Front Row Folgen

Musician Corinne Bailey Rae performs live in the studio and discusses the inspiration for her new album, Black Rainbows. Writer Peter Arnott on his new play about the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum, Group Portrait In A Summer Landscape, opening at Pitlochry Festival Theatre on Friday.Plus short stories: critics Stephanie Merritt and Suzi Feay on two new collections - by Kate Atkinson and by US 'flash fiction' writer Diane Williams.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Emma Wallace

A review of two of the big shows at this year’s Edinburgh Festival: Olivier award-winning writer Isobel McArthur has had great success with her genre-busting works Pride and Prejudice* (*Sort Of) and Kidnapped. Her latest play The Grand Old Opera House Hotel is a rom-com set in a haunted house filled with opera arias – it’s worlds apart from Funeral, a calm, interactive meditation on the nature of life and death by the Belgian theatre company Ontroerend Goed.Our reviewers give their verdicts on the comedy shows they’ve sampled this year. Kieran Hodgson is a Yorkshireman outsider in TV’s Two Doors Down: his new show Big in Scotland reflects on identity and belonging; magician and clown Geoff Sobelle explores the comedy of consumption in his show Food; and Sonja Doubleday’s comedy of the absurd – Cheekykita: An Octopus, The Universe, ‘n’ Stuff – features a nonsense trip through space.The impact of artificial intelligence has been cited as one of the reasons for the current writers’ and actors’ strikes in Hollywood. AI is also the topic at the heart of Courtney Pauroso’s Vanessa 5000, which features a sex robot and in Edinburgh University’s Inspace gallery exhibition, The Sounds of Deep Fake, where the human voice is put through its paces by AI. Presenter: Kate Molleson Producer: Ekene Akalawu

As the acclaimed 1976 Roman Empire drama series I Claudius returns to television screens, classicist Natalie Haynes and cultural critic Charlotte Higgins discuss the reasons for its success, whether its historical inaccuracies are any bar to its enjoyment, and if it stands the test of time. Plus conductor, curator, and composer Jules Buckley discusses his Stevie Wonder Prom celebrating 50 years of the ground-breaking album Innervisions.And why is it often so hard to buy tickets for big gigs, like Taylor Swift’s Eras tour? We talk to ticketing security expert Reg Walker, and to Martin Haigh of ticketing system provider Total Ticketing and a previous head of Ticketmaster Asia.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Harry Parker