Front Row

Edmund Richardson, acclaimed classicist and Baillie Gifford Prize winner, explores Alexander the Great’s conquests, legends and lost love. Arts critic Nancy Durrant and film writer Tim Robey examine Keira Knightley in The Lives of Others, a stage vision of Stasi surveillance, and La Bola Negra’s sweeping gay romance amid the Spanish Civil War. They also debate Tom McCarthy’s opaque new European thriller.

Sam Taylor-Johnson, the acclaimed artist and filmmaker, discusses self-portraits, celebrity, friendship and photographing icons. Oscar-winning filmmaker Sian Heder explores Judy Heumann’s disability-rights activism and bringing the radical 504 sit-in to the screen. Writer Alexander Linklater, Hugh MacDiarmid’s authorised biographer, examines the poet’s bold modernist masterpiece, political contradictions and enduring impact on Scottish literature.

Musician Nitin Sawhney and Booker Prize-winning writer Samantha Harvey explore their Orbiting Orbital collaboration, blending new prose, music, cosmic perspective and love for Earth. Biographer Jasper Rees reveals Michael Gambon’s rebellious journey from working-class beginnings to Dumbledore. Curator Charlene Prempeh discusses the nuanced diversity of Black design, while journalist Marcus Barnes remembers techno pioneer Juan Atkins and Detroit’s futuristic sound.

Grandmaster Flash, pioneering DJ and turntablist, recalls the Bronx roots of hip-hop, inventing the quick mix, and shaping tracks like “The Message.” Storyteller Vayu Naidu and theatre director Jatinder Verma explore the Ramayana’s enduring power, its cinematic retellings, and debates around Sita. Patrick Stewart reflects on Yorkshire and Shakespeare, while Toby Hadoke pays tribute to K-9 voice actor John Leeson.

Journalist Yana Leushnefskaya, critic Kate Maltby and literary scholar John Mullen explore Nina Raine’s six-hour Middlemarch, Agatha Christie’s revealing British Library exhibition and Maria Kreutzer’s morally unsettling film Gentle Monster. They also examine Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s literary infrastructure, plus cultural recommendations spanning T. S. Eliot, Noël Coward and Elizabeth Taylor.

Ashley Walters, actor and filmmaker, discusses his harrowing directorial debut, Animal, shaped by his experience of prison and youth crime. Daniel Foxx, comedian and author, and Michelle Anya Anjirbag, a fairy-tale scholar, explore queer, comic and politically subversive retellings. Booker-shortlisted novelist Elizabeth Strout reflects on marriage, secrets and class in The Things We Never Say. Theatre closures across the UK also come under scrutiny.

John Malkovich, acclaimed actor and director, and Sam Rockwell, Oscar-winning actor, discuss Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine, from CIA guilt and moral exhaustion to provocative dialogue and filming on Rapa Nui. Booker winner Marlon James explores disappearing identities, Jamaica’s homophobic past, and rage in fiction. Aylwyn Walsh examines managing culture-war conflict, while Luis Fajardo charts Colombia’s battle over museums and national history.

Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler’s Wife, discusses her long-awaited sequel, time travel, fate and an anti-fascist future. Nick Groom, literary scholar and vampire expert, traces bloodsuckers before Dracula and their links to sexuality and politics. Kyle MacLachlan, celebrated for Twin Peaks and David Lynch films, recalls Dale Cooper and his creative partnership with Lynch. Gilles Mentré introduces France’s experimental AI literature prize.

Sir Phil Redmond, the television creator and cultural planner, discusses Blackpool, Milton Keynes, Sheffield and Wrexham’s City of Culture 2029 bid. Critics Alexander Larman and Bidisha explore class tension and sexual menace in Possible Love, Pawel Pawlikowski’s postwar drama Fatherland, and the shortened revival of Martin Guerre. They also consider Cliff Richard’s unlikely resurgence and recommend gothic reading and cinema.

Sofia Coppola, acclaimed filmmaker of Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette, discusses completing her late mother Eleanor’s intimate documentary about the film’s lavish production. Hernan Diaz, Pulitzer-winning author of Trust, explores his leap into dystopian fiction, underground music, stolen electricity and societies rebuilding amid collapse. They also examine creativity, family, power and the future of art.