Front Row

Actor Giles Terera tells us about his new book Hamilton and Me: an Actor’s Journal, his inside account of preparing for, rehearsing and performing in the West End production of the smash hit musical, Hamilton, in which Terera played Hamilton’s rival and, ultimately, killer Aaron Burr.

George Bridgetower was a mixed-race violin virtuoso, patronised by royalty, a pupil of Haydn and friend of Beethoven - who was so inspired by Bridgetower that he wrote one of his greatest pieces for him - the Sonata Op.47, which is now known as the Kreutzer Sonata. In a new documentary, Chi-chi Nwanoku, finds out more about Bridgetower's life, and campaigns to rename Beethoven's work to the Bridgetower Sonata.

In June Shona McCarthy, the Chief Executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, spoke to Kirsty Lang on Front Row about the prospects for the Fringe in this pandemic year. Tickets went on sale yesterday and Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman newspaper’s theatre critic and political columnist, is Kirsty’s guest to explain what is on offer, what help the Fringe has had from the Scottish Government and the adjustments it has made so it remains a vital cultural celebration in these difficult times.

Film critics Tim Robey and Amon Warmann join us to review the Danish film Another Round, the winner of this year’s Best Foreign Language Oscar. Directed by Thomas Vinterberg and starring Mads Mikkelsen it’s about four teachers who decide to test a theory that maintaining a constant blood alcohol level will improve their lives. In the beginning it makes them more gregarious and seems to enhance their personal and professional lives but their subsequent decision to go beyond moderate inebriation makes everything far more complicated.

We speak with Bobby Gillespie, front man of Primal Scream who has released a new album, Utopian Ashes, comprised of duets with French singer Jehnny Beth from Savages. Themed around a disintegrating marriage, it’s a richly orchestrated album that doesn’t necessarily fit into fans’ expectations for either singer.

After Public Health Scotland revealed yesterday that over 1,000 people who attended Euro 2020 matches went on to contract COVID 19, throwing the success of the Government’s Events Research Programme (of which the matches were a part) into doubt, Anne Torreggiani, CEO of The Audience Agency, joins us to explore just how confident the public are about returning to mass entertainment events, if government plans to remove all restrictions go ahead on July 19th. A recent survey conducted by The Audience Agency found that only a third of theatre audiences would be “happy to attend”. More concerningly, this was only a 2% increase on the response to an equivalent question asked in late February.

Karla Black, the Glasgow-based, Turner Prize-nominated artist, discusses her new exhibition in Edinburgh, which reopens the city’s Fruitmarket Gallery after a two-year, £4.3m expansion and refurbishment.

Presenter: John Wilson

Composer and Arsenal fan Mark-Anthony Turnage will be setting a football game to music. Not just any game, but Arsenal’s title-winning 1989 final game of the season. He tells fellow fan John Wilson how he’ll be capturing the game in his piece Up for Grabs, which has its world premiere at the Barbican in London in November.

As the V&A announce their plans for V&A East - two major new developments in the former London Olympic Park – which will open in 2024, its director Gus Casely-Hayford explains what they’re setting out to create and his vision for the role of museums in the 21st century.

Patricia Lockwood is the latest of our Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlisted authors – we’re talking to them all in the run up to the prize which will now be awarded on 8 September, when we’ll hear from the winner. Lockwood's novel, No One Is Talking About This, has been described as furiously original. It’s an exploration of our relationship with the online world and what happens when events in real life take over in the most moving way.

Presenter: John Wilson

Main image: Mark-Anthony Turnage

Later in his career Dickens toured the country doing hugely popular dramatic readings of his works. For his last tour he added in the scene where Bill Sykes murders Nancy but had concerns about how harrowing the passage was. As an exhibition opens at the Charles Dickens Museum we speak to the curator about how the reading affected both the audience and the author himself.

Technology has transformed the way we consume art and culture – from films to music to art, we use our tech in ways we couldn’t have imagined a few decades ago. After a pandemic year which has seen the work of many terribly impacted, today more than a hundred artists have signed a public letter calling for a Smart Fund which would support artists and creatives for their work through an additional fee on the sale of technology and gadgets. Kirsty is joined by Gilane Tawadross, Chief Executive of the Design and Artists Copyright Society who have proposed and championed this idea.

Randall Goosby is a 24-year-old American violin virtuoso, and his first album was released last week on Decca records. He tells Kirsty about growing up with a violin on his arm, and why he’s chosen the music of African-American composers for his first CD.

Presenter: Kirsty Lang

Simon Russell Beale was a choral scholar and the actor remains a serious musician who can play a Bach fugue. Now he is taking the role of Johann Sebastian in Nina Raine’s new play Bach and Sons and he talks to Samira Ahmed about his relationship with the composer. Does being able to play Bach help him to play Bach?

French Exit stars Michelle Pfeiffer as a Manhattan heiress who has to downsize to Paris with her son and cat when her money runs out after her husband’s death. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in the comedy drama directed by Azazel Jacobs, adapted by Patrick deWitt from his own novel. Hannah McGill reviews.

