Front Row

Reviews of: The ITV comedy drama Douglas is Cancelled - a four part series written by Steven Moffat, starring Hugh Bonneville as middle-aged television broadcaster, Douglas Bellowes, who finds himself on the wrong side of 21st century social mores;A new exhibition at The Hepworth Wakefield, Ronald Moody Sculpting Life, puts the spotlight on the Jamaican-born artist who engaged with key moments in 20th-century art;A new production at the Royal Exchange theatre in Manchester of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest which places the Victorian comedy in a world of social media and pink fluffy cushions; And a visit to the Craven Museum and Gallery in Skipton which has been shortlisted for the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2024 prize.Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Next to Normal stormed Broadway in 2009 with its portrayal of a woman struggling with her mental health. It went on to win three Tonys and a Pulitzer Prize. Now staged in London, its creator Tom Kitt and star Caissie Levy talk about this deeply emotional musical and Caissie performs live.Early 20th century Ukrainian art is the focus of the Royal Academy’s In the Eye of the Storm exhibition. Curator Katia Denysova talks about how Ukrainian art was able to flourish in a brief window, between the cultural suppression imposed by the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union. Bold artistic styles are seen in works by Alexandra Exter and Kazymyr Malevich. Marcus Prince talks about his time as the television programmer for the British Film Institute. He makes a case for why TV deserves a parity of respect with film – and shares some of his personal highlights from the archives. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Claire Bartleet

Violinist Rachel Podger has assembled an intriguing selection of English Baroque chamber pieces on her new CD The Muses Restor'd. She tells Kate about some of the lesser known composers who were active in 17th and 18th century England and performs live in the studio. A new play at the Park Theatre in London explores the conspiracies surrounding Marilyn Monroe's death. Creators Guy Masterson and Vicki McKellar discuss the truth behind the fiction.Emma Glass's new book Mrs Jekyll realises Deborah Orr's final idea for a novel, having been approached by innovative publisher Cheerio. Glass, herself leading a dual life as a nurse and novelist, discusses drawing on RL Stephenson's original and balancing horror with humanity.Presenter: Kate Molleson Producer: Paula McGrath

The UN climate conference in Kyoto in 1997 is the setting for a new play at the RSC. Its writers Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson talk about the dramatic potential they saw in that moment and in the decade leading up to it. Nathaniel Rateliff is a singer songwriter based in Denver, Colorado whose style of Americana and collaboration with the Nightsweats has garnered a steady following of fans due to his talent in storytelling and performance. He joins us to play live.We celebrate Midsummer’s Day with poems that explore this heady midpoint in the year. Critic Tristram Fane Saunders chooses some of the most evocative midsummer verses, and Forward Prize-winning poet Sasha Dugdale reads “June”, a brand new poem specially commissioned for today’s Front Row.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Philippa Gregory and Briony Hanson join Tom Sutcliffe to discuss the National Portrait Gallery’s Six Lives: The Stories of Henry VIII’s Queens, award winning film Green Border and Federer: Twelve Final Days co-directed by Asif Kapadia and Joe Sabia.Tom is also joined by the Children’s Laureate Joseph Coelho who’s just been announced winner of the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing for his book The Boy Lost in the Maze. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Claire Bartleet

Musician Graham Gouldman performs live from his new album, as well as talking about his Lancashire upbringing and and playing in the band 10cc50 years ago Steven Spielberg was filming his adaptation of Peter Benchley's shark thriller Jaws - a problematic shoot that nonetheless resulted in a classic movie. Critic Larushka Ivan-Zadeh and writer Robert Lautner assess the film's legacy and look at the many shark attack movies that have followed in its wake, including new releases Something in the Water and Under Paris. And Will Tosh from the Globe Theatre in London discusses his new book Straight Acting: The Many Queer Lives of William Shakespeare.Presenter: Antonia Quirke Producer: Ciaran Bermingham

Stephen Fry stars in Treasure, where he plays a jovial Holocaust survivor who returns to his native Poland from his home New York with his stubborn American-born daughter, played by Lena Dunham. She is keen to build a stronger relationship with him by helping him relive his traumatised past, while he tries to sabotage her plans at every turn. How do you make space for new stand-up comedians new stand-ups? Darrell Martin, founder of comedy club Just The Tonic which turns 30 this year, and comedian Nina Gilligan discuss the art of giving new comedians opportunities on the comedy circuit.The Grammy award-winning musician behind The Roots, Oscar winning-filmmaker, and much in demand record producer, Questlove, on writing Hip-Hop Is History - his exploration of the last five decades of this ever-changing genre.Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Broadway star Stephanie J Block performs So In Love from the new production of Kiss Me Kate, at London’s Barbican. Tom talks to her and the Tony Award-winning director Bartlett Sher about creating the musical show within a show, which is based on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.The BBC’s Culture Editor Katie Razzall on what the political parties have included in – and left out of - their manifestos on the Arts and Culture. We also hear from The Lowry’s CEO Julia Fawcett and The Times’ Chief Culture Editor Richard Morrison about their thoughts on arts education, tax breaks for filmmakers, Arts Council England and economic regeneration. And in Independent Bookshop Week – we hear from Persephone Books in Bath about 25 years of reprinting the work of neglected women writers, mostly from the mid-twentieth century, with recollections of the early days from publishing pioneer Nicola Beauman.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Paula McGrath

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

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 creati

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

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.

