Front Row

Film historians Marc David Jacobs and Pamela Hutchinson investigate whether a rediscovered 1926 Scottish sound film predates The Jazz Singer. Artist Isaac Julien and historian Kenneth B. Morris Jr. explore Frederick Douglass’s legacy, photography and abolitionist work. Classicist Natalie Haynes traces Aphrodite from ancient myth to Beyoncé, while Hutchinson remembers Eva Marie Saint’s remarkable screen career.

Johnny Marr, Smiths co-founder and acclaimed solo musician, discusses his cathartic new album, road-testing songs, guitar style, and auctioning his collection. Teresa Krasny, editor of Monet’s translated letters, and critic Charlotte Mullins explore the painter’s anxieties, relationships, and outdoor risks. Booker-shortlisted novelist Rebecca Perry introduces a mysterious medieval world shaped by food, artifice, and desire.

Sarah Hall, the landscape-focused novelist, explores radical nature writing, climate futures and solarpunk. Filmmaker Paul Greengrass discusses turning the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt into historical drama. Comedians Ayoade Bamboye and Paddy Young reveal the pressures and pleasures of reviving live British satire on Saturday Night Live UK. Journalist Lara Brown examines the British Museum’s troubled Bayeux Tapestry exhibition.

Kirsty Lang, broadcaster and chair of the Baillie Gifford Prize judges, discusses its eclectic nonfiction shortlist. Critics Nick Hilton and Susannah Clapp dissect Tom Cruise’s bizarre, climate-focused Digger, James Graham’s Keynes play The Standard of Living, and Sky’s glossy divorce drama War. They debate satire, theatrical ambition, legal melodrama, and the pleasures of rediscovered poetry and communal television.

David Harewood, actor, director and author, discusses his first major British TV lead in Pierre, class, racism, Othello and mental health advocacy. Sir Simon Russell Beale, acclaimed stage and screen performer, explores playing Liberace, spectacle and the pianist’s hidden artistry. Critic Erica Jeal enters Yuja Wang’s surreal VR concert, while cultural logging apps and Esther Rantzen’s legacy also come under discussion.

Cherise Saywell, a short-fiction writer drawn to memory and hidden community tensions, and Saba Sams, award-winning author of Send Nudes, join a celebration of young and established storytellers. They explore what makes a short story unforgettable, from precise language and psychological tension to immersive worlds and unsettling endings. The programme also reveals winners, discusses writing from personal discomfort, and recommends essential short-story reading.

Es Devlin, the acclaimed stage designer and artist, discusses her 30-year retrospective, theatrical language and art as a rehearsal for change. Novelist Sebastian Faulks explores postwar Palestine, friendship and faith in his new historical novel. Apple executive Eddy Cue introduces Apple Music Hall, while critic Jonathan Jones surveys an unusually exciting Turner Prize.

Donna Ashworth, bestselling poet, shares poems from The Art of Being Easily Pleased and explores joy, belonging and connection. Operation Mincemeat creators Natasha Hodgson and David Cumming discuss the musical’s journey from scratch performance to West End success, including “Dear Bill.” Director Anthony Almeida reimagines Othello in 1980s Britain. Joelle Taylor explores queer history and disappearing lesbian spaces through Maryville.

Film critic Hannah McGill, former artistic director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, and theatre critic Fergus Morgan join a lively discussion of dystopian stories. They explore Emily St John Mandel’s fractured near-future novel Exit Party, Na Hong-jin’s wildly violent South Korean alien invasion thriller Hope, and a new stage adaptation of 1984. Expect debates on Orwell’s relevance, surveillance, social media, and the missing spark between Winston and Julia.

Russell Kane, comedian and writer, reimagines Romeo as an older lover, exploring intimacy, parenthood and emotional risk. Samantha Ellis, writer and critic, reviews a youthful Sense and Sensibility. Saxophonist Soweto Kinch and jazz historian Ashley Kahn mark John Coltrane’s centenary, from Giant Steps to A Love Supreme. Alex Clark, literary critic and former Booker judge, unveils this year’s adventurous shortlist.