Episodes
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Tom Sutcliffe is joined by critics Bidisha and David Benedict to review:
The Invite, a new film directed by Olivia Wilde about two couples who join each other for dinner, starring Seth Rogan and Olivia Wilde as hosts and Edward Norton and Penélope Cruz as their guests.
Pride the Musical, created by the same team as the hit 2014 film, which tells the true story of a group of LGBT activists who support a Welsh mining community during the 1980's miners' strikes.
And the novel Trouble Was by Charlotte Edwardes which is told from the perspective of young schoolboy Frank whose family leaves their home to move in with their aunt in her farmhouse, during the 1976 heatwave.
Tom also talks to journalist William Lee Adams about the news that Canada is joining Eurovision.
Presenter: Tom SutcliffeProducer: Lucy Collingwood
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The acclaimed novelist Kazuo Ishiguro talks about how he went about curating a season of films featuring trains for the BFI - from classics such as Shanghai Express by Josef von Sternberg and Sidney Lumet's Murder on the Orient Express to lesser known gems - and about how trains have inspired his own work - including songs, and his forthcoming novel, Miss Lambert Steps Aboard Danger.
Actresses Maureen Beattie and Tracy-Ann Oberman discuss why they've changed the gender of popular roles for stage productions which are opening soon - Lear at Pitlochry Festival Theatre which sees one of Shakespeare's greatest tragic figures portrayed as a matriarch in decline, and at the Theatre Royal Bath, Garry Essendine in Noel Coward's comedy about the perils of celebrity Present Laughter is now Gerri Essendine, an ageing actress desperately clinging on to her youthful beauty.
Author Stuart Cosgrove hails Village People frontman Victor Willis (whose death has just been announced) as one of the finest soul voices of his generation, whose talents were perhaps overlooked due to the novelty reputation which came to be associated with the group.
And Dr Sonke Prigge tells us why - and how - he has preserved the sound of the clattering mill, traditionally used in Germany to scare away birds from cherry orchards, for the British Library's sound archive.
Presenter: Kirsty Wark Producer: Mark Crossan
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Missing episodes?
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Author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and The Circle, Dave Eggers is back with a new novel about a young aspiring artist. Contrapposto follows Cricket, an insular smalltown boy, enchanted by drawing, as well as an older girl, and in part draws on Eggers’ on experiences of the art world. Visiting the UK for the first time in over a decade, he speaks to Samira Ahmed in a rare interview.
As an officially licensed AI Michael Caine narrated audiobook The Odyssey has recently been released, Media and AI lawyer Kelsey Farish and Guardian Film Editor Catherine Shoard discuss why a number of high profile actors, or their estates, have signed up to have their images and voices cloned for use by AI and what it means for the future of the industry.
Jamir Nazir has won this year's Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Called The Serpent in the Grove, he explains how his childhood observations of rural life in his native Trinidad inspired the story, and describes the impact of winning on him and his family.
Craig Gillespie talks about his new film Supergirl, a space adventure starring The House of Dragon actress Milly Alcock as Superman's mighty cousin. The I, Tonya and Cruella director reveals how this movies was inspired by the western True Grit and why he wanted to make the last daughter of Krypton a more complex and flawed character than has been shown on screen before.
Presenter: Samira AhmedProducer: Andrea Kidd
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We mark the passing of actress Dame Penelope Keith, speaking with John Lloyd and Mel Giedroyc about her long career.
Actor Russell Tovey plays a troubled police officer dealing with a late night emergency in The Guilty at The Donmar Warehouse in London.
Katherine Rundell on updating Cinderella for a contemporary audience, as part of Radio 4's Once Upon a Time series.
We discover the photographic genius of Jacques Henri Lartigue, whose work spanned almost the entire 20th century. An exhibition of his colour photographs has just opened in Milton Keynes
Presenter: Samira Ahmed
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Writer Charlotte Mullins and author Viv Groskop join Tom to discuss the Frida Kahlo exhibition at Tate Modern in London. It's the highest pre-selling exhibition in Tate's history, and contains 30 significant works, has her clothes on display, and looks at the artist's life and impact on contemporaries and later generations.
They also offer their verdict on the Danish black comedy The Last Viking, which is the 6th film by director/actor trio Anders Thomas Jensen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Mads Mikkelsen.
Finally, they talk about Lisa Owens' novel Natural Disaster which dissects the last 24 hours before a mother goes back to work after maternity leave.
Plus The Box in Plymouth is revealed as the winner of the UK Museum of the Year, with Chair of Judges Jenny Waldman.
