Front Row

Actress and writer Joanna Scanlan - best known for her comedic roles in tv series such as The Thick of It, Getting On and No Offence - talks to Tom about her role as Mary Hussain an Islam convert in Aleem Khan’s moving debut feature After Love.Journalist Lee Trewhela discusses the close of Cornish theatre company, Kneehigh after more than 40 years. Novelist Chibundu Onuzo discusses her new novel Sankofa, about a woman who grew up in England with her white mother and knowing very little about her West African father. In middle age, after separating from her husband and with her own daughter all grown up, she finds herself alone and wondering who she really is. Her mother’s death leads her to find her father’s student diaries, chronicling his involvement in radical politics in 1970s London. She discovers that he eventually became the president – some would say the dictator – of Bamana in West Africa. And he is still alive.We review Jimmy McGovern’s new 3 part drama for BBC 1 is set in a prison. “Time” is a taut

Sierra Leone’s best-known journalist, Sorious Samura, discusses his documentary, Sing, Freetown. After growing tired of hearing only negative stories from Africa, the film follows Sorious and playwright Charlie Haffner’s journey to create a play that shows the true Sierra Leone. The entire Liverpool Biennial, the UK’s largest festival of contemporary art, has now opened, almost a year after it was due to because of the pandemic. Art critic Louisa Buck gives her response to the 11th Biennial and what it has to offer.As the Scottish Government discusses reducing social distancing requirements, where does that leave this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe? Kirsty Lang talks to Shona McCarthy, the Fringe's Chief Executive, about the situation and options that might allow 50,000 performances of over 3,500 shows in over 300 venues – the figures for 2019 – to go on.As part of our series featuring the authors shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, there’s another chance to hear Susanna Clarke, best known for Jo

Es Devlin, who designed sets for Hamlet with Benedict Cumberbatch and Stormzy at the Britz, has created something more quietly contemplative as artistic director of the London Design Biennale, filling the courtyard of Somerset House in London with trees. She tells Elle Osili-Wood about how forests in literature are places of transformation and how she created her Forest for Change, with a clearing at its heart where we are invited to consider the UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development.The artist Phoebe Boswell’s new exhibition Here at New Art Exchange in Nottingham features many life-size, detailed, figurative drawings, as well as large-scale video and animations which reflect her exploration of marginalisation, freedom and the idea of home. She discusses her work and how it echoes her own experience as a Kenyan-born British artist.On May 18 the DCMS amended guidance issued on the 17th May prohibiting non professional singers from meeting indoors in groups larger than 6 which effectively prohibited most

Briony Hanson joins Tom to review two extremely different films starring animals as their central characters. First Cow - directed by Kelly Reichardt - is set in Oregon in the 1820s, in which two protagonists use stolen milk to survive in a harsh environment. Gunda – executive-produced by Joaquin Phoenix - is a 90 minute black and white, which follows a sow with her litter, some cows and a one-legged cockerel in a fascinating but unsentimental look at animals and farming.Amy Trigg is currently making her debut as a playwright with her award-winning one-woman play, Reasons You Should(nt) Love Me, about a young woman with spina bifida coming to terms with life and love. She talks to Tom about creating the characters she wants to see on stage.Books journalist Neill Denny talks us through the ongoing bookselling dispute between Penguin Random House and Waterstones. He explains what it means for the industry and which party has most to lose.Composer and sound designer Dan Jones talks to Tom Sutcliffe about his epi

Paulette Randall MBE celebrates her 60th birthday this year. Her career highlights include her role as Associate Director of the unforgettable London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony and being playwright August Wilson's director of choice in this country. She has a rich and varied career on stage, screen and stadium taking in Shakespeare, sketch comedy and Silent Witness. She is in lively conversation with Tom Sutcliffe about her beginnings, going to drama college because of a £5 bet, winning a prize at the Royal Court for an early play, fallings out, her artistic values, and triumphs - in particular on that Olympic night, and in her productions of Wilson's plays including Fences with Lenny Henry in 2017. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Sarah Johnson Studio Manager: Jackie MargerumMain image: Dr Paulette Randall MBE

