Front Row

For our Friday Review, critics Jacqueline Springer and Sophie Harris give their verdict on two new documentaries, Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil and Tina. Both detail each of the star’s respective troubles with abuse and drug addiction while in the limelight, and our reviewers discuss their candid telling of trauma.

The Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition winner was announced this Thursday in a virtual ceremony. The first prize, and the £5000 that came with it, was awarded to Marvin Thompson, a London-born poet of Jamaican heritage who now lives in mountainous south Wales. He explains what winning the prize means to him and how he explores his identity through his poetry.

Dean Koontz is an extraordinarily successful author. His books have sold over 500m copies and been translated into 38 languages with many of them also being turned into screenplays. His first was published more than half a century ago in 1968 and his latest - The Other Emily – has just been published. He joins me from his home in California.

Hypha Studios is a new organisation which seeks to regenerate Britain's high streets - 14 percent of whose shops are empty - and meet the needs of the thousands of artists across the UK in need of studio space. Kirsty Lang talks to its founder Camilla Cole about the process, and to its first beneficiary, artist Molly Stredwick whose temporary studio space is now a shop front in Eastbourne.

Presenter: Kirsty Lang

Image: Tina Turner in 'Tina' (2021)

Emerald Fennell is the director and writer of Promising Young Woman, a darkly comic revenge thriller starring Carey Mulligan. The film is nominated for five Academy Awards and six BAFTAs. Emerald is also a successful actress, most recently starring as the then-Camilla Parker Bowles in The Crown as well as a cameo in the movie. We hear about what sparked the film, reactions to it and what it’s like to combine direction, writing and acting.

The Humboldt Forum in Berlin is currently planning to return its entire collection of Benin bronzes to Nigeria, looted in the late 19th century in the era of European colonial expansion, and Aberdeen University has just announced it is going to be the first UK institution to return its own Benin bronze sculpture to the country. Alice Procter, author of the new book The Whole Picture: The Colonial Story of the Art in our Museums discusses the significance of these two examples of restitution.

One of the most published Chinese poets in English Yang Lian, has won the inaugural Sarah Maguire Prize for Poetry in Translation along with his long time translator Brian Holton. He talks to Samira Ahmed from his home in exile in Berlin about his prize winning anthology Anniversary Snow as well as how his mother’s sudden death whilst he was being “re-educated” during China’s Cultural Revolution led to him becoming a poet

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

The playwright Mark Ravenhill joins us to talk about his new play Angela. It is a tender portrait of his parents; his mother, Angela, who died in 2019, and of his father, Ted. Angela had dementia and the play is about the memories that make us, and how time is more fluid than we might think. Ravenhill began Angela as a play for the stage that he was going to act - and even dance - himself. But Covid restirctions made that impossible so it became an audio play, starring Pam Ferris (Harry Potter, Call the Midwife) as Angela and Toby Jones (Detectorists, Uncle Vanya ) as Ted.

Melanie Abbott joins us to update on the select committee concerning the future of UK music festivals. We also hear about a test festival that took place this weekend in The Netherlands, organised by Fieldlab.

The winner of the 2021 Rathbones Folio Prize is announced today and Front Row we will have the first interview.

Orlando Bloom talks to Samira Ahmed about taking on a very different kind of role in his intense and visceral film Retaliation, and the new career challenges he’s excited about.

As the delayed Liverpool Biennial gets underway – showing only online and outdoor work for the moment because of the restrictions on galleries opening – art critic and editor of The Double Negative cultural website Mike Pinnington considers how the commissioned artists have responded to the theme of ‘the body’, and how the city is preparing to re-open its doors.

Best selling New Zealand writer Elizabeth Knox discusses her new novel The Absolute Book, an apocalyptic fantasy novel which explores contemporary issues including climate change through a fusion of ancient myths, other worlds and a murder mystery in a spell binding story.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Image: Retaliation (2017)

Nile Rodgers – guitarist, producer, songwriter, arranger, and co-founder of Chic in the 1970s – is the subject of what claims to be the world’s first voice-interactive digital portrait, In the Room with Nile Rodgers, in association with the National Portrait Gallery. Nile Rodgers and the project's director, Sarah Coward, discuss and explain the ambitious artwork.

Hannah Peel’s latest album Fir Wave is inspired by nature, and finds links between patterns in nature and in early electronic music. She explains the inspiration behind her new album, how she’s reinterpreted iconic music by the Radiophonic Workshop, and why Delia Derbyshire is such an important figure for her.

