Front Row

Front Row is live from the 2021 Turner Prize Ceremony at Coventry Cathedral. Samira Ahmed hears from Turner Prize judges actor Russell Tovey and curator Zoe Whitley, and the director of Tate Britain Alex Farquharson, about why they chose artists' collectives for this year's shortlist. Pauline Black reflects on what it means to Coventry to host this year's Turner Prize exhibition as part of the City of Culture celebrations and curator Hammad Nasar explains how he put together an exhibition of work that's not usually shown in galleries. And the winner of this year's Turner Prize is announced live on air. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Olivia Skinner

As the debate over the Parthenon Marbles has resurfaced in recent weeks, we take a deep dive into this decades old dispute. Alexander Herman, Assistant Director of the Institute of Art and Law joins presenter Tom Sutcliffe to provide insight and analysis. Renowned folk musician Eliza Carthy reviews Peter Jackson's Beatles documentary series Get Back.We meet the Turner Prize nominated neurodivergent artist collective Project Artworks in Hastings.And who determines the literary canon? Kadija Sesay, co-author of This Is The Canon: Decolonize Your Bookshelf In 50 Books, and Henry Eliot, author of The Penguin Modern Classics Book, join Tom to discuss.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Simon RichardsonPhoto: Marble horses on the West Frieze of the Parthenon Sculptures in Room 18 of the British Museum, photographed in 2009 Photo credit: BBC

The electronic musician Kelly Lee Owens won this year’s Welsh Music Prize for her album Inner Song. She tells Samira Ahmed about her inspiration - and her collaborations with John Cale, Björk and Michael Sheen. This evening theatres in the West End dim their lights in honour of the great composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the words for the songs in West Side Story, and the musicals Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Company, Assassins, and more. From Front Row's archive we hear Sondheim himself talking about matching words to music, and his biographer, David Benedict, looks closely at one song, explaining how it demonstrates his remarkable skill. Throughout his life Rowan Williams, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 2002 until 2012, has written poetry. Now his previous collections have been gathered with new pieces in a single volume, his Collected Poems. He talks about his work, which ranges from poems inspired by the landscape of West Wales to a sequence of sonnets ins

The designer Henry Holland and writers Stephanie Merritt and Tahmima Anam review House of Gucci, The Every by Dave Eggers and Adele's new album 30.In the run up to the Turner Prize, Front Row is hearing from the artists’ collectives nominated for the award. Tonight, we hear from Array, a Belfast based collective who use their art to draw attention to social and political issues in Northern Ireland. Array tell Marie-Louise Muir what the nomination means to them.Sound and music from Array Collective’s Turner Prize installation The Druthaib's Ball including 'The Hard Border' Poem by Seamus O' Rourke and music by Cleamairí Feirste, activist storyteller Richard O'Leary and performance of The Mother Within by Dani Larkin. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Laura Northedge

As her first major retrospective in the UK opens in Manchester, the distinguished American artist Suzanne Lacy discusses a career which has seen her standing at the junction of aesthetics and activism, filmmaker Camille Griffin on her Christmas comedy horror - Silent Night, and a postcard from Bishop Auckland as the town undergoes a philanthropic arts transformation.Presenter: Nick Ahad Studio Engineers: Phillip Halliwell and Jonathan Esp Production Co-ordinator: Lizzie Harris Producer: Ekene AkalawuPhoto: Presenter Nick Ahad outside the Spanish Art Gallery in Bishop Auckland

During the pandemic Andrew Lloyd Webber has been more of a campaigner than a composer. He talks to Samira Ahmed how to keep theatres open now, taking his show Cinderella to Broadway and his latest ambition - to write a musical about the refugee crisis. The Costa Book Awards (formerly the Whitbread) celebrate their 50th anniversary this year. Front Row announces the shortlists for the 2021 awards tonight across all categories: First Novel, Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children’s Book. Literary critic Alex Clarke will be on hand to offer analysis of this year’s choices.The nominees for this year’s Turner Prize are all artists’ collectives and, in the run-up to the prize ceremony, Front Row will be hearing from them. Tonight it’s the turn of Gentle / Radical, a collective based in Riverside in Cardiff. Rabab Ghazoul and Tom Goddard explain the community based ethos behind their work and how they feel about the nomination.

Jane Campion is famous for The Piano and a baby grand plays a crucial role in her new film The Power of the Dog, in which Benedict Cumberbatch plays a heavy smoking, unwashed and deeply troubled rancher in 1920s Montana. Briony Hanson reviews the film for Front Row and considers the lengths to which actors will go to create a character. All the nominees for this year’s Turner Prize are artistic collectives. In the run-up to the award ceremony, Front Row will hear what the prize means to each of them. This evening, we hear from Cooking Sections, an artistic duo who reflect on the climate emergency and how we can make the food we eat more environmentally friendly. When he accepted the Booker Prize earlier this month for his novel The Promise, South African author Damon Galgut said: ‘This has been a great year for African writing and I’d like to accept this on behalf of all the stories told and untold, the writers heard and unheard from the remarkable continent that I’m part of. Please keep listening to us,

New movie King Richard stars Will Smith and focuses on the father of Venus and Serena Williams. The Wife of Willesden is the first play by Zadie Smith. And Wheel of Time is a new fantasy series on Amazon Prime Video. Ashley Hickson-Lovence and Larushka Ivan-Zadeh join Samira to review all three.Moira Buffini on her darkly comic new state of the nation play for the National Theatre, Manor, directed by her sister Fiona.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Laura Northedge

‘A spiritual enquiry into what it is to be human’ is how Ralph Fiennes describes T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. On the eve of the opening in the West End he tells presenter Elle Osili-Wood about his stage presentation and his relationship with the poems.An exhibition that was a smash hit in Australia has come to Plymouth. “Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters” explores the ancient stories of Indigenous Australians through more than 300 works of art. Senior curator Margo Neale explains the meaning of the Seven Sisters Dreaming stories, that are central to the exhibition.Plus BBC Devon presenter Sarah Gosling takes us to the south coast and to Plymouth, where this Friday hip hop takes over the city thanks to Roots Up festival, as part of the Mayflower 400 anniversary celebrations. We also hear about grassroots theatre, comedy, and the thriving music scene which is pulling creatives to the south west from across the country.PRESENTER: Elle Osili-Wood PRODUCER: Julian MayPHOTO: Ralph Fiennes on stage in Four Qua

Céline Sciamma’s last film, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, won awards worldwide after its release in 2019. Now the French filmmaker is back with Petite Maman – a meditative film set in the French countryside in which an eight year old girl, while helping her parents clear her mother’s family home, meets a mysterious girl of the same age in the woods. Less than a year since the UK emerged from lockdown, Sarah Moss has captured the experience of the pandemic in her new novel. The Fell follows a mother and son self-isolating and the fall-out when being confined to the house becomes too much to bear. Many sea shanties, it turns out, have their roots in African-American work songs. Singers, dancers and academics Angeline Morrison and Fay Hield discuss diversity in the folk arts and how their new projects will widen this. PRESENTER: Tom Sutcliffe PRODUCER: Olivia SkinnerPHOTO: Céline Sciamma CREDIT: Claire Mathon

Lin-Manuel Miranda makes his debut as film director with a cinematic retelling of the stage musical - tick, tick…Boom! The film stars Andrew Garfield as a musical theatre composer desperate to succeed in his chosen field before his 30th birthday.In the aftermath of COP 26, with progress made but pledges watered down, how should fiction respond to climate change? Omar El Akkad, journalist and author of American War and Dr Lisa Garforth, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Newcastle, discuss whether utopia or dystopia is more in tune with our times and more helpful in a climate emergency.And, as it returns for a second series writer of the BBC Three comedy drama In My Skin, Kayleigh Llewellyn, tells Samira about how to strike the balance between comedy and tragedy in telling the story of a family beset by mental health issues.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Simon Richardson

Tori Amos plays live and tells presenter Tom Sutcliffe about going from rock bottom to renewal in her lockdown album conceived on the Cornish coast, Ocean to Ocean.The Courtauld Gallery in London, renowned in particular for its collection of Impressionist art, reopens after a major 3-year refurbishment. Reviewers Waldemar Januszczak and Subhadra Das join Tom to assess the refreshed setting. They’ll also be watching new series Dopesick, starring Michael Keaton and Rosario Dawson and directed by Barry Levinson, a drama about the impact of OxyContin on a small mining town in the Eastern US.And Heidi Stephens who liveblogs Strictly Come Dancing for The Guardian joins Front Row to talk about the joy of sharing with an online community and how to get it right – fast.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Sarah Johnson Photo: Tori Amos Photo credit: Desmond Murray

For many years Shetlanders with ambitions to become artists had to leave to train and work. Not any longer, and young artists are also returning to the islands. Jen Stout reports on the ancient and modern arts in Shetland.Nigerian novelist Timothy Ogene tells Kirsty about the experiences that led him to write Seesaw, his satirical novel about the transatlantic creative writing industry.Fresh from the final day of the Museums Association annual conference, the organisation’s Director, Sharon Heal, joins Front Row to discuss the subjects currently occupying those working in the museum sector, and that will impact those who visit museums.And Paul McCartney's final journey Inside the Songs with You Tell Me.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Julian May Production Coordinator: Lizzie Harris