Presenter: Tom SutcliffeProducer: Claire Bartleet
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25 years since she published her first Charlie and Lola book, former Children's Laureate Lauren Child returns with a new friendship-focused series featuring best-friends Lotta and Lola. She joins us to talk about her approach to writing for children and about the importance of reading together as a family.
Refik Anadol, one of the creative team behind Dataland, a vast new museum dedicated to AI art which opened this weekend in Los Angeles, tells us about the multi-sensory experiences visitors walk through on their journey through the building and how the Museum embraces and celebrates digital art while finding solutions to energy usage and volumes of data.
Turner Prize winning artist Jasleen Kaur's new trail of sculptures on the banks of the River Clyde in Glasgow take the form of weather vanes and question the city's links to trade and colonialism. She tells us more about this commission to mark Glasgow 2026, the cultural festival which complements this summer's Commonwealth Games.
And as an exhibition of theatrical portraits of stars of stage and screen by Cecil Beaton go on display at Harewood House in Yorkshire, curator Bryony Smith and design historian Stephen Bayley explain why everyone who was anyone wanted to sit for the legendary photographer, and how his photographs also changed public perceptions of the monarchy.
Presenter: Kirsty Wark Producer: Mark Crossan
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Bill Nighy joins to talk about his new family drama 500 Miles, where he plays a reclusive painter on the west coast of Ireland who gets an unexpected visit from his two Sheffield-based grandsons. He also discusses his early days in acting, his famous role in Love Actually, and why he's become an agony uncle in a new podcast. Today, the Carnegie Medal for Writing was awarded to Beth O’Brien for her debut YA novel Wolf Siren, and Kate Rolfe won the Carnegie Medal for Illustration for her book Wiggling Words. Both join Front Row to discuss their books Hold To This Earth: Works by Contemporary Indigenous North American Artists from Tia Collection is the new show at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Art critic Veronica Simpson reviews. Merky Books Prize-winning writer, and filmmaker, Sufiyaan Salam, on the inspiration behind his debut novel, Wimmy Road Boyz, which follows three young males pushed to the limits of their masculinity during a life-altering night out. Presenter Nick AhadProducer: Ekene Akalawu
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Linda Perry came to fame as lead singer of the all-female band Four Non-Blondes. She went on to be a hugely successful songwriter and producer, writing hits for the likes of Pink and Christina Aguilera, and collaborating with Dolly Parton. She's now released her first solo album for 27 years - Let It Die Here - and a documentary film of the same name. Linda came to perform for Front Row and explain why she’d stepped back into the limelight.
Mel Brooks is the filmmaker who gave us such comedies as Blazing Saddles and The Producers. He turns 100 on Sunday so we're celebrating it with his son Max Brooks, and the writer and culture journalist Hadley Freeman.
James Burrows, who died at the weekend at the age of 85 directed more than a thousand episodes of many classic American sitcoms – such as Friends, Will and Grace and The Big Bang Theory. The writer and TV Critic Scott Bryan remembers James Burrow's life and career.
And Glenn Tillbrook from Squeeze tells us about The Everywhere At Once Festival, a special music event this weekend that’s celebrating grassroots venues around the UK.
Presenter: Samira AhmedProducer: Andrea Kidd
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Writer Stephanie Merritt and Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin join Tom to review Anish Kapoor’s immersive exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London, which includes huge red sculptures, black holes and boundless mirrors that challenge perspectives.
They also discuss The End Of Everything by M. John Harrison, a post-apocalyptic novel where the nature of the crisis remains unclear.
And they review Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day – a film adaptation of her novel with a cast including Haley Bennett, Timothy Spall, Jennifer Saunders and Lily Allen.
Plus, Toy Story 5 director Andrew Stanton talks about the latest film in the franchise, and as a co-writer for all the films in the series he talks about how they've changed over the years.
Presenter: Tom SutcliffeProducer: Claire Bartleet
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Priya Parmar's novel The Original tells the story of how actor Katharine Hepburn set out to become one of the true movie icons of the 20th century and succeeded. She's joined to talk about Hepburn's life and career by film historian Pamela Hutchinson.
As the Obama Presidential Center opens later this week in Chicago, we hear how its architecture is being viewed in the city, how it compares with other presidential libraries and what it might do for the people of Chicago.
As the National Library of Scotland's new exhibition showcases how artists, filmmakers and poets across the centuries have been inspired by rain, poet Don Paterson and head of collections at the library Alison Stevenson join us to discuss why we're conditioned to think about rain in particular ways and about the best creative responses to a weather condition we know all too well.
