Front Row

Sarah, Duchess of York, talks to Nick Ahad about her debut Mills and Boon novel, Her Heart for a Compass, based on the life of her ancestor, Lady Margaret. She talks about the parallels between her own life and her heroine’s, including finding freedom in America. She discusses the impact of newspaper headlines on her mental health, her plans to make a feature film about Prince Albert's mother Louise, and what she makes of TV series The Crown. Composer Max Richter’s new album ‘Exiles’ is a combination of new works, new recordings and new orchestrations of some of his most popular pieces. He talks to Nick about what writing for an orchestra can add, and how he uses his music as activism.

On the anniversary of the Beirut port explosion, we talk to representatives from both The British Museum and The Archaeological Museum at the American University of Beirut, who are working together to restore eight ancient glass vessels which were severely damaged.We review Vivo, a new full length cartoon film on Netflix featuring compositions by and the voice of Lin-Manuel Miranda. Does it reach Hamiltonian levels of greatness or is it a less spectacular creation?The DCMS has announced that UK musicians and performers do not need visas or work permits for short-term tours in 19 EU countries. What does this mean for touring performers? Is it all good news and what about those EU member states that haven’t agreed?Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Oliver Jones

Booker Prize shortlisted Turkish writer Elif Shafak has a new novel: The Island Of Missing Trees. Set in Cyprus it follows lovers who risk everything in a divided island. And one of the narrators is a fig tree. Shafak explains about melding passionate ecological and political information and messages.Jonathon Heyward makes his Proms debut this week conducting the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. He tells Samira why he loves working with youth orchestras, isn't so keen on being labelled a ‘young conductor’, and how much he’s looking forward to getting on to the podium at the Royal Albert Hall. In Stillwater, the new film starring Matt Damon, he plays Bill Baker, an Oklahoma oil rig worker determined to secure the release of his daughter Allison, in prison in Marseille for the murder of her flatmate and lover, Lina. Frustrated by legal, language and cultural barriers his own conduct strays beyond the legal. Larushka Ivan-Zadeh reviews the film which is controversial because of the parallels of its plot with the murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, for which Amanda Knox was convicted and eventually acquitted. Knox has denounced the film.Presenter:Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian May Production Co-ordinator: Lizzie Harris

Yesterday the audience was on its feet – more than once - to applaud the cast, the band and the design of Anything Goes at the Barbican Theatre in London. On Front Row today Samira Ahmed talks to Kathleen Marshall, the director and choreographer about the appeal of the show today, and to Sutton Foster, the American star making her UK debut as Reno Sweeney, who gets to sing some of Cole Porter’s greatest songs including I Get a Kick Out of You which she has recorded especially for Front Row.Co-written by Tim Renkow and Shaun Pye, the BBC Three black-comedy series Jerk revolves around the character Tim who uses the fact that he has cerebral palsy to try and get away with anything. Tim Renkow joins us to discuss the new second series and representation of disability in television.It was announced at the end of last week that Scarlett Johansson is suing Disney for breach of contract over the Marvel film Black Widow, with its scaled-back cinema release. Rebecca Rubin from Variety in New York considers the case and whether there might be further fallout as streaming is now such a significant income-generator for the major studios.Presenter Samira Ahmed Producer Jerome Weatherald

Ben Okri's new play Changing Destiny is an adaptation of one of the world's oldest known stories, the ancient Egyptian Tale of Sinuhe. Tonight marks not only its opening night at London's Young Vic theatre, but the first time the venue has opened its doors since last year. Artistic director Kwame Kwei-Armah, who directs the play, talks to Tom live from the Young Vic just a few minutes before the curtain goes up.This evening, Sir James MacMillan has a new piece being premiered at the First Night of the Proms, alongside Vaughan Williams's Serenade to Music. He tells Tom why it will be such a special occasion, and the pressure of writing a piece to accompany a masterwork."Paint me, Joan," the children of the tenements of Townhead in Glasgow used to say to Joan Eardley. And she did. The people of Townhead and scenes of the fishing village of Catterline in northeast Scotland became the focus of her art. This is celebrated in her centenary year with two exhibitions in Edinburgh, where the Art Festival opened yesterday. Glasgow-based artist Hannah Tuulikki and Adam Benmakhlouf, art editor of The Skinny magazine, review the Joan Eardley shows, as well as Tak' Tent O' Time Ere Time Be Tint, a new installation and film by Sean Lynch, responding to the statues and public monuments of Edinburgh. Laura Snapes joins us to review Billie Eilish's eagerly awaited new album Happier Than Ever. And as ITV announces it has axed The X Factor, she discusses its legacy and why Simon Cowell is now choosing to distance himself from the programme.

