Front Row

Andrew Haigh’s new film All of Us Strangers, is both a love story and a ghost story. Starring Andrew Scott, it explores the impact of a chance encounter in a deserted tower block, and how nostalgia draws him back to the suburban family home where his parents appear to be living, just as they were on the day they died, 30 years ago. Tom Hibbert was a popular music journalist who wrote for Smash Hits, Q and many other top magazines in the 1980s and 90s and whose irreverent style of writing would inspire the generation that followed. Miranda Sawyer and Jasper Murison-Bowie join to talk about ‘Phew, Eh Readers’, a new book that compiles some of his best articles.Lulu Wang’s powerful new series Expats explores the lives of women in Hong Kong who are all outsiders for different reasons. It is an unsurprising theme given such female-led cast (including Nicole Kidman), as well as female-led production remains a rarity for shows of this scale and ambition. Writer and director Wang, who grew up in the US after her pare

Actor Paul Giamatti and director Alexander Payne on The Holdovers, their award-winning film about the unlikely friendship between a curmudgeonly teacher, a grieving mum and a troubled teen that forms when they’re stuck together over Christmas at a New England prep school.Critics Stephanie Merritt and Max Liu review a new novel, The Vulnerables, by Sigrid Nunez. Nunez has won many prizes for her fiction and in The Vulnerables turns her attention to the pandemic through a tale that focuses on a woman, a parrot, and a Manhattan penthouse apartment. They also review the new Disney+ television series, The Artful Dodger, in which Jack Dawkins has moved to Australia leaving behind his youthful pickpocketing and becoming a respected doctor. However the arrival of Fagin threatens to return him to criminality.Presented by Tom Sutcliffe Produced by Olivia Skinner

Daniel Kaluuya on making his debut as a director and screenwriter with his new film, Kitchen - a dystopian thriller set in London twenty years from now.Dafydd Rhys, Chief Executive of the Arts Council of Wales, on the surprising and controversial decision to stop funding National Theatre Wales. Plus, as his organisation faces a 10% budget cut, he talks about the impact on the creative sector in Wales.Late last year, the decision by Warner Bros. to shelve a $70 million film which had been completed and scheduled for release in 2023 sent shockwaves throughout the industry. Film producer Stephen Woolley and Tatiana Siegal, Executive Editor, Film & Media at Variety, discuss what this reveals about the current state of filmmaking in Hollywood.Korean Danish artist Jane Jin Kaisen describes her work as giving aesthetic shape to histories that in different ways and for different reasons have been silenced or marginalised. As her solo exhibition at esea contemporary in Manchester prepares to open, the director

Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos talk about their award-winning film Poor Things, based on Alasdair Gray’s novelJodie Comer is a new mother struggling to survive after an environmental catastrophe in another new film The End We Start From – Samira Ahmed talks to its director Mahalia Belo. The new joint artistic directors of the Royal Shakespeare Company Tamara Harvey and Daniel Evans have announced their inaugural season of productions – including a stage version of Hanif Kureishi’s Buddha of Suburbia and Northern Ballet's Romeo and Juliet. And Jason Allen-Paisant who’s won this year's TS Eliot Prize for Poetry, for his work Self Portrait As Othello.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Eliane Glaser

British director Jonathan Glazer tells Tom Sutcliffe about The Zone of Interest, his award-winning new film about Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Höss and family’s involvement in the Holocaust which is on wide release from February 2nd but there's previews in select cities on January 20th.Today is exactly 100 years since the BBC broadcast what is widely believed to be the first play for radio, A Comedy of Danger, set in a Welsh Coalmine. Ron Hutchinson has written an audio drama telling the story behind the story, A Leap in the Dark, which he is now adapting for a stage production at the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme. He is joined by cultural historian David Hendy to discuss the significance of this ground-breaking moment a century later.Molly Tuttle won a Grammy award for best bluegrass album last year, and is nominated again this year. She plays live in the studio.

Mean Girls is 20 years old and has its cult following - but will fans love the new film of the hit Broadway musical of the same name? Critics Sarah Ditum and Ashley Hickson-Lovence give their verdict on the new version. They also discuss with Tom Sutcliffe the new novel by Hisham Matar - My Friends, which explores themes of friendship and exile, as well as including real-life events like the shooting of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan Embassy in 1984 and the killing of General Gadaafi in 2011. And Mairi Campbell - who's about to start a new tour of her critically acclaimed Auld Lang Syne show - plays live in the studio.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Paul Waters

