Front Row

Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

Magazines & Reviews

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

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

BBC Radio 4 FM

Front Row: Elif Shafak, Jonathon Heyward, Stillwater review

03/08/2021

Elif Shafak, Jonathon Heyward, Stillwater review

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Elif Shafak, Jonathon Heyward, Stillwater review

Booker Prize shortlisted writer Elif Shafak on her new novel The Island of Missing Trees.

Booker Prize shortlisted writer Elif Shafak on her novel The Island of Missing Trees. Jonathon Heyward on his conducting debut for the National Youth Orchestra. Stillwater review.

Booker Prize shortlisted Turkish writer Elif Shafak has a new novel: The Island Of Missing Trees. Set in Cyprus it follows lovers who risk everything in a divided island. And one of the narrators is a fig tree. Shafak explains about melding passionate ecological and political information and messages.

Jonathon Heyward makes his Proms debut this week conducting the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. He tells Samira why he loves working with youth orchestras, isn't so keen on being labelled a ‘young conductor’, and how much he’s looking forward to getting on to the podium at the Royal Albert Hall. 

In Stillwater, the new film starring Matt Damon, he plays Bill Baker, an Oklahoma oil rig worker determined to secure the release of his daughter Allison, in prison in Marseille for the murder of her flatmate and lover, Lina. Frustrated by legal, language and cultural barriers his own conduct strays beyond the legal. Larushka Ivan-Zadeh reviews the film which is controversial because of the parallels of its plot with the murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, for which Amanda Knox was convicted and eventually acquitted. Knox has denounced the film.

Presenter:Samira Ahmed
Producer: Julian May
Production Co-ordinator: Lizzie Harris

BBC Radio 4

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

Elif Shafak, Jonathon Heyward, Stillwater review

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4