Front Row

Africa Oyé, the UK's largest festival of music from the continent of Africa, celebrates its 30th anniversary in Liverpool's Sefton Park this month. Its Artistic Director, Paul Duhaney, discusses the festival's history and chooses three tracks of music that reflect Africa Oyé's growth and reputation. What is a queer poem? Poets Mary Jean Chan and Andrew McMillan talk to Nick Ahad about how they explore that question in their new anthology, 100 Queer Poems - poems from across the twentieth century to the present day. It reflects the burgeoning range of recent queer poetry, and includes poets whose work is familiar, their queerness less so – Wilfred Owen, for instance. Plus, Maggie Shipstead. In the latest of our interviews with authors shortlisted for the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction, Nick talks to the author of Great Circle - the imagined life of a freedom-seeking woman pilot who embarks on a flight around the globe in 1950. It was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Photo: Africa Oyé, 2014. Credit: Mar

To celebrate the Queen’s platinum jubilee, Front Row discusses some of the cultural highlights of 1952.Samira Ahmed is joined by broadcaster Dame Joan Bakewell, historian Matthew Sweet, film critic Anil Sinanan and the 20th Century Society’s Catherine Croft. They discuss Barbara Pym’s novel Excellent Women, the Bollywood classic Aan, surreal sounds of The Goon Show, how the emerging architecture and style of 1952 influenced the rest of the decade and BBC radio's Caribbean Voices.

Anthony Joseph – poet, musician, and academic – joins us to talk about his new poetry collection, Sonnets for Albert, which considers the personal impact of his absent father, and performs a selection of pieces.Tracey Emin talks to Natasha Raskin Sharp at Jupiter Artland sculpture park near Edinburgh, where her new exhibition includes a giant bronze female figure lying down in the woods, paintings of beds, and other work reflecting on the possibility of love after hardship. Director of Film at the British Council Briony Hanson reviews Bergman Island a new film from director Mia Hansen-Løve about a film making couple who visit the home of Ingmar Bergman to find inspiration.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Harry ParkerMain image: I Lay Here For You by Tracey Emin Photo credit: Alan Pollok Morris, Courtesy Jupiter Artland

Actor Rory Kinnear plays ten characters- all the male roles but one- in the new psychological horror film from Alex Garland, Men. He joins Samira Ahmed to discuss how he approached playing multiple roles in this exploration of fear and loathing in the English countryside.The UK’s new City of Culture 2025 is announced. The Minister of Arts, Lord Parkinson reveals which bid from the shortlist of Bradford, County Durham, Southampton and Wrexham County Borough has been successful and what the title will mean in terms of investment and attracting visitors to the area. Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall is involved with the Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Prize as vice patron of the Royal Commonwealth Society. She spoke to Tina Daheley about how the world’s oldest international writing competition for schools promotes literacy and empowers young people.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian MayPhoto: Actor Rory Kinnear in the film Men Credit: Entertainment Film Distributors

Immersive digital art in Coventry, the British Art Show, & music from Jasdeep Singh Degun.

Meg Mason is the latest in our series of interviews with authors shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her novel Sorrow and Bliss is narrated by Martha, a woman whose path in life is shaped by her mental health. Katie Puckrick and Diran Adebayo join us to review the screen adaptation of John Wyndham's fable, The Midwich Cuckoos, the Edvard Munch Masterpieces from Bergen exhibition at The Courtauld Institute and Pistol, Danny Boyle's new drama about the Sex Pistols.

Radical Horizons: The Art of Burning Man is an outdoor exhibition on the Chatsworth House estate - a series of monumental sculptures from the festival in the Nevada Desert. Geeta Pendse speaks to Chatsworth’s Senior Curator, Dr Alex Hodby, and to Burning Man artist Dana Albany from San Francisco, who has come to Chatsworth to make a Burning Man sculpture with local material and the help of local children. Sanctuary is another Burning Man inspired structure that can be seen at the Miners’ Welfare Park in Bedworth - a public memorial for the losses experienced in the Covid pandemic. Geeta meets the woman who commissioned the memorial, Helen Marriage - the artistic director of Artichoke; David Best - the artist who designed the work; plus some of those visiting the memorial.Plus, Geeta Pendse speaks to writer Frances Poet about her play exploring dementia, Maggie May – now moving from the Leeds Playhouse, to the Queen's Theatre Hornchurch and on to Leicester’s Curve, on a dementia friendly tour.And the Palm Dog

48 years after the British jury gave them nul points at the Eurovision song contest, ABBA the avatars begin a long term arena residency in London. Samira talks to the director Baillie Walsh and the choreographer Wayne McGregor about creating the show.Terence Davies, director of some of the finest films ever made in the UK, such as Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Long Day Closes, talks to Samira Ahmed about his new film Benediction. It’s based on the life of Siegfried Sassoon, one of the great poets of the Great War. As well as writing about its horrors and having fought with great courage, he declared his refusal to take any further part in it because he saw that the people in power, who could bring the suffering to an end, were prolonging the slaughter. The film chronicles his troubled life as a gay man after the war.It is two years tomorrow since George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis. To mark this sad anniversary, we asked the poet Zaffar Kunial, whose first collection Us was shortlisted for the T.S.

Jason Solomons reports live from the Cannes Film Festival, with news of the surprise hits of this year's festival and who's in contention for the big prizes. The playwright John Godber on updating Teechers, a play that he wrote in the 1980s about his experiences as a drama teacher, for 2022. The British and Greek governments are due to meet this week to discuss the Parthenon Marbles. Francesca Peacock discusses the latest development in the debate over the contested sculptures. And we announce the winner of this year's British Book Awards, live on Front Row. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

Melly Still on directing ‘The Wreckers’, by Ethel Smyth, the first ever opera by a woman composer to be performed at the Glyndebourne Festival.Morgan Quaintance and Hettie Judah join us to review Emergency, the new film directed by Carey Williams and the Cornelia Parker exhibition at The Tate.Ivor Novello Awards: Sam Fender’s track Seventeen Going Under, taken from his album of the same name, was today awarded the accolade of Best Song Musically and Lyrically at this year’s Ivor Novello Awards. We step inside the anatomy of the song with singer, musician, composer and lyricist Joe Stilgoe as he talks us through its prize-winning qualities.

Bafta-winning actress Joanna Scanlan on learning Welsh and acting in the language for the very first time in Y Golau - a new crime drama for S4C and BBC iPlayer, set in rural Carmarthenshire and simultaneously filmed in Welsh and English.Indu Rubasingham on directing The Father and The Assassin - a new play by long-time collaborator Anu Chandrasekhar about the death of Ghandi, which opens at the National Theatre in London.Plus, the Norfolk and Norwich Festival. One of the oldest in the world, it began in 1772 to help raise money for healthcare, and is celebrating its 250th anniversary - running for 17 days with a wide variety of cultural events. Andrew Turner from Radio Norfolk talks to the director, Daniel Brine, and some of the artists, programmers, and spectators involved.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Harry Parker Sound Engineer: Harry Parker

Television screenwriter Kay Mellor, the woman behind popular series like Band of Gold, Fat Friends and The Syndicate, is remembered by fellow dramatist Sally Wainwright, Kat Rose Martin holder of the Kay Mellor Fellowship and television critic Julia Raeside.The idea of a minimum wage for artists is discussed by Aisa Villarosa Director of External Relations at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Dr Joe Chrisp of the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Bath and Angela Dorgan, Chair of the National Campaign for The Arts, in Dublin Nick talks to Chloe Moss writer of a new play, Corinna Corinna, at the Liverpool Everyman about the only woman on board a ship bound for Singapore.Presenter : Nick Ahad Producer Ekene Akalawu

36 years after playing pilot Pete Mitchell in the first Top Gun film, Tom Cruise returns to the role. Now Mitchell is one of the US Navy's top aviators, a courageous test pilot and instructor. He can dodge planes in the air but avoiding the advancement in rank that would ground him proves more difficult for him. Larushka Ivan Zadeh reviews the film.Joseph Wright of Derby was a fine portrait painter but is best known as the first artist to paint scenes of the Industrial Revolution and its scientific processes, such as in his most famous work, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump. Today one of his paintings, in a private collection since 1772, became the centre piece of the Joseph Wright collection at Derby Museums and Art Gallery. On one side there is a self-portrait, on the other a study for An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump. Curator Lucy Bamford explains why this is such a significant acquisition. So that the exhibits are not confined to within the museum building, London Transport Museum i

On today's Front Row review, we discuss directors taking a new look at much loved works: Daniel Fish’s Broadway production of Oklahoma!, now at the Young Vic in London, explores the darker aspects of the musical. Conversations with Friends, the debut novel by bestselling author Sally Rooney, has been adapted for television, following the lockdown success of Normal People. Journalist Tara Joshi and Matt Wolf, London theatre critic of the International New York Times, review them both. The Bob Dylan Centre, home to the singer's immense archive, opened this week. Professor Sean Latham, Director of the Institute for Bob Dylan Studies at the University of Tulsa, discusses its cultural significance.And as the Florence Nightingale Museum reopens after two years, its director David Green joins Samira to consider the legacy of the mother of modern nursing.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Harry ParkerImage: Members of the cast of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma at The Young Vic Theatre, London (Rebekah Hinds as G

