Shows / Front Row
Episodes
- Front Row
Andrew Lloyd Webber
As Andrew Lloyd Webber turns 70, Kirsty Lang talks to the composer about how he transformed musical theatre with hits like Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita and…
- Front Row
Tom Jones and Jennifer Hudson on The Voice, Art galleries on screen
Sir Tom Jones and Jennifer Hudson discuss mentoring the competitors in the TV talent show The Voice, how they coach their protégés and where the value of…
- Front Row
Tomb Raider, Lisa Halliday, Immersive theatre
Lara Croft remains one of the most famous gaming characters ever. Now as the film franchise of the games gets a reboot staring Alicia Vikander, film critic…
Front RowMary Magdalene, Icelandic fiction, Joseph Morpurgo, Stephen Hawking in culture
Mary Magdalene was Jesus Christ's most loyal friend, who stayed with him through the ordeal of his crucifixion, and was the first witness to his resurrection…
- Front Row
Paddy Considine, Gemma Bodinetz, Integrated Casting
Paddy Considine discusses Journeyman, the new film he's written, directed and stars in. The film is centred on the life of a boxer who, after a damaging…
- Front Row
Eleanor Bron, The Great Wave, Ken Dodd
Eleanor Bron will be 80 on Wednesday. She is still working - she will be in Scottish Opera's production of Ariadne auf Naxos this year. Talking to Samira Ahmed…
- Front Row
Ian McKellen, A Wrinkle in Time, Disability Champion Andrew Miller, Aida Muluneh
Sir Ian McKellen looks back at his acting life in anticipation of a film out later this year, McKellen: Playing the Part.Madeleine L'Engle's classic children's…
- Front Row
Jessica Jones, Women's Prize for Fiction nominees, The Cherry Orchard, Redressing the gender balance in the music industry
Reluctant superhero Jessica Jones is back for a second series. She despatched her nemesis at the end of season one but season two finds her looking to find the…
- Front Row
David Attenborough on painter John Craxton, Wonder Wheel, #MeToo poetry anthology
David Attenborough talks about the art of his friend the painter John Craxton as a new exhibition Charmed Lives in Greece opens at the British Museum.Deborah…
- Front Row
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Picasso at the Tate, David Oyelowo
Radio 4 celebrates the 40th anniversary of the iconic science fiction satire by Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with a new series this…
- Front Row
You Were Never Really Here, Colin Currie, Charlotte Salomon
You Were Never Really Here stars Joaquin Pheonix as a contract killer who uncovers a conspiracy while trying to save a kidnapped teen from a prostitution ring…
- Front Row
Jess Thom on Beckett's Not I, Disbelieved women in fiction, Deep Throat Choir
Jess Thom is a founding member of Touretteshero, a theatre company that celebrates the inherent creativity and humour in Tourette's. She is taking on Samuel…
- Front Row
Civilisations, Wendy Cope, Contemporary Chinese Art
Half a century after Kenneth Clark's ground-breaking television series on the history of art, Civilisation, the BBC has returned to the same subject - a…
- Front Row
Sharon Horgan, Maya Youssef, Samantha Harvey
Sharon Horgan, the comedy actress and writer behind Pulling, Motherhood and Catastrophe features in her first major Hollywood film, Game Night. She tells…
- Front Row
A Fantastic Woman, playing drunk, Lewis Gilbert and paintings under paintings
A Fantastic Woman is a Chilean film about a transgender woman whose partner dies and she has to cope with his transphobic family. The film has been shortlisted…
- Front Row
The Assassination of Gianni Versace, All Too Human exhibition, Debut novelist Mick Kitson
We hear about the second series of the American Crime Story television franchise which began in 2016 with The People Versus OJ Simpson. John Wilson is joined…
- Front Row
Red Sparrow, Adapting novels for the stage, Neanderthal art
Jennifer Lawrence stars in new film Red Sparrow as a prima ballerina turned Russian spy trained to seduce her targets. The film is based on a successful novel…
- Front Row
Tracey Thorn, Rival Biographers, Image Licensing, Stormzy
Tracey Thorn describes her new record 'Record' as 'nine feminist bangers'. She talks to John Wilson about why electro-pop turns out to be her preferred style…
- Front Row
Carey Mulligan, Spoiler Alert!, Mosaic and the Death of the Lead Guitar
Playwright Dennis Kelly's emotional new play Girls and Boys centres on the story of a woman in an aggressive man's world. Kelly and actor Carey Mulligan, the…
- Front Row
I, Tonya; Robin Cousins on the art of ice skating; Jess Kidd
I, Tonya is a new biopic about figure skater Tonya Harding, who was known as the bad girl of the ice rink. The film stars Margot Robbie and Allison Janney…
- Front Row
