Front Row

Original version

BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

BBC Radio 4

Radio 4

Radio 4 (FM)

Magazines & Reviews

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music.

BBC Radio 4 LW

Front Row: Coldplay and Leonard Cohen albums, Norman Cornish, Roy Chubby Brown controversy

Coldplay and Leonard Cohen albums, Norman Cornish, Roy Chubby Brown controversy

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Coldplay and Leonard Cohen albums, Norman Cornish, Roy Chubby Brown controversy

Stig discusses new albums from Coldplay and the late Leonard Cohen

Stig discusses the new albums from Coldplay and the late Leonard Cohen. Plus Middlesbrough's row over the comedian Roy Chubby Brown.

Coldplay's new album Everyday Life is released today after a performance at sunrise in Jordan this morning. Also out is Leonard Cohen's posthumous album Thanks for the Dance, completed by his son Adam. Kieran Yates reviews. 

The controversial comedian Roy Chubby Brown is at the centre of a row in Middlesbrough, as Mayor Andy Preston has sanctioned the booking of the entertainer and the Head of the Town Hall Lorna Fulton resigns, reportedly in protest. Stig is joined by Andy Preston and Philip Bernays, chief exec of Newcastle's Theatre Royal Trust, who banned the comedian from the City Hall last year.  

To celebrate the centenary of the birth of the County Durham artist and miner Norman Cornish, the Bowes Museum is holding the first major retrospective of his work, including his drawings of mining community life. William Feaver, who has written about ‘pitmen painters’, discusses his art and career. 

This week literary agent Clare Alexander and publisher John Mitchinson have been reflecting on aspects of how the publishing industry works from the power of Amazon to the boom in independent publishing. In their final discussion they consider the changes and challenges that lie ahead.

Presenter: Stig Abell
Producer: Timothy Prosser

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Front Row

Coldplay and Leonard Cohen albums, Norman Cornish, Roy Chubby Brown controversy

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 4 FM

About BBC Radio 4