The pianist Mitsuko Uchida returns to the Wigmore Hall in London next week where she’ll be marking five decades since she first performed there. She discusses her love for the Schubert Impromptus that she’ll be playing, and how she’s enjoyed exploring new compositions during lockdown.Earlier this week Bolton found itself at the epicentre of the pandemic in England. Bolton is among the areas hardest hit by the Indian variant of the virus - although today the numbers appear to be levelling out and vaccination efforts have been ramped up. At the same time The Bolton Octagon is welcoming back audiences, opening with a new play called See You At the Octagon based on the stories of people in the town during the lockdown. We talk to Artistic Director Lotte Wakeham.Our Friday review this week is the new Channel 5 drama, Anne Boleyn. Tanya Motie and Anna Whitelock discuss its diverse casting, as well as whether it is an accurate portrayal of Anne herself.Form in poetry, like clogs on feet, is fashionable again. A new

Breeders is a highly successful TV comedy series that looks honestly and unflinchingly at the difficulties (and rewards) of parenting. It’s just about to return for a second series and we speak with director and co-creator Chris Addison whose own work includes stand-up, acting and directing shows such as The Thick of It, In The Loop, Veep and many many more.Novelist Nadifa Mohamed tells us about the 17 year journey to publishing her novel The Fortune Men, the true story of the wrongful conviction of a Somali sailor in Cardiff's Tiger Bay in 1952.With the launch of the BBC Proms 2021 Season, Front Row gathers three artists who will be making their Proms debuts this year: composer Grace-Evangeline Mason who was commissioned to create a new work – The Imagined Forest - to mark the Albert Hall’s 150th anniversary. Musician Adam Szabo who will be joined in making his Proms debut with 19 members of his Manchester Collective; and Icelandic pianist Vikingur Olafsson who joined Front Row regularly during the early mon

Disney’s much-anticipated 101 Dalmatians prequel Cruella is the visually stunning origin story of the woman who becomes the puppy-stealing force of evil from Dodie Smith’s original 1956 story. Starring Emma Stone and Emma Thompson and directed by I, Tonya’s Craig Gillespie, it is set in late '70s London and channels much of punk’s dark energy and aesthetic. Larushka Ivan-Zadeh joins Front Row to assess whether it makes for compelling viewing – and for what age group.2 Tone: Lives & Legacies is the first major exhibition dedicated to the music, the message, and the memorabilia of the ska movement. As it opens at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum to mark the start of Coventry’s year as UK City of Culture 2021, Pauline Black, founding member and lead singer of The Selecter, talks to Samira about the impact 2 Tone had on her and British culture.“Why shouldn’t God send a miracle to Merthyr?” asks Carys, the 16-year-old girl in The Merthyr Stigmatist. She claims to have the wounds of Christ, bleeding from he

As the Rijkmuseum in Amsterdam opens a landmark exhibition, Slavery, exploring the Netherlands’ 250 years involvement in the trade of human beings, the Director, Taco Dibbits, joins Front Row to explain why this history must be embraced. British hip hop, grime and, more recently, drill are all musical subgenres that have emerged and thrived in London. But Mancunian artist Bugzy Malone is leading a wave of rappers with northern accents. Born Aaron Davis, Bugzy Malone grew up amid poverty and crime. Stories of gangland life and emotional trauma have been channelled into much of his work, and his new album The Resurrection continues in the confessional vein. He talks about the motorcycle accident that nearly killed him, his recovery and how the process was the inspiration behind the new album.The high fashion brand Loewe has created a €50,000 prize for craft with international submissions from across many different practices. We speak to Loewe's creative designer Jonathan Anderson about why he set up the prize

David Weil is the showrunner for Hunters, a TV series which imagined the work of Nazi hunters in 1970s New York . The large cast included Al Pacino in his first ever TV lead role. When Covid closed down largescale productions, David Weil turned his hand to a much more intimate sort of show. Solos is a new 7-part fantasy series which is essentially monologues from the likes of Helen Mirren, Anne Hathaway and Morgan Freeman.Brit Bennett is the first shortlisted nominee for The Women’s Prize for Fiction to join us. Her book, The Vanishing Half, follows identical twins who, after running away from home at 16, adopt different racial identities. Brit discusses how her mother’s upbringing inspired the story, and why she wanted to write about colourism. As BBC Four launches its Great British Photography Challenge, photographer Maryam Wahid offers some handy hints to help you get the best possible shot with your mobile phone camera.Composer, singer and choral conductor Bob Chilcott discusses the government's guidance

