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Front Row

Ian McMillan, Black Chronicles, Janet Suzman, TV drama endings

Duration: 30 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 FMLatest broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 LW

Available for over a year

Poet Ian McMillan has described his home town Barnsley as 'the filter I see everything through' and this is clear from his new book To Fold the Evening Star which gathers work from eight key collections as well as new and previously unpublished work. He talks to John Wilson about being a Yorkshire poet, politics and poetry, and getting older.

As the first series of Undercover and Marcella end this week with questions left unanswered for a potential second series, we discuss how and when channels decide whether a TV drama should return for more series. Writer Kay Mellor and critic Boyd Hilton give us their insights.

Black Chronicles: Photographic Portraits 1862-1948 is a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London which presents a snapshot of black lives and experiences in 19th and 20th century Britain. Curator Renée Mussai discusses the context of the exhibition which focuses on the period before the arrival of the Empire Windrush which brought the first large group of Caribbean migrants to Great Britain.

In the final instalment of our series Shakespeare's people, Janet Suzman chooses Portia from the Merchant of Venice. You can catch up with all our Shakespeare's People on the Front Row website.

Presenter: John Wilson
Producer: Elaine Lester. Show less

Contributors

Interviewed Guest:
Ian McMillan
Interviewed Guest:
Kay Mellor
Interviewed Guest:
Boyd Hilton
Interviewed Guest:
Renee Mussai
Interviewed Guest:
Janet Suzman
Presenter:
John Wilson
Producer:
Elaine Lester

About this data

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