Front Row

We discuss the future of music making in the UK. We speak to Mel C, formerly Sporty Spice, about her eighth studio album, Melanie C, which reflects her new influences – as a dance music DJ, an LGBTQ+ icon and mother to a music-mad daughter. She joins John Wilson to talk about musical reinvention, putting aside her demons and how to read the dancefloor when you’re the DJ.Freelance musicians unable to work are receiving 20% of what they previously earned. Yesterday outside the Houses of Parliament and in Centenary Square in Birmingham musicians gathered and played Mars from Holst's 'The Planets' - 20% of it. John Wilson talks to the violinist, Jessie Murphy, whose idea this was. Marie-Louise Muir, who presents Radio Ulster's arts show, reports on the impact of new Covid regulations that effectively ban live music in Northern Ireland. Chancellor Rishi Sunak has spoken of ways 'for new business models to emerge' and John hears from Dominique Fraser, who has been running a successful music venue The Boileroom in G

We announce the winner of the 2020 BBC National Short Story Award and the Young Writers' Award on its 15th anniversary.Judges Irenosen Okojie and Jonathan Freedland discuss the merits of the entries from the shortlisted authors. In contention for the £15,000 prize are Caleb Azumah Nelson, Jan Carson, Sarah Hall, Jack Houston and Eley Williams. Writer and musician Testament performs Point Blank - a poem on writing specially commissioned to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the prize.Radio 1 presenter Katie Thistleton will announce the winner of the BBC Young Writers' Award and consider the strengths and emerging themes of the stories with fellow judge Laura Bates. The BBC National Short Story Award is presented in conjunction with Cambridge University and First Story.Later this month Front Row is running a series of Booker Prize book groups with the six shortlisted authors. To take part email frontrow@bbc.co.uk Presenter : Tom Sutcliffe Producer : Dymphna Flynn Studio Manager: Nigel Dix

The London Film Festival opens this week with Mangrove, by the Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen. It’s the first in an ambitious five-part film series looking at individual stories about the West Indian Community in London from 1968 to 1985. Anna Smith joins us to review Mangrove, the story of a notorious 1970 prosecution that exposed police harassment of Black Britons, as well as to give us her picks from this year's London Film Festival, and to discuss the news about Cineworld's announcement of the closure of its venues. Front Row gives the first modern day performance of a lost piece by the great English baroque composer Henry Purcell. The song was recently discovered by Purcell scholar Rebecca Herissone, Professor of Music at Manchester University, who explains the significance of her find. Grace Jones has had a varied and highly successful career as a model, singer/songwriter and actress, lasting more than four decades. A new exhibition Grace Before Jones at Nottingham Contemporary looks at her life

Radha Blank won the Directing Prize at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival for her debut film, The 40-Year-Old Version. She also wrote and stars in the movie which is inspired by her own experiences as a Black New York based playwright and rapper approaching her 40th birthday and frustrated at the lack of creative opportunities. It’s been praised as astute and funny and it’s filmed in black and white echoing many iconic New York films. She joins u to talk about the making of the movie.We talk to Chuck D, the frontman and lyricist of pioneering hip hop group Public Enemy. More than 30 years on from their debut, the group's new album 'What You Gonna Do When the Grid Goes Down?' addresses contemporary American issues, including the Coronavirus pandemic and Black Lives Matter.Novelist Lionel Shriver and journalist Michael Goldfarb make up our Friday Review Panel. They’ll be discussing two new US political dramas: The Trial of the Chicago 7, Aaron Sorkin’s film about the prosecution of Vietnam War protesters in 196

Graham Norton is one of the most successful entertainment presenters in British broadcasting. He has a popular Radio 2 show, is the face of the BBC's Eurovision song contest coverage and, above all, his Friday night BBC1 chat show draws the biggest names to his sofa. His shows have won him nine BAFTAs and he begins a new series on BBC1 tomorrow. His journey is a fascinating one: raised in county Cork, he went to drama school in London with the plan to be an actor, but after a start in stand up and TV comedy, including the sitcom Father Ted, it was quickly the chat show that became his natural home. More recently Norton has won recognition as a best selling novelist, always drawing on his Irish roots. His latest novel, Home Stretch, is about the consequences of a fatal car accident. The lives of the families involved are shattered and the rifts between them are felt throughout the small Irish town where they live. Connor is one of the survivors, but staying among the angry and the mourning is almost as hard a

