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Front Row: Alan Carr's Queer Icon, New Tate boss Maria Balshaw, The role of the understudy, The Sunbathers on The Southbank

Alan Carr's Queer Icon; New Tate boss Maria Balshaw; The Sunbathers on The Southbank

12/07/2017

Alan Carr's Queer Icon, New Tate boss Maria Balshaw, The role of the understudy, The Sunbathers on The Southbank

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Alan Carr's Queer Icon, New Tate boss Maria Balshaw, The role of the understudy, The Sunbathers on The Southbank

New Tate boss Maria Balshaw, Alan Carr's Queer Icon and The Sunbathers on the Southbank.

Maria Balshaw on taking over The Tate and comedian Alan Carr shares his Queer Icon. Plus the art of the understudy and The Sunbathers sculpture returns to the Southbank.

A month ago, Maria Balshaw took over the role of Director of Tate from Sir Nicholas Serota, having been Director of The Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester. In one of her first interviews the only woman to hold the post discusses her plans for the future of the institution.

For our Queer Icons series, Alan Carr chooses My Father and Myself, J.R Ackerley's memoir about being gay and out in the first half of the 20th Century, and the complex relationship with his father. 

We cross live to the National Theatre to speak to actress Paksie Vernon, who may get to go on stage tonight, and hear from theatre critic Susannah Clapp about the art of the understudy.

The Festival of Britain sculpture The Sunbathers, by Peter Laszlo Peri was in a terrible state of repair when John Wilson took the artist's daughter to see it in the restoration studio. Now the pair see it back where it belongs on London's Southbank.

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