Shows / Front Row
Episodes
- Front Row
Conductor John Wilson, Interior design, The Wizard of Oz
Composer Erich Korngold was best known for his swashbuckling film scores like The Adventures of Robin Hood and Captain Blood. A child prodigy, he was already a…
- Front Row
Antonio Banderas, Philippa Gregory and V.V. James on witches in literature, umbrellas in chinese culture
Antonio Banderas on playing Pedro Almodóvar in Pain and Glory - Almodóvar's film based on his own life. Tom Shakespeare talks to Antonio about how the actor's…
- Front Row
Louise Doughty, Robert Icke's The Doctor, Edinburgh Festival Highlights
Louise Doughty, author of Apple Tree Yard, has a new novel: a thriller with a difference. Platform Seven’s narrator is dead – and she haunts the eerie…
- Front Row
The true story behind blockbuster film Jaws, Benjamin Zephaniah, Catherine Cohen's cabaret
Live from the Edinburgh Festivals : Ian Shaw, son of actor Robert Shaw, discusses his play, The Shark is Broken, based on Jaws. Using his father’s diaries…
- Front Row
Basil Brush, Christina Bianco, Climate Change theatre and new musicals at Edinburgh Fringe
Musical impressionist Christina Bianco reveals how she captures the voice and style of so many different musical divas like Shirley Bassey and Celine Dion…
- Front Row
Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio, How to listen to a symphony, black paint controversy, 14th August cultural events
Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio discuss their new film Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. In the ninth film directed by Quention Taratino, set in the late 1960s…
- Front Row
Live from the Edinburgh Festivals
Live from the Edinburgh Festivals - comedian Henning Wehn is the self-styled German Ambassador of Comedy. Henning came to the UK seventeen years ago to improve…
- Front Row
Lemn Sissay, Queen Victoria's piano, Euphoria
Poet Lemn Sissay discusses his new memoir, My Name Is Why, which tells the story of his fractured childhood within the now infamous Wigan care system in the…
- Front Row
Cary Grant and Notorious, Festival cancellations, Movement directors, Anna Symon
Bohemian Rhapsody, The Crown and a new production of Equus have all used Movement Directors to capture the physicality and movements of their characters. But…
- Front Row
The art of calligraphy, conductor Martyn Brabbins, Playmobil: The Movie
Martyn Brabbins, the Music Director of English National Opera, is turning 60 next week and to celebrate he’ll be conducting a new take on Elgar's Enigma…
- Front Row
Candace Bushnell, Dance about rugby, Concern over the captioning of audiobooks, New play 8 Hotels
Candace Bushnell whose 1996 book Sex and the City was a runaway best seller and adapted into a successful HBO television series and two films, talks to John…
- Front Row
Toni Morrison remembered, the Sound of Space in Music
Toni Morrison, the Nobel prize winning writer whose novels explored black identity in America and in particular the experience of black women, has died aged…
- Front Row
The Crucible, the music of Peterloo, Patrick Bronte and DA Pennebaker
The Crucible drew inspiration from the paranoia and fear of McCarthyism - so we find out if a new Scottish Ballet production of Arthur Miller's classic is…
- Front Row
Fast and Furious: Hobbs and Shaw, Téa Obreht, Kathy Hinde, Dalia Stasevska
We review the ninth in the Fast & Furious franchise and its first spin-off, Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw starring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham as the…
- Front Row
k.d. lang, paying inheritance tax with art, ceramicist Magdalene Odundo
k.d. lang, who has been revisiting and touring her best-selling 1992 album Ingénue, talks about its significance in terms of LGBT rights, her coming out during…
- Front Row
Notre-Dame organist Olivier Latry, Gurinder Chadha, Rupert Everett's Uncle Vanya
Olivier Latry has been the Organist of Notre-Dame de Paris since 1985, is about to play the Royal Albert Hall organ at the Proms. He talks about his talent for…
- Front Row
Herman Melville and Moby Dick, Luddite rebellion on stage, TV's I Am the Night
This week sees the 200th anniversary of the birth of Herman Melville, writer of one of America's greatest novels, Moby Dick. Sarah Churchwell and Richard King…
- Front Row
Blacking-up in opera, How to watch Shakespeare, Fiona Kidman, Carlos Cruz-Diez
American opera singer, Tamara Wilson withdrew from her final ever performance of Aida at the weekend. She was scheduled to be conducted by Placido Domingo at…
- Front Row
Horrible Histories, Barbara Strozzi at 400, Barney Norris, V&A and Extinction Rebellion
Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans, starring Kim Cattrell as Agrippina and Craig Roberts as Emperor Nero, is the first foray into cinema of the…
- Front Row
Oklahoma!, Audience behaviour, Mercury Prize shortlist
Roger and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! is Chichester Festival Theatre’s new summer musical, starring Josie Lawrence as Aunt Eller and Hyoie O’Grady and Amara…
