Front Row

Thomas Guthrie and “The Alehouse Boys” bring the music of Schubert to pubs with their new album Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin. Their arrangements of Schubert’s song cycle intend to break free from the formality of established lieder recitals, returning to its original improvisational form. In the last of our Booker shortlist series this week, Samira interviews Canadian 2023 Giller Prize-winning novelist Sarah Bernstein. Her second novel, Study for Obedience, explores the inner thoughts of its unnamed protagonist who moves to a new area to stay with her brother and quickly becomes a feared stranger. And the critic Boyd Tonkin discusses the remarkable literary output of the author, critic and poet AS Byatt who has died aged 87.

Annette Bening and Jodie Foster star in a new sports biopic Nyad, the eponymous story of Diana Nyad who attempted to swim between Cuba and Florida in her 60s. In an exclusive interview for Front Row, Tom Sutcliffe talks to them about meeting their real-life counterparts, the importance of on screen friendship and getting time to train in the ocean.Briony Hanson, British Council’s Director of Film and Kevin Le Gendre, author and journalist, review Rustin, a film about Bayard Rustin, the influential gay Black Civil Rights leader responsible for the 1963 March on Washington, and the book Amazing Grace: A Cultural History of the Beloved Hymn by James Walvin. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Corinna Jones

Ian McMillan explains the challenge of translating Rossini's comedy opera, The Barber of Seville, into Yorkshire dialect and singers Oscar Castellino and Felicity Buckland along with pianist Pete Durant perform two of the Yorkshire-ised arias from this new production live in the Front Row studio.Our relationships with art objects is a subject that many visual artists are currently exploring. Two such artists are Johanna Billing and Stuart Semple who joined Nick in the Front Row studio to discuss why they think art as an object is getting in the way of appreciating art as an experience.Jesse Darling is the first in Front Row' series of interviews with the artists who are nominated for this year's Turner Prize. He uses sculpture, installation, text and sound in his work to react to the world around him, for instance contorting roller coaster tracks in an expression of life's messiness. The exhibition continues at the Towner Eastbourne, and the winner of the prize will be announced in December. The Royal Society of Arts is leading a coalition to create a ‘Northern Cultural Corridor’. Comprising leading figures in the creative industries, alongside local governments across the North of England, it is looking for ways to boost the cultural potential of the north. Andy Haldane CEO of the RSA explains how they will set about it. Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Emerald Fennell’s follow-up to her award-winning film Promising Young Woman aims to have cinema-goers squirming in their seats. The mystery drama Saltburn explores class, as an awkward outsider spends the summer at a large country house. The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the Rt Hon Lucy Frazer KC MP discusses her plans to reach the targets set out in the Government’s Creative Industries Sector Vision. In this week’s interview with a Booker shortlisted author, Tom speaks to the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Paul Harding. His third novel, This Other Eden, uses the historical story of an island in Maine harmoniously inhabited by a mixed-race community in the 19th century as a point of poetic departure, until the unsettling arrival of missionaries.

The UK’s first art, film and photography galleries dedicated to war and conflict have just opened at the Imperial War Museum. Al Murray, who has made several documentaries about Britain’s wars, and Rachel Newell, Head of Art at the Imperial War Museum, join Samira Ahmed to discuss the new galleries. Director Todd Haynes talks about his new film May December which stars Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman. The black comedy drama follows an actress who travels to Georgia to meet a controversial woman she is set to portray in a film. And musician and producer Trevor Horn, known for creating the sound of the 1980s, talks about his new album Echoes – Ancient and Modern. It reimagining songs from 1982 to 2012 and includes performances from Iggy Pop, Tory Amos and Marc Almond.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Olivia Skinner