Jack Rooke drew on his own life for his hit Channel 4 sitcom Big Boys which focussed on an unlikely friendship between two first year university students – both working class with one struggling to explore his gay sexuality and the other an apparent Jack-the-lad who is really anything but. As Big Boys returns for a second series, he talks to Samira about making comedy out of loss, mental health, and male friendship.Musician Eliza Carthy is Front Row’s wassail Queen as she sings live on the programme some traditional songs from Glad Christmas Comes - her new album with Jon Boden lead singer of Bellowhead. Her performance joins in with many others happening across the country this month to mark the January ritual of blessing fruit trees in hope of a bountiful harvest.Simon Broughton reports from the Mugham festival of music and poetry in Baku, Azerbaijan. Presenter Samira Ahmed Producer: Tim Prosser

Ins Choi, the creator of the Netflix hit comedy series, Kim’s Convenience, talks about getting past stereotypes, keeping audiences on edge and bringing his original Korean-Canadian stage version of the show to the Park Theatre in north London.Tom Sutcliffe asks author and journalist Rachel Cooke and children's author and representative of the Society of Authors Abie Longstaff about the impact of the cyberattack on the British Library. Do we need to set more films and tv series in the present? Critics Joe Queenan and Stuart Jeffries consider why so much of what we watch is set in the nostalgic past or a dystopian future.

Yorgis Lanthimos’ black comedy Poor Things won Best Film and Best Actress for its star Emma Stone at last night’s Golden Globe awards, so this evening we’re joined by critics Leila Latif and James Marriott for a review of the much hyped film ahead of its release in the UK on Friday.Warhammer 40,000 is one of the most popular games in the world. Recently the makers finalised a deal with Amazon which has the potential to bring its miniature characters and battlefield stories to the big screen. The comic book writer Kieron Gillen, who has written new stories for the Warhammer universe, reflects on the significance of the deal.Have reviewers become more blandly positive in recent years - or more attention-grabbingly negative? James Marriott who reviews for The Times and Sarah Crompton who reviews for WhatsOnStage and the Observer discuss.Author Agri Ismaïl talks about his new novel Hyper which follows the family of a Kurdish Communist fleeing persecution, and his children who eventually find themselves in the hyp

Priscilla is Sofia Coppola’s film about Priscilla Beaulieu who first met Elvis Presley when she was 14 years old and later became his wife. Critics Hannah Strong and Ryan Gilbey review it. They also look at Kagami, a mixed-reality posthumous concert featuring the music of Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto.The power of music often relies on the spaces between the notes. Sarah Anderson’s book The Lost Art of Silence explores the quality of absence and she discusses this with the music broadcaster Tom Service.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Harry Parker

In the work for which he is best known, the multi-award winning television sitcom, Schitt’s Creek, as well as being the show’s creator, Dan Levy played the capricious David Rose whose wedding with his business partner, Patrick Brewer, was the focus of the final episode. He discusses new Netflix movie, Good Grief, which marks his debut as a film director and in which he plays a man blindsided by the unexpected death of his husband.Poets Lemn Sissay and Lily Blacksell join Front Row to reflect on seventy years of the The National Poetry Library, and the 70-Poet Challenge to mark the anniversary.Clarke Peters talks about new television drama, Truelove, in which he stars as one of a group of friends in their 70s, who find that a jokey pact to help each other have dignified deaths suddenly has to be re-considered as a serious commitment.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Ciaran Bermingham

The Boys in the Boat tells the story of the surprise success of the US rowing team at 1936 Munich Olympics. Samira talks to the director George Clooney and its star Callum Turner.Writer Gwyneth Hughes talks about her new ITV production, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, which dramatises what has been called the biggest miscarriage of justice in British legal history, the prosecution of hundreds of sub-postmasters and mistresses as a result of a flawed computer accounting system.The Scala cinema in London’s Kings Cross was the leading alternative picture house from the late 70s to the early 90s. A new documentary, Scala!!!, traces its development as purveyor of eccentric films to an even more eccentric audience. The directors Jane Giles and Ali Catterall explain how it became a counter-cultural landmark.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Paul Waters

One of the TV hits of 2023, Ghosts returns for a one-off special on Christmas Day. Festive viewing for many families will also probably include other work by one of its creators, Simon Farnaby, who co-wrote Wonka as well as the Paddington films. Critics Kate Maltby and Boyd Hilton review Donmar Warehouse’s Macbeth starring David Tennant and Cush Jumbo – which includes headphones for the audience. They also give Samira Ahmed their verdict on Next Goal Wins, the film version of the documentary about the true story of the American Samoan football team trying to qualify for the World Cup. And culture journalist Gary Raymond on whether the National Theatre of Wales has a future now it’s lost all of its Arts Council Wales funding.

