Front Row

Bruce Springsteen is about to release a film of his latest album, Western Stars. In the hayloft of his 100-year-old barn in New Jersey, he performs the album alongside a full orchestra, featuring brass, banjo, accordion and steel guitar. Kate Mossman, features editor of The New Statesman, reviews the film which coincides with the singer's 70th birthday.The death was announced last week of the American literary critic Harold Bloom. The author of more than 40 books, which reframed the work of the romantic poets and William Shakespeare, Bloom was a controversial figure, a defender of the idea of the 'Western Canon' and an avowed literary elitist. Literary critic and cultural historian Lara Feigel, and James Marriott, Assistant Literary Editor at The Times - and a Bloom fan from a young age - explore Harold Bloom’s complicated legacy.Illuminated pages taken from a 15th century Islamic manuscript come up for sale at Christie's in London tomorrow. They come from a Persian manuscript The Paths of Paradise that depicts the Prophet’s ascent to heaven and are so rare it’s estimated they could sell for £1m each. Only one complete copy of the manuscript now exists and an American art historian has described the auction as 'immoral'. Professor Christiane Gruber from the University of Michigan explains why she is calling on the art world to boycott it. Presenter John Wilson Producer Jerome Weatherald

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at this year's Berlin Film Festival, By the Grace of God is Francois Ozon's new feature film about sexual abuse hidden by the Catholic Church in France. Briony Hanson reviews. The young artist Joy Labinjo discusses her new exhibition Our Histories Cling to Us at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead. Her large oil paintings draw on Labinjo's personal experience of growing up in the UK with British-Nigerian heritage, using photos to explore memory and ideas of belonging, focusing on intimate scenes of contemporary family life.Art Critic Alistair Sooke talks about The Way I See It - his new landmark series for BBC Radio 3 in which 30 leading cultural figures choose their favourite work from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and explain what it means to them. The former EastEnders actress Katie Jarvis has been in the tabloid press this week after it revealed she was working as a shop security guard. But with most actors out of performing work most of the time is it such a shock? Chris Rankin - Percy Weasley in the Harry Potter films - talks about his personal experience of working in a pub after the franchise ended and Matt Hood of Equity explains why actors' "day jobs" are not only a necessity but an advantage. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Hannah Robins

David Attenborough's new documentary series Seven Worlds, One Planet has been four years in the making, we speak to Bertie Gregory, a wildlife cameraman who was at the heart of the show.The new retrospective of the work of the pioneering artist Bridget Riley at the Hayward Gallery in London features over 200 works spanning her 70-year career. Louisa Buck reviews the exhibition that features Riley’s famous black-and-white works of the 1960s to her more recent works as she continues to play with abstraction and perception.The Forward Prize for Best Poetry Collection 2019 has been awarded to Fiona Benson for her collection Vertigo & Ghost. She explains why Zeus and his relations with mortals and nymphs is at the heart of the poems.Drill artist Rico Racks has been banned from using drug slang in his music after being convicted for supplying class A drugs. The list of words include “trapping” meaning “dealing” and “connect” - a drugs contact. Journalist and youth worker Ciaran Thapar reports.Presenter : Samira Ahmed Producer : Dymphna Flynn

There is much concern about the loss of biodiversity. But what of the linguistic and cultural ecosystem? It is thought that half of the world's 7,000 languages might not survive into the next century. Stig Abell talks to Chris McCabe, editor of Poems from the Edge of Extinction, an anthology of poems from around the world in languages under threat , and to Laura Tohe, poet laureate of the Navajo Nation. What might be lost? What can be done?Scooby Doo turned 50 this autumn. To mark the half century of a show which continues to follow the mysterious adventures of the eponymous Great Dane and his teenage friends - Fred, Daphne, Velma and Shaggy – Stig is joined for a discussion on the cartoon’s longstanding appeal by Professor Kevin Sandler, who is currently writing a book on Scooby Doo, and cultural critic Gavia Baker Whitelaw.The composer Judith Weir is just coming to the end of her time as Associate Composer for the BBC Singers. Her new piece for them is blue hills beyond blue hills, a setting of poems by Alan Spence marking the cycle of the year. She talks to Front Row about the piece, the vocal flexibility of the singers and her role as Master of the Queen’s Music.Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Julian May

Gavin Hood, director of Tsotsi and Eye in the Sky, discusses his new film Official Secrets, which stars Keira Knightley as the GCHQ whistleblower who was taken to court by the British government for leaking a top secret email to the press in the lead-up to the Iraq war in 2003.Next week The Louvre Museum in Paris opens a major exhibition on Leonardo da Vinci to commemorate the 500th anniversary of his death. Nearly 120 works will be displayed, with many on loan from collections around the world. However, there is much speculation over whether the world’s most expensive painting, Salvator Mundi, sold for $450m in 2017, will be on show. The painting of Christ, attributed to da Vinci in the last decade, hasn’t been on public display since its sale. Ben Lewis, author of The Last Leonardo, joins John Wilson to discuss.Moving to Mars, the latest exhibition at the Design Museum in London, explores how sending humans to the planet is not just a new frontier for science but also for design. Architect Tara Gbolade reviews the variety of exhibits which include a multisensory experience of the Red Planet and a full-scale prototype habitat.For their latest touring production, Graeae Theatre - the company that puts D/deaf and disabled actors centre stage - has asked Winsome Pinnock to reimagine her play One Under, first staged in 2005. It explores the aftermath of a young man dying under a tube train. Cyrus, the driver, becomes convinced he is his son. John Wilson talks to Winsome Pinnock and the director, Amit Sharma, about the drama.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Sarah Johnson

Having won several album of the year awards for his recording of works by J.S Bach, Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson performs and talks about reinventing Bach for a new generation.This year the highest accolade in British architecture, the Stirling Prize, has been awarded for the first time to a social housing development. Social housing as places of crime and deprivation have been commonplace in popular culture for decades, often at odds with the experience of people living there. Cultural commentator and film historian Matthew Sweet and architect Jo McCafferty look at how these spaces have been portrayed in a more positive light on screen.For most of the 20th century, The Iraq Museum was home to an enormous collection of artefacts from the ancient civilisations of the region. Following the US-led invasion in 2003, it’s estimated that around 15,000 objects were taken during mass looting, with many finding their way onto the black market. Hannah Khalil discusses her new play A Museum In Baghdad, which is set simultaneously in 1926 and 2006 – following British archaeologist and diplomat Gertrude Bell struggling to create the museum and her latter day counterpart Ghalia Hussein trying to restore its former glory. Presenter Samira Ahmed Producer Jerome Weatherald

Aisling Bea, writer and star of the recent hit Channel 4 comedy This Way Up, on her new Netflix drama Living with Yourself, in which she plays the wife of a man who undergoes a mysterious treatment only to discover that he has been cloned and replaced by a better version of himself.With the surprise announcement last night that the Booker Prize was being awarded to two authors – Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo – chair of the judges Peter Florence and the prize’s literary director Gaby Wood reveal what went on behind the scenes and how and why the judges came to their rule-breaking decision. And Kirsty talks to Zawe Ashton, who is currently starring on Broadway alongside Tom Hiddleston in Harold Pinter's play, Betrayal. She's also written a play which is opening on both sides of the Atlantic at once, for all the women who thought they were Mad. Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Timothy Prosser

Ahead of the announcement of the 2019 Booker Prize winner tonight, it's the final Front Row Booker Prize Book Group with shortlisted author Margaret Atwood, in which she meets a group of readers to discuss The Testaments, her long awaited sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale. Last year, Los Angeles artist Mark Bradford sold a single work for $12m, the highest-ever auction price achieved by a living African-American artist. He represented the United States at the Venice Biennale two years ago, and now has a new exhibition of his large works in London. In front of his 14-metre-long canvas Cerebus, the artist discusses his art, which addresses issues of institutionalised racism, marginalised communities, police violence and inequality.A new film opening this weekend, The Peanut Butter Falcon, has been a bit of a sleeper hit in the USA. It stars Shia LeBeouf and Zack Gottsagen - an actor with Down Syndrome - and reinterprets Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn story for today.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Oliver Jones

Sienna Miller discusses her latest role as a mother whose daughter goes missing, in her new film American Woman, directed by Jake Scott. Our latest Front Row Booker Prize Book Group puts its questions to shortlisted author Elif Shafak about her novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World which tells the story of Leila, a woman whose body has died, but whose mind has a precious ten minutes to reflect on the joy, pain and injustice of her life as a prostitute in Istanbul.Giri/Haji, which translates as Duty/Shame in English, is a new drama produced by the BBC and Netflix, about a Tokyo detective who travels to London in search of his presumed deceased brother. The script for the series is written in both Japanese and English. Kate Taylor-Jones reviews.Presenter Kirsty Lang Producer Jerome Weatherald

Mary Beard meets the acclaimed Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood. As her sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale – The Testaments – is published, in a wide-ranging encounter Mary talks to her about how Gilead has changed almost 35 years on from the original book; how the cloak which features in the TV adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale has become a symbol of protest around the world; about her responses to the current political climate; about the accusation that she is a ‘bad feminist’; and about the hype surrounding the release of this new book.