Front Row

Annette Bening and Jodie Foster star in a new sports biopic Nyad, the eponymous story of Diana Nyad who attempted to swim between Cuba and Florida in her 60s. In an exclusive interview for Front Row, Tom Sutcliffe talks to them about meeting their real-life counterparts, the importance of on screen friendship and getting time to train in the ocean.

Briony Hanson, British Council’s Director of Film and Kevin Le Gendre, author and journalist, review Rustin, a film about Bayard Rustin, the influential gay Black Civil Rights leader responsible for the 1963 March on Washington, and the book Amazing Grace: A Cultural History of the Beloved Hymn by James Walvin.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

Ian McMillan explains the challenge of translating Rossini's comedy opera, The Barber of Seville, into Yorkshire dialect and singers Oscar Castellino and Felicity Buckland along with pianist Pete Durant perform two of the Yorkshire-ised arias from this new production live in the Front Row studio.

Our relationships with art objects is a subject that many visual artists are currently exploring. Two such artists are Johanna Billing and Stuart Semple who joined Nick in the Front Row studio to discuss why they think art as an object is getting in the way of appreciating art as an experience.

Jesse Darling is the first in Front Row' series of interviews with the artists who are nominated for this year's Turner Prize. He uses sculpture, installation, text and sound in his work to react to the world around him, for instance contorting roller coaster tracks in an expression of life's messiness. The exhibition continues at the Towner Eastbourne, and the winner of the prize will be announced in December.

The Royal Society of Arts is leading a coalition to create a ‘Northern Cultural Corridor’. Comprising leading figures in the creative industries, alongside local governments across the North of England, it is looking for ways to boost the cultural potential of the north. Andy Haldane CEO of the RSA explains how they will set about it.

Presenter: Nick Ahad

Emerald Fennell’s follow-up to her award-winning film Promising Young Woman aims to have cinema-goers squirming in their seats. The mystery drama Saltburn explores class, as an awkward outsider spends the summer at a large country house.

The UK’s first art, film and photography galleries dedicated to war and conflict have just opened at the Imperial War Museum. Al Murray, who has made several documentaries about Britain’s wars, and Rachel Newell, Head of Art at the Imperial War Museum, join Samira Ahmed to discuss the new galleries.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Tonight on Front Row - reviews of something old and something new. At this year's Cannes Film Festival, Anatomy of a Fall, a whodunnit fused with a portrait of a marriage and wrapped up in courtroom drama, won the Palme d'Or, and thirty years ago today, hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan released their seminal debut album, Enter The Wu-Tang Clan (36 Chambers). Musician and writer Bob Stanley, and music journalist Vie Marshall have been watching and listening and share their thoughts

On the side of a pub in Sheffield "The Snog" - a mural of a middle-aged couple in a tight-embrace - by the artist Pete McKee has become a much-loved work of public art. Now McKee has expanded the story of the couple, Frank & Joy, into an immersive installation - the creation of fictional pub The Buffer's Rest - at Trafalgar Warehouse. He talks to Nick about creating Frank & Joy - A Love Story.

Presenter: Nick Ahad

To mark 400 hundred years to the day since the First Folio of Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies was published according to the True Original Copies, the BBC is celebrating this with a season of Shakespeare programmes. Front Row is looking aslant at the other artistic, literary and cultural events of 1623.

Tom Sutcliffe hears from artist historian Karen Hearn about the impact of the first Palladian building in England and what was being painted. Lucy Munro traces the influence of The Spanish Match (which didn’t happen) on drama. The conductor Jeremy Summerly tells Tom about the music being played and sung that year. Folklorist Steve Roud reveals how the news was delivered in broadside ballads, which found their way into Shakespeare’s plays, and singer Lisa Knapp sings one. This was the year when John Donne wrote ‘no man is an island’. The big draw, apart from Donne’s preaching, was the elephant sent by the King of Spain.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

Singer, songwriter and activist Billy Bragg joins Samira Ahmed to perform live in the Front Row studio and discuss The Roaring Forty, a box set and nationwide tour to mark his forty years in the music industry.

Women in Revolt, a new exhibition of Feminist art of the 70s and 80s, opens this week at the Tate Britain in London. Musician and punk artist Helen McCookerybook and art historian Catherine McCormack discuss the impact of the era.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Rebecca Lucy Taylor also known as Self Esteem is making her stage debut in the Olivier-award winning production of Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club in London as Sally Bowles, the English nightclub singer in thirties Berlin. She tells Samira how the late Paula Yates was an inspiration.

The details of a long awaited UK wide Arts Access Scheme are finally being revealed tonight on Front Row. The scheme aims to improve the experience of people with disabilities and neurodivergent people going to creative and cultural events. Andrew Miller, UK Arts Access Champion at ACE, explains how the new scheme will work.

The art scene is Ghana is becoming one of the most creative globally, with international collectors showing a new interest in Ghanian artists. Stephen Smith reports from Accra, where artists are drawing on West African traditions to make exciting new work.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Coming under the Front Row spotlight today are: Kenneth Branagh’s new stage production of King Lear, in which he both stars and directs, and How to Have Sex, a new coming of age film about the trend for post-exam holidays abroad, by first time director Molly Manning Walker, and which won the Un Certain Regard award at Cannes this summer. Theatre critic Susannah Clapp and journalist and Good Bad Billionaire podcast host Zing Tsjeng review.

A new track by The Beatles dubbed their “final song” has been released 45 years after it was first conceived. The track, Now and Then, uses John Lennon’s vocals and all four Beatles feature on it. We'll have a listen and review.

‘He first deceased; she for a little tried

Lady Morton’s epitaph, written in the 17th century, is the shortest verse in The Penguin Book of Elegy. The new anthology gathers hundreds of poems of memory, mourning, and consolation, by writers ranging from Virgil, born in 70 BCE, to Raymond Antrobus, born in 1986. Andrew Motion, the book’s co-editor, discusses the ways elegy shapes memory, giving it meaning. He also reflects on the variety of elegy and how it stretches beyond the human, honouring loss of landscape, species and cultures.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

From 1974 to 1984 Henry Winkler played the character of Arthur Fonzarelli, “The Fonz”, in the hit American sitcom, Happy Days. The role dominated the public’s perception of him, but despite being seen as the epitome of cool, he had many of his own demons to wrestle with. Henry joins Front Row to discuss his new autobiography, Being Henry: The Fonz…and Beyond.

The composer David Fennessy on his piece Conquest of the Useless which is being performed in Glasgow this weekend. It was inspired by Werner Herzog’s obsessive film Fitzcarraldo which features a large steamship being dragged over a hill in the Amazon.