Acclaimed English folk group The Unthanks are currently touring the UK with what they describe as a winter fantasia - a mix of traditional and newly written songs inspired by winter and Christmas. They join Front Row, as the winter solstice draws near, to discuss and perform some of the songs they've been playing.Screenwriter Lucinda Coxon talks to Nick Ahad about her new film One Life which stars Anthony Hopkins as humanitarian Nicholas Winton, who helped to rescue Jewish children from Czechoslovakia in the months leading up to World War II. How successful has the North East Culture Partnership been so far? 10 years on from its launch and halfway through the 15 year timeline for the partnership's cultural strategy, Front Row hears from former Culture Minister Lord Ed Vaizey, Jane Robinson Co-Chair of the North East Cultural Partnership board, and Keith Merrin, Director of Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums,. Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Adam Driver stars in Michael Mann’s film Ferrari, set in the summer of 1957 as the ex-racer turned entrepreneur Enzo Ferrari pushes his drivers to the limit on a thousand mile race across Italy while his business and marriage are failing. A poet would never publish a first draft. Well, not until Rosanna McGlone interviewed 15 of our finest poets – Don Paterson, Gillian Clarke and Pascale Petit among them. They revealed their first drafts alongside their finished poems in her book The Process of Poetry. Tom Sutcliffe talks to her and to Don Paterson about writing poetry. As radio drama turns 100 this year, Bill Nighy is stars in A Single Act, a new radio drama going out on Boxing Day written by long term collaborator AL Kennedy. They both talk to Tom Sutcliffe about their mutual love of the form – and whether the pictures really are better on radio.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Paul Waters

Helena Bonham Carter and Russell T Davies talk to Samira about their ITV drama series Nolly, in which Bonham Carter plays Crossroads star Noele Gordon. As a new stage adaptation of the hit TV drama Stranger Things opens in London, writer Kate Trefry discusses how she made the much loved TV series work as theatre. And musician Laura Misch explains how technology can bring us closer to nature and performs songs from her debut album, Sample The Sky, live in the Front Row studio. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Ciaran Bermingham

Front Row reviews some of the week’s cultural highlights. Tom Sutcliffe is joined by film critic Hanna Flint and Will Hodgkinson, chief pop and rock critic for The Times, to discuss Cold War, a new musical with music from Elvis Costello, and animated film Chicken Run: Return of the Nugget.Luke Jones reports on the super-fans of the musical Operation Mincemeat, who have been investigating the story of one of the real characters involved, an MI5 secretary called Hester Legett. As a plaque is unveiled in her honour, Luke hears why this musical has such a cult following. In May of this year a South Korean art student added his own footnote to Maurizio Cattelan’s controversial artwork Comedian – a fresh banana stuck to the gallery wall with duct tape – by pulling it free and eating it. Niki Segnit, the author of The Flavour Thesaurus, muses on the use of food in art. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Corinna Jones

Bradley Cooper directs and stars in the new film Maestro about the hugely influential American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein alongside Carey Mulligan as his wife, the actor Felicia Montealegre. Nick Ahad speaks to both of them about portraying a ‘marriage through music’ and how Cooper spent six years preparing to conduct Mahler’s Resurrection with the London Symphony Orchestra.Fifty years after his death, for many the playwright and composer Noel Coward is very much a figure of the British establishment. However as a new production of his most famous work, Brief Encounter, opens at Manchester’s Royal Exchange, Front Row brought together its musical director Matthew Malone and Sarah K Whitfield, co-author of An Inconvenient Black History of British Musical Theatre 1900 – 1950, to discuss how Coward’s songs reveal a more radical side of his artistry.Kirsty Lang reports on the Wien Museum, the Viennese institution which has just re-opened and for the first time includes an acknowledgement of the city

Margaret Cavendish was born exactly 400 years ago, and her many achievements include writing The Blazing World, arguably the first ever sci-fi novel. Novelist Siri Hustvedt and biographer Francesca Peacock discuss the enduring legacy of this pioneering woman, with extracts read by Rhiannon NeadsMargreth Olin tells Samira about her film Songs of Earth, for which she returned to the valley in Western Norway where she grew up, and the year she spent learning from her elderly parents and from nature. Graham Kibble-White, Deputy Editor of Total TV guide magazine and TV critic and broadcaster Scott Bryan share their top festive viewing tips – from ghosts stories to soaps, documentaries to children’s viewing.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian Wilkinson

Tom Sutcliffe talks to Andy Serkis and Louisa Harland about Ulster American, a new play in which they star at Riverside Studios with Woody Harrelson.It's panto season (oh no it isn't), a form that has always played with ideas of gender. Megan Lawton explores how this year's crop continue that tradition.Plus Rachel Cooke and Ian Dunt choose their graphic novels of 2023, and we announce the winner of this year's First Graphic Novel Award.Rachel's picks of the year: Monica by Daniel Clowes Roaming by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki Juliette by Camille Jourdy Social Fiction by Chantal Montellier, translated by Geoffrey Brock Ian's picks of the year: The Lion and the Eagle by Garth Ennis and PJ Holden Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Phil Jimenez, Gene Ha and Nicola Scott Eight Billion Genies by Charles Soule and Ryan BrowneProducer: Eliane Glaser