Front Row

Rhianna Dhillon and Sarfraz Manzoor join Tom Sutcliffe to review:

Childhood in War, an exhibition at the Imperial War Musuem exploring how children have experienced conflict from 1914 to the present day.

Ish, the debut feature film from multimedia artist Imran Perretta which follows two boys in Luton as they navigate childhood against a backdrop of political tension and personal loss.

And Children of Wolves, the new novel from Lawrence Osborne (Ballad of a Small Player), about a private investigator sent to Turkey to find a 27-year-old woman who has disappeared.

Plus Laura Barton discusses this year's Mercury Prize shortlist.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

Composer Missy Mazzoli discusses her opera The Galloping Cure, which fuses a live orchestra with electronic beats and features a charismatic antihero and talking dogs. An allegory for a crisis which has become a worldwide epidemic, the production by Opera Ventures Productions and Scottish Opera receives its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival and is a reimagining of a story by Franz Kafka.

Artist Joyce W Cairns is one of Scotland's most renowned painters, and in 2018 she was elected the first President of the Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture. She talks to us about making the move from mythological to autobiographical painting and about how she was inspired to create her impressive War Tourist series of paintings - drawn from research in Normandy and Tunisia - after inheriting a suitcase of her father's World War II memorabilia.

And as the heatwave continues across parts of the UK and Europe, we ask how cultural institutions are responding. Is the closure of galleries due to uncomfortable temperatures going to become the norm?

Presenter: Kirsty Wark

Professor Dame Mary Beard reveals the 2026 Booker longlist and how she has found the process of being Chair of the judges.

British contemporary pop artist Philip Colbert’s latest installation has just been unveiled amidst the historic ruins of Pompeii. Philip talks to Samira Ahmed about being inspired by an ancient mosaic featuring a lobster, a symbol he frequently includes in his work, and how he adapted his process for the UNESCO heritage site.

Hollywood actor Bill Pullman, known as the fictional US President Whitmore in Independence Day, Meg Ryan’s spurned beau in Sleepless in Seattle and many more roles, is currently appearing at the RSC in Stratford in a production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. He talks with Samira about his work on stage in the UK and the US, his favourite film roles and why he feels uniquely qualified to be playing Gayev in this production.

As reports say that around half of all new music uploaded to streamers is made with A.I., music economist Will Page discusses what this means for the music industry and for listeners who may not know that they're listening to something that wasn’t made by a real person.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Graeme Garden remembers his friend and Goodies colleague, Bill Oddie.

Frank Miller reimagined Batman as a tougher, grittier sort of comic book hero: The Dark Knight. He has written a memoir and a guide for fans.

The new Children's Laureate, writer Patrice Lawrence tells us about taking on such a prestigious role.

And 850 years of the Eisteddfod - Archdruid Mererid Hopwood and Marc Rees discuss the importance of this centuries-old Welsh celebration of music, poetry, art literature.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Hanna Flint and Chris Power join Tom Sutcliffe to review:

The new stage musical adaptation of Irvine Welsh's novel Trainspotting, featuring famous songs from the 1996 Danny Boyle film as well as new compositions to bring Renton, Begbie, Sick Boy and Spud to life.

On the Sea, a film by novelist and director Helen Walsh about a mussel fisherman in northern Wales and the romance that he kindles with a new itinerant worker called Daniel.

Cool Machine, the final part of Colson Whitehead's Harlem trilogy, which began with Harlem Shuffle and was followed by Crook Manifesto, and continues the adventures of Ray Carney, furniture store owner who lives a double life as a part-time criminal fence.

Tom also talks to novelist Kate Mosse about the news that Anthropic has created a $1.5 billion fund to settle a class action lawsuit brought by authors whose copyrighted works were scraped in order to train the company's AI chatbot Claude.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

In 1985, Wham were the first Western pop group to perform in communist China, and the tour changed people's lives. As a new documentary about this landmark moment in pop lands in cinemas - and screens on BBC Two next month - Andrew Ridgeley tells the story.

From Merchant Ivory period dramas to Peaky Blinders, the art of costume making is celebrated in a new exhibition - Costume Couture - at Edinburgh's Dovecot Studios. We're joined by John Bright, the founder of Cosprop, the pre-eminent costume making company in the UK and by historian Jade Halbert, whose new book about 250 years of costume making is Britain is soon published, to hear about how costume helps actors inhabit roles, and to hear about the history of this often neglected craft.

Fleabag premiered ten years ago this week on BBC 3. In the highly acclaimed dark comedy, writer and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge frequently spoke directly to the audience and created an unapologetically flawed protagonist. BBC New Generation Thinker, and Salford University lecturer, Dr Laura Minor, and journalist and broadcaster Julia Raeside talk about the impact Fleabag has had on TV since.

Plus, 8 years since the second devastating fire struck architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh's masterpiece, Glasgow School of Art, an update on its future has just been announced, but is a full restoration now looking less likely? We discuss.

Presenter: Kirsty Wark

Actor Ruth Madeley on starring in new TV drama The Rapture - a psychological thriller where the competing interests of an oil company, a religious cult, a protest group and a disturbed young woman convicted of murdering her mother, are set against a backdrop of climate change.

Singer Nadine Shah on her homecoming BBC Prom in Gateshead.

After a three year standoff, Northern Ballet reaches an agreement with the Musicians' Union. Naomi Pohl, General Secretary of the Musicians' Union on the significance of the new deal.

Abandoned in 1929, the film Queen Kelly became the most infamous unfinished film in cinema history. Film historian Pamela Hutchinson on its torrid scenes on and off the screen.

Presenter: Nick Ahad

Trent Park, the House of Secrets is a new museum in north London which explores the story of the secret listeners who eavesdropped on the conversations of German senior military prisoners of war. Samira is joined by Helen Lederer, whose grandfather who served as a WW2 secret listener, and the Chairman of Trent Park, Jason Charalambous.

As Andy Burnham becomes the first Prime Minister to study English Literature at University, Samira talks to his former English Professor at Cambridge, John Mullan.

Broadway star Ben Platt discusses his new musical at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London, Midnight at the Never Get, where he plays a crooner in a New York dive-bar in the mid-60s who begins a decades long relationship with his male pianist.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by film critic Tim Robey and classicist Edith Hall to discuss:

Christopher Nolan's much anticipated film version of Homer's epic The Odyssey, shot with IMAX cameras and with a stellar cast which includes Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya and Samantha Morton.

A new production of The Oresteia directed by acclaimed Australian director Simon Stone at the Bridge Theatre, London. Updated to the contemporary world, the play stars David Morrissey and Mary-Louise Parker.

Booker-shortlisted for her novel Burnt Sugar, author Avni Doshi's new book The First House focuses on the impact of a disintegrating marriage.

Also, theatre critic Matt Wolf talks to Tom about the state of Broadway musicals after Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats: The Jellicle Ball announced it will be closing early.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

The coming-of-age series Heartstopper has been a phenomenon with young readers and viewers in recent years. Its creator Alice Oseman joins us as the film Heartstopper Forever lands on Netflix, and as the final graphic novel in her series is published.

JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye is one of the all-time greats of American literature and has inspired many writers including George Saunders, Dave Eggers and Sally Rooney. On the eve of the 75th anniversary of the book's publication, the author's son Matt Salinger talks to us about the universal appeal of the novel, the protagonist Holden Caulfield and his father's reputation as a recluse.

And prog rock gets the Proms treatment! As a Prom this Saturday evening at the Royal Albert Hall sees work by Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Mike Oldfield and Renaissance performed by a full-scale orchestra, Stuart Maconie, who is hosting the concert, and founder member of ELP Carl Palmer discuss prog rock's significance and legacy.

Presenter: Kirsty Wark