Front Row joins Radio 4's celebration of Bob Dylan, who will be 80 on Monday. John Wilson joined by Bob Geldof, to consider the art and influence of Bob, on Bob. Ann Powers, music critic for National Public Radio joins from somewhere on the Nashville Skyline. On Bob Dylan's first trip to Britain, in the winter of 1962, he and the great English folk singer Martin Carthy, met, became friends and performed together in small clubs such as the Troubadour (still going!). Bob Dylan acknowledges the influence of Carthy, whose versions of Scarborough Fair and Lord Franklin, for instance, inform songs of his such as Bob Dylan's Dream and Girl From the North Country. It will be Martin's 80th birthday on Friday, he's three days older than Dylan. Front Row drags him away from his celebration (and a rehearsal - Carthy, like Dylan, is still a hardworking musician) to remember those early days, and a winter so cold he and Bob chopped up an old piano for firewood.Kerry Shale stars with Richard Curtis, Lucas Hare and Eileen At

Eleanor Clayton is the curator of the largest publlc exhbition of the work of the sculptor Barbara Hepworth since her death in 1975. She's also written a new biography about the sculptor called Barbara Hepworth Art and Life. She talks to Nick about Hepworth's passion for making sculpture and how her insistence on the best way her work should be presented to the public has influenced the new show at The Hepworth Wakefield.The secretary of state for culture, The Rt Hon Oliver Dowden wants museum trustee boards to have greater regional representation, but is he taking the right approach to achieve this? Lord Smith of Finsbury who, as Chris Smith MP, was culture secretary in Tony Blair's goverment has concerns. He joins Front Row to explain why he thinks the present culture secretary needs to keep at arms length from our cultural institutions.The National Youth Theatre is about to premiere a new production of Othello at the Royal and Derngate in Northampton. The play is set in a hedonistic 90s club, and Othello

The new album of compositions by Roxanna Panufnik performed by the Saconni Quartet features a surprising range of subject material; letters written home during the First World War, Ashkenazi Jewish cantorial chant, Aung San Suu Kyi’s musings on Burma, a celebration of Poland’s EU presidency, a 14th century love story and the heartbeat of a Bulgarian dancing bear. We talk to her about the stories behind Heartfelt.Following their residency at Cern, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva, the Brighton-based artist duo Semiconductor have created a multisensory installation Halo, showing as part of the Brighton Festival. Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt discuss their immersive artwork of sound and light, which takes the form of an intricate mechanical structure containing a 360-degree projection of scientific data and 380 resonating taut piano wires. Eileen Agar: Angel of Anarchy is a major retrospective of the Cubist and Surrealist artist (1899-1991) at the Whitechapel Gallery in London. Louisa Buck j

The actress Julie Hesmondhalgh, best known for Coronation Street and Broadchurch on TV, returns to the theatre for the opening night of her new play at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. Modestly titled The Greatest Play in the History of the World… it is not only the first night of the tour but the first night the theatre has been open since last year. Julie takes a break from rehearsals to talk to Samira about how she is looking forward to being onstage again and the importance of theatre to regional towns. Lie Down and Listen is the idea behind a new series of classical music concerts being led by the pianist Christina McMaster. She talks to Samira about how lying down helps both the mind and body listen to music.A new photographic exhibition opening at The Serpentine Gallery in London shows the work of 91-year-old photographer James Barnor. He’s been working for 6 decades, first in his native Ghana where he captured the country’s move to independence, before coming to the UK in the 60s where he

Barry Jenkins, the director of the 2017 Oscar-winning film Moonlight, discusses his new ten-part TV adaptation of Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Underground Railroad.The drama series follows two young slaves as they escape their cotton plantation in Georgia and go in search of the fabled railway which they hope will transport them north in their quest for freedom.The director discusses shooting the drama - which contains harrowing scenes of violence - on the site of former plantations in Georgia where slaves worked and died, and how the experience affected him as an African-American. Presenter Kirsty Lang Producer Jerome WeatheraldMain image: Showrunner, writer and Director Barry Jenkins on The Underground Railroad shoot in Georgia, USA. Image credit: Kyle Caplan/Amazon Studios

Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland, which recently won best film at both the Oscars and Baftas, is leading the pack as cinemas reopen next week. Film critic Tim Robey and Chinese arts journalist Yuan Ren discuss Nomadland and what else we have to look forward to.St Vincent’s latest album Daddy’s Home is inspired in part by her father’s release from 10 years in prison. The artist discusses getting personal for her sixth record, returning to the sound of the '70s and the female artists that paved the way for her.A lack of commercial and government-backed insurance has led to the cancellation of many festivals this year with more cancellations expected if things don’t change. Marina Blake, co-founder and creative director of Brainchild Festival, has a plan to ensure her festival goes ahead. She talks to John about asking ticketholders to share the costs of the risk.Author Maylis de Kerangal discusses Painting Time, her coming-of-age novel set in the world of decorative painting, following a young woman who finds herself dis

Author of the Year was announced today at the British Books Awards. Tom speaks to the winner, Richard Osman, game show host and author of the hugely successful crime novel The Thursday Murder Club.In the middle of the forest sits an abandoned toy shop. It appears to be a fairy tale house, but as you inch closer you see that it is defaced and decaying. Inside there are rows of upside down dolls. Upside Down Mimi is artist Rachel Maclean’s first permanent outdoor commission, an installation combining both architecture and animation and a replica will be touring Scottish city centres. She joins us to explain this artistic commentary on consumer culture and the decline of the high street.As the news of a possible 50% cuts to Higher Education Arts funding is met by a robust response from musicians, artists and actors as well as higher education organisations and bodies, BBC Education Editor Branwen Jeffreys joins Front Row to explain what these proposed cuts really mean.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Sarah Joh

From next Monday theatres in England will legally be allowed to reopen with social distancing and strict capacity restrictions. We find out what it will be like for audiences and staff as they return to venues. We also hear from one theatre director in Scotland who's not reopening and ask why. The Cultural Recovery Fund has provided a lifeline for some arts organisations who would have gone under as well as some individuals but how are the millions of pounds of public money being spent? We speak to Louise Chantal CEO and Director of the Oxford Playhouse, and Nica Burns, CEO of Nimax Theatres which operates several commercial theatres in London. And we talk to Amanda Parker, Founder and Director of Inc Arts about those who didn't get any money from the Culture Recovery Fund.Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap will be the first play to reopen in the London's West End, with its first performance on Monday night. What else can we look forward to in the coming months, and how will the theatrical experience change? T

It was after the death of George Floyd that television writer and producer Travon Free, and filmmaker Martin Desmond Roe came together to create a response to this traumatic event. The result was Two Distant Strangers which won Best Live Action Short Film at this year’s Oscars. Travon and Martin join Elle to talk about making art out of tragedy. NBC has dropped the 2022 Golden Globes Award ceremony and Tom Cruise has returned his three Golden Globes in protest at the lack of diversity at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. The Oscars were more diverse this year, but the televised award ceremony had its lowest ever audience. Rhianna Dhillon talks about what is happening with awards.Resident Evil Village is the eighth instalment from the hugely popular horror game franchise. Games journalist Louise Blain reviews and discusses the appeal of the genre as a whole. Are you missing the joy of musicals? The BBC World Service has create a brand new one, U.Me: The Musical, entirely under lockdown, lavishly arrange

David Hockney has captured the unfolding of Spring during the pandemic, creating 116 new works on his ipad which have been blown up for a new exhibition at London’s Royal Academy. Art critic Ben Luke reviews the prolific 83 year old’s new work. He also discusses the shortlist for this year’s Turner Prize; for the first time, no one on the list is an individual artist: they are all artist collectives. A new BBC TV drama, Three Families, is set in Northern Ireland looks at the controversial and divisive subject of abortion. Northern Ireland was exempted from the UK’s 1967 Abortion Act and had some of the most restrictive policies in Europe. 2 years ago when the Stormont Assembly was dissolved and decision-making powers transferred to Westminster, MPs in London voted overwhelmingly to change the law and ease access to abortion. This series fictionalises the stories of three women and their personal involvement in the campaign to liberalise the law. We speak with the writer of the 2 part series, Gwyneth Hughes.