Front Row

Tom Hiddleston on becoming a dancing accountant in new Stephen King inspired film, The Life of Chuck. Sir Anish Kapoor on making a protest artwork in the North Sea with Greenpeace. A report from Bradford as artist Luke Jerram works with local communities to create a giant ball of yarn for new work, A Good Yarn, which celebrates the region's textile heritage. Michael Frayn's play Noises Off is a landmark of British theatre which relies on showing the two sides - on stage and off stage - of a theatre production for its powerful comedic punch. Artistic director Paul Robinson discusses the challenge of presenting the play in the round at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough.

Presenter: Nick Ahad

As the National Theatre’s production of The Importance of Being Earnest transfers to the West End with Stephen Fry taking the role of Lady Bracknell, but do older actresses lose out when men are cast in women’s roles? Nikolai Foster, Artistic Director of the Leicester Curve Theatre and Nicky Clark, founder of the Acting Your Age Campaign discuss.

The bestselling author of Yellowface, R.K. Kuang, discusses her new novel Katabasis.

Director Daniels Evans talks about his production of Born With Teeth which sees actors Ncuti Gatwa and Edward Bluemel reimagine the relationship of Marlowe and Shakespeare.

And we hear archive of the late actor Terence Stamp, one of the defining cinematic figures of his generation talking about working with Federico Fellini.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

A revival of Brigadoon at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre; is it Scottish cultural cringe or a tartan triumph?

Tom is joined by Robbie Collin and Arifa Akbar.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

Scottish Ballet's new production Mary, Queen of Scots is a punk inspired production which tells the story of the ill-fated queen through the imagination and memories of her cousin, Elizabeth I, who authorised her execution. And a Fringe production Mary Queen of Rock portrays Mary as a rock star in a world in which rock and roll is banned. We discuss why her story continues to inspire so many productions today.

Eva Victor, star of Sorry, Baby, the opening film of this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival, talks about her darkly comic treatment of the aftermath of a sexual assault.

Theatre critics Fergus Morgan and Neil Cooper talk us through some of the highlights of this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe - from Eat the Rich (But Maybe Not Me Mates X), a one-woman show by Liverpudlian actor and director Jade Franks in which she tells the story of being a misfit at Cambridge University to Lost Lear, a retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear told through the eyes of a woman with dementia.

Show discussed:

She's Behind You by Johnny McKnight at The Traverse

Eat the Rich (But Maybe Not Me Mates X) by Jade Franks at The Pleasance

Windblown by Karine Polwart and Pippa Murphy at The Queen's Hall

Lost Lear by Dan Colley at The Traverse

Red Like Fruit by Hannah Moscovitch at The Traverse

Club NVRLND at Assembly Checkpoint

Philosophy of the World at Summerhall

Plus a live performance from musician Hamish Hawk, who is paying tribute to the late great poet and eccentric Ivor Cutler at this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival, complete with Cutler's own harmonium.

Norwich Castle has reopened to the public after a major revamp. Historian Alice Loxton joins Tom to discuss what has been done to bring the 900 year old site up to 21st century tourist expectations

At 21 years old, Aigul Akhmetshina was the youngest singer to perform Carmen at the Royal Opera House. She'd already come a long way from home, a rural village in the Russian Republic of Bashkortostan.

Award winning director Adrian Noble talks about directing The Gathered Leaves – a play about turning 75 – an age which Noble himself has just reached. The former RSC Artistic Director also talks about how theatre can secure it's future in an age of TikTok and microdramas.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

Peter Sellers was a comic genius who changed British comedy forever. With this year marking his centenary, Samira is joined by Dick Fiddy, curator of an new season of his films at the BFI, and comedy historian Robert Ross to discuss his films and legacy.

The Edinburgh International Book Festival got underway at the weekend. The theme is repair, but the festival has to navigate a fractious cultural landscape. Festival director Jenny Niven speaks to Samira.

A new novel from Nicola Barker is always an event. Her latest, Tony Interruptor, is set in a world that some Front Row listeners will recognise. That of live performance and what can happen when a member of the audience stands up and disrupts it.

The BAFTA Award-winning composer Jessica Curry talks about her new album of choral works, Shielding Songs.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Noah Hawley talks about creating Alien: Earth which is the first ever TV series based on the blockbuster Alien films created by Ridley Scott. Film critic Rhianna Dhillon and poet and editor Tristram Fane Saunders join Tom Sutcliffe to review the series.

They also review Celine Song's new romantic comedy-drama Materialists starring Dakota Johnson as a New York Matchmaker.

And John Burnside's final collection of poetry, The Empire of Forgetting.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

A special edition of the programme recorded in front of an audience at the Edinburgh Festivals earlier this week.

Emmy and Olivier Award-winning actor Brian Cox discusses his role as the ghost of economist Adam Smith in James Graham's satirical play Make It Happen. The National Theatre of Scotland production at the Edinburgh International Festival chronicles the rise and downfall (in 2008) of the world's biggest bank, The Royal Bank of Scotland, and also features an actor playing the role of the bank's former chief executive, Fred Goodwin, and an onstage chorus.

We're joined by Zainab Johnson - a black female Muslim comedian from Harlem whose show Toxically Optimistic is her debut at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and by comedian, Taskmaster star and the voice of Netflix's Too Hot to Handle Desiree Burch, whose show The Golden Wrath tackles themes including death, menopause, spirituality and nationality.

Plus music from leading trumpeter Jay Phelps, whose show Miles at the Fringe reflects on the legacy of the bestselling jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, and from The Bengsons, an Obie-winning husband and wife indie folk duo whose production Ohio is a celebratory true story about losing faith and finding hope in the darkest of places and is produced by the team behind Fleabag and Baby Reindeer.

Presenter: Kirsty Wark

Tom Sutcliffe speaks to Sean Hayes, best known for his role as Jack in Will and Grace. Now he's playing pianist Oscar Levant in Broadway hit Good Night Oscar, which has just opened at the Barbican in London.

Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his Symphony No 5 under massive pressure, having been denounced by Stalin the year before during the great purge of 1936. The success of Symphony No 5 saved his career, and now it's being performed from memory by the Aurora Orchestra for the BBC Proms. Nicholas Collon, Conductor of the Aurora Orchestra and Professor Marina Frolovo-Walker discuss.

K-Pop Demon Hunters has just become the most successful animation ever on Netflix, and the show’s music, by a fictional band, has made it to number one in charts both sides of the Atlantic. The BBC's Julie Yoonnyung Lee tells us about the surprising trend of 2025.

Two playwrights on the Edinburgh fringe are putting white supremacy under the spotlight: Priyanka Shetty’s #Charlottesville, and Gabriel Jason Dean’s play Rift. Both draw on the personal experiences of their writers. Priyanka and Gabriel join us on the line from Edinburgh.

Freakier Friday is an update on the 2003 hit body-swap movie, and it features the return of the original stars - Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsey Lohan. Samira, with film critic Larushka Ivan-Zedah and Jesse Green, the chief New York Times' theatre critic, look at the legacy and impact of the book on which the films were based.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed