Front Row

Bryan Ferry discusses his latest album, Loose Talk and reflects on his long career in music. Disney's new live action version of Snow White has just opened and has attracted criticism from those who felt it departed too far from the original film. Film critics Larushka Ivan Zadeh and Al Horner explore why Disney's reinterpretation of its own canon has become so controversial. The Windham Campbell Prize gives away over a million pounds, shared between eight writers across fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama. Previous British winners have included the poet Zaffar Kunial. Samira is joined by two of this year's winners, playwright, Matilda Ibini and poet, Anthony V Capildeo, to discuss the impact of the prize. Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves changed cinema forever when the world's first animated film hit screens in 1937. Now the House of Mouse has just released a big budget live action remake of the beloved original that is arriving under a cloud of controversy. Larushka Iven-Zadeh, the Times films critic, and Al Horner, a Telegraph writer and host of the Script Apart podcast, joins to discuss.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Ruth Watts

Critics Hanna Flint and Boyd Hilton join Tom Sutcliffe to discuss Clueless, a new musical based on the 1995 film staring Alicia Silverstone. They also discuss Flow, Oscar-winning, dialogue-free, animated film based around the story of a cat who must find safety after its home is devastated by a flood. Plus Robert de Niro playing two gangsters in the Mafia drama The Alto Knights. Plus, ahead of World Poetry Day, we talk to Seán Hewitt whose second collection Rapture's Road has today been shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Paula McGrath

French auteur Francois Ozon, whose previous films include 8 Women, Swimming Pool and Potiche, talks about his latest, When Autumn Falls, a bittersweet story of age, youth and breaking the rules, set in a picturesque Burgundy village. As the centenary of his birth approaches, leading pianist Tamara Stefanovich and musicologist Jonathan Cross discuss the legacy and reputation of the iconoclastic composer and conductor Pierre Boulez. The outgoing director of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society Shona McCarthy talks about what she has achieved in her role, about the state of the Festivals sector in Edinburgh, and about the challenges facing her successor. Presenter: Kate Molleson Producer: Mark Crossan

Renowned novelist Julian Barnes shares insights from his new collection, Changing My Mind, reflecting on how beliefs evolve over time. Bestselling author Emma Donoghue reveals the historical inspiration behind her novel The Paris Express, sparked by a surreal photograph of a 19th-century train disaster. Sculptor Antony Gormley discusses Victor Hugo's lesser-known artistic talents, focusing on his evocative drawings that reveal a rich interplay of politics and emotion, connecting them to Hugo's literary masterpieces.

Front Row's artist in residence, acclaimed Icelandic pianist Vikingur Olafsson, reflects on five years since lockdown and we have another listen to his Front Row lockdown performance of the Adagio from Bach's Organ Sonata Number 4.How were the arts affected when the country locked down five years ago? Matthew Hemley of The Stage and Louisa Buck of the Art Newspaper discuss how the Covid crisis impacted theatres, galleries and artists. And the Tom Gates series children's writer Liz Pichon joins us to talk about her latest work for younger readers. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Corinna Jones

Samira Ahmed and guest critics - the novelist and anthropologist Tahmima Anam and Ben Luke from the Art Newspaper - give their verdict on the week’s cultural releases. They’ve been to see Cate Blanchett in Anton Chekhov’s play The Seagull at the Barbican Centre. The classic drama still features characters from Russian nobility – but it’s given a modern-day treatment including VR headsets and quad bikes. They have also watched Sister Midnight, a film about a young bride called Uma who joins her husband in Mumbai but struggles to adapt to her new life and connect with the man she knew as a childhood friend. She wanders the streets, drawn to the moon and becomes an accidental outlaw.Also under consideration are portraits in an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery by Edvard Munch – an artist best known for his painting The Scream. Plus we pay tribute to Five Star’s Stedman Pearson who's died at the age of 60.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Claire Bartleet

Songwriter and musician Edwyn Collins performs live from his latest album, Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation, a series of 11 optimistic and defiant tracks released two decades on from two devastating cerebral haemorrhages. American novelist Torrey Peters, whose book Detransition, Baby became a bestseller and was nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction, talks about her new book Stag Dance, a collection of four novellas which examines trans life past, present and future. And as exhibitions around the world celebrate the centenary of Scottish poet, writer, visual artist and gardener Ian Hamilton Finlay, poet Alan Spence and the founder of Jupiter Artland sculpture park outside Edinburgh discuss his life and legacy. Presenter: Kirsty Wark Producer: Mark Crossan

As Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's novel The Leopard is dramatised for television, director Tom Shankland and film critic Peter Bradshaw discuss the power of this classic Italian novel.Natasha Brown's first novel, Assembly, saw her favourably compared to Virginia Woolf and won a Betty Trask award. Her eagerly-awaited second novel Universality has just been published and she discusses leaving her career in finance to write fiction.Low Kee Hong, the new Creative Director of Manchester International Festival, shares his vision for the festival and talks about the 2025 programme which has been revealed today. Ceramicist Elizabeth Fritsch is the subject of a major retrospective at the Hepworth Wakefield. Curator, writer, and editor Natalie Baerselman le Gros, who specialises in contemporary ceramics, reflects on the work of an artist who describes herself as a painter who makes pots.Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Adolescence – the new Netflix series starring Stephen Graham – explores every parent’s worst nightmare: a teenage son accused of a knife-crime. Co-writers and directors Jack Thorne and Philip Barantini join us to explain how the “single-shot” filming technique sheds light on the way toxic masculinity spreads online among young people. Fantasy fiction generated almost £25 million more in 2024 than the previous year - and, a big part of that is the surge in Romantasy, the literary genre fuelled by booktok and YA fans. So, what is Romantasy and what’s the appeal? We meet author Alwyn Hamilton whose fourth book is out this month and editor Natasha Qureshi. Ludovico Einaudi is the most streamed classical artist of all time, with nine billion streams a year and a track which recieved 16 billion TikTok views alone. He discusses his compositions for the screen and plays from his latest album The Summer Portraits. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Ruth Watts

In Front Row's Thursday review, Ellah Wakatama and Rhianna Dhillon give their take on Bong Joon Ho's new film Mickey 17 starring Robert Pattison, David Szalay's new novel Flesh, and Get Millie Black, Channel 4's Jamaica-set crime drama from Marlon James.Plus we hear from Sophie Elmhirst, whose Maurice and Maralyn: An Extraordinary True Story of Shipwreck Survival and Love has just been awarded the Nero Gold Prize for Book Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Ciaran Bermingham