Lisa Taddeo came to prominence in 2019 for her nonfiction book Three Women, a chronicle of her subjects' sex lives. Over the course of eight years, the writer not only interviewed the titular three women but also immersed herself in their worlds. The result was one of the hits of the year. Now she returns with Animal, a raw and intense debut novel about sexual trauma and female rage. She tells Samira about the process of writing it and her hope that women who have suffered similar experiences will feel less alone after reading it.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

It’s third time lucky for the National Theatre: it tried to re-open the Olivier, its largest auditorium, with The Death of England – Delroy in October. The first night was a triumph but, because of the lockdown, it was also the last night. Dick Whittington, the panto, was cancelled a fortnight before Christmas. But the Olivier sprang to life again this week with Under Milk Wood; Michael Sheen leading an almost entirely Welsh cast in Dylan Thomas’s much-loved play for voices - the voices of the townsfolk of Llaregub, a small port by the fishingboatbobbing sea, as they dream and remember through the bible-black night. But in the NT’s new production not all the words are provided by Dylan Thomas. There is additional material by playwright Siân Owen, which suggests director Lyndsey Turner is taking an original approach to this almost sacred text. John Wilson talks to Siân Owen to find out what she has added, and why.

Film director Nick Broomfield discusses Last Man Standing: Suge Knight and the Murders of Biggie & Tupac, the sequel to his 2002 film Biggie and Tupac, which considered the background to the murder of two celebrated hip-hop artists and the rumoured involvement of the LAPD.

Black TikTok creators are currently protesting the lack of credit they receive for the dance crazes they’ve generated by going on strike. Music journalist Jacqueline Springer explains why Black TikTokers are keeping their moves to themselves.

Negative stereotypes of Essex man and Essex girls have been around since the Thatcher era but what do they mean today? We speak to Michael Landy about his new exhibition Welcome to Essex at Firstsite gallery in Colchester and Southend playwright Sadie Hasler about how they’ve been challenging Essex stereotypes in their work.

Presenter: John Wilson

Ninety years since Dame Ninette de Valois founded what we know now as the Royal Ballet and 75 since her post war production of Sleeping Beauty, Tom Sutcliffe talks to Marianela Núñez, Principal Ballerina at the Royal Ballet about Sleeping Beauty's significance in the Royal Ballet's repertoire, the demands of playing such an iconic role and the challenges of rehearsing at home during lockdown.

We explore The Design Museum in London’s exhibition, Charlotte Perriand: The Modern Life, It's a retrospective exploring the work of the pioneering designer, who, alongside better known male architects like Le Corbusier, was a defining influence on modernist furniture and interiors. The exhibition charts Perriand’s journey through the machine aesthetic to her adoption of natural forms, and later from modular furniture to major architectural projects. Design critic Corrine Julius joins us to review.

This weekend the BBC will celebrate “The Glastonbury Experience 2021” in place of the cancelled festival. But Latitude has just announced that in just over one month’s time it will be the first major festival to go ahead this summer. We speak to Festival director Melvin Benn about how they intend to make it work in the current Covid-affected environment.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

We're speaking to all the authors shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021 and tonight it's the turn of Cherie Jones. Her novel, How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House, is set on and around the Barbados beaches of the 80s. Lala braids tourists’ hair in the idyllic setting but her home life is blighted by poverty, violence and lack of choices – and when she has a baby, a dangerous chain of events is set in motion. Cherie Jones talks about this debut novel that has been years in the writing.

Anish Kapoor wrote an article earlier this month decrying what he described as a “hate-filled campaign to de-Islamify India…via the destruction of a world-class monument.” The monument he was referring to was India’s Parliament which he said was “the greatest set of government buildings anywhere in the world.” Professor Sarover Zaidi, from the Jindal School of Art and Architecture, and BBC journalist Geeta Pandey, who is based in the BBC’s Delhi bureau, join Samira to discuss the controversial Central Vista Project which aims to redevelop India’s Parliamentary district.

In Tanika Gupta’s new play The Overseas Student the young man who comes from India to study Law is Mohandas Gandhi. While here he strove to fit in as an English gentleman, and was not politically active. But, the playwright tells Samira that his years living in Hammersmith and walking the streets of London shaped the man who became the great leader in India’s independence movement.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Main image: Esh Alladi in The Overseas Student at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith.

Joan Armatrading discusses her 22nd album, Consequences, and writing songs about love inspired by observation rather than personal experience and how, despite recording every element herself at her home studio, it’s not a lockdown album.

Scottish contemporary composer Erland Cooper's latest work, Carve the Runes Then Be Content With Silence, marks the writer George Mackay Brown’s centenary. Written and recorded for solo violin and string ensemble over three movements, it is also distinguished by the unusual manner of its release. John Wilson finds out more.

After reports that the EU is considering restricting the number of UK-made television programmes that can be broadcast in member states, we talk to the BBC’s Brussels Correspondent Nick Beake about the implications for UK TV.

Presenter John Wilson

In two days' time, the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester will open its doors to an audience for the first time in over a year. And the first show to be presented will be a one-woman gig musical, a debut play from actor Lauryn Redding, she talks to Nick about penning the songs and the script and playing all the characters in Bloody Elle.

Writer and director Harry MacQueen talks about his new film Supernova, starring Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci as a couple struggling with a diagnosis of early-onset dementia who take a road trip together to reconnect with friends, family and places from their past.

The Venice Architecture Biennale 2021 this summer is exploring the theme ‘How Will We Live Together?’ Architecture critic Oliver Wainwright tells us about the exhibitions on display at this year’s festival and what architecture can do to tackle big questions.

And we talk to Cardiff Singer of the World Audience Prize winner Claire Barnett-Jones.

Presenter: Nick Ahad

Main image: Lauryn Redding