Front Row

Artist Andy Goldsworthy on his retrospective exhibition, which spans a five decade career. Best known for his work in the landscape, this exhibition sees the artist create dramatic large scale works for the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh - including an avenue of oak branches, a room of reeds suspended from the ceiling, and a room full of stones gathered from graveyards in Galloway, as well as films and photography of his ephe...

Motherland writer Helen Serafinowicz on putting Wayne and Coleen Rooney at the heart of her debut play - The Legend of Rooney's Ring - which has just opened at the Royal Court in Liverpool.

Literary critic Alex Clark examines the Booker Prize longlist which was announced today.

Love Forms by Claire Adam The South by Tash Aw Universality by Natasha Brown One Boat by Jonathan Buckley Flashlight by Susan Choi The Loneliness of Sonia and...

Tom is joined by poet and writer Nii Ayikwei Parkes and dance critic Lyndsey Winship to review the latest big screen to stage musical adaptation Burlesque the Musical, Matthias Glasner's German-language family drama Dying, and Disney Plus series Washington Black based on the hit book by Esi Edugyan.

Plus, as the UK government announces an overhaul of water regulation, an installation at the Folkestone Triennial called Ministry of Se...

A new stage production that's been inspired by the writer's own experience as an inmate. Academy Award winning playwright and director Terry George served a sentence in Long Kesh jail near Lisburn in the 1970s and his time there - when a number of successful and unsuccessful escape attempts were made. These inspire The Tunnel, a play which is being staged in Ireland for the first time, at the Lyric Theatre Belfast.

Neil McCormi...

The Fantastic Four changed comics forever in 1961 by making superheroes more human, but on screen the team has struggled. Now Marvel is rebooting their First Family for the third time with a big budget spectacular starring Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach. Author and journalist Hannah Strong and journalist and co-host of the Fade to Black film podcast Amon Warmann reveal if they've finally stuck the ...

As a new exhibition of Ikea textiles opens, we discuss the impact of Scandinavian design concepts on our homes, with curator Anna Sandberg Falk of the Ikea Museum in Sweden and designer Anna Campbell Jones.

Bestselling author John Niven talks about his latest novel The Fathers, an exploration of contemporary fatherhood and masculinity which is set in Glasgow.

And we hear how social media influencers are shaking up the world of art ...

Former footballer Edgar Davids and artist Paul Pfeiffer on creating a new work for the Manchester International Festival.

As four new twenty minute operas are premiered at the Buxton International Festival, Helen Goodman, artistic manager at the festival, and Hannah Ellis Ryan, artistic director of theatre company, HER Productions, discuss how short plays and operas can lead the way for change.

Jo Callaghan has an AI detective at t...

We mark Bastille Day with a dive into President Macron’s cultural policy for France. And we revisit the dark heart of filmmaking with two people who were there during the making of Apocalypse Now and Fitzcarraldo. Documentaries made about both films have been re-released - Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmakers Apocalypse, about Apocalypse Now is in cinemas, and Burden of Dreams about Fitzcarraldo is streaming.

Kasim Ali on his new nove...

Nancy Durrant and Boyd Hilton join Tom Sutcliffe to discuss Moisturizer, the second album from the female English indie rock duo Wet Leg. Their self-titled debut reached number one on the UK charts. They also assess Modigliani – Three Days on the Wing of Madness, directed by Hollywood star Johnny Depp. The film is Depp's first since 1997 and it covers 72 hours in the life of Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani, played by Riccardo Scam...

Bestselling novelist Kate Mosse - much of whose historical fiction is set in medieval France - reacts to the news that the Bayeux Tapestry is to go on display at the British Museum in London next year.

Comedian and actor Kat Sadler on her BAFTA-winning sitcom Such Brave Girls, which is set in a dysfunctional single parent family.

Sitar virtuoso Nishat Khan tells us about his debut opera Taj Mahal which is being performed at Grange ...

Superman is back on the big screen for the first time in nearly a decade, we speak with director James Gunn. We preview a season of films at the BFI, starring pioneering black film star Dorothy Dandridge. Best known for Carmen Jones, (her performance made her the first African American to be nominated for a Best Actress Oscar) she died aged just 42 Cartoonist and illustrator Gerald Scarfe on Hercules, the newest Disney stage musi...

Author Raynor Winn is accused of fabricating parts of her memoir The Salt Path, which she denies. We ask Alexandra Pringle, former Editor in Chief at Bloomsbury, how publishers respond when a book's authenticity is called into question.

Oasis are performing together for the first time in 16 years, kicking off in Cardiff at the weekend. Music journalist Ted Kessler was there.

Sadler's Well has team up with Pete Townshend to turn Qua...

Tom is joined by reviewers Kate Maltby and Stephanie Merritt to discuss Laura Wade's adaptation for the RSC of Somerset Maugham's comedy The Constant Wife. Also Wendy Erskine's Belfast -set novel; The Benefactors. A polyphonic telling of a teenage girl's assault and its aftermath. And Rebecca Lenkiewicz's directorial debut Hot Milk. Based on Deborah Levy's novel, it stars Fiona Shaw and Emma Mackey. And we discuss the impact on mu...

As the jury in the trial of music mogul Sean 'Diddy' Combs delivers its verdicts, author and cultural critic Mikki Kendall discusses how Americans will react.

On the eve of the 40th anniversary of its release, The Independent's chief film critic Clarisse Loughrey and Dan O'Brien of the University of Essex discuss Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale's influential film Back to the Future.

Egyptian artist Wael Shawky talks about his operatic ...

Comedian and poet Tim Key on writing and starring in The Ballad of Wallis Island which has become one of the surprise film hits of the year.

Novelists Saima Mir and Marcia Hutchinson on setting their stories in Bradford.

Playwright Ntombizodwa Nyoni on reimagining the 5th Pan African Congress which took place in Manchester in 1945 for her new play, Liberation.

As the Japanese art form, Manga, makes its presence felt at this year's Bra...

British director Gareth Edwards talks to Samira Ahmed about how his love of the films of Steven Spielberg inspired his new film Jurassic Park Rebirth, the latest chapter in the blockbuster dinosaur film franchise. He also talks about the making of his film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which is gaining even more acclaim after the huge success of the hit prequel series Andor.

The EU has brought in new anti-terror laws aimed at stoppi...