
Front Row
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
Latest episodes

Feb 6, 2025 • 42min
Review: The Last Showgirl, Oedipus, Nobel author Han Kang's novel We Do Not Part
Tom is joined by the writer and broadcaster Octavia Bright and the Observer's theatre critic Susannah Clapp to review another version of the Greek classic Oedipus, this time at the Old Vic in London and starring Rami Malek.Also reviewed: The Last Showgirl, which has Pamela Anderson starring as Shelley with Jamie Lee Curtis as her good friend. Shelley's Vegas cabaret show is closing and the imminent change forces her to confront her life choices. And: We Do Not Part, the new novel by Nobel Prize for Literature winner, the Korean writer Han Kang. We also hear about the Japanese collaborative SANAA, founded by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, which has won the Royal Institute of British Architects' Royal Gold Medal for architecture, from Professor Sadie Morgan. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Corinna Jones

Feb 5, 2025 • 42min
September 5 director Tim Fehlbaum, new Motherland spin-off TV series Amandaland, the history of Slapstick
Writer Holly Walsh and actor Lucy Punch on the Motherland spin-off series, Amandaland which also stars Joanna Lumley
Director, screenwriter and producer of September 5, Tim Fehlbaum about his new film that explores what happened at the 1972 Munich Olympics from the perspective of the sports journalists who found themselves broadcasting the story
As the Slapstick Festival returns to Bristol for its 20th anniversary, we look at the history of this enduring form of comedyPresenter: Kirsty Wark
Producer: Fiona McLellan

Feb 4, 2025 • 42min
25 Years of 21st Century: Film and Television
Front Row continues to look at how culture has changed in the first 25 years of the century with an edition focusing on film and TV.Samira is joined by Radio 4's Screenshot presenters Mark Kermode and Ellen E. Jones, Jane Tranter, who relaunched Doctor Who in 2005 and co-founded Bad Wolf productions and Boyd Hilton, the Entertainment Director of Heat magazine. From reality TV to superhero franchises and the rise of binge-watching, the panel discuss how transformations have changed what we watch, how we watch it and who makes it.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Claire Bartleet

Feb 4, 2025 • 43min
Director Coralie Fargeat on The Substance, Josephine Baker's autobiography, poet Anne Carson on Elektra on stage
Coralie Fargeat has been nominated as best director for her film The Substance which stars Demi Moore. She tells Samira about her inspiration for the satirical horror about a Hollywood star who takes a dangerous drug to create a younger version of herself. Josephine Baker’s memoir has been translated into English for the first time, fifty years after the death of the iconic performer. Cultural historian Dr Adjoa Osei and translator Anam Zafar discuss Baker's incredible life and legacy. The story of Greek heroine Electra has been written in play form by Sophocles, was made into an opera by Richard Straus and inspired Marvel comics and films. A new production, based on Sophocles' Electra which was translated by Canadian poet Anne Carson has just hit London’s West End starring Brie Larson and Stockard Channing. Anne joins Samira to talk about the translation.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Paula McGrath

Jan 31, 2025 • 42min
Review: Mike Leigh's Hard Truths, Inside No. 9 on stage, film Saturday Night
Tom Sutcliffe is joined by writer Dreda Say Mitchell and critic Scott Bryan to assess the week's cultural releases, including a new stage version of the hit TV series Inside Number 9. They've also been watching Mike Leigh's first film in 6 years, Hard Truths, which has reunited him with Marianne Jean-Baptiste who was nominated for an Oscar in his hit film Secrets and Lies. Finally they review Saturday Night, the new film about the beginnings of the cult TV series Saturday Night Live which launched the careers of many comedians including Tina Fey. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Claire Bartleet

Jan 28, 2025 • 42min
Jane Austen's sister, artist Chila Kumari Singh Burman, football in fiction
As new BBC One drama adaptation, Miss Austen, shines fresh light on Jane Austen's sister Cassandra, Gill Hornby, who wrote the eponymous novel on which Miss Austen is based, and Claire Harman, author of Jane's Fame, How Jane Austen Conquered The World, discuss how perceptions of Cassandra's burning of her sister's letters have been changing.Paris-based journalist and cultural critic Agnès Poirier reports on President Macron's announcement at the Louvre.Artist Chila Kumari Singh Burman reflects on weaving together personal, historical, and social stories in her exhibition , Chila Welcomes You, at Imperial War Museum North in Manchester.Alex Allison and George Harrison on their new novels which centre on football. Alex's Greatest of All Time is a tender gay love story set among a fictional premiership team in the North East while George Harrison's Season is a cross generational tale of two dedicated football fans that stretches over a season.Presenter: Nick Ahad
Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Jan 27, 2025 • 42min
25 Years of 21st Century: Music
Front Row looks at how culture has changed in the first 25 years of this century, starting with Music. Samira is joined by Radio 4's Add to Playlist hosts Jeffrey Boakye and Anna Phoebe, music journalist Kitty Empire and former Spotify exec Will Page. They discuss how transformations in technology have impacted what we listen to and what music is being written, and what genres of music have come to the forefront in the last 25 years. Pete Waterman, one of the judges on the original Pop Idol, talks about the explosion of TV music competitions. And the Master of the Kings Music, composer Errollyn Wallen, explores how classical music has changed and evolved. Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Corinna Jones

Jan 23, 2025 • 43min
Review: supernatural thriller film Presence, Edmund White's sex memoir and Brazil! Brazil! at the Royal Academy
Rowan Pelling, journalist and founding editor of the Erotic Review, and the film critic Tim Robey join Tom Sutcliffe to discuss the Oscar nominations and review Edmund White's The Loves of My Life, Steven Soderbergh's supernatural horror thriller Presence and Brazil! Brazil! a major exhibition featuring 20th century artists at the Royal Academy in London. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Claire Bartleet

Jan 22, 2025 • 42min
James Graham on Brian & Maggie, The Merchant of Venice, Live music from Julie Fowlis and Karine Polwart
Writer James Graham on his Channel 4 drama Brian & Maggie, which stars Steve Coogan and Harriet Walter, and which tells the story of a hard-hitting interview between broadcaster Brian Walden and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, which helped precipitate Thatcher's downfall in the early 1990s, John Douglas Thompson talks about playing Shylock in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice as a black actor, in a production by Theatre for a New Audience which is at Edinburgh's Royal Lyceum Theatre, And live music from Julie Fowlis and Karine Polwart, who have collaborated with Mary Chapin Carpenter on a new album, Looking for the Thread. Presenter: Kate Molleson
Producer: Mark Crossan

Jan 21, 2025 • 42min
Anora director Sean Baker, Caryl Phillips's new novel, Somerset House exhibition on Soil
Anora is one of the leading contenders in the current film awards season - and its star Mikey Madison looks likely to get an Oscar nomination too. Its director Sean Baker explains how he uses both violence and comedy to explore the story of a son of a Russian oligarch who becomes entangled in the world of a sex worker in New York. Caryl Phillips talks about his new novel, Another Man in the Street about a young Caribbean man's search for a new home in 1960s London and the other people, all migrants in different ways, who become part of his life there.And Soil is more than dirt - co-curators Claire Catterall and May Rosenthal Sloan explain how a new exhibition at Somerset House in London sheds light on how the ground under our feet has played a crucial role in human civilisation, with 50 artists in the show using sculpture, painting, tapestry and video to explore its qualities. Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Paula McGrath