Suffrage art and a celebration of female artists
To mark the 100th anniversary of women over 30 getting the vote in the UK we have a themed programme looking at the art that was created alongside the suffrage…
- Front Row
Art in response to trauma: Louise Allen and Maude Julien
The trauma of child abuse lies at the heart of two new memoirs - Louise Allen's Thrown Away Child, and The Only Girl in the World by the French writer Maude…
- Front Row
Ruth Wilson on Dark River, Cal McCrystal on ENO's Iolanthe, Creative Scotland funding decisions
Actor Ruth Wilson talks about starring in Clio Barnard's new film Dark River, a powerful psychological drama about a sheep farming family in Yorkshire. She…
- Front Row
Greta Gerwig, Opportunities for disabled actors, National Short Story Award
Greta Gerwig recently made history as the first woman to be Oscar-nominated for her directorial debut, Lady Bird. She tells Kirsty why she wrote a coming of…
- Front Row
The Shape of Water, Terracotta Warriors, Samira Ahmed, RuPaul's Drag Race
The Shape of Water leads this year's Oscars race with 13 nominations. Directed by Guillermo del Toro, it's an other-worldly fairy tale about a mute cleaner…
- Front Row
Bob Geldof on WB Yeats, The Fifty Shades phenomenon, Julian Rowlands & the Santiago Quartet
Musician and campaigner Bob Geldof discusses A Fanatic Heart, his feature length documentary about poet W B Yeats. He explains how he came to love the poetry…
- Front Row
Chadwick Boseman, The Black Panther, Shakespeare for Children, Welsh Music - In Welsh
Chadwick Boseman discusses taking on the role of Black Panther, the first black mainstream comic book hero, and talks about the responsibility he feels in…
- Front Row
David Hare on Collateral, Carmen, John Burningham and Helen Oxenbury
Playwright David Hare talks to Samira about his latest television drama Collateral, a series that begins like a police procedural but drifts into a…
- Front Row
Colin Firth and Rachel Weisz, Irish Women Writers, Vaseem Khan
Colin Firth and Rachel Weisz on their new film The Mercy, which tells the true story of the ill-fated attempt in 1968 by the amateur sailor Donald Crowhurst to…
- Front Row
Mica Paris, Ethics of Arts Funding, Jim Crace
As artists back photographer Nan Goldin's call to hold arts patrons the Sackler family to account over the US opioid crisis, we discuss the ethics of funding…
- Front Row
Mike Bartlett on Trauma, Cornelia Parker, Val McDermid
Mike Bartlett, the writer of Doctor Foster and Charles III, on his new three-part TV drama Trauma, in which Adrian Lester stars as a surgeon accused of…
- Front Row
Nicola Benedetti, Winchester, Reading Europe: Russia
Nicola Benedetti has co-written a new cadenza for Beethoven's Violin Concerto. As she embarks on a tour with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, she…
- Front Row
Simple Minds, Phantom Thread, Napoleon Disrobed, Alex La Guma
Simple Minds, the stadium-filling band from Glasgow, have been together for 40 years. As they release Walk Between Worlds, lead singer Jim Kerr looks back on…
- Front Row
Fiddler on the Roof lyricist, how musicals have evolved since 'Fiddler', Olafur Eliasson
All day long I'd bidi-bidi-bum... Sheldon Harnick is 93 and won worldwide acclaim as the lyricist of the hugely successful Fiddler on the Roof. As a new…
- Front Row
James Graham on The Culture, Costa Book Prize winner announced, Ocean Liners
Last year, wunderkind playwright James Graham premiered three plays Ink, Labour of Love, and Quiz which looked respectively at the rise of the Sun newspaper…
- Front Row
Julius Caesar, the Grammys, Joe Dunthorne, architect Neave Brown
Former National Theatre director, Sir Nicholas Hytner on his new production of Julius Caesar, starring Ben Whishaw and David Morrissey, which offers the…
- Front Row
Turkish literature special from Istanbul featuring Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk
As part of Radio 4's Reading Europe season, Kirsty Lang explores Turkish literature in Istanbul, talking to leading writers including Nobel Laureate Orhan…
- Front Row
Paapa Essiedu, Rebecca Watts and Don Paterson, A J Finn
In 2016 Paapa Essiedu became the first black actor to play Hamlet for the RSC. As he reprises the role for a tour of the production we speak to the actor…
- Front Row
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Ursula K Le Guin remembered, Charles I: King and Collector
Now just 18, cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason won the title of BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2016. His choice of repertoire ranges from Shostakovich to Bob…
- Front Row
Oscar Nominations 2018
The nominations for the 90th Academy Awards were announced earlier today, with Guillermo del Toro's fantasy romance The Shape of Water receiving the most…
