PodcastsArtsFront Row

Front Row

BBC Radio 4
Front Row
Latest episode

2201 episodes

  • Front Row

    Marilyn Monroe at 100

    06/01/2026 | 42 mins.
    On what would have been her 100th birthday, we look at the enduring popularity of Marilyn Monroe, with film journalist and fan Kim Morgan and reviewer Angie Errigo
    Sathnam Sanghera talks about the meaning of George Michael.
    Jazz legend and saxophonist Courtney Pine talks about his career, forty years after his seminal debut album Journey to the Urge Within.
    And poet Joelle Taylor, author of Maryville and TS Eliot Prize-winning collection C+nto & Othered Poems, pays tribute to writer and activist Maureen Duffy - one of the first publicly "out" lesbian women, who has died aged 92.
    Presenter: Samira Ahmed
  • Front Row

    The Review Show: Russell T Davies' new TV drama Tip Toe

    05/28/2026 | 42 mins.
    Rachel Lloyd, Deputy Culture Editor of The Economist, and writer Lawrence Norfolk join Tom to discuss Channel 4's new queer drama Tip Toe, which is the latest series by Russell T Davies and stars Alan Cumming as a gay bar owner in Manchester and David Morrissey as his long-standing neighbour whose previously friendly relationship takes a dark turn.
    They also talk about Paul McCartney’s 18th studio album The Boys of Dungeon Lane which was 5 years in the making and includes tracks where Paul reflects on his pre-fame world in Liverpool.
    And they assess Land by Hamnet author Maggie O’Farrell. This multi-generational epic novel is about families, mapping and connections to land.
    Plus, Roger McGough talks about his latest role as an ambassador for A Poet In Every Port, and reads a new poem. The project is a key part of the Southbank Centre's 75th anniversary national programme.
    Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
    Producer: Claire Bartleet
  • Front Row

    Ann Patchett, plus why launch an all-male publishing house?

    05/27/2026 | 42 mins.
    Nashville-based novelist Ann Patchett tells us about her tenth novel, Whistler, in which a chance encounter between a woman and her stepfather after many years leads to unexpected revelations.
    As a new publisher - Conduit Books - launches with the intention of promoting work by male authors, we discuss why this might be needed, with its founder, the writer Jude Cook, and with Ellah Wakatama, Editor-at-Large at Canongate Books, who has worked in the publishing industry for many years.
    Pioneering photographer Wendy McMurdo's exhibition The Digital Mirror opens at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh this weekend, and shows a body of work which responds to how digital technology such as computers, tablets and gaming has impacted on children's lives since the mid 1990s. She joins us live in the studio.
    And a new survey by the organisation Age Without Limits has found that hit movies are four times more likely to feature a talking animal than a female actor aged over 60. We ask why that might be, and how representation of older women on screen might be improved.
    Presenter: Kirsty Wark
    Producer: Mark Crossan
  • Front Row

    Jazz legend Miles Davis at 100

    05/26/2026 | 42 mins.
    Writer and broadcaster Kevin Le Gendre, and trumpeter and composer Yazz Ahmed on 100 years of Miles Davis - the musician regarded as the Picasso of jazz.
    Artist Keith Tyson has just donated a quarter of a million pounds for an astronomy post at Oxford University. He's joined by Professor Ken Arnold, director of the Medical Museum at the University of Copenhagen, to discuss the relationship between art and science.
    Playwright Rory Mullarkey on his new play at the Royal Exchange, Even These Things, which marks the thirtieth anniversary of the bombing of Manchester by the IRA.
    Jazz's "Saxophone Colossus", Sonny Rollins, remembered.
    Presenter: Nick Ahad
    Producer: Ekene Akalawu
  • Front Row

    Live from Hay with Jack Thorne and Val McDermid

    05/25/2026 | 42 mins.
    Live from Hay, celebrating reading and writing in many different forms, Samira is joined on stage by Jack Thorne - multi-award-winning screenwriter of the TV sensation Adolescence and his newest drama Falling, about a nun and a priest who fall in love.
    Also, Tartan Noir titan Val McDermid speaks about crime fiction and her 40 years of writing.
    The Ian Fleming estate has granted novelist Vaseem Khan permission to write a book in the Bond-iverse. This time, it's set in the world of Q, Bond's gadget supplier.
    And Hanan Issa, the National Poet of Wales, joins us to explore Welsh/Iraqi storytelling and poetry.
    Presenter: Samira Ahmed
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About Front Row
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
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