Front Row

The actress and writer Emily Mortimer discusses her directorial debut The Pursuit of Love, her 3-part adaptation of Nancy Mitford's novel starring Lily James, Emily Beecham and Andrew Scott, which centres on two women born into privilege, trying to seize life and love with both hands but constrained by societal expectations.

Today sees the release of Rag ‘n’ Bone Man’s second album Life by Misadventure, the follow-up to 2017's Human, which was the decade's fastest-selling album by a male artist. The singer/songwriter, whose real name is Rory Graham, discusses the changes in his life, his new musical approach, and why he went to Nashville to record it.

Sarah Crompton discusses the government's new fast track visa system for the winners of elite arts prizes such as Oscars, Tonys and the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Jupiter’s Legacy drops on Netflix tonight. Based on Mark Millar’s original comics, this domestic drama looks at the family dynamic as one generation of superheroes attempts to hand over to the next, following the characters over a century, from the Wall Street Crash to today. Film critic Amon Warmann and geek culture expert Claire Lim review.

Presenter: Kirsty Lang

Don Warrington stars as the head of a family, united and divided by grief in Sian Davila’s debut play for Radio 4, Running with Lions. We speak to both Sian and Don about the play and its particular significance now.

Last Sunday, the doyenne of radio criticism, Gillian Reynolds CBE, wrote her final column for the Sunday Times. She joins Front Row to discuss a career that dates back to the late 1960s and shares her thoughts on the future of radio.

Durham-born novelist Benjamin Myers has made it his mission to explore the places and people of northern England in his fiction. He came to prominence in 2017 with The Gallows Pole, a novel about a band of 17th century Yorkshire money counterfeiters, which won the Walter Scott Prize. He talks to John about his latest release, his debut collection of short stories, Male Tears, a multifaceted exploration of what it means to be a man featuring some very brutal, troubled characters.

Presenter: John Wilson

A mother and father struggling to come to terms with their trans child are at the centre of Anna Kerrigan’s new film, Cowboys. She talks to Samira about creating a family drama set in the woodlands of Montana.

After Liverpool took part in a Covid recovery pilot scheme testing live events over the weekend - including an open-air film screening, a comedy gig and a club night - we talk to the city's Director of Culture, Claire McColgan, about how the events went and what happens next.

Sunjeev Sahota was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his last book - The Runaways and his writing attracted praise from Salman Rushdie. He discusses his new novel, China Room, which tells a dark story from family legend about his great grandmother, and interweaves it with a modern day narrator who returns to his ancestral farm in Punjab to recover from heroin addiction and to escape racism in the UK.

Main image: Sasha Knight as Joe (Left) and Steve Zahn as Troy in Cowboys

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

This year sees a number of writers we know primarily as poets or novelists releasing collections of essays - from Jeanette Winterson to Lucy Ellman and Karl Ove Knausgaard. Tom talks to two of them: Kei Miller, whose latest collection is called Things I have Withheld, and Rachel Kushner, whose new collection is called The Hard Crowd.

Dreda Say Mitchell reviews new Sky TV series, Bloods. Samson Kayo and Jane Horrocks star in this six-part comedy series as paramedic partners in the South London ambulance service. When tough-acting loner Maleek is paired with over-friendly divorcee Wendy, their partnership looks dead on arrival. But before long they’re acting as each other’s life support. An ensemble comedy, set within the fast-paced, never-ending rush of 999 call-outs, Bloods also stars Adrian Scarborough, Lucy Punch and Julian Barratt.

Writer and video games editor Jordan Erica Webber talks us through the long-awaited New Pokemon Snap. The original game came out in 1999 on the Nintendo 64. Now, its release comes after a huge wave of lockdown sales of the Nintendo Switch gaming device and as part of a new wave of games focussing on gentler storytelling, photography and the natural environment.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

The National Covid Memorial Wall on the bank of the Thames opposite the Houses of Parliament is an unofficial site of remembrance and reflection for the 150,000 or so individuals who've died from Covid.

Artists and writers consider the role and design of memorials in the 21st century, from the poppies at The Tower of London in 2014 which toured the UK, to the recent controversy of the toppling of the Edward Colston statue in Bristol, and the proposed memorial to enslaved Africans and their descendants.

Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz discusses his new statue 'April is the Cruellest Month' which has just been unveiled in Margate, which he describes as both a memorial and a monument. Anne McElvoy and historian Kate Williams consider the changing culture and significance of memorials. Oku Ekpenyon recounts her struggle to create a new memorial to slaves whose labour brought wealth to the UK, and writer Spencer Bailey considers how architects across the world have responded to recent and historic tragic events in the last four decades.

Presenter John Wilson

Adapted from Paul Theroux’s bestselling book, The Mosquito Coast follows a family on the run from the US government and seeking escape in Mexico, where they hope to build a simpler life away from American consumerist culture. Critics Tanya Motie and Kohinoor Sahota join Tom to discuss the new TV series and to share their cultural picks of the week.

Royal Blood is a 2 piece rock band from Brighton whose new album - Typhoons - looks set to top the UK charts like their previous two. They’ve toured internationally supporting Iggy Pop and Foo Fighters and played most of the big festivals including Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage. Unusually they’re a drums and bass guitar duo creating catchy funk heavy riffs Tom speaks with Mike Kerr about creativity and the pressures of rock and roll life.

As the first nightclub, under the Government’s pilot events scheme, prepares to open its doors in Liverpool this evening, Front Row talks to Andrew Miller, the Government’s first Disability Champion for Arts and Culture, who fears that people with disabilities are being left behind by the Government’s plans.

To mark the 70th anniversary of The Royal Festival Hall, former Young People's Laureate for London Theresa Lola performs her specially commissioned poem, Offerings and Exchange.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

Raoul Peck is a Haitian filmmaker whose documentary I Am Not Your Negro, based on the words of James Baldwin, was Oscar-nominated and won a Bafta in 2018. Now he has made a new documentary series in 4 parts, Exterminate All the Brutes, looking at the impact of colonialism and the development of racist ideas using a mixture of voice-over, dramatisation, animation and Hollywood movies. He talks about the making of it and why he wanted to tell both a personal and a global history.

While rug-making may be associated with an older generation, Gen Z have claimed it as their own, making 'tufting' one of the biggest arts and crafts trends on TikTok. Tufting allows artists to 'paint' with yarn, by using a hand-held machine that punches yarn into canvas. It can be used to create rugs, but also clothing and wall hangings. Here to explain the process of tufting is artist Trish Anderson from her studio in Savannah, Georgia.

To celebrate International Dance Day, Samira Ahmed speaks to photographer Camilla Greenwell, whose exhibition of dance photographs, Movement in Still Form is launched by Sadler’s Wells Digital Stage. The exhibition is presented online at Google Arts and Culture and invites audiences to see moments of the creative process where artists come together to make the dance we eventually see in performance. Greenwell’s images capture unique rehearsal moments not usually seen by the public, and she speaks about the intimacy of photographing dancers at work.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Today the shortlist for the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction is revealed. Chair of judges Bernardine Evaristo joins Front Row to talk through the chosen books and explain why they’re worth their place on the list and literary critic Alex Clark gives her reactions.

Citizen Kane has been knocked off the top spot on Rotten Tomatoes as a unfavourable review from 1941 has been found ruining its 100% critics rating. Taking its place is Paddington 2. Critic Jason Solomons digests the news.

Jamie MacDonald is a Glaswegian stand-up comedian who lost his sight in his teens due to a degenerative retinal disease. In his new Radio 4 stand-up series Jamie MacDonald: Life on the Blink, he reflects on how he used humour to move from denial to acceptance of his condition. He shares his experience of writing from personal experience, and how he made the unexpected move from banking to comedy.

Presenter: John Wilson

Main image: Bernadine Evaristo

We review new Netflix fantasy series Shadow and Bone. It's being touted as the new Game of Thrones but is it worth the hype? Children's and YA author Katherine Webber Tsang gives her verdict.

This weekend the Brighton Festival opens and will be the first UK city festival since lockdown. Last year the guest director Lemn Sissay was ready to launch the festival when Lockdown restrictions meant the whole thing had to be cancelled. This year, he’s back as guest director again with a festival themed around Care – a personal theme to Lemn who spent his childhood in care, but also one that’s acquired unique resonance over the past year – and with over 94 separate events, installations, and performances across a mixture of outdoor, indoor and online platforms.

Plus novelist Gwendoline Riley, who tells us about the process of writing her new novel My Phantoms about a mother and daughter's doomed attempts to communicate with oneanother.

And last night, 24-year-old Jonathan Gibson became the youngest ever Mastermind champion, winning with his incomparable knowledge of the songs of Flanders and Swann. He shares his passion for this pioneering comic duo, and tells us why their music deserves to be better known.

Presenter: Kirsty Lang

Violinist Nicola Benedetti is performing a new concerto by Mark Simpson, who was winner of both the BBC Young Musician of the Year (as clarinettist) and the BBC Proms/Guardian Young Composer of the Year. Commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra, Mark wrote it specifically with Nicola in mind. We speak with both of them ahead of this Thursday's premiere.

Adrian Lukis discusses his one man show, Being Mr Wickham, which imagines Mr Wickham from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice at the age of sixty. Adrian played the young Wickham in the BBC's classic 1995 adaption and is now performing his new play at the country's last remaining Regency theatre, the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds.

Leila Latif reports on the fallout from last night’s Academy Awards, in which Nomadland won Best Picture and, at the age of 83, Sir Anthony Hopkins became the oldest ever actor to win an Oscar.

And Leila reviews Intergalactic, Sky One TV's new science fiction series about a group of female convicts in space who go on the run.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Main image: Nicola Benedetti