Front Row

Geeta Pendse presents Front Row live from Nottingham in a shared broadcast with BBC Radio Nottingham.

In spite of virus restrictions, Nottingham Playhouse goes live for the first time since March this week with a season they're calling Notthingham Unlocks. We'll talk to the playwright and local James Graham about his brand new play, a lockdown romance played by TV stars Jessica Raine and Pearl Mackie. James Graham, who's known for stage and TV dramas that take on big topical issues, from Brexit to Rupert Murdoch's rise to power, will explain why the the story of a couple who meet on a perfect date and then have to decide what to do when lockdown begins, is the perfect story for now.

The live music venue Rock City is celebrating forty years of launching a thousand music careers and Nottingham relationships this year. We'll have memories right from the beginning but also from students who are finding the venue's pioneering socially distanced gigs a lifetime.

We'll talk to the Nottingham-born musician Liam Bailey who fulfilled his dream of playing at Rock City. He was signed by Amy Winehouse, supported Paloma Faith and tours with Drum and bass duo Chance and Status. But his new album Ekundayo – named for a Yoruba word meaning sorrow becomes joy – is a new departure for the singer-songwriter. It’s an album motored by stories from his own life – from his search for his absent Jamaican father to his struggles with mental health to managing to make the most of lockdown against all the odds.

And Phoebe Boswell will talk about her forthcoming exhibition - Here - at Nottingham's New Art exchange. She was born in Kenya, raised in the Arabian Gulf but now lives and works in the UK. Her work combines drawing with video, sound and digital animation but the themes are simple ones of identity and belonging. She’ll be talking about her brand new interactive work which struck an unexpected chord with lockdown-weary participants.

Presenter: Geeta Pendse

Acclaimed violinist Tasmin Little announced her retirement from the stage recently. The musician is selling her beloved violin to focus on teaching. She will perform her final UK recital at London's Royal Festival Hall tomorrow night. We talk to her about her career, why she took the decision to retire now and her plans for the future.

Covid has had a huge impact on choral singing with choirs having to cease singing in the same space and many moving online. As Derry International Choir Festival opens, online, and the Rock Choir announce a christmas single, recorded virtually, we ask how can they reimagine their role and traditions, and how might they sing together again?

Directed by Francois Ozon and adapted from the novel Dance on my Grave by English author Aidan Chambers, Summer of 85’ is a story of friendship and love between two teenage boys at a seaside resort in Normandy in the mid-1980s. When 16-year-old Alexis capsizes off the coast of Le Tréport, 18-year-old David heroically saves him. Alexis thinks he’s just met the friend of his dreams. But will the dream last more than one summer? Caspar Salmon reviews.

Presenter: Kirsty Lang

A collaboration with the Aké Festival: leading black writers and artists discuss Black Lives Matter and related issues of this year in connection to their work. With Tayari Jones, Derek Owusu, Victor Ehikhamenor and Sara-Jayne Makwala King.

The Aké Festival is the world's largest literary festival of black voices on black issues. Usually held in Lagos, Nigeria, this year it's online and free, from 22 to 25 October. See below for details.

Tayari Jones' novels include Silver Sparrow and An American Marriage, which won the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction.

Derek Owusu's novel That Reminds Me won this year's Desmond Elliot Prize. He has also published Safe: 20 Ways to be a Black Man in Britain Today.

Victor Ehikhamenor is a writer and artist who has represented Nigeria at the Venice Biennale.

Sara-Jayne Makwala King is a South African radio host and author of the autobiographical novel Killing Karoline.

Presenter: Elle Osili-Wood

Main Image: Tayari Jones Credit: Tyson Alan Horne

Nicole Kidman talks about starring in new thriller The Undoing. A therapist's life unravels after she learns that her husband might be responsible for a horrific murder. Left behind in the wake of a spreading and very public disaster and horrified by the ways in which she has failed to heed her own advice, Grace must dismantle one life and create another for her child and herself. The Undoing will be available from October 26 on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV.

Abracadabra! We find out how professional magicians have been especially badly hit by Covid 19 restrictions and social distancing.

Plus, social distancing has inspired the latest piece by the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Choreographer Will Tuckett explains how they’re using architectural costumes, projection and augmented reality to bring the ballet to life, and how they’ve achieved a live performance bringing dancers, musicians and an audience together in the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

Presenter: Kirsty Lang

Roddy Doyle talks about his latest novel, Love. In the course of one summer’s evening in Dublin, two old drinking buddies revisit the pubs and the love affairs of their youth, and talk openly about their marriages and other relationships, downing several pints of stout along the way.

Gairloch Museum in the Highlands of Scotland is one of the winners of the 2020 Art Fund Museum of the Year prize. Its curator Karen Buchanan explains how they renovated a local nuclear bunker to house the museum and how the local community helped raise the £2.4m needed for the project as well as curating the exhibitions on Gaelic culture inside.

As theatres attempt to work around the current restrictions, many are putting on outdoor performances and at the Leeds Playhouse last week, imitating the dog put on Dr Blood’s Old Travelling show, which is now touring. Nick Ahad went to see his first show since March and reports back. He’ll also discuss a nationwide project, Signal Fires, which sees theatres across Britain uniting in storytelling around the fire.