Miss Virginia is a new film based on the story of Virginia Walden Ford’s fight to create positive educational opportunities for African-American students in Washington D.C. and stars Uzo Aduba. Elle Osili-Wood reviews.Australian singer Helen Reddy has died at the age of 77. Her biggest hit, I am Woman, became an anthem for the feminist movement. Writer Lucy O’Brien was an admirer and a fan, and she joins Samira to discuss why Helen Reddy is crucial to the story of women in popular music, and also feminism.Sarah Nicolls discusses her new composition, 12 Years, inspired by the 2018 IPCC report that said we have 12 years to prevent irreversible climate change. Sarah performs the narrative work that includes newspaper headlines and invented characters on her unique Inside-Out Piano, a vertical grand designed so that she can play the strings directly to create an array of incredible sounds.The choreographer Gary Clarke grew up in 1980s Grimethorpe, North Yorkshire, at the time one of Europe’s most deprived towns.

The 17th Century Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi is the subject of a major new exhibition at London's National Gallery. Critic Waldemar Januszczak considers the importance of the artist who struggled against the male Establishment, but who gained fame, patronage and adoration in her lifetime.No Masks is a new co-production between Sky Arts and the Theatre Royal Stratford East; a TV drama based on the real-life testimonies of key workers during the pandemic, starring Russell Tovey and Anya Chalotra. Theatre Royal’s Artistic Director Nadia Fall discusses the series of monologues she’s co-written alongside playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz.As TV talent show winners Little Mix launch their own TV talent show (Little Mix: The Search) to find a band to accompany them on their next tour, we discuss the creation of manufactured pop bands with music journalist Roisin O'Connor from the Independent and Simon Webbe from the best-selling boy band Blue. Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Oliver Jones

Earlier today the shortlist for the 2020 Booker Prize for Fiction was announced. Two time winner Hilary Mantel has not made the list for the final part of her Cromwell series and four out of six of the books chosen are by debut authors. John speaks to Chair of Judges Margaret Busby and critics Sara Collins and Toby Lichtig give their verdict on the chosen few.Today Arts Council England published two new pieces of research into the value of the cultural institutions it funds to our high streets and how they are reanimating local economies. For instance, more than 300 cultural venues are in unemployment hotspots. There are 500 cafes in cultural centres across the country – almost as many outlets as Pret a Manger. Sir Nichola Serota, the Chair of ACE, unpicks this work with John Wilson, who will ask him, too, what is happening with the £1.57 billion pledged by the government to save the arts and livelihoods of artists. Last week on Front Row Lucy Noble, who runs the Royal Albert Hall, said that no one had yet re

Michael Kiwanuka said he was seriously surprised when he won the 2020 Mercury Prize last week. Tom Sutcliffe talks to the singer-songwriter about dropping out of his music degree, hanging out in Hawaii with Kanye West and asks why such modesty when his self-titled album had rave reviews on release, and reached number 2 in the charts. Director Joe Mantello on his new film version of The Boys in the Band, Mart Crowley’s ground-breaking 1968 play about a group of gay friends at a birthday party in New York. As the Covid crisis continues, last week Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced viable jobs will receive support. As the creative industries rely on freelance workers Front Row discusses what this means for them, first talking to set designer Rebecca Brower, who has lost most of her work this year because theatres are closed. Plus Philippa Childs, head of the union Bectu, to which many freelance creatives belong, explains why so many won’t qualify for help. And director Fiona Laird offers an overview, suggesting w

Dove Cottage Grasmere is the heart of Romantic poetry and is hosting part of this year's Contains Strong Language festival. We'll be asking what the Romantics have to tell us now, with the poet Kate Clanchy who has adapted Samuel Taylor Coleridge's unfinished poem Christabel with a newly commissioned score by composer Katie Chatburn. Novelist, poet and playwright Zosia Wand was born in London but didn't speak English till she went to school and spent all her holidays in Poland. Now she's written a radio play Bones - set on the sandbanks of Morecambe Bay - exploring how it feels to be a migrant and the emotional impact on the generations that follow.In 2005 the award winning poet and novelist Jacob Polley’s home town of Carlisle flooded catastrophically after heavy rain. Three people died and thousands were left homeless in an event that was supposed to be a one in a hundred year event. Now Jacob Polley’s returned to that time for a new play Emergency. It’s a love story set against a merciless storm voiced thr

