Hilary Mantel, Electronic at The Design Museum, Ai Wei Wei, the future for the panto?

In the run-up to the announcement of the winner of the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction on the 9th of September, Front Row will be hearing from each of the six novelists on this year’s shortlist. We begin today with Hilary Mantel, whose novel The Mirror and the Light is the conclusion of her wildly acclaimed Thomas Cromwell series, which began with Wolf Hall in 2009.

Ai Wei Wei’s latest work has opened to the public. The Chinese-born, Europe-based artist has created a piece for London’s Imperial War Museum which takes over the entire floorspace of the atrium, depicting The History of Bombs

We heard this morning that theatres will have to wait until November to be told whey can re-open without social distancing. That will be too late to plan the lucrative pantomime season. We talk to Julian Bird of UK Theatre about what this means.

Electronic at the Design Museum. Design Museum director Tim Marlow on recreating the thumping atmosphere of a nightclub for their new exhibition about electronic music, from Kraftwerk to The Chemical Brothers