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

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 GallowayPresenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Ciaran Bermingham

Presenter Samira Ahmed talks to Candice Carty-Williams who has adapted her award-winning novel Queenie for an eight-part series on Channel 4, starring Dionne Brown. It traces a year in the life of a young woman navigating a difficult course through her relationships with friends, family and casual partners, with the shadow of unresolved trauma always looming in the background. As two dramas, Strategic Love Play and Love In Gravitational Waves, explore the nature of that modern romantic encounter - the date, their respective playwrights, Miriam Battye and Testament, join Samira to discuss turning the tryst into theatre.Authors Briony Cameron and Francesca De Tores talk about the rise of female pirates in fiction.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Claire Bartleet

American director Richard Linklater, who made his name with Boyhood and the Before Sunset films, talks about his new comedy thriller Hit Man, which stars Glen Powell as quiet teacher who leads a secret double life helping this police catch people trying to hire a hit man. The movie opens on Netflix on Friday.Asian Network is celebrating 90s Bollywood, revealing the Ultimate 90s Bollywood Song as voted for by listeners from a shortlist of 50. It was counted down on air on Friday and is available to listen to on BBC Sounds now. We are speaking to presenter Haroon Rashid live from Birmingham on Zoom.Harpist Esther Swift plays live and talks about her first solo studio album Expectations of a Lifetime.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Corinna Jones

Samira Ahmed is joined by author Anita Sethi and critic Tim Robey to review time-skipping sci-fi epic The Beast, where human emotions are perceived as a threat; the second series of Nida Manzoor’s We Are Lady Parts, where the all-female Muslin punk band are recording their first album; they also give their verdict on the Beyond Fashion photography exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, which tracks how fashion photography has become an art form in its own right.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Paula McGrath

Adrian Dunbar is co-curator of the Beckett Unbound Festival that takes place in various venues across Liverpool this weekend and sees him directing Beckett's radio play All That Fall in a disused reservoir in total darkness. He explains why he thinks Samuel Beckett is an incomparable writer whose appeal never fades. As two new exhibitions about Edgar Degas open at different ends of the UK, Nick looks at the importance and impact of this French Impressionist artist with Pippa Stephenson-Sit, the curator of Discovering Degas on now at the Burrell Collection in Glasgow and with Anne Robbins, the curator of Discover Degas & Miss La La, which opens at the National Gallery in London on June 6th. Anne is now curator of paintings at the Musée d’Orsay.The Biafran war, 1967 - 1970, was the first major conflict in post-colonial Africa, and when images of starving Biafran children with distended bellies began to be seen in the West, the modern humanitarian aid industry was launched. Award-winning novelist Chigozie

Hollywood star Benedict Cumberbatch talks about his new series Eric, where he plays a troubled puppeteer in 80s New York whose life and marriage unravel when his young son disappears and the only help he has to find him is from a giant imaginary monster who follows him everywhere. Created by British screenwriter Abi Morgan, the show opens on Netflix on Thursday.Bernard Butler's first solo album in 25 years - Good Grief - is released on 31st May. He plays his latest single and reflects on a career that has involved highly successful collaborations with an eclectic range of artists including Duffy, Jessie Buckley, Tricky and The Libertines. 100 years after his death, Franz Kafka’s papers are on display at a new exhibition at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The curator Carolin Duttlinger discusses Kafka’s ongoing significance with the novelist Joanna Kavenna. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Torquil MacLeod

In a special edition of Front Row recorded at this year's Hay Festival, school children and young people put questions to four giants of Young Adult Fiction.Anthony Horowitz has written books for both adults and younger readers, but here discusses his iconic creation Alex Rider. Manon Steffan Ros won last year's Carnegie Medal, the first translated book to read the prize having originally been written in Welsh. Alex Wheatle is the author of the hugely popular Crongton Knights series, having written his first novel Brixton Rock in prison. And Frances Hardinge is the only children's author other than Phillip Pullman to win the Costa Prize Book of the Year with the Lie Tree, as well as being the other behind other much loved YA novels including Fly By Night.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Ciaran Bermingham