Front Row

Next week finally sees the release of Tenet, the latest big-budget film by Christopher Nolan. For our Friday Review, film critic Ryan Gilbey and novelist and short story writer Irenosen Okojie give their response to the film, and consider the future of cinema in light of the pandemic. And they’ll be discussing their cultural picks – the TV series Broad City and Lovecraft Country. Algorithm-downgraded A level student Jessica Johnson on her strangely prescient Orwell Youth Prize winning short story about an algorithm that decides school grades according to social class.The British Museum is the UK’s most-visited tourist attraction but during lockdown it’s had no visitors. Now they’re getting ready to reopen with limited numbers. We speak to the director Hartwig Fischer about how the museum has been using the hiatus to rethink the ethos behind displaying its extraordinary collection. This year marks the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s voyage. While the story of the “Pilgrim Fathers” is well known, the history of the Wampanoag people they met is less so. Wampum: Stories from the Shells of Native America is a touring exhibition which hopes to change this. This new exhibition is presented by The Box, Plymouth and grew out of a partnership with Wampanoag Advisory Committee to Plymouth 400 and the Wampanoag cultural advisors SmokeSygnals. The wampum belt is a tapestry of tribal history made from thousands of handcrafted beads. Paula Peters, founder of SmokeSygnals and a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Nation, explains.Shedinburgh is an online festival attempting to capture the spirit of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe by live streaming performances from sheds around the country. Theatre producer, Francesca Moody, who also made Fleabag explains the endeavour.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Sarah Johnson Studio Manager: Nigel Dix

The One and Only Ivan is a new Disney film about a 400-pound silverback gorilla called Ivan. He lives in a suburban shopping mall with other animals where they perform in a circus owned by Mack, played by Bryan Cranston. The film is a hybrid of live action and CGI and features the voices of Sam Rockwell, Angelina Jolie, Danny DeVito, Helen Mirren and Chaka Khan. We speak to the film's director Thea Sharrock.40 years since Willy Russell wrote Educating Rita Stephen Tompkinson stars in an open air production at the Minack Theatre in Cornwall. Novelist Patrick Gale reviews.How dangerous is singing at a time of Covid-19? Declan Costello, Consultant Ear Nose and Throat Surgeon and an accomplished tenor, has been leading UK research to assess the risks. He joins Front Row to share the results.David Mitchell said of his recent novel Utopia Avenue – about a band - that writing about music is impossible. Former concert violinist now poet Fiona Sampson, novelist and one time cellist Patrick Gale and writer and teacher Jeffrey Boakye, whose book Hold Tight explored grime’s cultural impact, reflect on the premise that writing about music is – as the saying goes - like dancing about architecture. What made them take up the challenge in their different writing forms?Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Hannah Robins

The Wives of Stanley Spencer are the subject of a new exhibition Love, Art, Loss at the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham, Berkshire. Artist and illustrator Siân Pattenden reviews. The explosion in Beirut two weeks destroyed thousands of buildings in the Lebanese city, including many of the art galleries and museums. Sursock Museum Director Zeina Arida and gallery owner Saleh Barakat consider the damage done to the city's culture as well as its infrastructure. Continuing Front Row's interviews with all the authors shortlisted for this year's Women's Prize for Fiction,Angie Cruz discusses her novel Dominicana. Ana is a schoolgirl muddling through adolescence on a small farm in the Dominican Republic, but her mother marries her off to a man twice her age, whom she sees as the ticket to America for the whole family. Ana, fifteen, with no English, no money and no autonomy, arrives on a false passport to begin a new life in cold, grey New York. Presenter Samira Ahmed Producer Jerome WeatheraldImage above: Portrait of Patricia Preece, 1933 by Stanley Spencer(C) Estate Stanley Spencer & Bridgeman Images, London Courtesy Southampton City Art Gallery

As novelist John Connolly publishes a prequel to his hugely successful Charlie Parker thriller series, he and critic Suzi Feay discuss the art of creating a prequel, both in books and on screen, from Endeavour to Hannibal Rising to The Wide Sargasso Sea.From the Minack Theatre, nestled in the cliffs of west Cornwall, to Cirencester’s Barnfest, and Brighton Open Air Theatre, many theatre-goers have turned to the great outdoors as indoor theatres remain shuttered due to Covid-19 restrictions. The Maltings Theatre in St Albans has just kicked off its 6th annual outdoor festival, set in a Roman Theatre built in 140AD, with a programme that includes The Merry Wives of Windsor, Henry V and HMS Pinafore. Its Artistic Director, Adam Nichols, joins John Wilson to discuss the joys, challenges and opportunities of outdoor theatre. Around the UK, the pandemic has caused arts venues, organisations and establishments to have to make dramatic cuts to their output and costs just to stay afloat. With no definite end in sight when they can start generating income again, redundancies seem inevitable. Plus Suzi Feay comments on the publication of 25 books by female authors who will be known, for the first time, by their real names. All of them are women who wrote under male pen-names - including George Eliot, whose Middlemarch will now be republished with the name Mary Anne Evans on the cover.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Dymphna Flynn Studio Manager: Giles Aspen

Linton Kwesi Johnson was born in Jamiaca 68 years ago, moving to London to join his mother aged 11 and has created a unique career as a performance poet. Signed by Richard Branson to Virgin Records in 1978 he went on to record a series of acclaimed albums which combined his powerful verse with reggae rhythms. Linton Kwesi Johnson was the first black poet to be published in the Penguin Modern Classics series, and was recently been awarded the 2020 PEN Pinter Prize, a literary award for a lifetime’s work. He spoke to John WIlson about his life and career and the continued relevance of his poetry.Main image: Linton Kwesi Johnson Image credit: Chiaku Nozu/WireImage/Getty Images

The Miami singer Gloria Estefan discusses her Cuban roots and the musical and cultural links the country shares with Brazil, as she releases her new album Brazil305. The singer also remembers the sadness she faced as a child when her father returned from Vietnam, contracting multiple sclerosis as a result of the military’s use of Agent Orange.A new film version of Pinocchio has just been released. And if you’re hoping for a wholesome remake of the 1940 Disney film, you’ll be in for quite a surprise. 80 years on from the all-singing version telling the story of a loveable boy puppet who wants to become a REAL boy, this latest Italian language version takes a less sentimental approach. It’s a story which has been translated into over 300 languages, which apparently makes it the most translated non-religious book in the world and one of the best-selling books ever published, To review this and to take a look at other cultural highlights of their weeks, I’m joined down the line from Edinburgh by the poet Don Paterson and by the theatre critic for The Scotsman newspaper Joyce McMillanWhen Shane McCrae was three he was taken from his black father and brought up by his grandmother as a white supremacist so, in effect, to hate himself. Today McCrae is an acclaimed American poet, a finalist for the National Book Award and author of seven collections. His poems are this month being published in the UK for the first time , with two books, Sometimes I Never Suffered and The Gilded Auction Block, coming out simultaneously. His poetry is totally engaged with the present, with references to Donald Trump, yet is deeply informed by the forms and prosody of the canon of English poetry, in which he is steeped. In his first UK interview he talks to Kirsty Lang about his life, and reads his powerful work.Classical guitarist Sean Shibe discusses the impact of Julian Bream, the British guitarist and lutenist who has died aged 87.

Lyricist Don Black looks back at his five decade career writing hit songs and musicals. The first British songwriter to win an Oscar, for Born Free in 1967, Don wrote many classic Bond Themes including Diamonds are Forever and Thunderball. As he publishes his autobiography The Sanest Guy in the Room: A Life in Lyrics, Don talks about his close friendship and working partnership with composer John Barry, and his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, including Sunset Boulevard and Tell Me on a Sunday, Marvin Hamlisch, Quincy Jones, Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones. Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Timothy Prosser

Lovecraft Country is a new 10-episode HBO series, based on the 2016 novel by Matt Ruff, set in 1950s Jim Crow America. The story is about a young African American man whose search for his missing father begins a struggle to survive and overcome both the racist terrors of white America and also terrifying monsters that could be pulled from the pages of horror fiction writer H.P Lovecraft’s weird tales. Writer and broadcaster Ekow Eshun reviews the series. We continue our interviews with the writers shortlisted for the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction. American author Jenny Offill discusses her acclaimed novel, Weather, about a female librarian struggling to cope with a domestic life haunted by the growing awareness of catastrophic climate change.National Prison Radio is run by a British prison-based charity, broadcasting programmes made by and for prisoners in over 100 prisons in the UK, and is the world's first national radio station of its kind. Next week they broadcast an ambitious radio drama – a 29 minute sci–fi adventure called Project Zed, conceived and produced by artist Ruth Beale, working with prisoners at HMP Lincoln. It was commissioned by Mansions of the Future - an arts and cultural hub in Lincoln City Centre. Samira is joined by Ruth and facilitator Sonia Rossington, who worked together with the prisoners to put the drama together. On Monday’s Front Row we heard from Natalia Kaliada, co-founder of the Belarus Free Theatre - the only company in Europe to be banned by their country’s government – who told us three of their members have been arrested in Minsk following the election. Their whereabouts and condition were unknown. Natalia returns to Front Row with an update.Main image: Jonathan majors as Atticus Freeman in Sky Atlantic's series Lovecraft Country Image credit: (c) Elizabeth Morris/2020 Home Box Office IncPresenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Emma Wallace

From Wednesday, opera lovers will again be able to watch performances at Glyndebourne Opera in East Sussex, although this year the summer festival will look rather different to comply with Covid restrictions. A much-reduced audience will be able to enjoy opera in the open air setting of its sumptuous gardens starting with Offenbach’s French farce, Mesdames de la Halle, in a new translation entitled In the Market for Love. It's been re-imagined to take place in a society recovering from a pandemic, complete with an over-zealous police officer enforcing social distancing, and a huge tub of sanitiser centre stage. Surgeon Declan Costello is leading the UK research assessing the dangers of singing and playing wind instruments in the spread of Covid-19. He discusses the trial and its impact on orchestras with Gavin Reid, Chief Exec of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Chair of the Association of British Orchestras. My Rembrandt is the name of a new film documentary by Dutch filmmaker Oeke Hoogendijk. It explores the world of art dealers and collectors and the sometimes intimate, sometimes fraught relationship they have with the works they own and sell. Anna Somers Cocks, founder editor of The Art Newspaper, reviews.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Simon Richardson

Xiaolu Guo was named as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists 2013. She talks about her latest book A Lover’s Discourse, which is a story of love and language – and the meaning of home set at the time of the European referendum. With a nod to Roland Barthes’ book of the same name, Guo’s novel is told through conversations between a Chinese woman newly arrived in the UK and her Anglo-German boyfriend. It is 100 years since Bernard Leach, with his Japanese colleague Hamada Shojie, established his pottery in St Ives. Since then his influence as a studio potter, making vessels that are both beautiful and functional, by hand, has spread around the globe. Roelof Uys, the lead potter at the studio today, discusses Leach's ideas and work, and the projects marking the centenary.Last night three members of the Belarus Free Theatre - Nadia Brodskaya, Sveta Sugako and Dasha Andreyanova - were arrested in Minsk, during protests against the results - widely believed to be fabricated - of the election there. Their colleagues in the company do not know where they are being held. We hear from Natalia Kaliada, one of the founding directors of the Belarus Free Theatre, the only theatre company in Europe banned by its government on political grounds.London's Donmar Warehouse is re-opening temporarily from 3 to 22 August with a socially-distanced sound installation, Blindness, which is based on the dystopian novel by Nobel prize-winning José Saramago, adapted by Simon Stephens and starring the voice of Juliet Stevenson. Susannah Clapp reviews. Main image above: Xiaolu Guo Image credit: Stephen BarkerPresenter Tom Sutcliffe Producer Jerome Weatherald