic, leading figures from the industry join Front Row to look at how the past year has impacted upon theatres and the people who work in them. Sonia Friedman reflects on this time last year, when the unthinkable happened, and looks forward to when theatres might re-open. Julian Bird, CEO of SOLT and UK Theatre, reports on the results of their su...

Inspired by the real-life story of three men in a lighthouse who mysteriously vanished, Emma Stonex’s novel The Lamplighters is part thriller, part history and part ghost story. She explains why she felt drawn to write about the sea and what we can learn from the solitary lives of lighthouse keepers. David Fincher's film Mank leads the field in today's Oscar nominations, but who else stood out in...