Front Row

As RuPaul’s Drag Race UK returns for a second season and the US series welcomes its first trans man as a competitor, are the ironically gendered boundaries of drag breaking down and what about the other side of drag - the kings? Drag kings Don One and Jodie Mitchell, better known as John Travulva, join Samira to talk about the world of Kings.Courttia Newland’s new novel A River Called Time has been 18 years in the making and imagines a city a little like London in a world in which colonialism and slavery never happened. The writer discusses imagination, speculative fiction and class – and his co-scripting with Steve McQueen for two of the Small Axe films - Lovers Rock and Red, White and Blue.You’re back in lockdown, it’s bitterly cold outside and the nights are long and dark. You could order a sad lamp online and hope for the best, or you can lean into it with writer Eleanor Penny’s round up of podcasts for this bleak midwinter. Creepy, desolate, bleak - but gripping and thrilling too. Recommendations includ