Front Row

Actor Joel Edgerton on his role as an itinerant lumberjack in 1900s Idaho, in Clint Bentley's Train Dreams, an adaptation of a novel by Denis Johnson which is being tipped for Oscar success.

The Harris in Preston and Poole Museum in Dorset recently threw their doors open after multi million pound refurbishment projects. We hear how these museums have been transformed and how local communities are responding to their reopening.

Photographer Craig Easton tells us about his project An Extremely Un-get-atable Place in which he reflects on the time writer George Orwell spent on the island of Jura in the 1940s.

And from South Georgia in the South Atlantic, artist Michael Visocchi joins us to talk about the physical and emotional demands of installing a permanent sculpture to over 100,000 whales slaughtered by the whaling industry.

Presenter: Kirsty Wark

Screenwriter Vince Gilligan is the creative mind behind the multi-awardwinning television dramas Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. His latest offering is Pluribus - a post-apocalyptic science fiction tale where it's up to the only miserable human being on earth to save the world.

The news that Durham's Lumiere festival is coming to an end has led to a political row in the North East. Helen Marriage, Artistic Director of Artichoke, the arts organisation behind the event, on creating Lumiere and why this year's edition could be the final one.

Cherie Federico, Director of the York-based Aesthetica Short Film Festival, and Philip Illson, Artistic Director of the London Short Film Festival discuss how short films are rising up the cultural agenda.

Reselling tickets to live events for a profit is to be banned by the government. Annabella Coldrick, CEO of the Music Managers Forum started the FanFair campaign back in 2016 to take a stand against profiteering in the secondary ticketing market.

Presenter: Nick Ahad

Actors Bryan Cranston and Marianne Jean-Baptiste discuss their production of Arthur Miller's All My Sons.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Tom and guests review The Hunger Games... now a stage play at a brand new theatre in London's Canary Wharf.

Actor Fiona Shaw discusses her latest film Park Avenue, director Gaby Dellal's 'tense and witty drama about mother-daughter relationships set in New York.

Filmmaker Lynne Ramsay talks to us about her new film Die My Love, a portrait of postpartum psychosis starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson.

50 years on from the band's first gig, music writer Jon Savage and photographer Dennis Morris discuss the impact and influence of punk pioneers Sex Pistols.

We also hear about the transformation of a historic and sacred well by artist Joanna Kessel.

Presenter: Kirsty Wark

Do Vermeer's paintings contain hidden religious symbolism? Art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon argues that the enigmatic painter's membership of a radical Christian group has been long overlooked.

Writer John Updike became a sensation when is candid and controversial novel Rabbit, Run was published in 1960. Now his posthumously published letters shine a new light on his work and relationships with the women in his life - from his mother and mother-in-law to lovers and wives. We discuss this legacy with James Schiff, the man who edited them, as well as his "successor" Gish Jen and literary critic Suzi Feay.

Director Edgar Wright is on to discuss new dystopian action thriller The Running Man.

And to mark Commemoration Day, a reading of The Mother by May Herschel Clark, from a new collection of women's World War One poetry.

Samira Ahmed presents live from Old Billingsgate in London, where the announcement of the winner of the 2025 Booker Prize is taking place.

The novels on the shortlist: Flesh by David Szalay, The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller, The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits, Audition by Katie Kitamura, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai, and Flashlight by Susan Choi.

As well as speaking to the winner, Samira talks to some of the judges including actor Sarah Jessica Parker and Chair of judges novelist Roddy Doyle. Plus Penelope Lively, the only writer to have won both the Booker Prize and the Carnegie Medal for children’s books, talks about the transformative power of literature for children.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

The six authors shortlisted for this year's Booker Prize discuss their novels ahead of tonight's ceremony, which is broadcast live on Radio 4 at 9.30pm in a special extra edition of Front Row.

Andrew Miller on The Land in Winter

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

On this week's Front Row review, we discuss a new production of Othello with David Harewood as the Moor and Toby Jones as Iago.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

Benedict Cumberbatch speaks to Kate Molleson about the new film adaptation of Max Porter's Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, an exploration of loss and berievement.

On Tuesday night, the winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2025 was announced. They join Kate to dicuss their work, and the significance of taking home the prize.

100 years ago, one of the best viola players of her generation – Rebecca Clarke – gave a sold-out concert at London’s Wigmore Hall. All of the music on the programme she had written herself. A new album of her works and a series of events will mark the centenery. Tenor Nicholas Phan and writer and broadcaster Leah Broad discuss.

And composer and songwriter Anna Appleby reflects on the music of Catalan star Rosalia, whose fusion of pop and monumental classical sounds is making waves in the music industry.