Front Row

In the first of our special programmes from the Edinburgh Festivals, actress Stockard Channing - star of Grease, Six Degrees of Separation and Practical Magic - joins us alongside her friend, actor David Westhead, to discuss their production of Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, in which a cynical and disillusioned older man reflects on his early life as an ambitious and idealistic writer.
Jeff Whitty, Tony Award winning creator of the hit musical Avenue Q, which is currently running until 2027 in London's West End, tells us about Midsummer!, his new production inspired by Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's dream, set in the Gilded Age and performed in a contemporary verse translation.
We have a live performance from siblings Maddie and Marcus Rice from their show with songs Goodbye Dandelion, an exploration of an unlikely friendship between an 87 year old and their much younger friend, which is the recipient of the inaugural Underbelly Futures Fund Award.
And we hear how deaf actors and artists are taking centre stage at this year's Festival, with Stijn Van Opstal, the director of the acclaimed production [seagull], performed in Flemish sign language by Belgian company Olympique Dramatique - and with director Cora Bissett and deaf performer Jamie Rea, whose gig theatre production The Singer, centres on Joe, a deaf artist who 'sings' with his hands, and Andy, a washed-up musician seeking a comeback, and features music by KT Tunstall.
Presenter: Kirsty Wark
Producer: Mark Crossan

Samira is joined by two magicians live in the studio, from the stage show "Now You See Me Live". And then she takes part in a trick and is bamboozled!
Jacqueline Crooks' latest novel Sky City follows a young woman and her friends in 1990's London, as they struggle to carve out lives for themselves in the shadow of their pasts. Jacqueline explains why literature is the perfect place to discuss difficult themes.
We look at the French government's multi-million Euro national security plan to beef up museum security, following a spate of audacious robberies across the country.
Tribute bands generate millions of pounds, playing live each year in the UK; from The Bootleg Beatles to Oasish. We speak with two tribute acts 'with a twist', Elvana and Nic-Cage Against The Machine, about the flourishing facsimile pop scene.
This programme has been edited since broadcast
Presenter: Samira Ahmed

John Hannah plays a washed-up former detective who has moved to Spain to run a pub in the new Channel 5 comedy drama Benidorm is Murder. He discusses the appeal of television crime series, and why working-class settings are underrepresented on the small screen.
Hull Maritime Museum reopens after a £20 million refurbishment. Director Gillian Osgerby on why this museum is such an important feature of Hull's cultural landscape.
Critic Benji Wilson, author of Rate This Book: How Star Ratings Took Over The World, and journalist, Helen Nugent, editor of online magazine Northern Soul, on the power of star ratings.
Stephen Ellery on his new appointment as chief conductor of the Dnipro Philharmonic in Ukraine.
Presenter: Nick Ahad
Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Rhianna Dhillon and Sarfraz Manzoor join Tom Sutcliffe to review:
Childhood in War, an exhibition at the Imperial War Musuem exploring how children have experienced conflict from 1914 to the present day.
Ish, the debut feature film from multimedia artist Imran Perretta which follows two boys in Luton as they navigate childhood against a backdrop of political tension and personal loss.
And Children of Wolves, the new novel from Lawrence Osborne (Ballad of a Small Player), about a private investigator sent to Turkey to find a 27-year-old woman who has disappeared.
Plus Laura Barton discusses this year's Mercury Prize shortlist.
Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Tim Bano

Composer Missy Mazzoli discusses her opera The Galloping Cure, which fuses a live orchestra with electronic beats and features a charismatic antihero and talking dogs. An allegory for a crisis which has become a worldwide epidemic, the production by Opera Ventures Productions and Scottish Opera receives its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival and is a reimagining of a story by Franz Kafka.
Artist Joyce W Cairns is one of Scotland's most renowned painters, and in 2018 she was elected the first President of the Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture. She talks to us about making the move from mythological to autobiographical painting and about how she was inspired to create her impressive War Tourist series of paintings - drawn from research in Normandy and Tunisia - after inheriting a suitcase of her father's World War II memorabilia.
And as the heatwave continues across parts of the UK and Europe, we ask how cultural institutions are responding. Is the closure of galleries due to uncomfortable temperatures going to become the norm?
Presenter: Kirsty Wark
Producer: Mark Crossan