Front Row

Tom Sutcliffe meets Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt of Everything But the Girl as they release Fuse, their eleventh studio album and their first in almost 24 years following 1999’s Temperamental.Today's critics are Briony Hanson, Director of Film at the British Council and Carne Ross, former British diplomat and writer. They'll be talking about The Diplomat on Netflix which follows the story of the newly appointed US Ambassador to the UK.Briony and Carne will also review French film Pacifiction, which taps into the world of the high commissioner in French Polynesia. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Sarah Johnson

Composer Jeanine Tesori's Blue for the ENO; Baillie Gifford winner of winners for non-fiction shortlist - Margaret MacMillan; new ideas in architecture discussedPresenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Jerome Weatherald

Plans to finish Barcelona’s famous church, La Sagrada Família, have been causing controversy as they involve demolishing apartment blocks to make way for the new entrance. Journalist Guy Hedgecoe, who reports on Spain for the BBC, and the Twentieth Century Society’s director, Catherine Croft, discuss the issues raised as the completion of the emblematic building draws near. Singer Georgia Cecile topped the Jazz charts with her latest album, Sure of You. She joins Samira Ahmed to perform live in the Front Row studio and discuss the resurgence of Jazz. The Northumbrian police and crime commissioner has redirected some of the proceeds of crime into the arts. Bex Lindsey reports on how Tyneside based theatre company Workie Ticket are using the funding from “Operation Payback” to create productions with social impact. And Front Row remembers the actor and director Murray Melvin, best known for his role in Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey, who has died aged 90.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Paul Waters

Percussionist Colin Currie performs live in the Front Row studio. He discusses his new interpretation of one of minimalist composer Steve Reich’s best known works, Music for 18 Musicians.50 years on from the death of playwright Noel Coward, biographer Oliver Soden and theatre director Michael Longhurst look at his legacy and ask what he means to theatre audiences today, as a new production of Coward’s Private Lives opens.Author Catherine Lacey on Biography of X, her genre redefining new novel about a mysterious artist, which includes fictionalised footnotes and references. Presenter: Shahidha Bari Producer: Julian May

The RSC's production of Hamnet brings the bestselling, award-winning novel by Maggie O'Farrell to the stage. To review this reinterpretation of O'Farrell's imagined account of the short life of Shakespeare's son, which also foregrounds his wife Agnes, Tom Sutcliffe is joined by theatre critic Susannah Clapp and the novelist and screenwriter Louise Doughty. Michael Frayn is the author of almost 50 works, including the farce Noises Off, the novel Spies, and translations of Chekhov’s plays. In his ninetieth year, Frayn talks to Tom Sutcliffe about Among Others: Friendships and Encounters, a memoir less about him than the people who shaped him.Our critics Susannah Clapp and Louise Doughty also review the new Netflix drama Obsession, a tale of erotic obsession, based on the late Josephine Hart's 1991 novella Damage.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Paul Waters

Screenwriter Kevin Sampson on the complexities of his new true crime drama for ITV, The Hunt for Raoul Moat.Max Porter found huge success with his first book, Grief is the Thing with Feathers, acclaimed as a tender, funny and original story of loss. His latest, Shy, completes the trilogy about grief that began with that book. It tells the story of a teenage boy in the 90s, setting off in the middle of the night from a residential house in the countryside for disturbed children. Opera director Adele Thomas on the reaction to her Twitter thread about what a stage director earns.Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, photographer Chris Killip immersed himself in communities in the north-east of England. The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead presents a career retrospective, with the stark yet tender images he made at its heart. The poet Katrina Porteous, who like Killip has worked on the Durham coast, reviews the exhibition. Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu

A new exhibition of the Pre-Raphaelite Rossettis at Tate Britain in London explores the 'radicalism' of Dante Gabriel, Christina and Elizabeth (Siddal), and their 'revolutionary' approach to life, love and art in Victorian Britain. It emphasises Elizabeth as artist rather than muse, and charts the emergence of the Pre-Raphaelites through to Gabriel’s famous romanticised female portraits. However, despite their popularity, views of the Rosettis' art are often polarised. To discuss whether the Rossettis are radical or overrated, Samira is joined by the curator of the exhibition, Carol Jacobi, and by critic Jonathan Jones.Artificial intelligence can now write sonnets, paint portraits and compose symphonies. Benbrick, the Peabody Award-winning producer of the BBC Sounds’ series Have You Heard George’s Podcast?, reflects on the impact of AI on creativity and his own creative practice.In the latest of Front Row’s interviews with the shortlisted authors for this year’s Baillie Gifford, Winner of Winners Award, Samira talks to Wade Davis about his book - Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Kirsty McQuire

Front Row marks the 400th anniversary year of Shakespeare's First Folio with former RSC Artistic Director Greg Doran, Guildhall Principal Librarian Peter Ross, and Shakespeare experts Emma Smith, Farah Karim-Cooper and Chris Laoutaris. Without the Folio we might not have had The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure and many others. Front Row considers the rich, complicated and sometimes paradoxical history of its compilation, printing, and significance over the centuries.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Sarah Johnson

Ai Weiwei: Making Sense. We look at the new exhibition which opens at the Design Museum in London tomorrow.Plus we review the new Grease prequel Rise of the Pink Ladies, streaming on Paramount+ from tomorrow. Samira is joined by reviewers Nancy Durrant, Cultural Editor of the Evening Standard, and critic Karen Krizanovich. Plus 25 years of the Good Friday Agreement. Two very different new plays marking the anniversary open this week. Agreement at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast dramatizes the negotiations that led to the deal, and Beyond Belief at the Derry Playhouse is a musical about the life of Irish politician John Hume - one of the architects of the peace agreement. Steven Rainey talks to the creative teams behind both productions about marking the moment. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Jerome Weatherald

For his latest project, the Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney has turned his attention to the original tennis wunderkind Boris Becker. He talks about the making of his documentary, Boom! Boom!: The World vs Boris Becker, and what it was like to follow the sports legend during the period which saw him land in jail.The BBC's Kathy Clugston looks at how artists are commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement and talks to Gail Ritchie and Raymond Watson about the different approaches they have taken to marking moment when the agreement was made.What happens when a working artist leads an arts organisation and should artists be leading more organisations? Poet, writer, and performance artist Keisha Thompson, who is also the artistic director and CEO of Contact, the theatre and arts venue in Manchester, and visual artist-curator Gavin Wade, who is also the co-founder and director of Eastside Projects in Birmingham, discuss what artists bring when they are at the helm.Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu