Front Row

It was in Manchester in 2013 that Anna Jordan won the Bruntwood Prize, the UK’s biggest national competition for new plays. She’s now back in the city with her new adaptation of a stage classic – Mother Courage. Bertolt Brecht set his play in 17th century Europe during the Thirty Years’ War but Jordan has moved the story into the future. It’s 2080, and Europe no longer exists, the countries have been replaced by a grid system with individuals struggling to survive between the warring factions.Six-time Grammy-winning composer and trumpeter Terence Blanchard has written the music for all of Spike Lee’s films since Jungle Fever in 1991, and this year he was nominated for a Bafta and an Oscar for his original score for Lee’s latest, BlacKkKlansman. The composer discusses his approach to his film music, and the challenge of writing the soundtrack for When the Levees Broke, Spike Lee’s 2006 documentary about the devastation of Blanchard’s home town of New Orleans.The success of Get Out at last year’s film awards