Front Row

BBC Radio 4

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

  1. 1 day ago

    The best theatre at this year's Edinburgh Festivals

    Australian writer and performer Hannah Reilly talks to us about her much-anticipated one woman show about sex, power and authenticity, Roleplay, which is produced by the team behind Fleabag and Baby Reindeer and which has sold out in Edinburgh but is heading to London for a run in the autumn. Critic Fergus Morgan talks us through the other shows which are making a splash at this year's Edinburgh Festivals - from a radical sequel to Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, which stars Golden Globe-winning actor Wagner Moura, and in which 12 members of the audience are brought on stage to deliver a verdict in A Trial, to a reimagining of Virginia Woolf's The Waves - presented to audiences in a sauna. The first international exhibition from Alabama's Legacy of Slavery Museum has come to Edinburgh this month, and we're joined by its founder, eminent lawyer and activist Bryan Stevenson to talk about how it depicts the international slave trade and racial brutality over centuries. We're also joined by writer and director Zora Howard whose powerful production Hang Time sees three performers talk about their lives and loves as they appear to be hanging from a tree, and which is inspired in part by the deaths of two men in Southern California in recent years. And director Louis Paxton talks to us about debut feature film The Incomer, which opens this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival tomorrow night. It's a darkly comic fable in which an awkward council worker (played by Domnhall Gleeson) is sent to a remote Scottish island to relocate a pair of siblings (Gayle Rankin from GLOW and Grant O’Rourke from Outlander), to the mainland, but let's just say things don't quite go to plan. Presenter: Kirsty Wark Producer: Mark Crossan

  2. 2 days ago

    Steph McGovern on how to buy art

    Steph McGovern, presenter of new BBC show The Big Deal, is joined by Marie Le Conte to discuss how to buy art. Fleabag actor Sian Clifford on her lead role in "Lady", a new mockumentary film about a fading aristocrat. Why has a new show at Edinburgh about Amanda Knox been so controversial? Tristram Fane Saunders gives his assessment live from the Fringe Festival. And Colin Thubron, both a travel writer and novelist, has a new book which journeys into Egypt and the human mind - literally. He talks about how witnessing brain surgery influenced his novella Passage. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Ciaran Bermingham

  3. 3 days ago

    Game of Thrones at the RSC first night review

    What's the Royal Shakespeare Company's much anticipated stage adaptation of Game of Thrones like? Critics Boyd Hilton and Kate Maltby give their verdict. Conductor Marin Alsop on what makes American classical music sound American, ahead of her American Classics Prom on 24 August. TS Eliot Prize-winning poet Anthony Joseph discusses his new collection, Haunting the Black Air, which journeys from the Trinidad of his childhood to the dancefloors of New York. And following the news of the death of the music producer William Orbit, music jpurnalist Kate Hutchinson discusses his career, including his work on Madonna's Ray of Light album. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Andrea Kidd

  4. 6 Aug

    Review Show: Irvine Welsh's new novel and Glenn Close's new film

    Suzi Feay and John-Paul Stonard join Samira to review: Can Nothing Save Us?, the new novel from Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh, a state-of-the-nation thriller set in the US. The Summer Book, a new film starring Glenn Close and based on the beloved novel by Moomins creator Tove Jansson. And Richard Dadd: Beyond Bedlam at the Royal Academy, featuring paintings by the 19th century painter who specialised in pictures of fairies, killed his own father and spent the rest of his life in Bethlem and then Broadmoor psychiatric institutions. Plus the Guardian's Stephanie Convery discusses the news that AI companies have been buying up rare books and 'destructively scanning' them - removing their spines, scanning, then shredding them - in order to train their large language models. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Tim Bano

  5. 5 Aug

    Live from the Edinburgh Festivals: Stockard Channing on directing Krapp's Last Tape

    In the first of our special programmes from the Edinburgh Festivals, actress Stockard Channing - star of Grease, Six Degrees of Separation and Practical Magic - joins us alongside her friend, actor David Westhead, to discuss their production of Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, in which a cynical and disillusioned older man reflects on his early life as an ambitious and idealistic writer. Jeff Whitty, Tony Award winning creator of the hit musical Avenue Q, which is currently running until 2027 in London's West End, tells us about Midsummer!, his new production inspired by Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's dream, set in the Gilded Age and performed in a contemporary verse translation. We have a live performance from siblings Maddie and Marcus Rice from their show with songs Goodbye Dandelion, an exploration of an unlikely friendship between an 87 year old and their much younger friend, which is the recipient of the inaugural Underbelly Futures Fund Award. And we hear how deaf actors and artists are taking centre stage at this year's Festival, with Stijn Van Opstal, the director of the acclaimed production [seagull], performed in Flemish sign language by Belgian company Olympique Dramatique - and with director Cora Bissett and deaf performer Jamie Rea, whose gig theatre production The Singer, centres on Joe, a deaf artist who 'sings' with his hands, and Andy, a washed-up musician seeking a comeback, and features music by KT Tunstall. Presenter: Kirsty Wark Producer: Mark Crossan

  6. 5 Aug

    Magic live in the studio

    Samira is joined by two magicians live in the studio, from the stage show "Now You See Me Live". And then she takes part in a trick and is bamboozled! Jacqueline Crooks' latest novel Sky City follows a young woman and her friends in 1990's London, as they struggle to carve out lives for themselves in the shadow of their pasts. Jacqueline explains why literature is the perfect place to discuss difficult themes. We look at the French government's multi-million Euro national security plan to beef up museum security, following a spate of audacious robberies across the country. Tribute bands generate millions of pounds, playing live each year in the UK; from The Bootleg Beatles to Oasish. We speak with two tribute acts 'with a twist', Elvana and Nic-Cage Against The Machine, about the flourishing facsimile pop scene. This programme has been edited since broadcast Presenter: Samira Ahmed

  7. 4 Aug

    John Hannah on his new comedy crime drama set in Benidorm

    John Hannah plays a washed-up former detective who has moved to Spain to run a pub in the new Channel 5 comedy drama Benidorm is Murder. He discusses the appeal of television crime series, and why working-class settings are underrepresented on the small screen. Hull Maritime Museum reopens after a £20 million refurbishment. Director Gillian Osgerby on why this museum is such an important feature of Hull's cultural landscape. Critic Benji Wilson, author of Rate This Book: How Star Ratings Took Over The World, and journalist, Helen Nugent, editor of online magazine Northern Soul, on the power of star ratings. Stephen Ellery on his new appointment as chief conductor of the Dnipro Philharmonic in Ukraine. Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu

  8. 30 Jul

    Review show: Childhood in War, Children of Wolves and kids in Luton

    Rhianna Dhillon and Sarfraz Manzoor join Tom Sutcliffe to review: Childhood in War, an exhibition at the Imperial War Musuem exploring how children have experienced conflict from 1914 to the present day. Ish, the debut feature film from multimedia artist Imran Perretta which follows two boys in Luton as they navigate childhood against a backdrop of political tension and personal loss. And Children of Wolves, the new novel from Lawrence Osborne (Ballad of a Small Player), about a private investigator sent to Turkey to find a 27-year-old woman who has disappeared. Plus Laura Barton discusses this year's Mercury Prize shortlist. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Tim Bano

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About

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

Information

  • Creator
    BBC Radio 4
  • Years Active
    2006 - 2026
  • Episodes
    2k
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © (C) BBC 2026
  • Show Website
    Front Row

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