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 emotional thriller where moral lines get blurred, starring Sean Bean and Stephen Graham as an inmate and a warder respectively. We're joined by crime writer Mark Billingham and novelist Louise Welsh, who also have some cultural recommendations for listeners to enjoy.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

Main image: Joanna Scanlan in After Love.

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 Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, talk about her second novel, Piranesi. It’s set in the House, an endless sprawl of halls lined with statues, but it is falling apart, flooded by tides and populated at first by just the eponymous narrator and someone he knows only as The Other.

Presenter: Kirsty Lang

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 planned choral activities for the 2.2 million singers in over 40,000 choirs across the country. Front Row hears from Richard Reeves, General Manager of the Royal Choral Society who staged the Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall last Sunday and Paul Parker, lawyer and part-time tenor about the ongoing issues the new guidance has raised.

Presenter: Elle Osili-Wood

Main image: The Global Goals Pavilion: Forest for Change at the London Design Biennale

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 epic mass participation sound composition Coventry Moves Together – the finale to a day of events marking Coventry’s year as UK City of Culture.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

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.

Main 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 Radio 4 series, On Form is investigating the way poets now are writing modern work using venerable poetic structures - the sonnet, the villanelle and the ghazal. The poet Aviva Dautch and Syima Aslam, director of the Bradford Literature Festival, explain what the ghazal is, why it is so attractive and how it can be a vehicle for the discussion of philosophical, political and religious ideas.

Presenter: Kirsty Lang

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 months of the first lockdown in 2020. They talk to Tom about what the Proms mean to them.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

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 her hands and feet every Friday evening. Her teacher, Siân, isn’t convinced; she thinks Carys should keep quiet, get out of the Merthyr Tydfil and go to university. But why should she have to leave to lead a fulfilling life? Lisa Parry’s talks about her new play, in which faith, reason, class, fame and language all collide.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Main image: 2 Tone band The Selecter's lead singer Pauline Black in 1979

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 and also to Patricia Lovett, Chair of the Heritage Crafts Association about why some traditional crafts in the UK are in perilous decline.

Presenter: John Wilson

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 issued on the 18th May which says that amateur choirs can only rehearse indoors in groups of a maximum of six, which led to many of the 42,000 choirs across the country having to change rehearsal and performance schedules planned after restrictions on public performances were lifted on 17th May.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed