Front Row

Novelist William Boyd and Timothy Garton Ash, Professor of European Studies at Oxford, reflect on the work of John le Carré exploring why he was more than a spy novelist, and how history shaped his novels and how they then shaped history.Comedy duo The Pin join Samira to talk about their West End debut “The Comeback”, which wittily dissects the dynamics of double acts. Ben Ashenden and Alex Owen’s show has been described by Sonia Friedman as “the cure for theatre” in these Covid times.Aliza Nisenbaum, the Mexican-born New York-based artist, is currently in her temporary studio in Los Angeles in lockdown. From there she discusses her new exhibition at Tate Liverpool, a series of portraits of key workers in the city that she painted during online conversations in August, including an entire team from the Emergency Department at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and other NHS staff on the Covid frontline.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Simon Richardson Studio Manager: Tim Heffer