Podcast
Front Row
Hosted by BBC Radio 4 · EN
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
72episodes
Episodes
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Rivals writer Sophie Goodhart on new TV series Alice and Steve; depictions of dogs in art
2d ago00:42:21Tap to summarizeAward 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 Sutcliffe Presenter: Claire Bartleet
Transcribe →Marilyn Monroe at 100
3d ago00:42:20Tap to summarizeOn 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
Transcribe →Review Show: Paul McCartney, Russell T Davies, Maggie O'Farrell
1w ago00:42:40Tap to summarizeRachel Lloyd, Deputy Culture Editor of The Economist, and writer Lawrence Norfolk join Tom to discuss Channel 4's new queer drama Tip Toe, which is the latest series by Russell T Davies and stars Alan Cumming as a gay bar owner in Manchester and David Morrissey as his long-standing neighbour whose previously friendly relationship takes a dark turn. They also talk about Paul McCartney’s 18th studio album The Boys of Dungeon Lane which was 5 years in the making and includes tracks where Paul reflects on his pre-fame world in Liverpool. And they assess Land by Hamnet author Maggie O’Farrell. This multi-generational epic novel is about families, mapping and connections to land.Plus, Roger McGough talks about his latest role as an ambassador for A Poet In Every Port, and reads a new poem. The project is a key part of the Southbank Centre's 75th anniversary national programme. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Claire Bartleet
Transcribe →Ann Patchett, plus why launch an all-male publishing house?
1w ago00:42:11Tap to summarizeNashville-based novelist Ann Patchett tells us about her tenth novel, Whistler, in which a chance encounter between a woman and her stepfather after many years leads to unexpected revelations. As a new publisher - Conduit Books - launches with the intention of promoting work by male authors, we discuss why this might be needed, with its founder, the writer Jude Cook, and with Ellah Wakatama, Editor-at-Large at Canongate Books, who has worked in the publishing industry for many years. Pioneering photographer Wendy McMurdo's exhibition The Digital Mirror opens at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh this weekend, and shows a body of work which responds to how digital technology such as computers, tablets and gaming has impacted on children's lives since the mid 1990s. She joins us live in the studio. And a new survey by the organisation Age Without Limits has found that hit movies are four times more likely to feature a talking animal than a female actor aged over 60. We ask why that might be, and how representation of older women on screen might be improved. Presenter: Kirsty Wark Producer: Mark Crossan
Transcribe →Jazz legend Miles Davis at 100
1w ago00:42:34Tap to summarizeWriter and broadcaster Kevin Le Gendre, and trumpeter and composer Yazz Ahmed on 100 years of Miles Davis - the musician regarded as the Picasso of jazz.Artist Keith Tyson has just donated a quarter of a million pounds for an astronomy post at Oxford University. He's joined by Professor Ken Arnold, director of the Medical Museum at the University of Copenhagen, to discuss the relationship between art and science.Playwright Rory Mullarkey on his new play at the Royal Exchange, Even These Things, which marks the thirtieth anniversary of the bombing of Manchester by the IRA.Jazz's "Saxophone Colossus", Sonny Rollins, remembered.Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu
Transcribe →Live from Hay with Jack Thorne and Val McDermid
1w ago00:42:21Tap to summarizeLive from Hay, celebrating reading and writing in many different forms, Samira is joined on stage by Jack Thorne - multi-award-winning screenwriter of the TV sensation Adolescence and his newest drama Falling, about a nun and a priest who fall in love.Also, Tartan Noir titan Val McDermid speaks about crime fiction and her 40 years of writing.The Ian Fleming estate has granted novelist Vaseem Khan permission to write a book in the Bond-iverse. This time, it's set in the world of Q, Bond's gadget supplier.And Hanan Issa, the National Poet of Wales, joins us to explore Welsh/Iraqi storytelling and poetry.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Transcribe →Review Show: Douglas Stuart's John of John and Cannes Film Festival
2w ago00:42:27Tap to summarizeSamira Ahmed is joined by writer Matt Cain and critic Suzi Feay to review:Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart's new novel John of John, set on the Isle of Harris. New series The Boroughs, which stars Alfred Molina and Geena Davis in a retirement community, executive produced by Stranger Things' Duffer Brothers. And Holy Pop!, a new exhibition at Somerset House in London that celebrates fandom.Also, film critic Tim Robey joins Samira from the Cannes Film Festival to talk through some of his highlights.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Lucy Collingwood
Transcribe →Heated Rivalry author Rachel Reid
2w ago00:42:25Tap to summarizeCanadian author Rachel Reid talks to us about the the phenomenon which has followed the publication of her books about the romantic relationship between rival ice hockey players.We speak to author Yang Shuang-zi and translator Lin King, the author and translator of this year's International Booker Prize winning book, Taiwan Travelogue. And Mull Historical Society's latest album In My Mind There’s A Photograph sees singer-songwriter Colin Macintyre work with lyrical contributions from a panoply of world-leading authors. He reveals his collaborative process with the likes of Irvine Welsh, Ali Smith, Irenosen Okojie, Yiyun Lee, and Sir Alexander McCall Smith, and performs a track live in the Front Row studio. Presenter: Kirsty Wark Producer: Mark Crossan
Transcribe →Winston Churchill: The Painter, and Smoggie Queens creator and star Phil Dunning
2w ago00:42:26Tap to summarizeThe paintings of Winston Churchill are being exhibited at the Wallace Collection in London. Xavier Bray, Director of the Wallace Collection, and Katharine Carter, curator at Chartwell, Churchill’s country house in Kent, discuss what we learn about Churchill from his art.Creator and star Phil Dunning talks about series two of Smoggie Queens, which follows a close-knit group of friends; it’s a celebration of queer culture and a love letter to Middlesbrough and its community.As questions are being asked about the use of AI in one of the regional winning entries of a prestigious short story prize for unpublished fiction, writer and journalist Hari Kunzru talks about the impact of AI on writing.And Tom visited the RHS Chelsea Flower to see the Tate Britain show garden, which offers a taster of the forthcoming Clore Garden.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Claire Bartleet
Transcribe →White Lotus and Bridget Jones star Leo Woodall on his new film
2w ago00:42:15Tap to summarizeLeo Woodall stars in the film Tuner, about a young piano prodigy who turns to crime, in cinemas on the 29th May.The classical music world has been paying tribute to the soprano Dame Felicity Lott, who died on Friday at the age of 79. Critic David Benedict joins us to discuss her life in music.Ronald Firbank is considered a pioneering queer voice of modernist fiction, but he's often overlooked. Sir Alan Hollinghurst and the poet and critic Jack Parlett join us to assess his literary impact and his legacy, a century on from his death.Mary Astell championed women’s education and spoke out against what she saw as the tyranny of marriage in the early 18th century. But despite her impact she's in danger of being forgotten. Now a new play imagines her in conversation with another famous feminist philosopher, Virginia Woolf, encountering each other in a celestial waiting room. We speak to the playwright, Shelagh Stephenson about her play Astell & Woolf, playing now at Newcastle's Live Theatre.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Harry Graham
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