Front Row

Wim Wenders on his new Oscar nominated Japanese language film Perfect Days, about a toilet cleaner in Tokyo as he goes about his work. Koji Yakusho won the Best Actor Award when the film premiered at this year’s Cannes film festival, and the film has been dubbed ‘slow cinema’. Len Pennie came to prominence as a poet on social media during the Covid pandemic. As she publishes her first collection, Poyums, the feminist performance poet talks about writing predominantly in the Scots language. Angus Robertson, SNP Cabinet Secretary for Culture, discusses the challenging situation facing the arts in Scotland, and his vision for the future. Kate Molleson also talks to arts campaigner Lori Anderson from Culture Counts. Presenter: Kate Molleson Producer: Timothy Prosser

Rhiannon Giddens, the musician, composer and former lead singer of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, performs live with her band. She talks about her work in uncovering the real history of the banjo and writing her first solo album of original material. Peter Sarsgaard discusses playing a man with early onset dementia in Memory, a performance that won him the Best Actor Award at last year’s Venice Film Festival. What is the role of a casting director? As the BBC launches Bring the Drama, a new programme giving untrained amateurs a chance to get into acting, casting director and judge Kelly Valentine and theatre casting director Nadine Rennie discuss the art of discovering new talent. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Paula McGrath

Sir Peter Blake is famous for his Pop Art paintings, collages and album covers – and not just Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. But the artist, now 91, has throughout his career made three dimensional works. For the first time in two decades there is an exhibition devoted to these. Samira Ahmed meets the artist in the gallery on the eve of the opening of Peter Blake: Sculpture and Other Matters.Actor David Harewood is appointed the new President of RADA – the Royal Academy for the Dramatic Arts. He shares with Front Row his vision for one of the world’s leading theatre schools.John Logan’s new play Double Feature explores the director-actor relationship through two of the most tempestuous relationships in cinema history. Samira talks with the Oscar-nominated Gladiator writer about how Alfred Hitchcock made Tippi Hedren’s life on the set of 1964 thriller Marnie a living hell, while Vincent Price and Michael Reeves could barely hide their hatred for each other during the making of the 1968 horror film Witchfinder General. The play opens tonight at the London’s Hampstead Theatre.Presenter Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian May

The writer of Line of Duty, Jed Mercurio, a former doctor, turns his attention to the impact of the Covid pandemic on NHS staff and patients in the ITV drama Breathtaking. Tom Sutcliffe talks to him and co-writer Prasanna Puwanarajah, who’s also an ex-doctor, about the power of drama depicting recent events. The Arts Council England has come in for criticism for new guidance about “overtly political” art, guidelines that some artists felt could amount to censorship. Darren Henley, the Chief Executive of Arts Council England, explains their position on freedom of expression. Front Row also reviews the major new exhibition Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind at the Tate Modern, which looks back over the career of this groundbreaking conceptual artist. We also review the new Apple TV+ series, The New Look, starring Maisie Williams and Juliette Binoche, about the lives and rival careers of pioneering fashion designers Christian Dior and Coco Chanel in Nazi-occupied and post-war Paris. . Our reviewers are Ben Luke, critic and podcast host for The Art Newspaper, and Justine Picardie, author of Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life, and Miss Dior: A Wartime Story of Courage and Couture.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Paul Waters