David McKee has just been named as the recipient of the BookTrust Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Author and illustrator of the Elmer books which with vivid colour and humour make a case for inclusion and acceptance, and the creator of the magical Mr Benn, he also wrote and illustrated Not Now, Bernard, a funny and perceptive plea for children not to be ignored. Now 85, he is still working. Front Row talks to him about his life and career.It has been reported that the Royal Academy in London is considering selling off its rare Michelangelo marble masterpiece known as the Taddei Tondo in an effort to avoid sacking 150 of its staff, as a result of lockdown. Axel Rϋger, Secretary and Chief Executive of the Royal Academy, and Alison Cole, Editor of The Art Newspaper, discuss the RA’s dilemma. A brand new bi-monthly magazine – Cocoa Girl – is unusual in many ways. First the editor is 6 years old, second it’s an actual physical magazine, not just an online offer and third it’s been a great success, selling more

Doctor Foster creator, Mike Bartlett, has come up with a new drama for BBC1. Set in Manchester, Life follows the stories of the residents of a large house divided into four flats, and explores love, loss, birth and death, and features some of the characters from Doctor Foster. Nick Ahad reviews.Channing Godfrey Peoples talks about writing and directing her debut film, Miss Juneteenth, about a beauty queen pageant commemorating the day slaves in Texas were freed – two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Life for Turquoise Jones didn’t turn out as beautifully as winning the title promised, so she is cultivating her daughter, Kai, to become Miss Juneteenth, even if Kai wants something else.Show Trials: The Lowry in Salford has come up with a unique way to bring in revenue whilst its regular artistic functions are paused because of pandemic regulations and social distancing. They’re going to become a temporary ‘Nightingale Court’. Julia Fawcett, Chief Executive of The Lowry, reveals how it’s going to work

Lead singer of Britpop band Skunk Anansie, Skin has headlined Glastonbury, sold millions of albums, and recently competed in The Masked Singer. As her memoir, Skin - It takes Blood and Guts, is published, we ask her about channelling rage into her performances and if she thinks her achievements as queer black woman have been overlooked.After a six-month Covid delay, Plymouth’s new £40m arts and heritage museum space The Box is due to open next week. This weekend also sees the Plymouth Art Weekender, a city-wide festival of art and events. Sarah Gosling, BBC’s arts and culture presenter in Plymouth, considers the role of art and culture in helping to transform the city. It is the season of moths and spiders. Many people strive to keep these out of their houses. Not so the poet Sean Borodale whose new collection, Inmates, records close encounters with all manner of insects, in all stages of their existence – egg, maggot, flight, in death and decay. He talks about co-existing with the natural world and writing

Announced by Theresa May in 2018 and quickly dubbed the “Festival of Brexit”, submissions are now being made for the UK government funded £120 million festival that will celebrate British creativity in 2022. Creative director Martin Green tells us what kind of projects and ideas he’s looking for.Succession creator Jesse Armstrong on winning the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series at last night's awards.English National Opera are staging Europe’s first drive-in opera, Puccini’s La Bohème, at London’s Alexandra Palace, where the audience watch the singers from their cars. Will this be an exciting new way to experience opera? Alexandra Coghlan reviews. Writer Gwyneth Hughes discusses her new ITV drama, Honour, starring Keeley Hawes. It’s the story of the real-life detective who brought five killers to justice after the so-called honour killing of Banaz Mahmod, a 20 year old Iraqi Kurdish woman from Mitcham, south London, who was murdered for falling in love with the wrong man.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Hann

The Los Angeles-based American artist Mark Bradford, who represented the USA at the Venice Biennale in 2017, discusses his new series of Quarantine Paintings. The three works – only available to view online – explore the nature of art in isolation and how he responded when his city was suddenly shut down unexpectedly.Nick Hornby, the writer who gave us Fever Pitch, High Fidelity and About a Boy, discusses his new novel Just Like You, which features a relationship between a black man in his early 20s and a white 42-year-old English teacher and mother. The novel is set in 2016 and it’s not long before the social and political divisions brought about by the looming Brexit vote are becoming unavoidable.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Julian May

Rocks is the new feature film directed by Sarah Gavron with a screenplay by Theresa Ikoko and Claire Wilson. Writer Niellah Arboine reviews the film which is set in Hackney with an ensemble cast of largely non-professional actors, and it tells the story of a teenage Londoner nicknamed Rocks who takes responsibility for her little brother Emmanuel in an attempt to stop them both from being taken into care, supported by a chaotic but loving group of friends.Poet Phoebe Stuckes discusses her first collection, Platinum Blonde, which gives us a glimpse of the life of a lively young woman today. She is only 24, but Phoebe Stuckes is a seasoned poet and performer, winner of the Foyle Young Poets Award - four times - she has also been Barbican Young Poet and the Ledbury Poetry Festival’s young poet-in-residence.Troubled Blood is the title of JK Rowling’s latest novel, written under her crime writing pseudonym Robert Galbraith. And it’s generated something of a troubled reaction so far as reviewers and then social me

Twenty five years ago Bristol musician Tricky pioneered a new genre of downtempo hip-hop with his album Maxinquaye. As he releases his 14th studio album, Fall to Pieces, Tricky joins us from his Berlin studio. Live theatre returns to Northern Ireland this evening with the play Anything Can Happen: 1972 at The Playhouse in Londonderry, in which people whose lives were affected by the Troubles tell their stories. We hear from playwright Damian Gorman, cast member Susan Stanley, whose brother was killed in a bombing, and Sarah Feeney-Morrison, who has contributed a photo of her aunt, shot by an IRA sniper.Netflix's new drama this week is Ratched, the origin story of Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It stars Sarah Paulson, Cynthia Nixon, Judy Davis and Sharon Stone. Karen Krisanovich reviews.Our latest interview with an author shortlisted for the 2020 BBC National Short Story Award is Jack Houston, whose powerful story Come Down Heavy is about two people struggling on the edges of society, in

Nica Burns, owner of some of the biggest West End theatres, discusses her plan to re-open them in sequence from 22 October, starting with Adam Kay’s one man show This is Going to Hurt and, in November, the hit musical Six. But what about large-scale shows like Harry Potter or Everyone’s Talking About Jamie? Writer Dennis Kelly tells Samira about The Third Day, his new project starring Jude Law and Naomie Harris. It's a psychological thriller, set on an alluring and mysterious island, that's been brought to life through a collaboration between Sky Atlantic and the immersive theatre company Punchdrunk. The drama consists of six one-hour episodes for TV plus a live-streamed twelve-hour event. The Northern Irish writer Jan Carson is best known for her award-winning magic realist novels. But her new work - shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award – is an authentic slice of rural protestant life. She discusses why this community is not often written about and explains why it’s important that their voices

David Tennant talks to Front Row about new ITV drama DES, in which he plays one of the most infamous serial killers in UK history, Dennis Nilsen - a civil servant who went undetected as he murdered boys and young men he met on the streets of London from 1978 to 1983.2020 is the 15th anniversary of the BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University. Tonight, with the help of judge Lucy Caldwell – who has herself been twice shortlisted for the award – Front Row announces this year’s shortlist.Critics Arifa Akbar and Leslie Felperin join Front Row to look back at the week in culture and to review The Painted Bird, a new film by Czech director/producer Václav Marhoul - an adaptation of Jerzy Kosiński's classic novel. 3 hours long, in black and white, it is the first film to feature the Interslavic language and tells the tale of a young Jewish boy who undergoes a series of harrowing, life-changing episodes in rural Eastern Europe during the Second World War. It was the Czech entry for the Best Internat

Diana Rigg has died aged 82. Her breakthrough role was as Mrs Emma Peel in The Avengers, going on to have a distinguished career across film, theatre and television with roles including as a Bond Girl in Her Majesty's Secret Service, Lady Macbeth at the National Theatre and Olenna Tyrell in Game of Thrones. Charles Dance remembers the actress alongside Mark Gatiss who wrote an episode of Doctor Who for Diana especially. On the line from Beijing, Chinese pianist Lang Lang discusses his new recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, the culmination of a 20-year musical journey for the musician. One version was recorded in the studio, the other in the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, Germany, where Bach worked and is buried. Cinemas have faced huge disruption through this pandemic - closing and now re-opening, so how have film distributors managed to get their movies seen? Kirsty asks film producer Julie Baines and Hamish Moseley of the independent distributor Altitude whether the altered landscape of the cinema industry