Front Row

Roddy Doyle talks about his latest novel, Love. In the course of one summer’s evening in Dublin, two old drinking buddies revisit the pubs and the love affairs of their youth, and talk openly about their marriages and other relationships, downing several pints of stout along the way.Gairloch Museum in the Highlands of Scotland is one of the winners of the 2020 Art Fund Museum of the Year prize. Its curator Karen Buchanan explains how they renovated a local nuclear bunker to house the museum and how the local community helped raise the £2.4m needed for the project as well as curating the exhibitions on Gaelic culture inside.As theatres attempt to work around the current restrictions, many are putting on outdoor performances and at the Leeds Playhouse last week, imitating the dog put on Dr Blood’s Old Travelling show, which is now touring. Nick Ahad went to see his first show since March and reports back. He’ll also discuss a nationwide project, Signal Fires, which sees theatres across Britain uniting in storytelling around the fire.The Kronos Quartet have just released their latest album, Long Time Passing. It is a celebration of the music and life of Pete Seeger, singer, banjo player and activist. Violinist David Harrington explains why one of the most renowned classical quartets is playing If I had a Hammer and Where Have All the Flowers Gone? This is a collaboration with several other artists and we hear from one, the Ethiopian-American singer, Meklit. Presenter Tom Sutcliffe Producer Jerome Weatherald

Anaïs Mitchell took the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice and turned it into Hadestown, which became an immensely successful musical at the National Theatre and on Broadway. Now she has written Working on a Song, a book that gets down to the nitty-gritty of writing for musical theatre, tracing the development of the songs of Hadestown from the spark of an idea to performance by a big ensemble and a full band on a huge stage.Northern Ireland’s foremost cultural event – Belfast International Arts Festival – is in full swing. As the city is introducing strict coronavirus restrictions, its mainly online content is proving a welcome distraction. But it's also a chance for everybody around the UK to watch the highlights from their front rooms as tickets are largely free. Marie Louise Muir gives her picks of the festival from a Macbeth reboot to an operatic version of the Good Friday agreement. Every day this week we’re hearing from one of the five winners of the 2020 Art Fund Museum of the Year. Today it’s the turn of the South London Gallery, who in the past year have doubled the size of their exhibition space by acquiring the fire station across the road. The gallery’s Director Margot Heller takes Samira on a tour.The photographer Chris Killip produced a series of black and white photographs of the North East of England in the 70s and 80s as it de-industrialised, called In Flagrante. Images such as a boy hunched on a wall and a ship towering beside children in the street have become iconic. Fellow photographer Martin Parr joins Front Row to mark the death of someone he calls one of the key players in post-war British photography.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Simon RichardsonMain Image: Anais Mitchell. Credit: Shervin Lainez

The global bestselling author Jodi Picoult discusses her 26th novel The Book Of Two Ways. It’s the story of a hospice worker who - when her plane crashes in the opening pages -is surprised at the life that flashes before her eyes. Rather than her scientist husband and teenage daughter, she sees the life that might have been had she made different choices when she was a student. Jodi Picoult discusses life, death and Egyptology with Tom Shakespeare. Every day this week we’re hearing from one of the five winners of the 2020 Art Fund Museum of the Year. Today it’s the turn of the Science Museum in London. The institution’s director Sir Ian Blatchford looks back over a significant year, opening two extensive new galleries and receiving more visitors than ever in its history, and then having to close down and re-think its future in light of Covid.On Monday the recipients of the first round of the Cultural Recovery Fund grants were announced - just over 70% received something, but what then for those who didn't? James Tillit led a major restoration of the Astor Theatre in Deal just ten years ago and is now its general manager. They were not awarded a grant. He explains how catastrophic this will be for the them.Tom is then joined by Matt Hemley of The Stage, who has been taking a look at those who did and didn't receive a grant from the Cultural Recovery Fund, and assesses what impact this will have on the arts across the country.Presenter: Tom Shakespeare Producer: Timothy Prosser Studio Manager: Duncan HannantMain image: Jodi Picoult Image credit: Nina Subin

Hugh Laurie talks about Roadkill, a major new political drama for BBC One written by David Hare. Roadkill is a four-part fictional thriller about a self-made, forceful and charismatic politician trying to outrun his past.Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museum is one of the winners in Art Fund’s Museum Of The Year 2020. We discover how they’ll be spending their £40,000 prize to benefit the local artistic community.And we talk to three students currently studying arts subjects at university or college which require them to undertake in-person tuition. How has the pandemic affected their studies and what are their views on the future for their industry? Lloyd Pierce, chair of the Conservatoires UK Student Network also joins the discussion.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Julian May Studio Manager: Giles Aspen

This year’s Art Fund Museum of the Year Prize will be split 5 ways rather than a winner being chosen from a shortlist. Jenny Waldman, director of Art Fund, announces the museums who will each receive £40,000. We’ll also be looking at each individual museum over the course of this week on Front RowOn the day that the government awarded Culture Recovery Fund grants totalling £257m to arts organisations, culture minister Caroline Dinenage discusses concerns being faced by the arts and entertainment sector. Stephanie Sirr, chief executive of Nottingham Playhouse which received a grant of nearly £800,000, outlines the significance of this cash boost.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Oliver Jones Studio Manager: Tim Heffer

Alex Wheatle discusses his new novel Cane Warriors, based on the true story of a group of slaves in Jamaica who, in 1760, rose up against their white British slavemasters in a fight for the freedom of all enslaved people in the nearby plantations.As Forest Green Rovers become the UK's first football club to appoint an Artistic Director, Robert Del Naja, founding member of Massive Attack, explains his artistic plans for the club. Amanny Mohamed considers how the Covid pandemic has affected this week's London Film Festival and chooses her stand-out films. Miranda July tells us about her latest film Kajillionaire, a comedy starring a family of very petty criminals scraping a living who decide to involve an outsider in a scam. The American poet Louise Glück is the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature. While not exactly a recluse, Louise Glück rarely gives interviews, so we hear from John Mcauliffe of Carcanet Press, Glück’s British publisher for a quarter of a century, to tell us about the poet and her work.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Timothy Prosser Studio Manager: Donald McDonald

Skin - the singer, songwriter, DJ and lead vocalist of the multi-million-selling British rock band Skunk Anansie - looks back over her life in her new memoir It Takes Blood and Guts.Born to Jamaican parents, Skin - real name Deborah Dyer - grew up in Brixton in the 1970s which influenced her musical direction. The shaven-headed singer reflects on how a gay, black, working-class girl with a vision fought poverty and prejudice to write songs, produce and front her own band, headline Glastonbury, and become one of the most influential women in British rock. Presenter Tom Sutcliffe Producer Jerome Weatherald

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 Guildford for years, but is now radically changing her operation to survive, and it doesn’t involve music.We pay tribute to the US musician, Johnny Nash, who’s died at the age of eighty. He was best known for his reggae-inspired hit I Can See Clearly Now and for his record company which helped launch the career of his friend Bob Marley.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Timothy Prosser Studio Manager: Tim Heffer

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 and her achievements. We speak with curator Cedric Fauq.Presenter Samira Ahmed Producer Jerome WeatheraldPurcell’s O That my Grief was performed on Front Row by The English Concert Anthony Gregory – Tenor 1 Hugo Hymas – Tenor 2 Ashley Riches – Bass Kristian Bezuidenhout – Harpsichord Joseph Crouch – Cello