Andrew Harding on the Radio 4 drama, A Small Stubborn Town, inspired by his work as the BBC Ukraine correspondentEmma Rice is one the UK’s most celebrated theatre-makers known for her musical and comedic approach, and with numerous innovative and successful productions such as Brief Encounter, The Red Shoes, and Tristan and Yseult, under her belt. As her latest production goes on a UK tour, she talks to Nick about reimagining that darkest of fairy tales, Blue Beard, as a feminist cri de coeur. In the wake of the Hugo Awards scandal, Gavia Baker-Whitelaw, culture critic and Hugo awards finalist, Han Zhang, editor-at-large at Riverhead Books, focussed on finding works in the Chinese language for translation and publication in the US, and Megan Walsh, author of The Subplot: What China is reading and why it matters, discuss the fallout and what is reveals about the popularity of Sci-Fi in China.Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Stephen Sanchez found fame on Tik Tok, bringing his 1950s inspired music and style to an audience of young fans. At just 20 years old, he was Elton John’s guest on the main stage at Glastonbury. He talks to Samira Ahmed about his UK tour and performs two songs from his new album, Angel Face.What do Gen Z’s viewing habits mean for the future of TV and film? Dr Antonia Ward, Chief Futurist at Stylus, and Entertainment Reporter Palmer Haasch explain how the preferences of younger viewers are shaping film and television.In 1954 Ishiro Honda changed the monster movie forever when he introduced the world to Godzilla. Now 70 years and nearly 40 films later, Godzilla is the star of the world’s longest running film franchise. Author Graham Skipper and film distributor Andrew Partridge explain why Godzilla holds a unique place in cinema and pop culture.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian May

Director Reinaldo Marcus Green talks to Tom Sutcliffe about One Love, his biopic about the legendary reggae singer-songwriter Bob Marley and his music.Bryce Dessner, the guitarist of the award-winning rock band The National, discusses his other life in classical music and writing a new concerto for pianist Alice Sara Ott, which is having its UK premiere at the Royal Festival Hall.This week the liturgical calendar marks the moment when Joseph was warned by an angel of King Herod’s intent to harm Jesus, and told to flee with him and Mary to safety in Egypt. The painter Julian Bell and art historian Joanna Woodall consider how The Flight into Egypt has been the subject of great artists - Giotto, Gentileschi, Brueghel, Rembrandt - for centuries and shapes our perception of refugees to this day. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Olivia Skinner

Tom Sutcliffe talks to the Evening Standard’s Arts Editor Nancy Durrant and art historian and curator Catherine McCormack about a new adaptation of David Nicholls’s book, One Day, which is released on Netflix today. It follows Emma and Dexter who meet at their graduation in Edinburgh in the late 80s, as they weave in and out of each other’s lives. They also discuss Beyond Form: Lines of Abstraction, a new exhibition featuring the work of women artists who pushed at the boundaries of art-making in the post-war period. American Fiction has been nominated for five Oscars including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay – which was written by its director Cord Jefferson. He talks to Tom about how the book it’s based on resembled his own life so much it felt like it was written just for him, and how humour plays a crucial role in illustrating how black writers are still pushed into writing “ghetto fiction”.

The Chosen, a self-funded TV drama about the life of Christ, has become an international hit with over 100 million views. The creator Dallas Jenkins explains why he wanted to make a bingeable series about Jesus and Priest Lucy Winkett and historian Joan Taylor discuss its impact and significance. The 1970s Soul Funk band Cymande has had a lasting influence on music globally, but they are little known in the UK where they first formed. Director Tim McKenzie Smith explored their music and impact in the new music documentary 'Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande' and he’s joined by two of the group’s original members, Patrick Patterson and Steve Scipio, to talk about it.The American writer Diane Oliver died in the 1960s aged just 22 but her short stories are now inspiring a new generation. Tayari Jones, author of the Woman’s Prize-winning An American Marriage, explains why Diane Oliver deserves a place in the in the literary canon alongside Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Olivia Skinner

The Reytons' second album, What's Rock and Roll, debuted at No 1 in the charts - a rare feat for a band without a label. They discuss following it up with Ballad of a Bystander which features songs about pulling and politics.Phoebe Eclair-Powell on her Bruntwood Prize-winning play, Shed: Exploded View, which was inspired by the work of art Cornelia Parker created when she asked the British Army to blow up a garden shed, capturing the fragments in a frozen moment. The play centres on three couples whose conversations coincide, clash, and chime - the play opens at the Royal Exchange in Manchester this week.Poet Andrew McMillan on his debut novel, Pity, an exploration of masculinity and sexuality in a small South Yorkshire town.Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu