Radio 4’s Front Row is brilliant, witty and eclectic. So why let Tracey Emin spoil it?

Front Row is one of those Radio 4 programmes that it’s too easy to take for granted. It’s on every weekday, all year round, at the same peak listening time (after The Archers), with a team of presenters, John Wilson, Mark Lawson and Kirsty Lang, who have become such a reliable fixture they’re almost like chums. If you’re lucky enough to catch it regularly you’ll know its mix of interviews, reviews and conversations about buildings, books, pictures, poems, galleries, anything that’s remotely creative. Sometimes the reviewers are awfully pretentious, sometimes what’s being talked about is way too weird or winsome, sometimes it’s a reminder of just how silly, time-wasting and empty ‘creative’ art can be. But mostly it’s a sanctuary of savvy knowledge with odd moments of sheer inspiration. Where else on radio or TV would you find an extended interview with the elusive Anne Tyler, with Tom Jones, Darcey Bussell or Zaha Hadid? Or discover on one night what we’re exporting to China culture-wise and on the next the reasons why Sarah Brightman wants to become an astronaut?

The flexible format, moving from round-table discussion to single-person interview, to on-the-road reports and in-the-studio ‘live’ music, means that it always sounds fresh and enthusiastic.