Presenter: John Wilson

Main image: Nile Rodgers

Today, Griff was awarded the 2021 BRITs Rising Star prize. The 20 year old singer-songwriter joins us to discuss how she writes her lyrics including to her breakout single Black Hole, making music in lockdown and what the future holds for her now she’s won this award.

Line of Duty returns to our screens this weekend. Crime writers Dreda Say Mitchell and Abir Mukherjee review Jed Mercurio’s sixth series and consider the depiction of the police in TV drama more generally.

After concern that the government's post-Brexit trade deal with Europe left them out, Labour MP Harriet Harman tells us about her proposed 10 point plan to help musicians and other touring artists who want to work in the EU.

Giles Terera won an Olivier Award for his performance as Aaron Burr in Hamilton. His next role will be in a play he's written himself: The Meaning of Zong is a powerful account of the notorious massacre aboard the slave ship Zong in 1781. Originally conceived for the stage, it's now been made for Radio 3 as part of the BBC Lights Up festival. Giles talks about the play and about his new song cycle, Black Matter, inspired by the last year.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

A year ago, the poet and former Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen was admitted to hospital with Covid-19. Against all the odds, after months in hospital, including 48 days in intensive care and in an induced coma, he returned home and has written a new collection of prose poems and words about the experience. The poet discusses Many Different Kinds of Love: A Story of Life, Death and the NHS and how the trauma affected him.

This week sees the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League. Originally released in 2017 in an edit by Joss Whedon, the film received poor reviews. A successful fan campaign, #ReleaseTheSnyderCut, has led to the release of a new version by original director Zack Snyder. But is it an improvement? Leila Latif reviews.

The Band Plays On is a new play by writer Chris Bush, taking the form of a series of monologues punctuated by live music covers of some of Sheffield’s bands and artists. Chris joins us to discuss making theatre in lockdown and her choice to mark Sheffield’s history within the play.

Presenter: Elle Osili-Wood

Director Chase Joynt joins us to talk about his film No Ordinary Man, an in-depth look at the life of musician and trans culture icon Billy Tipton. Tipton was born in Oklahoma in 1914, and with the limited resources of the 1930s, had no choice but to transition alone. Entering the heady world of jazz as a pianist and band leader, he enjoyed a long and successful career, becoming a husband and father of three adopted sons in the 1960s. He never shared his gender history with anyone and when he died in 1989, the press seized on the public outing, generating much lurid coverage and incredulity. No Ordinary Man uses a unconventional format to explore the meaning of his life and legacy from the perspective of trans artists today.

Dream is a new collaborative production by the RSC which isn’t quite like their usual work. It uses actors, stop motion techniques, graphics and interactivity familiar from gaming and puts them into a pandemic-proof online show inspired by A Midsummer Night’s Dream: a live performance in a virtual forest. Could this point the way to future developments on stage and screen? Critic Naima Khan gives her verdict.

Looking for an accompaniment to working from home? Search “lofi hiphop” on YouTube and among the hours of background music mixes and Anime pictures, you’ll find communities of students and workers from around the world congregating to listen and work together. Journalists Allegra Frank and Wil Jones explain the appeal of the channels, the music and the communities around them.

Conductor James Levine, who led New York's Metropolitan Opera for 40 years before being fired over sexual abuse allegations, has died at the age of 77.

Main image: Bandleader Billy Tipton

One year after theatres closed due to the Covid pandemic, leading figures from the industry join Front Row to look at how the past year has impacted upon theatres and the people who work in them.

Sonia Friedman reflects on this time last year, when the unthinkable happened, and looks forward to when theatres might re-open.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Inspired by the real-life story of three men in a lighthouse who mysteriously vanished, Emma Stonex’s novel The Lamplighters is part thriller, part history and part ghost story. She explains why she felt drawn to write about the sea and what we can learn from the solitary lives of lighthouse keepers.

David Fincher's film Mank leads the field in today's Oscar nominations, but who else stood out in the announcement? Film critic Larushka Ivan-Zadeh reflects on the nominations in a year when most cinemas in the world have been closed.

The film Rocks is leading the BAFTA nominations this year. Its director, Sarah Gavron, and writer, Theresa Ikoko join us to discuss casting with no script, working in a wholly female team and the film’s success.

Presenter Kirsty Lang

Main image: Kosar Ali (Sumaya), Ruby Stokes (Agnes) and Bukky Bakray (Rocks) from the film Rocks.