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Episode details

Radio 4,20 Jul 2026,42 mins

The first PM with an English degree, plus a new museum of WWII espionage

Front Row

Available for over a year

Trent Park, the House of Secrets is a new museum in north London which explores the story of the secret listeners who eavesdropped on the conversations of German senior military prisoners of war. Samira is joined by Helen Lederer, whose grandfather who served as a WW2 secret listener, and the Chairman of Trent Park, Jason Charalambous. As Andy Burnham becomes the first Prime Minister to study English Literature at University, Samira talks to his former English Professor at Cambridge, John Mullan. Broadway star Ben Platt discusses his new musical at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London, Midnight at the Never Get, where he plays a crooner in a New York dive-bar in the mid-60s who begins a decades long relationship with his male pianist. Playstation has made headlines with its new announcement that it would end making physical discs in 2028. Video game writer and broadcaster Jordan Erica Webber joins to discuss what this means for the culture of gaming and why gamers have responded to it so badly. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Ruth Watts

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