2,000 episodes

Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music

Front Row BBC Radio 4

    • Society & Culture

Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music

    Review of films Sasquatch Sunset and Ama Gloria and a look at Vivienne Westwood's clothes

    Review of films Sasquatch Sunset and Ama Gloria and a look at Vivienne Westwood's clothes

    Sasquatch Sunset has been dubbed the year's strangest film, about a family of mythological bigfoot monsters.
    Ama Gloria is a French film about the bond between a 6 year old French girl and her Portuguese nanny.
    Avalon is the latest show from Gifford's Circus, currently touring the UK.
    Peter Bradshaw and Nancy Durrant join Samira to review.
    We’ll also find out who’s won the Women’s Prize for Fiction and Non Fiction, and the winner of the Walter Scott prize for historical fiction.
    And and as Dame Vivienne Westwood’s personal clothes collection heads to auction, Bella Freud and Professor Claire Wilcox give Samira a sneak peek.
    Presenter: Samira Ahmed
    Producer: Corinna Jones

    • 42 min
    James Shapiro, BEKA, Molly Bloomsday

    James Shapiro, BEKA, Molly Bloomsday

    Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro has turned his attention to the incredible story behind the Federal Theatre in 1930s America in his new study “The Playbook: A Story of Theatre, Democracy and the Making of A Culture War”. He discusses the groundbreaking performances staged by its 12,000 employees, including Orson Welles’ all-Black production of Macbeth, and the extraordinary woman who ran it, Hallie Flanagan.
    BEKA is a singer-songwriter who’s gone from singing backing vocals with Honne to featuring with them as a performer, and supporting Laura Mvula and Griff. She has cowritten a soundtrack album for the Apple TV series Trying and joins us to play a track and talk about writing for herself and for TV.
    The YES Festival which runs from 13th to 16th June in Derry/Londonderry and Donegal focuses on Molly Bloom, the fictional character who appears in James Joyce's novel Ulysses. This culmination of the two-year-long Ulysses European Odyssey uses Molly as a springboard for a celebration of female power and creativity - the first all-women multi-arts festival on the island of Ireland.
    Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
    Producer: Torquil MacLeod

    • 42 min
    Liverpool's Taylor Swift Art Trail, Les Dennis, the state of UK festivals

    Liverpool's Taylor Swift Art Trail, Les Dennis, the state of UK festivals

    As Liverpool enters the Swiftularity with the arrival of the arrival of the record-breaking phenomenon that is Taylor Swift and her Eras world tour, Nick visits the Taylor Town Trail - the new art trail dedicated to the singer's albums/eras - in the city centre and talks to one of the trail's co-producer Rhiannon Newman from Culture Liverpool, Kirsten Little - artistic director of the trail, and three of the artists involved in the project - Simon Armstrong, Rachel Smith-Evans, and Catherine Rogers.
    Les Dennis makes his Shakespeare debut as Malvolio in a new production of Twelfth Night directed by Jimmy Fairhurst. Almost as soon as the final preview performance ends, Nick joins them backstage at Shakespeare North Playhouse to discuss finding the heart in one of Shakespeare's least-loved characters, and why songs by the Arctic Monkeys Blondie, and Charlie Chaplin have an important role in this retelling of the play set in the music industry.
    As the music festival season begins, news that 28 festivals have been cancelled or postponed with that number expected to rise to 100 by the end of the year prompted Front Row to reflect on the current state of music festivals in the UK with Nick Morgan, CEO of We Group - a live events production company, who has launched the Your Festival Needs You campaign, and BBC Radio 6 Music journalist and festival aficionado Georgie Rogers.
    Presenter: Nick Ahad
    Producer: Ekene Akalawu

    • 42 min
    Jon Bon Jovi, Clare Pollard & Marina Walker, Viggo Mortensen and Vikki Krieps

    Jon Bon Jovi, Clare Pollard & Marina Walker, Viggo Mortensen and Vikki Krieps

    Jon Bon Jovi talks about his band’s new album Forever and their new documentary Thank You, Goodnight on Disney+ which celebrates the band’s 40th anniversary in rock and roll this year.
    Clare Pollard’s new book The Modern Fairies is set in 17th century France, where stories of trapped princesses and enchanted beasts are performed at the home of Madame Marie D'Aulnoy, who invented the term “conte de fée” or fairytale. Samira talks to Clare and cultural historian Marina Warner about the importance of pioneers such as D'Aulnoy and Charles Perrault, who brought many of these stories to subversive salons long before the Brothers Grimm.
    Viggo Mortensen and Vikki Krieps star in the new western The Dead Don’t Hurt, in which they play an immigrant couple trying to build a new life in Nevada as the American Civil War begins. This is his second film as writer and director.

    • 42 min
    Review: Film - Rosalie, TV - Becoming Karl Lagerfeld, Book - The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry

    Review: Film - Rosalie, TV - Becoming Karl Lagerfeld, Book - The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry

    Kevin Barry’s new novel is The Heart in Winter, a love story set in the American wild west in the 1890s.
    The film Rosalie is a period piece inspired by the true story of a French bearded lady who, together with her husband, ran a café in rural France in the late 19th century.
    And Disney’s Paris set drama series Becoming Karl Lagerfeld explores the late Chanel fashion designer’s life.
    Max Liu and Larushka Ivan-Zadeh join Tom Sutcliffe to review.
    Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
    Producer: Torquil MacLeod

    • 42 min
    Christos Tsiolkas, Victoria Canal, Baillie Gifford festival sponsorship

    Christos Tsiolkas, Victoria Canal, Baillie Gifford festival sponsorship

    Christos Tsiolkas, the Australian writer best known for The Slap, talks about The In-Between, his visceral yet tender new novel about two men finding love in their fifties.
    Victoria Canal performs her Ivor Novello award winning song Black Swan and talks about her life in music.
    And with several literary festivals severing their ties with Baillie Gifford, Martha Gill and Grace Blakeley discuss the growing story behind the sponsorship row along with Adrian Turpin, Director of the Wigtown Book Festival in Dumfries and Galloway
    Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
    Producer: Ciaran Bermingham

    • 42 min

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