Front Row

Anne-Marie Duff talks about her role in the crime thriller Suspect and her career from Shameless to Bad Sisters, Al Murray and Matthew Moss on the ongoing fascination with World War II in festivals, podcasts and films, an interview with Melvyn Hayes, well known for It Ain't Half Hot Mum, and curator Bakul Patki and artist Dawn Woolley discuss A Real Woman, a billboard art exhibition exploring representations of femininity. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Eliane Glaser

Boyd Hilton and Dreda Say Mitchell join Samira to review the 12 time Tony nominated Slave Play by Jeremy O. Harris which has just opened in London, having premiered, not without controversy, in New York in 2018. The film Fly me to the Moon starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum is a rom com set during the 1960s Space Race between the USA and Russia. Sunny is a future set thriller TV series in which an American woman living in Japan loses her family in a plane crash and is sent a robot by way of compensation and comfort, by the company her husband worked for, and who ends up helping her uncover some shocking secrets.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Corinna Jones

For the first time ever, breaking (known commercially as break dancing) is going to be featured as a sport at the main Olympic Games when they are hosted in Paris this summer. But what exactly is breaking and where did it come from? Tom Sutcliffe speaks to DJ Renegade, one of the world’s top breaking judges who came up with the original judging system the Olympics competition is based on and Crazy Smooth, one of Canada’s top street dancers.We visit the Museum of the Home in East London to speak with the museum’s director Sonia Solicari about their new Rooms Through Time: 1878-2049 exhibition which features displays of seven distinct homes of people who lived in that area, and explores how migration and belonging shaped their home lives.Presenter and judge Vick Hope announces the winner of the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2024.Playwright Mark Ravenhill explains why he's offering online classes for aspiring writers.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Claire Bartleet

Playwright Mike Bartlett and theatre director Robert Hastie on their new stage production of Chariots of FireAs preparations are made for a major redevelopment of the Pompidou Centre in Paris, Catherine Croft, Director of the 20th Century Society and Olivia Salazar-Winspear Culture Reporter for France 24 discuss the iconic building.BBC Russian senior reporter Sergei Goryashko on the sentencing of the Russian playwright, Svetlana Petriychuk, and theatre director Yevgenia Berkovich for their production of a play, Finist The Brave Falcon.Jason Allen-Paisant, who has won both the most recent Forward Prize AND TS Eliot Prize for his poetry collection Self-Portrait as Othello reflects on Aimé Césaire's epic poem Return to My Native Land as it is republished by PenguinPresenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Laurie Anderson, the Grammy award-winning artist and musician whose career has spanned five decades, discusses her latest work. a song cycle based on the final flight of the aviation pioneer Amelia Earheart. And we hear her reflections on the unexpected chart success of of O Superman back in in 1981. While most of the incoming cabinet are already familiar with their briefs ministers, Lisa Nandy has just been appointed Culture Secretary having not shadowed the role. Lara Carmona of the industry body, Creative UK and Liam Kelly, senior culture writer at the Telegraph discuss some of issues that will be at the top of her in tray from the Arts Council to tax breaks and prioritising arts education. The Oldham Coliseum has been resurrected. After last year's decision to close the building, actor Julie Hesmondhalgh led the campaign to re-open the 128 year old theatre. She's joined by the Council Leader Arooj Shah to discuss the work involved in bringing the Oldham Coliseum back to life . Adelaide Hall sang wit

Author Abir Mukherjee and critic Sarah Crompton join Tom Sutcliffe for the review show. After opening 40 years ago, Starlight Express has been updated and opens in London in a specially designed auditorium. Rosarita by Anita Desai tells the story of Bonita, a young Indian woman who travels to Mexico to study and stumbles upon unknown evidence that her late mother had once been there. Monia Chokri's award winning French-Canadian rom-com The Nature of Love follows a philosophy professor navigating relationships. And, Dr Henry Gee discusses the world's oldest cave art which has been discovered in the Indonesian Island of Sulawesi.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Claire Bartleet

The Irish giant of verse Paul Muldoon is this year’s Writer in Residence at Ledbury Poetry Festival. He discusses the importance of workshopping and his new collection Joy in Service on Rue Tagore.Filmmakers Sally El Hosaini and James Krishna Floyd discuss their new film, Unicorns, a love story in which drag queen Aysha and mechanic and single father Luke embark on a romance against the backdrop of the gaysian club scene.As the play Visit from An Unknown Woman opens at Hampstead Theatre, we talk to writer Christopher Hampton about adapting Stefan Zweig for the stage. Also joining the discussion about renewed interest in Zweig, one of the most significant Austrian writers of the 20th century is Rachel Cockerell, author of Melting Point.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Corinna Jones

The hit series The Bear is back for a third series. Samira talks to Ebon Moss Bachrach, who plays Richie. His cousin Carmen has been trying to transform their family-run restaurant from a cheap and cheerful operation into The Bear - a serious dining experience. Series 2 ended with a successful but highly stressful first night with Richie as the maitre d' - and tensions are set to rise again in series three of the drama created by Christopher Storer who was inspired by a family restaurant where he once worked. There's live performance in the Front Row studio from Moonchild Sanelly after multiple Glastonbury shows. She talks about her collaborations with Self Esteem and Beyonce and we hear her new single Scrambled Eggs.Dundee Contemporary Arts is in the running for Museum of the Year 2024. We talk to director Beth Bate about this unique space.Frank Cottrell Boyce has been named as the new Children's Laureate. He wants to encourage more of us to read to young children so we hear him reading from one of CS Lewi

Lynda la Plante discusses her final Jane Tennison novel, Whole Life Sentence and discusses the enduring legacy of Prime Suspect.Lea Ypi remembers the late Albanian writer and poet Ishmail Kadare, author of The General of the Dead Army and The Palace of Dreams.How is AI impacting music copyright? Hayleigh Bosher of Brunel University London, Reader in Intellectual Property Law and the music business journalist Eamonn Forde discuss.And Julie Finch, CEO of Hay Festival, discusses the future of books festival funding.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Ciaran Bermingham

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