Front Row BBC Radio 4

The Pet Shop Boys are the most successful duo in UK music history. Forty years after their first hit West End Girls they are about to release their new album Nonetheless. Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant join Samira Ahmed to talk about making sense of life through culture, their music being used in hit films like Saltburn and All of Us Strangers and their gay icon status.
Also joining Samira in the studio are art critic Catherine McCormack and writer Jenny McCartney to review the new tennis film Challengers - which stars Zendaya and Josh O'Connor and Tate Modern's new exhibition Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and The Blue Rider.
Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Paula McGrath

The Legend of Ned Ludd - writer Joe Ward Munrow and director Jude Christian discuss their new play at the Liverpool Everyman theatre which explores the changing nature of work over the centuries and around the world in the the face of automation.
The shortlist for the Women's Prize for Fiction was announced today - journalist Jamie Klingler assesses the selection.
As the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool prepares to show off its latest acquisitions, curator Kate O'Donoghue explains what the their new Degas and Monet works will bring to their collection.
Artist Mohammad Barrangi discusses his new installation - One Night, One Dream, Life in the Lighthoue - at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery in Leeds University, inspired by his residency at the university's Special Collections.
Presenter: Nick Ahad
Producer: Ekene Akalawu

The British Library isn’t all books; it has a huge sound archive, one of the largest in the world. It has drawn on this for Beyond the Bassline, the first major exhibition to documenting Black British music. Curators Aleema Gray and Mykaell Riley guide Shahidha Bari through the 500-year musical journey of African and Caribbean people in Britain.
Emily Henry is a giant of the Beach Read: indeed one of her best selling novels is literally called that. With her forthcoming Funny Book, she is joined by author of The Garnett Girls Georgina Moore to discuss what goes into an ideal summer book.
And on Shakespeare's birthday, we discuss the women who made him as well as his female contemporaries with Charlotte Scott, from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, and Rami Targoff author of Shakespeare's Sisters: Four Women Who Wrote the Renaissance
Presenter: Shahidha Bari
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham

Taylor Swift returns with The Tortured Poets Department, a surprise double album that features 31 tracks that fans are saying is her most intimate and lyrically revealing yet. Joining Tom Sutcliffe to discuss the work are Times music writer Lisa Vericco and Satu Hameenho-Fox, whose new book Into The Taylor-Verse is out next month.
The Intercity 125 train, the Kenwood mixer, the Morphy Richards iron, the Wilkinson triple razor, bus shelters, the black cab, and the Parker 25 pen all have one thing in common – they were designed by Sir Kenneth Grange. As a new book about his life and work comes out, we went to his house to meet him.
Hettie Judah joins us fresh from the famous international cultural exhibition, the Venice Biennale, now in it’s 60th year. She’ll be reviewing the highs and lows.
Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Julian May

Knife is Salman Rushdie’s memoir about surviving a near-fatal knife attack in August 2022 and the long, painful period of recovery that followed.
Ben Power’s adaption of the Dickens novel Our Mutual Friend – London Tide – which features songs that he co-wrote with PJ Harvey, has just opened at the National Theatre in London.
Baby Reindeer is a new Netflix drama written by and starring Richard Gadd who drew directly on his own shocking experience of being stalked.
All three are reviewed by Tahmima Anam and John Mullan.
We also hear from tenor Ian Bostridge on mobile phone use in concert halls and why he stopped a performance of Britten's Les Illuminations with the CBSO last night.
Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Corinna Jones

Lionel Shriver on her latest novel Mania, in which she creates an alternative USA where the Mental Parity Movement insists that everyone is equally clever. Can a friendship between two women survive when they hold polarised views on this particular “culture war”?
Why are universities all over the country closing arts courses and cutting jobs? Front Row investigates and considers the consequences.
Playwright Tyrell Williams talks about his acclaimed play Red Pitch, about three young lads dreaming of football stardom. But what happens when their local football pitch is under threat, as a result of gentrification?
Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Julian May