Front Row Folgen

Front Row reviews the week’s cultural highlights. Samira Ahmed is joined by critics Sarah Crompton and Isabel Stevens to discuss William Oldroyd’s new film Eileen and a production of The House of Bernarda Alba at the National Theatre. The Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan, who is often described as one of the 20th Century’s greatest song-writers, has died age 65. Irish broadcaster John Kelly remembers him.Ian Youngs reports from Bristol’s new music venue Bristol Beacon, formerly Colston Hall, which is re-opening after a five year refurbishment and a name change. It’s now a state of the art concert venue, but the work has proved controversial due to escalating costs. And Barbara Walker, who is shortlisted for this year’s Turner Prize, talks about how her portraits capture people affected by the Windrush scandal. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Eliane Glaser

Since 1994 Sir Richard Mantle has been General Director of Opera North. He's led the company through the creation of a new home in Leeds; the establishment of the Howard Assembly Room - a performance space for all kinds of music; and many award-winning opera productions. As he leaves the company, at a time when cuts to opera funding have been making headlines, he joins Front Row to discuss why he thinks opera has much to contribute to culture in the UK.Singer-songwriter Billie Marten, from Ripon in Yorkshire, performs tracks from her fourth album, Drop Cherries, ahead of her UK tour, which starts this Saturday in Liverpool. As his new public sculpture, Hibiscus Rising, is unveiled in Leeds, artist Yinka Shonibare talks to Nick about creating a work that marks a dark episode in the city's history and provides a place to come together for all the communities in the city today.Presenter Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Michael Connelly is one of several authors suing the tech company OpenAI for "theft" of his work. Nicola Solomon, outgoing Society of Authors CEO, and Sean Michaels, one of the first novelists to use AI, discuss the challenges and opportunities facing writers on the cusp of a new technological era.What makes a great piece of terrible album artwork? The Williamson Gallery & Museum in Birkenhead is currently displaying nearly 500 albums which have been collected over a seven year period by Steve Goldman from record fairs and online market places as part of their ‘Worst Record Covers’ exhibition. Samira is joined by the exhibition curator Niall Hodson and the writer, journalist and author of “The Sound of Being Human” Jude Rogers.The most famous event in Los Angeles in 1852 was a horse race. Fortunes were won and lost on Pio Pico's horse Sarco and Jose Sepulveda's Black Swan. Widespread press reports included the horses’ names and the names of their owners - but not the name of the black jockey who won. Apart from his colour, we know nothing about him. Fred D’Aguiar talks to Samira Ahmed about his latest collection of poems, 'For the Unnamed', in which he recovers and re-imagines the story, giving the black jockey the presence today he was denied in his lifetime.