

Front Row
BBC Radio 4
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jun 12, 2025 • 43min
Review Show: Pulp's new album More
Professor John Mullan and writer Lucy O’Brien join Tom to review More, Pulp's first album in nearly 24 years. They also discuss exhibitions by the 20th century British artists Edward Burra and Ithell Colquhoun which are running in parallel at Tate Britain. Plus they give their verdict on Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, inspired by actual experiences of Laura Piani, who is making her directorial debut with this film.Tom also talks to Visual Art Curator Sim Panaser and artist Abi Palmer, about Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff - one of the finalists in the Art Fund Museum of the Year. And we reveal the winner of Women's Prize for Fiction.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Claire Bartleet

Jun 12, 2025 • 42min
Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys remembered.
Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys rememberedTurner Prize winning artist Rachel Whiteread talks about her retrospective exhibition at the brand new Goodwood Art Foundation in Sussex. We celebrate the centenary of the National Library of Scotland and hear about its plans to send important items from its collection to museums around the country - from National Librarian Amina Shah and bestselling writer and Centenary Champion Val McDermid. And writer and curator Lally Macbeth talks about her book The Lost Folk: From the Forgotten Past to the Emerging Future of Folk, which looks at the past, present and future of the UK's folk culture - from music to Morris dancing and from pub signs to church kneelers. Presenter: Kate Molleson
Producer: Fiona MacLellan

Jun 10, 2025 • 43min
Was 1975 the best year for music?
Sarah Moss, the celebrated author of Ghost Wall, discusses her new novel Ripeness, which oscillates between tension-filled contemporary Ireland and a heady summer in 1960s Italy. Dylan Jones discusses his new book 1975: The Year The World Forgot and debates whether this was the best year for music with chief music critic of the Daily Telegraph, Neil McCormick. After reports of an emerging deal between the UK and Greece around the status of the Elgin Marbles, we talk to Geoffrey Robertson KC, campaigner for their return, about the legal ramifications. A new statue of Stalin has appeared on the Moscow Underground at Taganskaya station. After de-Stalinisation in the 60s it seems that the Russian authorities are now reintroducing images of the former leader, showing him in a positive light and ignoring his reign of terror. Tom speaks with the BBC’s man in the Russian capital, Steve Rosenberg, about what this might mean. And we finish the programme with a specially written poem from Fred D'Aguiar, Professor of English at the University of California, about the government response to the migrant deportation protests.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Simon Richardson

Jun 9, 2025 • 42min
Twin Peaks creator plus Ian Rankin on Frederick Forsyth
Ian Rankin pays tribute to the best-selling thriller author Frederick Forsyth, whose death was announced today. Samira talks to Twin Peaks' co-creator Mark Frost and podcaster Mike Munser about the show's enduring legacy 35 years on, as Twin Peaks is re-released and celebrated at the BFI Film on Film Festival. Playwright Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti talks about her new play Marriage Material, which spans decades in the lives of a Sikh family running a corner shop in Wolverhampton.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Harry Graham

Jun 5, 2025 • 42min
Review show: Paris Lees drama What It Feels Like for a Girl
Tom and guests review What it Feels Like for Girl, the BBC's coming-of-age drama based on the memoir of Paris Lees; Taylor Jenkins Reid's new novel, Atmosphere, set against the backdrop of the 1980s space shuttle program and new film, Lollipop, about a young woman released from prison battling to regain custody of her children, written and directed by Daisy-May Hudson. We also talk to former Vice President of Washington's Kennedy Center, Marc Bamuthi Joseph about being fired by President Trump and the administration's latest interventions in the arts world.Guests: Scott Bryan, TV critic and broadcaster; Caroline O’Donoghue, author and podcaster; Marc Bamuthi Joseph, former Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington; Zachary Small, arts reporter, New York TimesPresenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Claire Bartleet

