Front Row

Sally Potter is best known as a filmmaker- from Orlando starring Tilda Swinton to The Roads Not Taken with Javier Bardem. But she's also a musician, collaborating on the scores for all of her films. Now Sally has released her first album as a singer-songwriter, Pink Bikini and joins Nick Ahad to reflect on this musical coming of age.

This month the British Library celebrates its 50th anniversary - a half century of caring for the UK’s research collection. For Front Row, reporter JP Devlin hears the stories of the people gathered at the UK’s national library for their own unique purposes.

Why are love stories so often centred on the young? Two playwrights join Nick to discuss dramatizing love in later life. Jennifer Lunn has written Es & Flo about two women in a four decades-long relationship that began in Greenham Common. In Ben Weatherill's Frank and Percy, two men, neither of whom will see sixty again, embark on a romance after meeting while walking their dogs.

Presenter: Nick Ahad

PJ Harvey talks to Samira Ahmed about her new album, I Inside the Old Year Dying. She explains how her poetry and lyrics were influenced by the Dorset dialect and how the film-maker Steve McQueen helped her to find new inspiration.

Benjamin Grosvenor wowed audiences for the BBC’s Young Musician of the Year competition when he was just eleven years old and is now regarded as one of the most exciting pianists working today. As he prepares for this year’s Proms, he performs in the Front Row studio and explains what drew him to the music he will play.

Front Row is hearing from the museum’s shortlisted for this year’s Art Fund Museum of the Year award and tonight reporter Huw Williams is at the Scapa Flow Museum on the island of Hoy in Orkney. He hears about how the refurbished museum, which is named after the Scapa Flow body of water off the island of Hoy, reflects the area’s wartime history.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Kwame Kwei-Armah discusses his play Beneatha's Place, which imagines a future for Beneatha Younger, a character from Lorraine Hansberry’s ground-breaking 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun. He talks to Samira Ahmed about the themes of race and politics in the play, which is set in 1950s Nigeria and the present day.

Samira is joined by critics Leila Latif and Ekow Eshun to review some of the cultural highlights of the week: A World in Common, an exhibition of contemporary African photography at Tate Modern in London and Disney Pixar film Elemental, which imagines a world where the inhabitants are all elements.

The Edinburgh Film Festival re-launches today, following its forced closure in 2022 when the charity that ran it went into administration. The festival’s director Kate Taylor joins Samira to outline the plans for the re-vamped festival.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Yayoi Kusama: You, Me & The Balloons is the inaugural show in Aviva Studios, the new headquarters for the Manchester International Festival. In a variety of ways Kusama’s distinctive polka dots fill the new Warehouse space. Economics the Blockbuster – It’s Not Business As Usual at The Whitworth is a very different kind of visual art show which asks artists to re-imagine that most topical of subjects, the economy. Art critic Laura Robertson and novelist Okechukwu Nzelu review.

In his illustrious career Benji Reid has moved from the world of breakdancing, to contemporary dance, to physical theatre, to hiphop theatre. After pursuing his interest in photography, he has now created a new art form which he calls Choreo-Photolism. He talks to Nick about the importance of curiosity both for artists and the arts.

Grammy award winning composer John Luther Adams and the composer Ailís Ní Ríain have been commissioned to create brand new work inspired by the environment as part of the Manchester International Festival. The premiere is Friday, we’ll hear all about it on tonight’s programme.

The Booker Prize-winning author Sir Ben Okri joins Antonia Quirke to reflect on his new collection Tiger Work, intended as a wake up call for a warming world. It blends fiction, essays and poetry inspired by environmental activism in the face of climate crisis.

Film director Shamira Raphaela discusses her documentary Shabu, which follows an aspiring teenage musician from Rotterdam during a single summer.

Antonia visits Leighton House in London, one of five finalists for this year's Art Fund Museum of the Year award. The Victorian 'studio house' was once the home of Fredric Leighton, artist, collector and former president of the Royal Academy.

Presenter: Antonia Quirke

Dolly Parton, one of the few global stars to have truly earned the title icon, talks to Samira Ahmed about departing from her Country sound to record an album of Rock songs. Rockstar sees her collaborate with some of the biggest names in music including Paul McCartney, Sting, Elton John and new generation of musicians such as Miley Cyrus and Lizzo. She discusses her long career and mentoring women in music as well as her philanthropy, funding for the COVID vaccine, and the influence of her films and music on feminism.

Are musicians at home being unfairly hit with noise abatement notices? Lewisham council have recently issued a notice which prevents one musician from practicing in her own home. We find out more.

The Booktastic schools programme: author Patrice Lawrence on the importance of the UK’s only book festival to focus on engaging disadvantaged children and reflecting the diversity of children’s lives in literature.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Our critics Hanna Flint and Larushka Ivan-Zadeh watch Harrison Ford’s last outing as the title character in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, also starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Is it a crowd-pleasing exit?

Presenter Tom Sutcliffe talks to Brandon Taylor about his new novel, The Late Americans. Taylor's debut, Real Life, was Booker Prize nominated and his collection of short fiction, Filthy Animals, won the Story Prize. He discusses interweaving tales of sex and aspiration, played out amongst friends in a mid-western university town.

Hanna and Larushka also review Young V&A, the new incarnation of the Museum of Childhood in London’s Bethnal Green, which is reopening after a £13 million 3-year redevelopment.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

In 2019 Kimber Lee won the first International Award from the Bruntwood Prize, the UK’s biggest national competition for playwriting, with her work - Untitled F*ck M*ss S**gon Play. As the play’s world premiere production prepares to open this year’s Manchester International Festival, Kimber joins Front Row to discuss how Groundhog Day helped her to take on a century of East Asian stereotypes.

Finding queer musical stories: tenor and composer Elgan Llyr Thomas has been exploring LGBTQ+ representation in vocal music and performs live.

Eric Broug, writer and artist specialising in Islamic geometric design and Annemarie O’Sullivan, basket-maker and artist, join Nick Ahad to discuss the nature of pattern in their respective fields and its fundamental presence in culture.

Presenter: Nick Ahad

Playwright and composer Michael R Jackson talks about his musical A Strange Loop, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The musical is based on his own experiences and follows a black man working as an usher at the musical The Lion King, who is himself writing a musical about a black male usher writing a musical. Michael R Jackson talks about why his reflective drama was such a hit in the United States.

Singer songwriter Ray BLK discusses making her acting debut in new BBC and Netflix drama Champion. Written by Candice Carty Williams, the series is set in the cut-throat world of the British music industry.

Samira Ahmed is at the Natural History Museum in London, which has been shortlisted for the Art Fund Museum of the Year Award. She takes a tour of the Titanosaur exhibition and hears about the museum’s expertise in mammals and dinosaurs.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Wes Anderson, known for his quirky storylines and individual aesthetic, talks about his latest film Asteroid City. Set in 1955, at a science competition in the middle of the desert, it follows a cast of characters who are thrown into close contact when an alien appears. Wes Anderson discusses his fascination with America in the 1950s and working with his high profile cast, including Scarlett Johansson and Tom Hanks.

The Bee Gees were megastars across four decades, but to musician and music journalist Bob Stanley, they remain critically underrated. In his new biography, Bee Gees: Children of the World, Stanley argues that the Gibb brothers were far more influential than they’ve been given credit for since they emerged in the 1960s. He joins Samira to discuss their rise, endless reinvention and why he believes they should be reclaimed.

Stephen Smith reports on the opening up of Pompeii's treasures at the Naples Museum of Archaeology.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed