John Wilson is an acclaimed journalist and broadcaster who has specialised in arts and cultural affairs for over 25 years. He presents This Cultural Life, the Radio 4 interview series and international podcast. Guests have included Paul McCartney, Margaret Atwood, Florence Pugh, Nick Cave, Tracey Emin, Nicole Kidman, Whoopi Goldberg, Cynthia Erivo and many more. The series is also televised on BBC Four and is shown globally on BBC World. One of the UK’s most respected interviewers, John is a hugely experienced live broadcaster. He presented BBC Radio 4’s flagship arts magazine show, Front Row, from its launch in 1998 until 2021, when he stepped down. He is also the host of Radio 4’s music series Mastertapes, which has seen guests like Sinead O’Connor,...
John Wilson is an acclaimed journalist and broadcaster who has specialised in arts and cultural affairs for over 25 years. He presents This Cultural Life, the Radio 4 interview series and international podcast. Guests have included Paul McCartney, Margaret Atwood, Florence Pugh, Nick Cave, Tracey Emin, Nicole Kidman, Whoopi Goldberg, Cynthia Erivo and many more. The series is also televised on BBC Four and is shown globally on BBC World.
One of the UK’s most respected interviewers, John is a hugely experienced live broadcaster. He presented BBC Radio 4’s flagship arts magazine show, Front Row, from its launch in 1998 until 2021, when he stepped down. He is also the host of Radio 4’s music series Mastertapes, which has seen guests like Sinead O’Connor, Robbie Williams, Paul Weller, Noel Gallagher, Randy Newman and many more. Each episode is recorded in front of an audience at the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios. A special edition with Paul McCartney was filmed by BBC television.
As a journalist, John is also heard on Radio 4’s flagship current affairs programme Today and has presented and produced dozens of series and documentaries including The Price of Song, Epiphanies, In the Studio and the Sony Award-nominated series Meeting Myself Coming Back. Extensive personal contacts have helped secure rare and exclusive interviews, including with Kate Bush and David Bowie.
In 2020, John produced and presented the documentary film The Billion Dollar Art Hunt for BBC4. The film investigated the world’s biggest art heist, in which works by Vermeer, Rembrandt and Degas were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, a crime that remains unsolved.
Other television credits include live presenting the 2020 Booker Prize and 2021 Museum of the Year Award on BBC News. He also presented many editions of Newsnight Review on BBC2. John was part of the on-screen line up of the BBC2 version of Front Row. In the 2018 Christmas University Challenge series, he captained a team of fellow alumni of the University of Southampton.
John is a skilled live event host with a wealth of experience; credits include the Edinburgh Festival, Hay Festival, Cheltenham Festival of Literature, Sony World Photography Awards, Poet in the City, and more. In 2022, he was MC and on-stage interviewer for Sir Peter Blake’s 90th birthday tribute show at Royal Festival Hall, featuring The Who, Paul Weller, Chrissie Hynde, Madness and Noel Gallagher.
John’s breadth of experience and expertise in arts broadcasting is unrivalled. He has reported on art and cultural affairs from around the world, including from Iran on several occasions, and made a radio documentary in China about the Terracotta Warriors and the First Emperor. He has written about cultural affairs for a range of publications including The Observer, The Guardian, The Times, The Independent, Art Newspaper, and Time Out.
In 2026, John launched a series of ‘in conversation with’ live events at the National Gallery, in which leading figures from fashion, science, music, literature, gastronomy and film join John to discuss their lives and work through lens of a National Gallery painting. Guests have included David Harewood OBE and Sir Michael Palin.