The Kronos Quartet have just released their latest album, Long Time Passing. It is a celebration of the music and life of Pete Seeger, singer, banjo player and activist. Violinist David Harrington explains why one of the most renowned classical quartets is playing If I had a Hammer and Where Have All the Flowers Gone? This is a collaboration with several other artists and we hear from one, the Ethiopian-American singer, Meklit.

Presenter Tom Sutcliffe

Anaïs Mitchell took the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice and turned it into Hadestown, which became an immensely successful musical at the National Theatre and on Broadway. Now she has written Working on a Song, a book that gets down to the nitty-gritty of writing for musical theatre, tracing the development of the songs of Hadestown from the spark of an idea to performance by a big ensemble and a full band on a huge stage.

Northern Ireland’s foremost cultural event – Belfast International Arts Festival – is in full swing. As the city is introducing strict coronavirus restrictions, its mainly online content is proving a welcome distraction. But it's also a chance for everybody around the UK to watch the highlights from their front rooms as tickets are largely free. Marie Louise Muir gives her picks of the festival from a Macbeth reboot to an operatic version of the Good Friday agreement.

Every day this week we’re hearing from one of the five winners of the 2020 Art Fund Museum of the Year. Today it’s the turn of the South London Gallery, who in the past year have doubled the size of their exhibition space by acquiring the fire station across the road. The gallery’s Director Margot Heller takes Samira on a tour.

The photographer Chris Killip produced a series of black and white photographs of the North East of England in the 70s and 80s as it de-industrialised, called In Flagrante. Images such as a boy hunched on a wall and a ship towering beside children in the street have become iconic. Fellow photographer Martin Parr joins Front Row to mark the death of someone he calls one of the key players in post-war British photography.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Main Image: Anais Mitchell. Credit: Shervin Lainez

The global bestselling author Jodi Picoult discusses her 26th novel The Book Of Two Ways. It’s the story of a hospice worker who - when her plane crashes in the opening pages -is surprised at the life that flashes before her eyes. Rather than her scientist husband and teenage daughter, she sees the life that might have been had she made different choices when she was a student. Jodi Picoult discusses life, death and Egyptology with Tom Shakespeare.

Every day this week we’re hearing from one of the five winners of the 2020 Art Fund Museum of the Year. Today it’s the turn of the Science Museum in London. The institution’s director Sir Ian Blatchford looks back over a significant year, opening two extensive new galleries and receiving more visitors than ever in its history, and then having to close down and re-think its future in light of Covid.

On Monday the recipients of the first round of the Cultural Recovery Fund grants were announced - just over 70% received something, but what then for those who didn't? James Tillit led a major restoration of the Astor Theatre in Deal just ten years ago and is now its general manager. They were not awarded a grant. He explains how catastrophic this will be for the them.

Tom is then joined by Matt Hemley of The Stage, who has been taking a look at those who did and didn't receive a grant from the Cultural Recovery Fund, and assesses what impact this will have on the arts across the country.

Presenter: Tom Shakespeare

Main image: Jodi Picoult

Hugh Laurie talks about Roadkill, a major new political drama for BBC One written by David Hare. Roadkill is a four-part fictional thriller about a self-made, forceful and charismatic politician trying to outrun his past.

Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museum is one of the winners in Art Fund’s Museum Of The Year 2020. We discover how they’ll be spending their £40,000 prize to benefit the local artistic community.

And we talk to three students currently studying arts subjects at university or college which require them to undertake in-person tuition. How has the pandemic affected their studies and what are their views on the future for their industry? Lloyd Pierce, chair of the Conservatoires UK Student Network also joins the discussion.

Presenter: Kirsty Lang

This year’s Art Fund Museum of the Year Prize will be split 5 ways rather than a winner being chosen from a shortlist. Jenny Waldman, director of Art Fund, announces the museums who will each receive £40,000. We’ll also be looking at each individual museum over the course of this week on Front Row

On the day that the government awarded Culture Recovery Fund grants totalling £257m to arts organisations, culture minister Caroline Dinenage discusses concerns being faced by the arts and entertainment sector. Stephanie Sirr, chief executive of Nottingham Playhouse which received a grant of nearly £800,000, outlines the significance of this cash boost.

Presenter: John Wilson

Alex Wheatle discusses his new novel Cane Warriors, based on the true story of a group of slaves in Jamaica who, in 1760, rose up against their white British slavemasters in a fight for the freedom of all enslaved people in the nearby plantations.

As Forest Green Rovers become the UK's first football club to appoint an Artistic Director, Robert Del Naja, founding member of Massive Attack, explains his artistic plans for the club.

Amanny Mohamed considers how the Covid pandemic has affected this week's London Film Festival and chooses her stand-out films.

Miranda July tells us about her latest film Kajillionaire, a comedy starring a family of very petty criminals scraping a living who decide to involve an outsider in a scam.

The American poet Louise Glück is the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature. While not exactly a recluse, Louise Glück rarely gives interviews, so we hear from John Mcauliffe of Carcanet Press, Glück’s British publisher for a quarter of a century, to tell us about the poet and her work.

Presenter: Kirsty Lang