Geeta Pendse visits the new Museum of Making in Derby - an £18 million redevelopment that celebrates the city's 300-year industrial heritage. Jamie Thrasivoulou, Derby County Football Club's Poet-In-Residence, shares what it's like to perform a poem to a stadium of roaring football fans.The writer Mahsuda Snaith discusses her flash fiction written in response to Kedleston Hall as part of the National Trust's Colonial Countryside project.BBC Derby's Martin Williams learns how to create a Map of Curiousity at the Museum of Making.Presenter: Geeta Pendse Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Tokyo: Art & Photography at The Ashmolean in Oxford is a celebration of the city currently hosting the Olympics. The exhibition’s curator Lena Fritsch discusses the show which spans the arts of the Edo period (1603-1868) when the country was officially closed to the outside world, to today, and considers the sprawling metropolis’s appetite for the new and innovative. Comedy series Ted Lasso revolves around the eponymous American football coach who, fish-out-of-water, comes to London to coach a fictional football team. Its uncynical, warm-and-fuzzy feel has resounded with audiences, and writer Brett Goldstein, who stars as footballer Roy Kent, and co-star Nick Mohammed (kit-man Nathan) join Tom to discuss the show’s slow burn with audiences, the meaning of football, and how to avoid mawkishness in a show which makes a feature of “niceness”.Returning for its third year, the Wellcome Photography Prize tells provocative visual stories about the health challenges of our time, combatting taboos, bringing complex medical issues to life and showing how health affects society. Jameisha Prescod, the 2021 winner of the £10,000 single image prize, joins Tom to discuss her work.Presenter Tom Sutcliffe Producer Jerome Weatherald

As a 3.5 metre tall puppet called Little Amal begins an 8,000km journey from Turkey to Manchester to highlight the difficulties faced by refugee children, Samira talks to theatre director and producer David Lan live from Gaziantep on the Turkish-Syrian border about ambitious artistic project The Walk.The longlist for the 2021 Booker Prize has been announced and we discuss the 13 chosen novels with Sameer Rahim from Prospect Magazine and Claire Armitstead from The Guardian. Are these the right titles? And who might be the eventual winner of the £50,000 prize?Tomorrow the David Livingstone Birthplace re-opens following a £9.1m regeneration plan. The museum has not been simply refurbished, the story it tells of the famous explorer, the first European to see the Victoria Falls, has been revised. Zimbabwean novelist Petina Gappah, who spent years researching and writing about Livingstone, tells Samira Ahmed how she has given voice to those who worked with him and whom he met on his expeditions.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian May

Five years after Prince's death, the musician's music director of over 20 years, Morris Hayes, discusses Prince's posthumous new album Welcome 2 America. Recorded in 2010 and archived in the singer's legendary vault of unreleased material, it is released this week. Freya McClements, Northern Correspondent with The Irish Times, joins John to discuss the decision from the Northern Ireland Executive to reopen the nation's theatres and concert halls.Ben Sharrock's new film Limbo follows a group of men as they await the results of their asylum claims on a remote Scottish island. The film earned two BAFTA nominations and eight nominations at the British Independent Film Awards, including one for lead actor Amir El-Masry. Amir talks to John about playing Syrian musician Omar in the film, as well as being inspired to act by Omar Sharif, and his work to improve representation of Arab and Muslim people on screens.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Oliver Jones

Playwright April De Angelis joins Tom to talk about her new musical Gin Craze! Described as 'a booze soaked love ballad from the women of Gin Lane.' The Tokyo Olympics 2020 Opening Ceremony took place earlier today, a year later than planned, in the wake of a number of controversies, not least the sacking of the Artistic Director the day before the event. For our Friday Review, Japan specialists Sakiko Nishihara and Christopher Harding give their views on the background to the ceremony and the event itself.Novelist Jordan Tannahill tells ue about his new novel exploring the fine lines between faith, conspiracy and mania in contemporary America, The Listeners. While lying in bed next to her husband one night, Claire Devon hears a low hum that he cannot. And, it seems, no one else can either. This innocuous noise begins causing Claire headaches, nosebleeds and insomnia, gradually upsetting the balance of her life.And a new report, Boundless Creativity, is intended as a roadmap for cultural and creative recovery, renewal and growth after the pandemic. What lessons have been learnt about how the arts can reach audiences both online and off? What do the arts need to bounce back? We talk to Lord Neil Mendoza, Commissioner for Cultural Recovery and Renewal about this collaboration between the DCMS and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Jerme WeatheraldMain image: Gin Craze! at the Royal & Derngate Theatre, Northampton Image credit: Ellie Kurttz