

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

Oct 14, 2021 • 43min
The RIBA Stirling Prize for architecture, Succession, John Le Carré’s final novel, The London Film Festival
Front Row goes live to Coventry to announce the winner of the 2021 Riba Stirling Prize and discuss the shortlist with BBC Arts and Media correspondent David Sillito and architecture critic for the Guardian, Oliver Wainwright.Author Charlotte Philby and arts and books editor for Prospect Magazine Sameer Rahim join Tom Sutcliffe to review the new series of Succession and Silverview, John le Carré’s last novel.Film critic Hanna Flint fills us in on the highlights of this year’s London Film Festival. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Laura NorthedgePhoto: Brian Cox as Logan Roy in Succession Photo Credit: Sky Atlantic

Oct 13, 2021 • 42min
Theatre director Emma Jordan, Omagh's Ulster American Folk Park and Ridley Scott
Theatre director Emma Jordan discusses The Border Game, a new play to mark 100 years of the Irish border. We hear from Omagh in County Tyrone as reporter Freya McClement explores a moving new installation by artist Paula Stokes at the Ulster American Folk Park.And director Ridley Scott talks to Samira about his new film The Last Duel starring Matt Damon, Adam Driver and Jodie Comer.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Julian May
Photo: Liz Fitzgibbon and Patrick McBrearty in The Border Game - photo credit Ciaran Bagnall

Oct 12, 2021 • 42min
Suzan-Lori Parks, Owen Sheers, stolen artefacts and the portrayal of scientists
Suzan-Lori Parks, the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama on her play White Noise, which has its the UK premier tonight. Life is not so bad for four liberal friends, two couples, black with a white partner, until Leo has a run in with the cops and it all begins to unravel.The poet, playwright, and novelist, Owen Sheers, has written a new BBC One drama, The Trick. He talks to Samira about exploring what became known in 2009 as Climategate, when the emails of Professor Philip Jones, Director of the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University, were hacked and doubt cast on the research into climate change.For Front Row’s regular Tuesday Arts Audit today we’re exploring ongoing debates around the questionable provenance of artefacts housed in some of the world’s most famous museums with Malia Politzer from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and Alexander Herman, Assistant Director of the Institute of Art and Law. How can broadening the representation of scientists on the page, screen and stage drive diversity among scientists and increase public trust in science itself? Andrea Sella, broadcaster and professor of chemistry at University College London and award-winning debut novelist Temi Oh join Samira live in the studio on Radio 4’s Day of the Scientist. Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Kirsty McQuire

Oct 11, 2021 • 42min
Joan Collins, Armistead Maupin and Verbatim Theatre
Joan Collins discusses her memoir My Unapologetic Diaries.Tales of the City author and activist Armistead Maupin on his national tour and why he has moved from his beloved San Francisco to live in the UK.Engineering Value - Scenes from the Grenfell Inquiry is a new play every word of which has been taken from what was said at that public inquiry. Directors Nick Kent and Nadia Fall consider the ethics of verbatim theatre and the different ways of creating it. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Olivia Skinner

Oct 7, 2021 • 42min
Nobel Prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah, Cush Jumbo's Hamlet, Poet Laureate Simon Armitage
Cush Jumbo’s long-awaited performance as Hamlet and debbie tucker green’s film ear for eye come under the critical gaze of Ekow Eshun, Vanessa Kisuule and Sarah Crompton.Tanzanian novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah has won this year's Nobel Prize for Literature. He joins Front Row to discuss his work and how he feels about winning. The Poet Laureate Simon Armitage on his fresh and contemporary new translation of the classic poem The Owl and the Nightingale.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Sarah JohnsonPhoto Credit: Helen Murray

Oct 6, 2021 • 42min
The Arts in Aberystwyth, The Boy with Two Hearts in Cardiff and Welsh film director Craig Roberts
Broadcaster Huw Stephens sends an audio postcard from Aberystwyth, the small seaside town with the big arts centre mounting exhibitions and concerts, the National Library of Wales, the country's oldest University, a thriving bilingual music scene, one of the UK's leading comedy festivals and now - a film industry. The true story of one family’s journey from Afghanistan to Wales twenty one years ago is told on stage at Cardiff’s Millennium Centre this month. Tom hears from the writer of The Boy With Two Hearts, Hamed Amiri and musician Elaha Soroor about finding refuge and the freedom to make music.The British amateur golfer Maurice Flitcroft entertained fans globally and became the scourge of the golfing establishment when he passed himself off as a professional and entered the British Open in 1976. Now Welsh director Craig Roberts has made a new film about his life, starring Mark Rylance and Sally Philips. He explains why he wanted to make a film about a lovable sporting underdog.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Laura Northedge
Production Co-ordinator: Lizzie Harris

