Front Row

British director Jonathan Glazer tells Tom Sutcliffe about The Zone of Interest, his award-winning new film about Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Höss and family’s involvement in the Holocaust which is on wide release from February 2nd but there's previews in select cities on January 20th.

Today is exactly 100 years since the BBC broadcast what is widely believed to be the first play for radio, A Comedy of Danger, set in a Welsh Coalmine. Ron Hutchinson has written an audio drama telling the story behind the story, A Leap in the Dark, which he is now adapting for a stage production at the New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme. He is joined by cultural historian David Hendy to discuss the significance of this ground-breaking moment a century later.

Molly Tuttle won a Grammy award for best bluegrass album last year, and is nominated again this year. She plays live in the studio.

Mean Girls is 20 years old and has its cult following - but will fans love the new film of the hit Broadway musical of the same name? Critics Sarah Ditum and Ashley Hickson-Lovence give their verdict on the new version. They also discuss with Tom Sutcliffe the new novel by Hisham Matar - My Friends, which explores themes of friendship and exile, as well as including real-life events like the shooting of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan Embassy in 1984 and the killing of General Gadaafi in 2011.

And Mairi Campbell - who's about to start a new tour of her critically acclaimed Auld Lang Syne show - plays live in the studio.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

Jack Rooke drew on his own life for his hit Channel 4 sitcom Big Boys which focussed on an unlikely friendship between two first year university students – both working class with one struggling to explore his gay sexuality and the other an apparent Jack-the-lad who is really anything but. As Big Boys returns for a second series, he talks to Samira about making comedy out of loss, mental health, and male friendship.

Musician Eliza Carthy is Front Row’s wassail Queen as she sings live on the programme some traditional songs from Glad Christmas Comes - her new album with Jon Boden lead singer of Bellowhead. Her performance joins in with many others happening across the country this month to mark the January ritual of blessing fruit trees in hope of a bountiful harvest.

Simon Broughton reports from the Mugham festival of music and poetry in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Presenter Samira Ahmed

Ins Choi, the creator of the Netflix hit comedy series, Kim’s Convenience, talks about getting past stereotypes, keeping audiences on edge and bringing his original Korean-Canadian stage version of the show to the Park Theatre in north London.

Tom Sutcliffe asks author and journalist Rachel Cooke and children's author and representative of the Society of Authors Abie Longstaff about the impact of the cyberattack on the British Library.

Do we need to set more films and tv series in the present? Critics Joe Queenan and Stuart Jeffries consider why so much of what we watch is set in the nostalgic past or a dystopian future.

Yorgis Lanthimos’ black comedy Poor Things won Best Film and Best Actress for its star Emma Stone at last night’s Golden Globe awards, so this evening we’re joined by critics Leila Latif and James Marriott for a review of the much hyped film ahead of its release in the UK on Friday.

Warhammer 40,000 is one of the most popular games in the world. Recently the makers finalised a deal with Amazon which has the potential to bring its miniature characters and battlefield stories to the big screen. The comic book writer Kieron Gillen, who has written new stories for the Warhammer universe, reflects on the significance of the deal.

Have reviewers become more blandly positive in recent years - or more attention-grabbingly negative? James Marriott who reviews for The Times and Sarah Crompton who reviews for WhatsOnStage and the Observer discuss.

Author Agri Ismaïl talks about his new novel Hyper which follows the family of a Kurdish Communist fleeing persecution, and his children who eventually find themselves in the hyper-capitalist centres of Dubai, London and New York.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Priscilla is Sofia Coppola’s film about Priscilla Beaulieu who first met Elvis Presley when she was 14 years old and later became his wife. Critics Hannah Strong and Ryan Gilbey review it. They also look at Kagami, a mixed-reality posthumous concert featuring the music of Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto.

The power of music often relies on the spaces between the notes. Sarah Anderson’s book The Lost Art of Silence explores the quality of absence and she discusses this with the music broadcaster Tom Service.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

In the work for which he is best known, the multi-award winning television sitcom, Schitt’s Creek, as well as being the show’s creator, Dan Levy played the capricious David Rose whose wedding with his business partner, Patrick Brewer, was the focus of the final episode. He discusses new Netflix movie, Good Grief, which marks his debut as a film director and in which he plays a man blindsided by the unexpected death of his husband.

Poets Lemn Sissay and Lily Blacksell join Front Row to reflect on seventy years of the The National Poetry Library, and the 70-Poet Challenge to mark the anniversary.

Clarke Peters talks about new television drama, Truelove, in which he stars as one of a group of friends in their 70s, who find that a jokey pact to help each other have dignified deaths suddenly has to be re-considered as a serious commitment.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Samira celebrates the music and life of Sergei Rachmaninoff.

With pianist Kirill Gerstein, who has released a new recording of Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic, Marina Frolova-Walker, Professor of Music at Cambridge, pianist Lucy Parham, who has created a Composer Portrait concert about Rachmaninoff that she is currently touring across the UK. Plus film historian and composer Neil Brand discusses the use of Rachmaninoff's music in film classics such as Brief Encounter.

First broadcast on 1 May 2023.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

The Boys in the Boat tells the story of the surprise success of the US rowing team at 1936 Munich Olympics. Samira talks to the director George Clooney and its star Callum Turner.

Writer Gwyneth Hughes talks about her new ITV production, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, which dramatises what has been called the biggest miscarriage of justice in British legal history, the prosecution of hundreds of sub-postmasters and mistresses as a result of a flawed computer accounting system.

The Scala cinema in London’s Kings Cross was the leading alternative picture house from the late 70s to the early 90s. A new documentary, Scala!!!, traces its development as purveyor of eccentric films to an even more eccentric audience. The directors Jane Giles and Ali Catterall explain how it became a counter-cultural landmark.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

One of the TV hits of 2023, Ghosts returns for a one-off special on Christmas Day. Festive viewing for many families will also probably include other work by one of its creators, Simon Farnaby, who co-wrote Wonka as well as the Paddington films.

Critics Kate Maltby and Boyd Hilton review Donmar Warehouse’s Macbeth starring David Tennant and Cush Jumbo – which includes headphones for the audience. They also give Samira Ahmed their verdict on Next Goal Wins, the film version of the documentary about the true story of the American Samoan football team trying to qualify for the World Cup.

And culture journalist Gary Raymond on whether the National Theatre of Wales has a future now it’s lost all of its Arts Council Wales funding.