Robert Bound interviews artists and reviews new film, book, and music releases with critics.
Monocle on Culture treats contemporary culture as a well-stocked room rather than a news feed. Its conversations move from Saint Etienne’s pop architecture to Wes Anderson’s family empires, night work, New York art lives and the emotional machinery of novels.
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Monocle on Culture is produced by Monocle magazine and hosted throughout by Robert Bound, with production credited to Sophie Monaghan-Coombs and Steph Chungu. Most episodes are one-on-one interviews: musicians like Saint Etienne's Sarah Cracknell and Pete Wiggs, authors like Dan Richards, Fredrik Backman, and Christopher Bollen, and figures behind documentary films. A recurring second format is the panel film review, where Bound is joined by critics such as Simran Hans and Leila Latif to assess a new release scene by scene, weighing craft decisions like costume design or structure against broader questions of style versus substance. Subject matter spans music, book publishing, and film, often tracing connections between disciplines — architecture turning into pop lyrics, a director's family history read into a costume choice, night-shift labor read as a portrait of social interdependence. The show occasionally runs multi-guest specials, such as a summer reading episode combining two novelist interviews with staff book recommendations and festival mentions. Guests are working artists, authors, and critics discussing a specific current release rather than celebrities interviewed at a remove or retrospective biographical subjects. Episodes run about 28 to 31 minutes and stay tied to a specific new work rather than open-ended cultural commentary. Listeners following new film, book, and music releases as they land, and wanting critical discussion over promotional interviews, are the natural audience. The sampled data includes what is described as the show's final episode after a 724-episode run, suggesting the series concluded around August 2025. Tone throughout is conversational and critically engaged rather than academic or debate-driven.
Made for: Listeners who track new film, book, and music releases and prefer critical, interview-driven discussion over promotional coverage.
What sets it apart: Combines artist and author interviews with panel-style film criticism in one program, spanning music, books, and film rather than a single medium.
Robert Bound and his guests discuss what has piqued their interest in our one-stop shop for lively reports and in-depth interviews on the newest and finest in art, film, books and the media business.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Robert Bound connects new work to the relationships, places and working choices that give it cultural weight.
Robert Bound treats culture as a conversation between the work in front of him and the lives built around it. With critics discussing The Phoenician Scheme, he follows the film's difficult father-daughter relationship and moral compromises without losing the wit of the exchange.
Robert Bound moves from nocturnal bakeries to Wes Anderson without asking you to lower your cultural sights.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A warm farewell that folds architectural obsession and dance-pop craft into a fitting summation.
The piece treats Saint Etienne less like a nostalgia act than a band with a very clear set of fixations: classic pop, British dance music, film soundtracks, modernist design, and samples.
A polished books hour that moves from Havoc in Luxor and My Friends to Georgina Godwin's holiday reading picks.
Monocle on Culture closes its summer run with a books hour that moves from Christopher Bolland's Havoc in Luxor to Frederick Backman's My Friends, then lets Georgina Godwin widen the frame with book festivals and reads to pack for holiday travel.
A brisk Monocle on Culture discussion of Anderson's dodgy tycoon, family strain and deadpan comedy.
Robert Bound opens Monocle on Culture with a brisk look at Wes Anderson's The Phoenician Scheme, treating it as a comedy of dodgy deals, dodged death, overextended empires and absurdly long family ties.
A thoughtful look at the people and systems that keep the night moving.
Dan Richards' Overnight treats the night as a working landscape, moving from dockers and other night workers to care, medical, and rescue jobs, and to the human links that still run through automated chains.
New York links Lennon, Ono and Katie Kitamura's Audition in a conversation about art, politics and performance.
Monocle on Culture opens in New York and lets Robert Bound move between two pieces that are both shaped by the city. One revisits a documentary set in the buzzy, punky, grimy 1970s, when John Lennon and Yoko Ono were in Greenwich Village, working on art projects, preparing for a…
Art historian Tamar Avishai interviews critics, curators, and writers about single paintings and ideas.
Jennifer Dasal narrates art history's overlooked lives, from Picasso's police file to Rauschenberg and Twombly's romance.
Russell Tovey and Robert Diament interview artists about their materials, biography, and process.
Cinematographer Roger Deakins and James Deakins interview film crew about the craft behind specific shots.
Sound art from places, recordings, and memory.
Saint Etienne take their graceful bow.
Holiday reading gets a Monocle spin.
The scheme runs on appetite and inheritance.
Night gets practical.
New York sets the frame.