Front Row

Stephen Poliakoff talks about his new BBC Two drama Summer of Rockets. The story of Russian immigrant and inventor Samuel Petrukhin's attempts to induct his family into English high society against the backdrop of the Cold War, stars Toby Stephens, Keeley Hawes and Timothy Spall and is Poliakoff's most autobiographical work yet. The first time Selina Thompson used her adult passport it was to get...

Rocketman is the new Elton John film musical that charts the singer’s life from his upbringing in Pinner, meeting his long-time collaborator Bernie Taupin, making it big and then struggling with addictions. We speak to the director Dexter Fletcher - who also worked on Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody - about making the film which stars Taron Egerton and was executive-produced by Sir Elton and his hu...

News from the Cannes Film Festival, including the premieres of Elton John biopic Rocketman and Ken Loach's Sorry We Missed You. With film critic Jason Solomons. David Chipperfield pays tribute to fellow architect I.M Pei, famous for his iconic designs such as the Louvre pyramid, who has died aged 102. Scottish crime writer Denise Mina on Conviction, her latest novel whose narrator is obsessed with...

The actor Stephen Graham originally made his mark as the racist skinhead Combo in Shane Meadows’s 2006 film This Is England. The actor and director have teamed up again for a new 4-part Channel 4 drama The Virtues, in which he plays a troubled alcoholic trying to get over the trauma of his childhood. The actor discusses making the show, as well as his recent role as undercover cop John Corbett in...

Television dramatist Sally Wainwright has written award-winning crime series such as Happy Valley, heart-warming love stories such as Last Tango in Halifax. The last time she turned her attention to the 19th century, it was to portray the Brontës in To Walk Invisible. Now she’s returned to the Victorian age, this time looking at the life of lesbian landowner Anne Lister. Historical novelist, Phili...

Mark Billingham, Val McDermid and Doug Johnstone are well-known for their detective stories, which they write alone. But they come together as members of the band Fun Lovin' Crime Writers. They perform live and talk to Stig Abell about their day jobs, the joys of collaborating as a popular beat combo and the connections between these. They stay on as cultural commentators to give their opinions of...

Keanu Reeves returns to cinemas in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, reprising his role as the super-assassin. He takes pride in performing most of the action scenes and discusses working with the director Chad Stahelski, himself a former stuntman. Paul Gambaccini remembers the singer-turned-movie-star Doris Day whose death at the age of 97 was announced today. Research recently published in the...

On the night of 18th April, 2015 a 90-foot fishing boat packed with migrants sent out a distress signal. It collided with a vessel responding to that call and sank between Libya and the Italian island of Lampedusa. Between 770 and 1,100 people drowned. Now the wreck has been raised and installed at the Arsenale, the historical naval yards in Venice - as an art work. Tim Marlow, director of exhibit...

Mark Haddon is the author of the phenomenally successful The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. He talks about his first novel in seven years, The Porpoise, in which he takes on the epic tale of Pericles. At this year’s Venice Biennale, the contentious American artist, Jimmie Durham, will be given the prestigious Golden Lion award for Lifetime Achievement. Art critic Ariella Budick dis...

When Guy Chambers teamed up with Robbie Williams in 1997, they created one of the most successful songwriting partnerships in British pop history. Now Guy has released his debut solo album called Go Gentle into the Light, performing hits such as Angels and Millennium on the piano. Writer Nina Stibbe has been announced as the winner of the 2019 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction f...

Director Amma Asante on her new film Where Hands Touch, which follows Leyna, an Afro-German girl, living under the increasingly dangerous and racist Nazi regime during World War II. Asante discusses her approach, used in this film and in A United Kingdom and Belle, of shining a light on little known histories often involving black characters to tell us something about the world today. Years and Ye...

Among the designs of the leading British-Ghanaian architect Sir David Adjaye OBE are the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC, which opened in 2016 in a ceremony led by the then US President Barack Obama, and the planned UK Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre next to the Palace of Westminster in London. David Adjaye is in Venice ahead of the openi...

The Malian singer Rokia Traoré is celebrated for her extraordinary voice, her collaborations with musicians and writers such as Damon Albarn and Toni Morrison, and her efforts to give opportunities to other artists in Mali. These qualities and interests are reflected in her choices as Guest Director of this year’s Brighton Festival. She talks about the work she and others will be performing. In Ge...