- Front Row
The Booker Prize Longlist, A Tea Journey at Compton Verney gallery, Fashion influenced by TV
Literary critics Arifa Akbar and Toby Lichtig dissect the longlist of the 2019 Booker Prize longlist. For the full list see below.Tea is the most…
- Front Row
The Current War, How culture affects relationship expectations, Experimental novels, Cool culture
Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Shannon star in The Current War, as Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse. It's the electrifying story about the race to…
- Front Row
Macy Gray, Morris Dance Protest at Parliament, Libraries - Threatened and Reprieved
To mark the 20th anniversary of her best-selling debut album, Macy Gray performs her smash hit I Try, and talks frankly to Kirsty about the challenges she…
- Front Row
Fab 5 Freddy, Laurie Anderson, Summer reads, film trailers
Hip hop pioneer and art lover Fred Brathwaite, aka Fab 5 Freddy, hunts for the hidden black figures of Italian Renaissance art in a new BBC2 documentary, A…
- Front Row
Illuminated River, Jon Favreau on The Lion King, RIBA Stirling shortlist
Illuminated River is a major new art project on the River Thames claiming to be the world’s longest artwork. 15 bridges across the river will be lit up by a…
- Front Row
Conductor Karina Canellakis, a review of Channel 4 drama series I Am... and the director of cricket documentary The Edge
Karina Canellakis will be launching this year's BBC Proms on Friday, conducting Janáček's monumental Glagolitic Mass. She talks to John Wilson about her…
- Front Row
Philip Glass and Phelim McDermott, Political knitting, Black women in theatre, Statues of performers
American composer Philip Glass is often cited as one of the most influential composers alive, combining minimalist, spare music with the harmonic tradition of…
- Front Row
Dominic Dromgoole, new theatres, Karina Ramage
Dominic Dromgoole, used to run Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London, he tried take a production of Hamlet to every country in the world (and very nearly…
- Front Row
Deborah Moggach, Elsinore computer game, Ivo van Hove, Can high notes shatter glass?
Novelist and screenwriter Deborah Moggach whose eighteen novels include Heartbreak Hotel, Tulip Fever and These Foolish Things - made into the hit film The…
- Front Row
Pavarotti documentary, Wendell Berry, Port Eliot Festival closure, How our attitudes are reflected in culture
Oscar winning director Ron Howard has made an in-depth look at the life and career of singer Luciano Pavarotti, featuring interviews with his family and other…
- Front Row
Peter Gynt, how to listen to opera, The Left Behind, Rip Torn
Peter Gynt is a new version of Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt written by David Hare and starring James McArdle in the title role. Susannah Clapp reviews the National…
- Front Row
Cressida Cowell, the new children's laureate; Cherie Blair goes into film
Cressida Cowell is announced as the new Waterstones Children’s Laureate. We speak to the How to Train Your Dragon writer about her plans for the role which is…
- Front Row
Isata Kanneh-Mason plays Clara Schumann, Dark Money, Tree authorship row
Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason talks about her love for the music of Clara Schumann, who in the 19th Century was famous as a virtuoso pianist but overshadowed as a…
- Front Row
Olly Alexander, Midsommar, Britain's First Female Artists, Leon Kossoff obituary
In the week of Pride and following his Glastonbury speech about LGBTQ rights, Olly Alexander of Years & Years talks about writing lyrics that are overtly about…
- Front Row
Manchester International Festival
We last saw the work of the Cuban artist Tania Bruguera when she was commissioned for the turbine hall of Tate Modern. She’s known for facing down police…
- Front Row
Chanya Button on Vita & Virginia, Michael Frayn's Noises Off, Mental health in gaming, Ode to Joy
Filmmaker Chanya Button talks about Vita & Virginia, which explores the relationship between Virginia Woolf and fellow writer Vita Sackville-West, the…
- Front Row
Howard Jacobson; Othello Remixed; Museum of the Year shortlister - St Fagans National Museum of History, Cardiff
Howard Jacobson is renowned for his comic novels, winning the 2010 Booker Prize for The Finkler Question . Now he’s published a funny but also tender novel…
- Front Row
Cornelia Funke, V&A Dundee, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Inkheart writer Cornelia Funke discusses Pan's Labyrinth, her new collaboration with director Guillermo del Toro, who approached her to write an adult novel…
- Front Row
Todd Douglas Miller, 50 years of queer books, Cultural and political memes
50 years ago, on July 20th 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first people to set foot on the moon. A new film documentary, Apollo 11, charts that…
- Front Row
Kate Atkinson, YA fiction controversy, Queer writing in the noughties