Presenter: Kate Molleson Producer: Mark Crossan
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The Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, is widely regarded as the man who helped the band break through. He's inspired plays, films, and even an artistic installation by the Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller. He's now the subject of a new biography, Mr Moonlight, by Philip Norman.
A Unesco-listed cathedral in Kyiv went up in flames on Sunday night after an intense Russian bombing attack. The Ukrainian government sees the attack on the historic Pechersk Lavra monastery complex as part of a sustained campaign to destroy the nation’s cultural landmarks and identity. And in Kharkiv, workers at the state art museum have just moved its collection after a bombing raid caused fires. The Baltic republic of Estonia, which has an Eastern border with Russia, say it is planning for such attacks too. Samira Ahmed talks to its culture minister, Merilin Piipuu.
Tributes have been pouring in for the Oscar-winning special effects pioneer Brian Johnson, who’s died at the age of 87. He worked on the British television shows Thunderbirds and Space:1999, the latter taking him to Hollywood, and The Empire Strikes Back. One of those who has been influenced by his craft is the visual effects designer and filmmaker Paul Franklin, who explains why Brian Johnson changed the sci-fi landscape.
What is it like to grow up in a town which lost its industry decades before you were even born? That’s the story of Effie o Blaenau, Effie in Blaenau, a Welsh language film about a young woman looking for love to escape her weekly routine of unemployment and drinking. Lead actor Leisa Gwenllian joins Samira in the Front Row studio to discuss her role.
When the Barbie film was released in 2023, it made over a billion dollars in just 17 days – making director Greta Gerwig the first ever woman to reach that milestone as a solo director. Now an exhibition charting the evolution of Barbie from her creation in 1959 to the present day is opening in Glasgow. It was first shown at London’s Design Museum, where it proved one of the venue’s most popular ever shows. Senior curator Danielle Thom and writer and fan Sara Sheridan discuss Barbie as art.
Presenter: Samira AhmedProducer: Andrea Kidd
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Tom Sutcliffe presents a special edition of Front Row on the art of David Hockney.
The artists Maggi Hambling and Tacita Dean and Andrew Marr speak to Tom about Hockney's career and innovations.
Tom also speaks to art critic Rachel Campbell-Johnston and the art critic and author James Cahill, author of The Beverley Hills Housewife: Hockney’s Californian Muse and the World Beyond the Pool, published later this year.
The programme also features excerpts from interviews with Hockney.
Producer: Eliane Glaser
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Film producer Jason Solomons and Guardian columnist Zoe Williams join Tom Sutcliffe to discuss Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day – a film which looks at whether aliens are really out there.
John D. MacDonald’s psychological thriller The Executioners has inspired two Cape Fear films and now there’s a 10-part TV series starring Amy Adams and Javier Bardem. Jason and Zoe give their verdicts.
They also talk about M. C. Escher’s major exhibition at Somerset House. Famous for drawing optical illusions, impossible buildings, and endless patterns, the Dutch artist’s work has inspired film scenes in Labyrinth and Christopher Nolan’s Inception.
Plus we will be revealing the winners of the Women’s Prize for Fiction and Non-Fiction.
Presenter: Tom SutcliffeProducer: Claire Bartleet
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Scotland's Makar Peter Mackay on his poems honouring Scotland's football team as they head to the FIFA World Cup - one, his own work, the other curated from lines submitted by members of the public. Can they help propel the team to victory in their first tournament in many years?
Crime writer Denise Mina tells us about the extraordinary true crime case that inspired her book The Last Drop, now adapted into a theatre production at Glasgow's Citizens Theatre.
Outdoor theatre takes place across the summer, around the UK. But what are the challenges it presents, given our 'unpredictable' climate? Gordon Barr of Bard in the Botanics in Glasgow and James Pidgeon of Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in London discuss.
And as Pope Leo celebrates mass in architect Antoni Gaudi's unfinished masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, we speak to the author of a new biography of Gaudi, Peter Stanford about the building's cultural and religious significance, and turbulent history.
Presenter: Kate Molleson Producer: Mark Crossan
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Barry Manilow on maintaining his musical curiosity as he releases his 33rd studio album, What A Time, and what it's like to have one of his biggest hits, Copacabana, sung by Sabrina Carpenter.
With the start of the World Cup this week, sports photographer Tom Jenkins, and Tim Marlow, Director of The Design Museum and one of the judges for this year's Football Art Prize at the Millennium Gallery in Sheffield, discuss the art of making art out football.
