Front Row

Director Sofia Coppola on completing her mother Eleanor’s documentary about the making of Sofia’s feature Marie Antoinette, following her death. The film goes behind the scenes of the lavish 2006 biopic starring Kirsten Dunst - in spectacular locations such as Versailles - and is in cinemas around the UK from this Friday.
Can prescribing culture - such as choirs, art classes and poetry workshops - improve young people's mental health? As the Southbank Centre in London launches Ombri, a new referral platform prescribing access to arts for young people, we're joined by the centre's Artistic Director, Mark Ball, and by GP and broadcaster Margaret McCartney, to discuss the practicalities of prescribing culture, how to ensure young people from disadvantaged communities are reached, and how the success of a scheme such as this can be measured.
Pulitzer Prize-winning Argentinian-American writer Hernan Diaz has mined history as inspiration for his previous novels, but in his latest, Ply, he looks to a dystopian future, and a city, resembling a decaying New York, in which his central character, a "pincher" steals electricity from the grid to power a underground music scene, but risks the wrath of the authorities, He tells us about moving into the realm of speculative fiction and about how he was inspired by everything from ancient Greek philosophy to 21st century particle accelerators.
Presenter: Kirsty Wark
Producer: Mark Crossan

As A A Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh, one of the most loved bears in children's literature reaches 100, Jane Riordan, author of the new Pooh books, and Hollie Piff, EH Shepard archivist at the University of Surrey discuss the appeal of the 'bear of very little brain'.
Poet and writer Luke Kennard on his Booker Prize 2026 shortlisted novel, Black Bag.
Following thee announcement of the death of Douglas Dunn, poet Don Paterson pays tribute to the man he describes as 'the finest Scottish poet of the post-war period'.
Renoir and Love is the new show at the National Gallery in London. Catherine Ostler, author of The Renoir Girls: A Hidden History of Art, War & Betrayal, has been to see it and explains why this artist who came to the fore in the 19th century has so much to say to a 21st century audience.
Presenter Kate Molleson
Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Academy Award-winning director Taika Waititi on his screen adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Klara and the Sun, in which 'artificial friends' have been created to provide companionship for lonely teenagers in a near-future dystopian world.
Theatre critic Susannah Clapp discusses Caryl Churchill's 15 minute play Triumph and what these short performances can do for the theatre experience.
Of the 123 people who have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, 14 of them have been published by the small American publishing house New Directions. Its Vice President and Senior Editor Declan Spring shares the secret of their success.
Tony award-winning actor Jonathan Groff is starring in a new production of As You Like it at the RSC in Stratford. He tells Samira about immersing himself in Shakespeare for the frist time.
Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Andrea Kidd

Critic David Benedict and journalist Muriel Zagha discuss Kristin Scott Thomas in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, adapted by award winning playwright Conor McPherson.
They also discuss survival thriller Whalefall, in which a diver is swallowed by a whale.
Plus they'll be giving their verdict on Elif Shafak's novel In One Brief Moment All Eternity, which tells the story of Madame Bovary author Gustave Flaubert through fictional and real women.
Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Claire Bartleet

Comedian Leo Reich, who has been named as one of the "best British talent" by The Times, and who has previously appeared in Lena Dunham's Netflix romcom Too Much, talks to us about creating his own sitcom - It Gets Worse - about a group of dysfunctional BFFs - for Channel 4.
It emerged this weekend that almost 100,000 items have gone missing (and are either lost or stolen) from museums in Scotland in recent years. How are museums misplacing so many artefacts in their collections, and what can be done to retrieve them? We are joined by a collections management expert and a representative of The Art Loss Register to discuss how widespread this problem is.
And a man marries an AI bride in the new production Darren Jackson's Wedding, by Big Telly Theatre Company, at the Belfast International Arts Festival. The show - staged partly in a church, partly at the Lyric Theatre, is a comic exploration of our relationship with technology and the importance of community, and follows the company's previous hit show Granny Jackson's Dead, a show set around an Irish family wake, which explored mourning and the growth of grief technology.
Presenter: Kirsty Wark
Producer: Mark Crossan