Kate Atkinson discusses her new novel, Big Sky. For Jackson Brodie fans it’s been a long nine years but finally he’s back. After the first four books in this…
- Front Row
In Fabric, Queer books of the '90s, HMS Caroline, A forgotten female script
A killer dress is on the hunt in Peter Strickland’s new kitsch horror film In Fabric, which stars Marianne Jean-Baptiste as an innocent sales shopper. Larushka…
- Front Row
British-Vietnamese playwright Tuyen Do, Cindy Sherman exhibition, Michael Jackson 10 years on, Queer Books - the 80s
Tuyen Do has acted at the Royal Court and the National Theatre and now sh'e written a play. Not only is it her first drama, it’s the first by…
- Front Row
BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2019, 50 years of queer books, Museum of the Year nominee Pitt Rivers
The 2019 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition has been won by the Ukrainian baritone Andrei Kymach. The week-long competition held every two years is…
- Front Row
Richard Curtis's Film Yesterday, a summer solstice poem, Bradford Literature Festival protests
Richard Curtis talks to John Wilson about The Beatles, the rom-com and time itself. He's written Yesterday, a musical fantasy comedy directed by Danny Boyle in…
- Front Row
Lee Krasner, Ben Platt, Chasing Rainbows
Ben Platt has been acting or singing for most of his life, and after winning critical acclaim, and a Tony for the title role in Dear Evan Hansen, and also for…
- Front Row
Mark Ronson, Arts sponsorship, Toy Story 4 director Josh Cooley
Producer Mark Ronson releases his fifth studio album ‘Late Night Feelings’ which features female singers from an eclectic range of pop music including Miley…
- Front Row
Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medal winners, Nottingham Contemporary, Sculpture since Hepworth and Moore
The CILIP Carnegie Medal, and CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal are the most prestigious prizes for literature for children and young people. Both winners were…
- Front Row
Joseph O'Connor, Paula Rego retrospective, The role of the film critic
Joseph O’Connor, whose book Star of the Sea was critically acclaimed and a global bestseller, talks about his latest novel Shadowplay. Taking the well-known…
- Front Row
Tracy K Smith; New albums from Madonna, Springsteen and Avicii; Tory leadership and the arts
Tracy K. Smith has just completed her time as the Poet Laureate of the United States and published Eternity, her selected poems. For Front Row she reads poems…
- Front Row
Rob Lowe, Russian Protest Art, Keith Haring
Rob Lowe, the Brat Pack Hollywood heart-throb who went on to star in hit American series such as The West Wing and Parks and Recreation, talks to Kirsty Lang…
- Front Row
Bill Nighy, unreliable narrators in video games, how to watch ballet
Bill Nighy on his latest film Sometimes Always Never, about a family torn apart and then reunited by a love of the board game Scrabble, written by Frank…
- Front Row
Ai Weiwei, Yacht Rock
Artist and activist Ai Weiwei has designed a flag to be flown across the UK from 24th June to mark the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human…
- Front Row
Gwendoline Christie, Get Up, Stand Up Now, Young Poets Laureate
Gwendoline Christie, famous for playing warrior Brienne of Tarth in Game of Thrones, discusses her new stage role as the fairy queen Titania in Nicholas…
- Front Row
Julianne Moore, Big Little Lies, Tales of the City, Dr John
Oscar winner Julianne Moore talks about her starring role in Gloria Bell, Chilean director Sebastian Lelio's English-language remake of his celebrated 2013…
- Front Row
Matt Berry, Claire McGlasson, National Trust acquires view that inspired Turner, Vasily Grossman’s Stalingrad
Dulcet-toned comedian Matt Berry joins us to discuss two new projects: a BBC TV spin-off of the 2014 cult mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows in which Berry…
- Front Row
Emma Thompson, Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction, Anthony McCarten, D-Day weather play
Emma Thompson discusses her role as a TV chat show host in her new film Late Night and, as she embarks on her first stand-up show, talks about politics…
- Front Row
Okwui Okpokwasili, Literary events at non-literary festivals, Tiananmen Square, Apple moves to streaming
Samira talks to Nigerian American performer, choreographer and writer Okwui Okpokwasili about the UK premiere of Bronx Gothic at London’s Young Vic. How does…
- Front Row
Elizabeth Gilbert, BTS and K-pop, Natalia Goncharova
Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir Eat Pray Love has sold fifteen million copies around the world and was made into a film with Julia Roberts. Her new novel is City of…
- Front Row
Aladdin composer Alan Menken, Amitav Ghosh, Georgia boycott
At the piano, composer Alan Menken discusses his music which led the rebirth of Disney animation with hits such as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and…