Tonight on Front Row - reviews of something old and something new. At this year's Cannes Film Festival, Anatomy of a Fall, a whodunnit fused with a portrait of a marriage and wrapped up in courtroom drama, won the Palme d'Or, and thirty years ago today, hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan released their seminal debut album, Enter The Wu-Tang Clan (36 Chambers). Musician and writer Bob Stanley, and music journalist Vie Marshall have been watching and listening and share their thoughtsOn the side of a pub in Sheffield "The Snog" - a mural of a middle-aged couple in a tight-embrace - by the artist Pete McKee has become a much-loved work of public art. Now McKee has expanded the story of the couple, Frank & Joy, into an immersive installation - the creation of fictional pub The Buffer's Rest - at Trafalgar Warehouse. He talks to Nick about creating Frank & Joy - A Love Story.Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu

To mark 400 hundred years to the day since the First Folio of Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies was published according to the True Original Copies, the BBC is celebrating this with a season of Shakespeare programmes. Front Row is looking aslant at the other artistic, literary and cultural events of 1623.Tom Sutcliffe hears from artist historian Karen Hearn about the impact of the first Palladian building in England and what was being painted. Lucy Munro traces the influence of The Spanish Match (which didn’t happen) on drama. The conductor Jeremy Summerly tells Tom about the music being played and sung that year. Folklorist Steve Roud reveals how the news was delivered in broadside ballads, which found their way into Shakespeare’s plays, and singer Lisa Knapp sings one. This was the year when John Donne wrote ‘no man is an island’. The big draw, apart from Donne’s preaching, was the elephant sent by the King of Spain.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Julian May

Singer, songwriter and activist Billy Bragg joins Samira Ahmed to perform live in the Front Row studio and discuss The Roaring Forty, a box set and nationwide tour to mark his forty years in the music industry.Women in Revolt, a new exhibition of Feminist art of the 70s and 80s, opens this week at the Tate Britain in London. Musician and punk artist Helen McCookerybook and art historian Catherine McCormack discuss the impact of the era. In the latest in Front Row’s series of interviews with the authors shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Paul Murray discusses The Bee Sting. A family saga set in contemporary Ireland, it examines our capacity for denial in the face of disaster. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Ciaran Bermingham

Rebecca Lucy Taylor also known as Self Esteem is making her stage debut in the Olivier-award winning production of Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club in London as Sally Bowles, the English nightclub singer in thirties Berlin. She tells Samira how the late Paula Yates was an inspiration.The details of a long awaited UK wide Arts Access Scheme are finally being revealed tonight on Front Row. The scheme aims to improve the experience of people with disabilities and neurodivergent people going to creative and cultural events. Andrew Miller, UK Arts Access Champion at ACE, explains how the new scheme will work.The art scene is Ghana is becoming one of the most creative globally, with international collectors showing a new interest in Ghanian artists. Stephen Smith reports from Accra, where artists are drawing on West African traditions to make exciting new work. Judi Jackson was singing from a young age in her church choir, but it was a music teacher at school who really encouraged her and put her in contact with some hugely successful artists, leading to her opening for the legendary Mavis Staples aged 16. She won vocalist of the year at the 2020 Jazz FM awards, and her recent album is a collection of tracks from the Great American Songbook. She performs live in the studio.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Paula McGrath

Coming under the Front Row spotlight today are: Kenneth Branagh’s new stage production of King Lear, in which he both stars and directs, and How to Have Sex, a new coming of age film about the trend for post-exam holidays abroad, by first time director Molly Manning Walker, and which won the Un Certain Regard award at Cannes this summer. Theatre critic Susannah Clapp and journalist and Good Bad Billionaire podcast host Zing Tsjeng review.A new track by The Beatles dubbed their “final song” has been released 45 years after it was first conceived. The track, Now and Then, uses John Lennon’s vocals and all four Beatles feature on it. We'll have a listen and review.‘He first deceased; she for a little tried To live without him, liked it not, and died.’Lady Morton’s epitaph, written in the 17th century, is the shortest verse in The Penguin Book of Elegy. The new anthology gathers hundreds of poems of memory, mourning, and consolation, by writers ranging from Virgil, born in 70 BCE, to Raymond Antrobus, born in 1986. Andrew Motion, the book’s co-editor, discusses the ways elegy shapes memory, giving it meaning. He also reflects on the variety of elegy and how it stretches beyond the human, honouring loss of landscape, species and cultures. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Corinna Jones