The death of Andrea Levy earlier this year adds a poignancy to the National Theatre's staging of her prizewinning 2004 novel Small Island, the story of the Windrush generation and their reception in Britain. Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff reviews. Screenwriter Craig Mazin on his Sky/HBO drama series Chernobyl, about the nuclear plant disaster of 1986 and the people who sacrificed themselves to save Europ...

Ben Lewis talks about his book The Last Leonardo, about the world's most expensive work of art, the painting Salvator Mundi. Authenticated as a Leonardo in 2011, he examines its journey from Leonardo’s workshop in Milan through to the present day and explains why he has doubts about its authenticity. Art critic Waldemar Januszczak and editor of The Art Newspaper Alison Cole assess Leonardo's extra...

JRR Tolkien’s literary canon has inspired some of the highest-grossing films ever, now a biopic about his life is being released to cinemas. Tolkien stars Nicholas Hoult as The Lord of the Rings author and looks at his formative years at school and during World War One. But last week the family of Tolkien have issued a rare public statement disavowing the film. Fantasy author and Tolkien fan Saman...

Front Row pays tribute to Les Murray, Australia’s foremost contemporary poet, who died today aged 80. Unlike famous compatriots such as Germaine Greer and Clive James, Murray stayed in Australia and spent his last years on the farm in Bunyah, New South Wales, that had been his family’s home. Murray reacted against modernism, believing poetry should be accessible. He wrote poems about Australian pe...

Avengers: Endgame marks the culmination of 10 years of interlinking Marvel movies. After the devastating events of Avengers: Infinity War, and the loss of some of the world’s biggest heroes, the remaining Avengers re-assemble to try and undo Thanos's actions and restore order to the universe. Critic Gavia Baker-Whitelaw reviews. Linda Grant discusses her new novel, A Stranger City, a detailed port...

We announce the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2019 shortlist. Chair of the Judges and Director of the Art Fund Stephen Deuchar explains why these museums are in contention for the £100,000 prize. A recent report commissioned by President Macron has recommended that France should return all of its African artefacts unless they can prove that they legitimately acquired them, marking a significant shif...

Adeel Akhtar, who stars in the new BBC1 series Back to Life, talks about his acting career – from Four Lions to becoming the first non-white male to win a Best Actor BAFTA for the TV drama Murdered By My Father. Doris Hatt (1890-1969) was a painter, feminist, socialist and pioneer of British Modernism. Her work spanning five decades is the subject of an exhibition at the Museum of Somerset in Taun...

We consider the connection between the public house and the arts. Why do pubs make such great settings, provide so much inspiration and serve as great venues for the arts? Al Murray ponders the longevity of his pub landlord and what this character allows him to explore about Britishness, as literary journalist Suzi Feay considers the representation of pubs in books and TV. Musician Eliza Carthy re...

Liz Pichon on her creation Tom Gates, the hugely popular series of books for young readers now on stage. Zanib Mian is the author of a new book about a Muslim family, Planet Omar - Accidental Trouble Magnet. Last year a report found that only 1% of children's books featured a main protagonist of colour. Alongside commentator and blogger Darren Chetty she considers whether that picture is changing...

The saxophonist Jess Gillam was a finalist in the BBC Young Musician award in 2016 and went on to take the Last Night of the Proms by storm last year. She plays live in the studio and talks to Samira about her beginnings in a carnival band in Cumbria and how she wants to expand the repertoire for sax players in classical music. The influential graphic designer Abram Games, who created The Festival...

Two female icons of the music industry release new works today. Beyonce’s new film Homecoming is released alongside a surprise new live album. The film focuses on her historic 2018 Coachella performance in which she celebrated America's historically black colleges and universities, black culture and black female empowerment. Also today, Madonna releases a new single ahead of her upcoming album and...

As France vows to restore Notre-Dame de Paris after last night's devastating fire, we discuss the artistic, musical and cultural significance of this great Cathedral. With music historian Mark Everist, art critic Waldemar Januszczak and French literature academic Eve Morisi. Roger McGough, one of Britain’s most widely read poets, talks about his latest anthology, joinedupwriting, in which he explo...