Front Row

Linda Perry came to fame as lead singer of the all-female band Four Non-Blondes. She went on to be a hugely successful songwriter and producer, writing hits for the likes of Pink and Christina Aguilera, and collaborating with Dolly Parton. She's now released her first solo album for 27 years - Let It Die Here - and a documentary film of the same name. Linda came to perform for Front Row and explain why she’d stepped back into the limelight.
Mel Brooks is the filmmaker who gave us such comedies as Blazing Saddles and The Producers. He turns 100 on Sunday so we're celebrating it with his son Max Brooks, and the writer and culture journalist Hadley Freeman.
James Burrows, who died at the weekend at the age of 85 directed more than a thousand episodes of many classic American sitcoms – such as Friends, Will and Grace and The Big Bang Theory. The writer and TV Critic Scott Bryan remembers James Burrow's life and career.
And Glenn Tillbrook from Squeeze tells us about The Everywhere At Once Festival, a special music event this weekend that’s celebrating grassroots venues around the UK.
Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Andrea Kidd

Writer Stephanie Merritt and Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin join Tom to review Anish Kapoor’s immersive exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London, which includes huge red sculptures, black holes and boundless mirrors that challenge perspectives.
They also discuss The End Of Everything by M. John Harrison, a post-apocalyptic novel where the nature of the crisis remains unclear.
And they review Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day – a film adaptation of her novel with a cast including Haley Bennett, Timothy Spall, Jennifer Saunders and Lily Allen.
Plus, Toy Story 5 director Andrew Stanton talks about the latest film in the franchise, and as a co-writer for all the films in the series he talks about how they've changed over the years.
Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Claire Bartleet

Priya Parmar's novel The Original tells the story of how actor Katharine Hepburn set out to become one of the true movie icons of the 20th century and succeeded. She's joined to talk about Hepburn's life and career by film historian Pamela Hutchinson.
As the Obama Presidential Center opens later this week in Chicago, we hear how its architecture is being viewed in the city, how it compares with other presidential libraries and what it might do for the people of Chicago.
As the National Library of Scotland's new exhibition showcases how artists, filmmakers and poets across the centuries have been inspired by rain, poet Don Paterson and head of collections at the library Alison Stevenson join us to discuss why we're conditioned to think about rain in particular ways and about the best creative responses to a weather condition we know all too well.
Presenter: Kate Molleson
Producer: Mark Crossan

The Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, is widely regarded as the man who helped the band break through. He's inspired plays, films, and even an artistic installation by the Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller. He's now the subject of a new biography, Mr Moonlight, by Philip Norman.
A Unesco-listed cathedral in Kyiv went up in flames on Sunday night after an intense Russian bombing attack. The Ukrainian government sees the attack on the historic Pechersk Lavra monastery complex as part of a sustained campaign to destroy the nation’s cultural landmarks and identity. And in Kharkiv, workers at the state art museum have just moved its collection after a bombing raid caused fires. The Baltic republic of Estonia, which has an Eastern border with Russia, say it is planning for such attacks too. Samira Ahmed talks to its culture minister, Merilin Piipuu.
Tributes have been pouring in for the Oscar-winning special effects pioneer Brian Johnson, who’s died at the age of 87. He worked on the British television shows Thunderbirds and Space:1999, the latter taking him to Hollywood, and The Empire Strikes Back. One of those who has been influenced by his craft is the visual effects designer and filmmaker Paul Franklin, who explains why Brian Johnson changed the sci-fi landscape.
What is it like to grow up in a town which lost its industry decades before you were even born? That’s the story of Effie o Blaenau, Effie in Blaenau, a Welsh language film about a young woman looking for love to escape her weekly routine of unemployment and drinking. Lead actor Leisa Gwenllian joins Samira in the Front Row studio to discuss her role.
When the Barbie film was released in 2023, it made over a billion dollars in just 17 days – making director Greta Gerwig the first ever woman to reach that milestone as a solo director. Now an exhibition charting the evolution of Barbie from her creation in 1959 to the present day is opening in Glasgow. It was first shown at London’s Design Museum, where it proved one of the venue’s most popular ever shows. Senior curator Danielle Thom and writer and fan Sara Sheridan discuss Barbie as art.
Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Andrea Kidd

Tom Sutcliffe presents a special edition of Front Row on the art of David Hockney.
The artists Maggi Hambling and Tacita Dean and Andrew Marr speak to Tom about Hockney's career and innovations.
Tom also speaks to art critic Rachel Campbell-Johnston and the art critic and author James Cahill, author of The Beverley Hills Housewife: Hockney’s Californian Muse and the World Beyond the Pool, published later this year.
The programme also features excerpts from interviews with Hockney.
Producer: Eliane Glaser