- Front Row
Downsizing, filming sex scenes and a satire on ceramics
Matt Damon's new film Downsizing imagines a solution to over-population is to shrink humans to five inches tall. Director of Film for the British Council…
- Front Row
Last Flag Flying director, literary fiction in decline, poet Danez Smith
Director Richard Linklater discusses his new film Last Flag Flying, starring Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne and Steve Carell, about three former US…
- Front Row
Bridget Riley, Nick Park, David Lodge, Bayeux Tapestry
Bridget Riley is known for her abstract geometric images featuring grids, lines, circles and squares. As the artist prepares to open a new exhibition of her…
- Front Row
Carleen Anderson, Elif Shafak, the commuter in film
Carleen Anderson, former singer with Young Disciples and the Brand New Heavies, discusses her album and 'tribal opera' Cage Street Memorial, and performs a…
- Front Row
Will & Grace revived, Disney and Pixar's evolution, the London Sinfonietta at 50
As Will & Grace is revived twenty years after its premiere, TV critic Louis Wise discusses how the ground-breaking sitcom about two gay men and their best girl…
- Front Row
Liam Neeson, Gorillaz artist Jamie Hewlett, TS Eliot Poetry Prize winner, fake Modiglianis
Liam Neeson stars in action thriller The Commuter in which an insurance salesman is caught up in danger and conspiracy on his way home from work. He talks…
- Front Row
Tom Hanks, Sir Simon Rattle, French heritage funding
Tom Hanks discusses his new film The Post, co-starring Meryl Streep and directed by Steven Spielberg, which tells the story of the part The Washington Post…
- Front Row
Rita, Sue and Bob Too controversy, Philanthropist Jonathan Ruffer, Poet Sasha Dugdale
In December the Royal Court withdrew and then reinstated its invitation to stage a new touring production of Andrea Dunbar's semi-autobiographical 1982 play…
- Front Row
Melvyn Bragg, TV arts programmes, '(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay' by Otis Redding, the Fire and Fury
As The Southbank Show marks its 40th anniversary we discuss the legacy of this historic arts programme with host Melvyn Bragg. As ITV makes a return to arts…
- Front Row
The Vagina Monologues 20 years on, French crime drama Spiral
The 1996 radical feminist theatre piece, The Vagina Monologues, made a huge impact in America and around the world as well as inspiring V-Day, an organisation…
- Front Row
Costa Book Awards Special: Jon McGregor, Katherine Rundell, Rebecca Stott, Helen Dunmore and Gail Honeyman
A special episode featuring all five winners of the Costa Book Awards 2017. The winner of the novel category Jon McGregor talks about how he wrote his stunning…
- Front Row
Kiri, Golden Globes, Gail Honeyman, Contemporary portraiture
Kiri, Channel 4's new drama series, is about the disappearance of a young girl, written by Jack Thorne. It stars Sarah Lancashire as the girl's social worker…
- Front Row
Christopher Plummer, Saudi Arts, Helen Dunmore
Christopher Plummer discusses replacing Kevin Spacey as John Paul Getty in the Ridley Scott-directed All the Money in the World after Spacey was dropped from…
- Front Row
Michelle Terry, Jez Butterworth, Rebecca Stott, Hostiles
Michelle Terry takes over as Artistic Director at Shakespeare's Globe in London in April, and today she announced details of her first season. She discusses…
- Front Row
Neil Cross, Katherine Rundell, Book prize judging
Neil Cross, the creator of Luther talks about his new BBC One series Hard Sun. The pre-apocalyptic crime drama follows two detectives who stumble upon proof…
- Front Row
Costa Book Awards winners, Elizabeth Friedlander, musical interpolation
Novelist Wendy Holden announces the category winners of the Costa Book Awards 2017 exclusively on Front Row and Stig talks to the winner of the Novel Category…
- Front Row
Making Culture At Home
The opening of V&A Dundee will be one of the big arts stories in 2018 and it's in Dundee that Samira Ahmed begins today's programme which looks at how arts…
- Front Row
Kay Mellor, Frankenstein, Swimming with Men
Kay Mellor discusses her new ITV drama, Girlfriends, about three women in their late 50s, early 60s, and reveals how closely she's drawn on her own life and…
- Front Row
Vic and Bob, Angela Gheorghiu, Theatre ghost stories
Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer are back on TV with Vic and Bob's Big Night Out. Three decades after starting out they discuss their surreal and anarchic style of…
Front RowIncredible! The unstoppable rise of the comic book superhero
The surprise success of this year's Wonder Woman film emphasized the current dominance of superhero movies at the box office. Stig Abell investigates the comic…