Front Row

Jazz pianist Fergus McCreadie performs live from his latest album Forest Floor, which recently won the Scottish Album of the Year award and a Mercury Prize nomination.

Performance poet Leyla Josephine discusses her debut poetry collection In Public / In Private.

Patricia Allerston, chief curator of the Scottish National Gallery, on the transformation of the museum and creation of a new exhibition space. Plus Kate goes behind the scenes to meet conservators who are restoring the works of art, Lesley Stevenson and Keith Morrison.

Anna Burnside reports on the significance of this Autumn's closure of the Modern Two Gallery in Edinburgh, part of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

Presenter: Kate Molleson

Veronica Ryan OBE is shortlisted for the Turner Prize. She talks to Front Row about her Windrush Commission sculptures in Hackney that have won the hearts of both the community and critics, how she uses materials from old fruit trays to volcanic ash, and how her work contains multitudes of meaning.

Nii Ayikwei Parkes, writer, commentator and performance poet and Lisa Verrico, music critic for the Sunday Times review White Noise, an extraordinary film written and directed by Noah Baumbach and based on the novel by Don DeLillo, and the much-anticipated album by Stormzy, This is What I Mean.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

Maxine Peake discusses playing Betty Boothroyd, former Speaker of the House of Commons in Betty! A Sort of Musical, which is about to open at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre.

Turner Prize nominated artist Heather Phillipson, best known for her sculpture of a giant cherry topped ice cream on Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth, discusses her exhibition 'RUPTURE NO 1: blowtorching the bitten peach', using recycled materials, video, sculpture, music and poetry, currently on display at Tate Liverpool.

Laura Robertson visits Signal Film and Media in Barrow in Furness to hear about how the charity has benefited from the latest Arts Council funding announcement and to find out what they have planned for the future.

The artist Tom Phillips has died at the age of 85. In a Front Row interview from 2012, he discusses his long running artistic projects as a painter, printmaker and collagist.

Presenter: Shahidha Bari

Image: Maxine Peake as Betty Boothroyd, former Speaker of the House of Commons in Betty! A Sort of Musical at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester.

Clint Dyer discusses directing Othello starring Giles Terera at the National Theatre, the first Black director to do so. He talks about how he is approaching the racism and misogyny in the play, and the history of previous productions.

In the second of Front Row’s interviews with the artists nominated for this year’s Turner Prize, Ingrid Pollard discusses her work, Carbon Slowly Turning, and how she explores themes of nationhood, race, history and identity through portraiture and landscape.

And as the Wellcome Collection decides to close an exhibition described as sexist, racist and ableist, Front Row discusses whether museums should display historical objects that may offend gallery visitors.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Author Katherine Rundell talks to Tom Sutcliffe about her book Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne, which has won this year’s The Baillie Gifford.

In the first in a series of interviews with the artists shortlisted for this year’s Turner Prize, Sin Wai Kin discusses how they use performance to challenge misogyny and racism.

The acclaimed dance company Ballet Black, known for giving a platform to Black and Asian dancers and choreographers, turns 20 this year. Michael McKenzie visits rehearsals to hear how they are marking the anniversary.

And as the Horniman Museum in London hands back their collection of Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, Professor Abba Tijani, the Director General of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments, discusses what receiving the artworks means for Nigeria.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

The much-celebrated singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading on her 50-year career, her book of lyrics, The Weakness in Me, and new album Live at Asylum Chapel.

Arts journalist Nancy Durrant, and art historian and writer Chloe Austin review Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s new show at the Tate Britain, and the film She Said, starring Carey Mulligan, which details the New York Times investigation into Harvey Weinstein.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

Lara Feigel and Tom Shakespeare review Netflix’s new adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, starring Emma Corrin.

The English National Opera stages an operatic reimagining of It’s a Wonderful Life, the classic 1946 Christmas film, by the composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer. Jake joins Samira.

The casting of Ukrainian actors who have arrived here escaping the conflict, with actors Kateryna Hryhorenko and Yurii Radionov, and casting directors Olga Lyubarova and Rachel Sheridan.

And the death has been announced of Dr Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson. We hear an extract from his memorable interview on Front Row following what he thought was a terminal diagnosis.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Director Matthew Warchus discusses his new film Matilda the Musical. Based on the Tony and Olivier award winning stage play, it brings Roald Dahl’s much loved children’s story to the screen.

Scottish-Indian protest musician Kapil Seshasayee performs live and talks to Samira about his new album Laal.

And art critics Louisa Buck and Bendor Grovenor discuss the impact of the recent climate protests in museums and galleries.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Luca Guadagnino won the Silver Lion for Best Director at this year's Venice Film Festival for his latest film, Bones and All, starring Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell. He talks to Tom Sutcliffe about confronting the taboo of cannibalism on screen and reuniting with Chalamet after Call Me By Your Name.

Mark Bills, the Director of Gainsborough’s House, joins Tom to discuss the reopening of the painter's home in Suffolk.

Ronald Blythe, the man who’s been described as the greatest living writer on the English countryside, celebrates his 100th birthday this month. His friend and fellow writer Richard Mabey and the academic and author Alexandra Harris discuss his work and a new collection of his columns on Suffolk life, Next to Nature.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

IMAGE: Taylor Russell (left) as Maren and Timothée Chalamet (right) as Lee in Bones and All, directed by Luca Guadagnino, a Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures film.

With Samira Ahmed.

Guests Katy Hessel and Lillian Crawford review Florence Pugh's drama The Wonder, based on an Emma Donoghue novel, and the Royal Academy's Making Modernism exhibition, which explores the lives of a group of female artists active in Germany in the early twentieth century.

The theatre company Frantic Assembly is running a nationwide programme to find the actors of the future, hopefully from unexpected places. Luke Jones talks to Frantic Assembly’s artistic director Scott Graham about their plan to get a wider range of young people into theatre and to some of the aspiring actors taking part in this year’s programme.

As the fallout of the Arts Council announcements continues, Lillian Crawford and composer Gavin Higgins consider why opera is still being branded elitist and what can be done about it.

Producer: Ellie Bury

Photo credit: Florence Pugh as Lib Wright in The Wonder. Cr. Aidan Monaghan