Front Row

Hanna Flint and Chris Power join Tom Sutcliffe to review:
The new stage musical adaptation of Irvine Welsh's novel Trainspotting, featuring famous songs from the 1996 Danny Boyle film as well as new compositions to bring Renton, Begbie, Sick Boy and Spud to life.
On the Sea, a film by novelist and director Helen Walsh about a mussel fisherman in northern Wales and the romance that he kindles with a new itinerant worker called Daniel.
Cool Machine, the final part of Colson Whitehead's Harlem trilogy, which began with Harlem Shuffle and was followed by Crook Manifesto, and continues the adventures of Ray Carney, furniture store owner who lives a double life as a part-time criminal fence.
Tom also talks to novelist Kate Mosse about the news that Anthropic has created a $1.5 billion fund to settle a class action lawsuit brought by authors whose copyrighted works were scraped in order to train the company's AI chatbot Claude.
Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Tim Bano

In 1985, Wham were the first Western pop group to perform in communist China, and the tour changed people's lives. As a new documentary about this landmark moment in pop lands in cinemas - and screens on BBC Two next month - Andrew Ridgeley tells the story.
From Merchant Ivory period dramas to Peaky Blinders, the art of costume making is celebrated in a new exhibition - Costume Couture - at Edinburgh's Dovecot Studios. We're joined by John Bright, the founder of Cosprop, the pre-eminent costume making company in the UK and by historian Jade Halbert, whose new book about 250 years of costume making is Britain is soon published, to hear about how costume helps actors inhabit roles, and to hear about the history of this often neglected craft.
Fleabag premiered ten years ago this week on BBC 3. In the highly acclaimed dark comedy, writer and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge frequently spoke directly to the audience and created an unapologetically flawed protagonist. BBC New Generation Thinker, and Salford University lecturer, Dr Laura Minor, and journalist and broadcaster Julia Raeside talk about the impact Fleabag has had on TV since.
Plus, 8 years since the second devastating fire struck architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh's masterpiece, Glasgow School of Art, an update on its future has just been announced, but is a full restoration now looking less likely? We discuss.
Presenter: Kirsty Wark
Producer: Mark Crossan

Actor Ruth Madeley on starring in new TV drama The Rapture - a psychological thriller where the competing interests of an oil company, a religious cult, a protest group and a disturbed young woman convicted of murdering her mother, are set against a backdrop of climate change.
Singer Nadine Shah on her homecoming BBC Prom in Gateshead.
After a three year standoff, Northern Ballet reaches an agreement with the Musicians' Union. Naomi Pohl, General Secretary of the Musicians' Union on the significance of the new deal.
Abandoned in 1929, the film Queen Kelly became the most infamous unfinished film in cinema history. Film historian Pamela Hutchinson on its torrid scenes on and off the screen.
Presenter: Nick Ahad
Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Trent Park, the House of Secrets is a new museum in north London which explores the story of the secret listeners who eavesdropped on the conversations of German senior military prisoners of war. Samira is joined by Helen Lederer, whose grandfather who served as a WW2 secret listener, and the Chairman of Trent Park, Jason Charalambous.
As Andy Burnham becomes the first Prime Minister to study English Literature at University, Samira talks to his former English Professor at Cambridge, John Mullan.
Broadway star Ben Platt discusses his new musical at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London, Midnight at the Never Get, where he plays a crooner in a New York dive-bar in the mid-60s who begins a decades long relationship with his male pianist.

Playstation has made headlines with its new announcement that it would end making physical discs in 2028. Video game writer and broadcaster Jordan Erica Webber joins to discuss what this means for the culture of gaming and why gamers have responded to it so badly.
Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Ruth Watts

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by film critic Tim Robey and classicist Edith Hall to discuss:
Christopher Nolan's much anticipated film version of Homer's epic The Odyssey, shot with IMAX cameras and with a stellar cast which includes Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya and Samantha Morton.
A new production of The Oresteia directed by acclaimed Australian director Simon Stone at the Bridge Theatre, London. Updated to the contemporary world, the play stars David Morrissey and Mary-Louise Parker.
Booker-shortlisted for her novel Burnt Sugar, author Avni Doshi's new book The First House focuses on the impact of a disintegrating marriage.
Also, theatre critic Matt Wolf talks to Tom about the state of Broadway musicals after Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats: The Jellicle Ball announced it will be closing early.
Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Lucy Collingwood