Film directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, otherwise known as ‘the Daniels’, join us to discuss their much anticipated sci-fi, multiverse film - Everything Everywhere All At Once.The artist Maurizio Cattelan is being sued over the authorship of some of his most famous works. Art critic Louisa Buck and lawyer Mark Stephens join Front Row to discuss one of the oldest questions in art – how much does the artist need to involved in the making of their artwork to be considered the creator of that work?Plus, singer, stage performer, and actor, Camille O’Sullivan, performs for us live in the studio, and describes the inspiration behind her acclaimed show, Camille O'Sullivan Sings Cave – singing interpretations of Nick Cave’s work in her own theatrical style – and finally taking it back on tour after lockdown silenced stages. Presenter: Elle Osili-Wood

Eurovision decided to ban Russian participation this year on the grounds that it might bring the contest into disrepute, following the invasion of Ukraine. Dean Vuletic, author of Postwar Europe and The Eurovision Song Contest, spoke to Tom Sutcliffe, ahead of tonight's first semi-final in Turin.The hashtag #BookTok has been viewed on TikTok 52.6 billion times and the platform's viral videos made by booklovers have reshaped the young adult bestseller lists. Joining Tom to discuss the social media trends and how they’re influencing the mainstream industry are the co-founder of @CultofBooks Kouthar Hagi AKA Coco and Dan Conway, incoming CEO of the Publishers Association.Last month the distinguished art critic Waldemar Januszczak visited Ukraine to see what was happening to the country’s art collections, as the war continues. He joins Front Row to discuss his new documentary, My Ukrainian Journey.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Sarah JohnsonPhoto: Kalush Orchestra, Ukraine's entrant for the Eurovision Song C

Clio Barnard talks to Samira Ahmed about directing the television adaptation of Sarah Perry’s bestselling novel The Essex Serpent. It stars Claire Danes as Cora Seaborne, a naturalist who moves to Essex to investigate reports of a giant serpent living in the marshes. Cora thinks it might be a living fossil. She meets Will Ransome, the local vicar, played by Tom Hiddleston, is surprised by his openness to scientific ideas, and they form a bond. But a young girl dies and the locals believe Cora is drawing the serpent to them. Trinidadian author Lisa Allen-Agostini’s first novel for adults, The Bread The Devil Knead, has been shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. A dark story domestic violence but laced with humour Lisa talks about writing it in her native Trinidadian dialect.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian May

Singer songwriter PJ Harvey tells us about Orlam, her narrative poem set in a magic realist version of the West Country - a rural, and at times gothic, coming-of-age story and the first full-length book written in the Dorset dialect for many decades.Radical Landscapes is the name of a new exhibition exploring human connections with the landscape, at Tate Liverpool. The Terror-Infamy is a drama on BBC2 depicting the internment camps in the US where those of Japanese heritage were kept after Pearl Harbour - and a strange spirit is abroad. Writers and critics Tahmima Anam and Laura Robertson join Front Row to review both.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Kirsty McQuirePJ Harvey picture credit: Steve Gullick

This year’s Brighton Festival has two guest directors for the first time in its history. One of them, Tristan Sharps, artistic director of Brighton based theatre company dreamthinkspeak, joins Elle to discuss the literary inspiration behind his immersive production, Unchain Me, and his collaboration with fellow guest director, Syrian architect Marwa Al-Sabouni. Deesha Philyaw’s debut collection of short stories - The Secret Lives of Church Ladies - arrives in the UK garlanded with prizes including the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award, and the 2020 LA Times Book Prize for First Fiction. Deesha joins Front Row to discuss turning the lives of the black women she grew up with into art. Philippa Goymer explores the various attractions of County Durham that it hopes will earn it the title of City of Culture.Photo: Deesha Philyaw Photo credit: Vanessa German

Nathaniel Price discusses his drama First Touch, opening at the Nottingham Playhouse, about an aspiring young footballer growing up in Nottingham in the 1970s. Inspired by real life events, it explores the ways predatory abusers exploit positions of power within a community, in this case how the actions of a paedophile football coach almost go undiscovered because of the control he exercises in the football careers of his victims.In the wake of the campaign, Stop AI stealing the show, launched by Equity in response to the rise of the use of Artificial Intelligence in the entertainment industry, Front Row asked Paul Fleming, General Secretary of Equity, Dr David Leslie, Director of Ethics and Responsible Innovation at the Alan Turing Institute, and Dr Mathilde Pavis, senior law lecturer at Exeter University, to discuss the questions raised by the use of AI to enhance, extend, and replace human actors.BAFTA nominated film composer Alex Heffes has scored films including The Hope Gap, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedo