Front Row

Alan Cumming discusses his autobiography, Baggage: Tales from a Fully Packed Life. This volume chronicles some of his career highs after Hollywood came calling, including working with Stanley Kubrick, filming with the Spice Girls and holidaying with Gore Vidal.Front Row critics Alexandra Shulman and Leila Latif review this week's cultural highlights including Diana biopic Spencer, Israeli drama Valley of Tears and discuss the ABBA revival ahead of the release their new album Voyage.And Paul McCartney describes the painful conflict with John Lennon that inspired his song Too Many People.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Laura Northedge

Shortlisted authors Anuk Arudpragasam, Damon Galgut, Patricia Lockwood, Nadifa Mohamed, Richard Powers and Maggie Shipstead join Samira Ahmed live in Broadcasting House's Radio Theatre for the announcement of the winner of the 2021 Booker Prize.Last year's winner Douglas Stuart is in conversation with HRH The Duchess of Cornwall. And 30 years on from his historic Booker win, Ben Okri reflects on how the prize changed his life.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Simon Richardson

Little Amal, a giant puppet of a refugee girl, will complete her epic journey from Gaziantep on the Turkey/Syria border to Manchester tomorrow. Theatre director David Lan discusses what the project has achieved. Euripides’ tragedy Herakles was first performed in 416BC. The poet Anne Carson’s new translation mentions contemporary artist Anselm Kiefer, an Airstream trailer and a lawnmower. The text is torn and pasted, scattered along with drawings. Carson talks Tom Sutcliffe about her version, titled H of H Playbook.On Saturday, the National Trust held its annual general meeting where members expressed their concerns and hopes for the organisation which has been rather embattled in recent months. The art historian, Bendor Grosvenor, and the editor of The Oldie, Harry Mount, join Front Row to discuss whether the National Trust needs to pause or steam ahead with its current plans.Paul McCartney discusses Junk, a song he originally wrote for the Beatles in 1968, but which was first released on his debut solo album McCartney in 1970.

Meet the anagrammatical Orbis Rex, Queen Dido, Blind Dom’nic, as they battle a wet and withered bat from Wuhan in Front Row as Armando Iannucci, Samira Ahmed’s guest, reads from and talks about Pandemonium, his new mock-heroic epic poem written in response to the Covid pandemic and the times we live in.The sights and sounds of Liverpool are evoked as Paul remembers the 1967 Beatles single Penny Lane.In the last of our Booker Prize Book Groups, listeners put their questions to shortlisted author Maggie Shipstead, whose novel Great Circle tells the story of Marian Graves, a pioneering female pilot in the first half of the 20th century, and in a separate strand in the present, Hadley Baxter, an actress playing Marian in a Hollywood movie.Daniel Clark is one of ten young poets from around the world chosen through a Poetry Society competition to perform work that addresses the climate crisis at Cop 26. He reads, and talks about poetry as activism. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian May

Critics Michael Donkor and Jan Asante review actor Rebecca Hall’s directorial debut feature film Passing and the series Colin in Black and White, about former NFL player Colin Kaepernick.In the fifth of our Booker Prize Book Groups, listeners put their questions to author Richard Powers, shortlisted for the second time for his novel Bewilderment. He describes it as a story about the anxiety of family life on a damaged planet as well as a kind of ‘planetary romance’. Paul McCartney offers candid insight to the creation of Got to Get You into My Life, in the latest instalment of our series Inside the Songs.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Simon RichardsonPhoto: Ruth Negga as Clare Bellew and Tessa Thompson as Irene "Reenie” Redfield in the film Passing Credit: Netflix

Front Row visits Truro to report on the re-opening of the Hall for Cornwall after a 3 year, £26million refurbishment. The new 1300 auditorium complements the granite of the old building, and the Cornish landscape. And the opening show – the world premiere of the Fisherman’s Friends musical, of course.We hear from Matt Hemley, News Editor for The Stage, about the ongoing affect of Covid on theatre audiences.Paul McCartney tell us how he wrote Eleanor Rigby.And Nadifa Mohamed joins a group of Front Row listeners for our latest Booker Prize Book Group, discussing her novel The Fortune Men, about a racist miscarriage of justice in Cardiff's Tiger Bay in the 1950s.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian May

Patricia Lockwood is the latest author to join our Booker Prize Book Groups. Three listeners will ask her about No One Is Talking About This, a novel that’s been described as “ferociously original”, exploring a relationship with the online world and how it changes when an incredibly moving event happens in real life.The Science Museum has come in for criticism after choosing Adani Group, a company involved with fossil fuels, to sponsor their new energy galleries. Sir Ian Blatchford, Director and Chief Executive of the Science Museum Group explains the thinking behind the partnership. As COP approaches, what is the art world doing to become more sustainable? Chris Garrard from Culture Unstained explains why they feel oil and fossil fuel sponsorship of the arts is a problem and Kate McGarry from the Galleries Climate Coalition discusses what they’re doing to try to fix the biggest problems.And we continue our new series, Inside the Songs, in which Paul McCartney talks about his life and song-writing through the prism of ten key lyrics. Today he offers an analysis of the song, Yesterday.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Olivia Skinner

In the first instalment of our new series, Inside the Songs, Paul McCartney talks about his life and song-writing through the prism of ten key lyrics, beginning with The Beatles’ classic All My Loving.Poet Paul Muldoon discusses working with Paul McCartney on his intimate and revealing new book, The Lyrics, and explains why he sees McCartney as a great literary figure.In the latest of our Booker Prize Book Groups, a panel of our listeners talk to the author Damon Galgut about his shortlisted novel The Promise, the story of a white South African family and a promise made to Salome, the black woman who works for them.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Sarah JohnsonPhoto: Paul McCartney photographed by daughter Mary McCartney Photo credit: Mary McCartney

Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music

Producer-director Sarah Smith made her animation debut with the festive favourite, Arthur Christmas. Ten years on she’s back with Ron’s Gone Wrong, a warm-hearted romp with a robot and a critique of social media’s impact on young minds.For this week’s audio postcard, presenter and local boy Nick Ahad is in Bradford. He dons his hard hat to check out what’s happening at the famous art deco building, known as the Bradford Odeon, as it’s turned into a new cultural centre for live music. He also visits Kala Sangam, an intercultural arts centre established by two consultant doctors that provides a place for locals to try new arts and crafts and which supports local artists and arts organisations. And he meets one of those emerging local artists, playwright and actor Kamal Kaan.And how can theatre respond to a seismic event like the coronavirus pandemic, or the murder of George Floyd? Erica Whyman, Acting Artistic Director of The RSC and Roy Alexander Weise, joint Artistic Director of the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, discuss the experience of returning to their respective productions of The Winter’s Tale and The Mountaintop with fresh eyes and renewed urgency.Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu Photo: Nick Ahad at The Bradford Odeon building site Photo credit: Mark Nicholson