As the Rambert dance company turns 100, Amanda Britton, one of its former leading dancers and now Principal and Artistic Director of Rambert School, reflects on the company's distinctive approach to dance.
For 400 years the largest collection of notes - the Codex Atlanticus - by Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci have remained divided with those deemed artistic kept in the UK in the Royal Collection, and those with a scientific focus retained in Italy. Leading authority on all matters Leonardo, Professor Martin Kemp on the new digital platform, the Leonardotheka, which has just reunited the notes and made them publicly accessible.
Presenter: Nick AhadProducer: Ekene Akalawu
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Samira Ahmed talks to Daft Punk's Thomas Bangalter about their new album Mirage
Ekow Eshun, writer and broadcaster, and Polly Savage, Lecturer in the Art History of Africa at SOAS, University of London, discuss an exhibition of Pan African art at the Barbican, Project a Black Planet
Front Row introduces its AHRC/BBC New Generation Thinker for 2026, Genevieve Robyn Arkle, who is a Lecturer in Music History at King's College London
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Opera director David Pountney on John Tavener's last opera Krishna, performed as a world premiere at Grange Park Opera
Producer: Eliane Glaser
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Tom Sutcliffe is joined by writer Alexander Larman and critic Arifa Akbar to discuss:
A new production of High Society, Cole Porter's musical showcase at London's Barbican, starring Call the Midwife's Helen George in the role of the amorously vexed Long Island socialite Tracy Lord who finds her heart pulled in every which direction. Also starring Freddie Fox and Felicity Kendal.
The film Savage House starring Richard E. Grant and Claire Foy, a dark satire telling a cautionary tale of greed and social climbing, set against the backdrop of 18th century England, a Pox outbreak and Jacobite Uprising.
And Fiona Mozley's new book about memory, Awake Awake, in which protagonist Mary is struggling to decipher whether her recollections are fact or fiction.
We also speak to the CEO of Arts Council England about their new direction.
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As the Belfast Book Festival opens Kirsty Wark is joined by a range of guests at the Crescent Arts Centre.
She'll be discussing reading and freedom of expression with Hilary McCollum, whose new book As A Lover is inspired by the scandal which followed the publication of Radclyffe Hall's story of lesbian love The Well of Loneliness in 1928, and by novelist and short story writer Lucy Caldwell whose work often examines what were once taboo subjects.
Head of Cuba Pictures Dixie Linder, who's made TV adaptations of work by Marian Keyes, MIsha Glenny and Susanna Clarke talks about her approach to adapting much-loved books, and Andrew Reid of Northern Ireland Screen will explain how the Game of Thrones effect has made an enormous cultural and economic impact on the local industry.
The director and one of the cast of Bold Girls - Rona Munro's play about how women held families together during The Troubles - also join us live, as does Donegal-based poet Annemarie Ní Churreáin, who will be reading live from her latest collection Hymn To All the Restless Girls.
Producer: Mark Crossan
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Award winning jazz saxophonist and broadcaster Soweto Kinch and writer and director of new film Köln 75, Ido Fluk, join Tom to explore the importance of Keith Jarrett’s seminal performance at the Cologne Opera House in 1975, and its subsequent album, which became the bestselling solo album in jazz history.
Sex Education and Rivals writer Sophie Goodhart on her award-winning comedy-drama Alice and Steve, starring Nicola Walker and Jemaine Clement. It’s about best friends turned enemies, after Steve starts dating Alice’s 26-year-old daughter.
Cultural historian Thomas W. Laqueur talks about depictions of dogs in art, as he publishes his new book The Dog's Gaze.
Critic Clarisse Loughrey talks about how small screen directors and creators on YouTube have made the leap to Hollywood's big leagues, with films like Obsession and Backrooms breaking box office records and driving Gen Z to the cinemas.
Presenter: Tom SutcliffePresenter: Claire Bartleet
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On what would have been her 100th birthday, we look at the enduring popularity of Marilyn Monroe, with film journalist and fan Kim Morgan and reviewer Angie Errigo
Sathnam Sanghera talks about the meaning of George Michael.
Jazz legend and saxophonist Courtney Pine talks about his career, forty years after his seminal debut album Journey to the Urge Within.
And poet Joelle Taylor, author of Maryville and TS Eliot Prize-winning collection C+nto & Othered Poems, pays tribute to writer and activist Maureen Duffy - one of the first publicly "out" lesbian women, who has died aged 92.
Presenter: Samira Ahmed
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