The unique cultural heritage of Venice is under threat from increasingly frequent flooding and rising sea levels. Anna Somers Cocks OBE, founding editor of the Art Newspaper and Fellow of the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, signed a letter appealing to the Italian Prime Minister to safeguard the city, on the eve of COP 26. She’s joined by Francesco da Mosto, Venetian architect and author, to tell us what’s at stake in the World Heritage Site he calls home.In his new book Kevin Birmingham investigates the true story that inspired Crime and Punishment. Marking the 200th anniversary of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s birth Birmingham joins Russian literature specialist Sarah Hudspith and Samira Ahmed on Front Row to consider Dostoevsky’s continuing relevance today.Paul McCartney explores the inspiration behind Pretty Boys, a song from his most recent album McCartney Three.The Hollywood actor Dean Stockwell, best known for his roles in Blue Velvet and Quantum Leap, has died. Film critic Tim Robey remembers some

British filmmaker, singer-songwriter and music producer Jeymes Samuel AKA The Bullitts discusses his new film The Harder They Fall.Finnish-Estonian author Sofi Oksanen on her new novel Dog Park.Jon Gilchrist, Executive Director of Home in Manchester and incoming president of UK Theatre, on the state of regional theatre this autumn.And in the latest instalment of our series Inside the Songs, Paul McCartney remembers the loss he felt after the murder of John Lennon in 1980 and how he reconnected with his friend in the song Here, Today.Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene AkalawuPhoto: A still from the film The Harder They Fall (L to R): Regina King as Trudy Smith, Idris Elba as Rufus Buck, Lakeith Stanfield as Cherokee Bill Photo credit: David Lee/ Netflix 2021

Alan Cumming discusses his autobiography, Baggage: Tales from a Fully Packed Life. This volume chronicles some of his career highs after Hollywood came calling, including working with Stanley Kubrick, filming with the Spice Girls and holidaying with Gore Vidal.Front Row critics Alexandra Shulman and Leila Latif review this week's cultural highlights including Diana biopic Spencer, Israeli drama Valley of Tears and discuss the ABBA revival ahead of the release their new album Voyage.And Paul McCartney describes the painful conflict with John Lennon that inspired his song Too Many People.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Laura Northedge

Shortlisted authors Anuk Arudpragasam, Damon Galgut, Patricia Lockwood, Nadifa Mohamed, Richard Powers and Maggie Shipstead join Samira Ahmed live in Broadcasting House's Radio Theatre for the announcement of the winner of the 2021 Booker Prize.Last year's winner Douglas Stuart is in conversation with HRH The Duchess of Cornwall. And 30 years on from his historic Booker win, Ben Okri reflects on how the prize changed his life.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Simon Richardson

Little Amal, a giant puppet of a refugee girl, will complete her epic journey from Gaziantep on the Turkey/Syria border to Manchester tomorrow. Theatre director David Lan discusses what the project has achieved. Euripides’ tragedy Herakles was first performed in 416BC. The poet Anne Carson’s new translation mentions contemporary artist Anselm Kiefer, an Airstream trailer and a lawnmower. The text is torn and pasted, scattered along with drawings. Carson talks Tom Sutcliffe about her version, titled H of H Playbook.On Saturday, the National Trust held its annual general meeting where members expressed their concerns and hopes for the organisation which has been rather embattled in recent months. The art historian, Bendor Grosvenor, and the editor of The Oldie, Harry Mount, join Front Row to discuss whether the National Trust needs to pause or steam ahead with its current plans.Paul McCartney discusses Junk, a song he originally wrote for the Beatles in 1968, but which was first released on his debut solo alb

Meet the anagrammatical Orbis Rex, Queen Dido, Blind Dom’nic, as they battle a wet and withered bat from Wuhan in Front Row as Armando Iannucci, Samira Ahmed’s guest, reads from and talks about Pandemonium, his new mock-heroic epic poem written in response to the Covid pandemic and the times we live in.The sights and sounds of Liverpool are evoked as Paul remembers the 1967 Beatles single Penny Lane.In the last of our Booker Prize Book Groups, listeners put their questions to shortlisted author Maggie Shipstead, whose novel Great Circle tells the story of Marian Graves, a pioneering female pilot in the first half of the 20th century, and in a separate strand in the present, Hadley Baxter, an actress playing Marian in a Hollywood movie.Daniel Clark is one of ten young poets from around the world chosen through a Poetry Society competition to perform work that addresses the climate crisis at Cop 26. He reads, and talks about poetry as activism. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian May

Critics Michael Donkor and Jan Asante review actor Rebecca Hall’s directorial debut feature film Passing and the series Colin in Black and White, about former NFL player Colin Kaepernick.In the fifth of our Booker Prize Book Groups, listeners put their questions to author Richard Powers, shortlisted for the second time for his novel Bewilderment. He describes it as a story about the anxiety of family life on a damaged planet as well as a kind of ‘planetary romance’. Paul McCartney offers candid insight to the creation of Got to Get You into My Life, in the latest instalment of our series Inside the Songs.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Simon RichardsonPhoto: Ruth Negga as Clare Bellew and Tessa Thompson as Irene "Reenie” Redfield in the film Passing Credit: Netflix