Jun 4, 2025 • 43min
Daisy Goodwin on her play about the late Queen and her dresser
Daisy Goodwin discusses her debut play, By Royal Appointment, which stars Anne Reid as Queen Elizabeth and Caroline Quentin as her dresser, and which opens this week at Theatre Royal, Bath. The life and legacy of Irish novelist playwright and poet Edna O'Brien is discussed by writer Jan Carson and the director of the documentary Blue Road: The Edna O'Brien Story, Sinead O’Shea. And we hear from the curator of Design & Disability, an exhibition at the V&A in London which showcases the contributions of Disabled, Deaf, and neurodivergent people to contemporary design and culture since the 1940s. Plus Booker Prize winner Alan Hollinghurst pays tribute to American writer Edmund White, whose death has just been announced. Presenter: Kirsty Wark
Producer: Mark Crossan

Jun 3, 2025 • 42min
Nick Mohammed on comedy and improvisation
Comedian Nick Mohammed on his stand-up show Mr Swallow, and Deep Cover, his action thriller about a group of comedy improvisers.Kate Wasserberg, Artistic Director of Theatr Clywd on the theatre's £50 million redevelopment, and opening the new auditorium with a production of the musical Tick Tick... Boom!Ulrich Birkmaier, senior conservator of paintings at the J Paul Getty Museum in LA on restoring a work by Artemisia Gentileschi damaged during the catastrophic Beirut explosion in 2020.Theatre critic Michael Coveney pays tribute to pioneering stage designer William Dudley.Presenter: Nick Ahad
Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Jun 2, 2025 • 42min
Fiddler on the Roof returns to the stage
Samira discusses the Olivier award-winning production of Fiddler on the Roof with its star Adam Dannheisser and director Jordan Fein.Sarah Dunant talks about the women in the Renaissance who became art patrons, as she publishes her novel The Marchesa, about Isabella d'Este of Mantua. Screenwriter Frederic Raphael, whose films include Far From the Madding Crowd, Darling and Eyes Wide Shut, on the art of writing film scripts. Producer: Harry Graham
Presenter: Samira Ahmed

May 29, 2025 • 42min
Imelda Staunton in Mrs Warren's Profession
Samira Ahmed and writers Dreda Mitchell and Mark Ravenhill review Imelda Staunton and her daughter, Bessie Carter, in Mrs Warren's Profession.They consider, too, theatre director Marianne Elliott's first foray into film, The Salt Path, based on a Raynor Winn's bestselling memoir of how she and her husband, after they have lost their house and farm and he has been diagnosed with a rare terminal disease, walk the 600 miles of the South West Coast Path. It features Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs - with and the land and seascape of the end of England in a starring role. The Victoria and Albert Museum has a collection of 4.5 million artefacts. Inevitably, many are stored away. But now the museum is inviting everyone backstage, to the V&A East Storehouse, where half a million objects are looked after. It is a wonderful gallimaufry, ancient ceramics next to plastic chairs from the sixties, a huge Picasso, a Frank Lloyd Wright office and a child's pedal car. Samira, Freda and Mark wander the gantries.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Julian May

May 28, 2025 • 42min
Paul Hartnoll of Orbital on the band's Brown album, and a new biography of Muriel Spark.
Paul Hartnoll of electronic music duo Orbital talks about the reissue of the band's Brown album which was originally released in 1993, with the addition of 23 extra tracks of rarities and previously unreleased material and about the intersection between dance music and politics. Frances Wilson, who has previously published acclaimed biographies of D H Lawrence and Thomas De Quincy tells us about her latest book Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark, about the great Scottish writer, poet and essayist. And the creator of Netflix's new detective series Dept. Q, Scott Frank, who previously wrote and directed The Queen's Gambit and has written the scripts for Hollywood movies from Minority Report to Marley & Me, talks to us about adapting bestselling Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen's books for the screen and why he's transposed the setting for the series from Copenhagen to Edinburgh. Presenter: Kate Molleson
Producer: Mark Crossan