Oct 5, 2021 • 42min
Wole Soyinka, post-pandemic theatre, Michael Winterbottom
Wole Soyinka, the first African writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, tells Samira Ahmed about what impelled him to write his first new novel in five decades, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth.As theatres re-open across the UK and audiences return, are some theatre fans being left behind? We hear from Jamie Hale, an award-winning theatre director and playwright with a disability, and Richard Misek from the University of Kent, who is investigating the impact of digital arts on audiences.Film director Michael Winterbottom shares insights from his conversations with fellow filmmakers, from Ken Loach to Andrea Arnold and from Lynn Ramsay to Steve McQueen, about the challenges British directors face in getting independent British films made. Michael is joined by the debut feature filmmaker Cathy Brady to discuss what it takes to get a film on the big or small screen.PRESENTER: Samira Ahmed
PRODUCER: Simon RichardsonPhoto: Wole Soyinka Photo credit: Mr TAIWO OLUSOLA-JOHNSON (TOJ Concepts)

Oct 4, 2021 • 42min
Hilary Mantel, Lianne La Havas, Candice Carty Williams, Kieran Hurley
In tonight's new look, 45 minute long Front Row...Hilary Mantel talks about turning her 874 page novel, The Mirror and the Light, the third volume in her Thomas Cromwell trilogy, into a play of just a couple of hours. Kieran Hurley on The Enemy, his adaptation of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People for the National Theatre of Scotland. Lianne La Havas joins us live in the studio to perform a track from her self-titled Ivor Novello winning album. And Candice Carty Williams, author of the besteller, Queenie, on writing her first novella for young adults, Empress and Aniya.Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Julian May

Oct 1, 2021 • 41min
No Time To Die, Soul Train, Karl Ove Knausgaard
The new 007 film No Time To Die has had its release pushed back and back and back due to Covid. But now it’s finally here with Daniel Craig playing James Bond for the final time. Critical responses have been mixed, what will our reviewers, Charlie Higson -writer of the Young Bond novels – and Naima Khan – who’s never seen a Bond film before – make of it? We’ll also preview Ridley Road a BBC historical drama series written by Sarah Solemani, about a young Jewish woman who fights against an emerging neo-Nazi group in 1960s East London.1971 was an important year in African-American culture. It was the year that saw the cinema release of Melvin Van Peebles’ Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, and Gordon Park’s Shaft. It was also the year that saw the national launch of Soul Train – the music show that featured the big Soul stars of the day, hosted by the avuncular Don Cornelius who encouraged the audience of young African-Americans to dance and celebrate themselves for all to see. Fifty years on, music Journalist, Jacqueline Springer, assesses the significance of Soul Train.Best selling Norwegian writer of My Struggle Karl Ove Knausgaard talks to Tom Sutcliffe about his new novel The Morning Star. During one long summer’s night in August, nine people are leading their usual live, when a huge star appears in the Norwegian sky above them.

Sep 30, 2021 • 28min
Dave Grohl, Jimmy Savile
Widely known as the nicest guy in rock, Dave Grohl has written a memoir ‘The Storyteller’ documenting his life in the rock and roll business, from early days sleeping in the tour van with Scream, to the moment that inspired him to return to music post-Nirvana, to performing at the White House. It is family and music that has kept him grounded, as well as seeing the toll the dark glamour of a rock and roll life can take on a person. Now he is unashamedly earnest about his love of music and love of life. He tells Nick Ahad about how he feels performing in front of thousands, his ‘pinch-me’ moments, and the magic that happens between musicians.As the tenth anniversary of the death of disgraced celebrity Jimmy Savile approaches, there's a slew of dramas and documentaries being prepared for broadcast. Playwright and journalist Jonathan Maitland wrote his own Jimmy Savile drama - An Audience with Jimmy Savile - in 2015. He joins Front Row to discuss how to approach dramatizing Savile.Presented by Nick Ahad
Produced by Ekene Akalawu
Studio Engineer - Carwyn Griffith
Production Co-ordinator - Caroline Dey


