Front Row

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 Producer: Timothy Prosser Studio Manager: Duncan HannantMain image: Jodi Picoult Image credit: Nina Subin

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 Producer: Julian May Studio Manager: Giles Aspen

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 RowOn 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 Producer: Oliver Jones Studio Manager: Tim Heffer

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 Producer: Timothy Prosser Studio Manager: Donald McDonald

Skin - the singer, songwriter, DJ and lead vocalist of the multi-million-selling British rock band Skunk Anansie - looks back over her life in her new memoir It Takes Blood and Guts.Born to Jamaican parents, Skin - real name Deborah Dyer - grew up in Brixton in the 1970s which influenced her musical direction. The shaven-headed singer reflects on how a gay, black, working-class girl with a vision fought poverty and prejudice to write songs, produce and front her own band, headline Glastonbury, and become one of the most influential women in British rock. Presenter Tom Sutcliffe Producer Jerome Weatherald

We discuss the future of music making in the UK. We speak to Mel C, formerly Sporty Spice, about her eighth studio album, Melanie C, which reflects her new influences – as a dance music DJ, an LGBTQ+ icon and mother to a music-mad daughter. She joins John Wilson to talk about musical reinvention, putting aside her demons and how to read the dancefloor when you’re the DJ.Freelance musicians unable to work are receiving 20% of what they previously earned. Yesterday outside the Houses of Parliament and in Centenary Square in Birmingham musicians gathered and played Mars from Holst's 'The Planets' - 20% of it. John Wilson talks to the violinist, Jessie Murphy, whose idea this was. Marie-Louise Muir, who presents Radio Ulster's arts show, reports on the impact of new Covid regulations that effectively ban live music in Northern Ireland. Chancellor Rishi Sunak has spoken of ways 'for new business models to emerge' and John hears from Dominique Fraser, who has been running a successful music venue The Boileroom in Guildford for years, but is now radically changing her operation to survive, and it doesn’t involve music.We pay tribute to the US musician, Johnny Nash, who’s died at the age of eighty. He was best known for his reggae-inspired hit I Can See Clearly Now and for his record company which helped launch the career of his friend Bob Marley.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Timothy Prosser Studio Manager: Tim Heffer

We announce the winner of the 2020 BBC National Short Story Award and the Young Writers' Award on its 15th anniversary.Judges Irenosen Okojie and Jonathan Freedland discuss the merits of the entries from the shortlisted authors. In contention for the £15,000 prize are Caleb Azumah Nelson, Jan Carson, Sarah Hall, Jack Houston and Eley Williams. Writer and musician Testament performs Point Blank - a poem on writing specially commissioned to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the prize.Radio 1 presenter Katie Thistleton will announce the winner of the BBC Young Writers' Award and consider the strengths and emerging themes of the stories with fellow judge Laura Bates. The BBC National Short Story Award is presented in conjunction with Cambridge University and First Story.Later this month Front Row is running a series of Booker Prize book groups with the six shortlisted authors. To take part email frontrow@bbc.co.uk Presenter : Tom Sutcliffe Producer : Dymphna Flynn Studio Manager: Nigel Dix

The London Film Festival opens this week with Mangrove, by the Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen. It’s the first in an ambitious five-part film series looking at individual stories about the West Indian Community in London from 1968 to 1985. Anna Smith joins us to review Mangrove, the story of a notorious 1970 prosecution that exposed police harassment of Black Britons, as well as to give us her picks from this year's London Film Festival, and to discuss the news about Cineworld's announcement of the closure of its venues. Front Row gives the first modern day performance of a lost piece by the great English baroque composer Henry Purcell. The song was recently discovered by Purcell scholar Rebecca Herissone, Professor of Music at Manchester University, who explains the significance of her find. Grace Jones has had a varied and highly successful career as a model, singer/songwriter and actress, lasting more than four decades. A new exhibition Grace Before Jones at Nottingham Contemporary looks at her life and her achievements. We speak with curator Cedric Fauq.Presenter Samira Ahmed Producer Jerome WeatheraldPurcell’s O That my Grief was performed on Front Row by The English Concert Anthony Gregory – Tenor 1 Hugo Hymas – Tenor 2 Ashley Riches – Bass Kristian Bezuidenhout – Harpsichord Joseph Crouch – Cello

Radha Blank won the Directing Prize at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival for her debut film, The 40-Year-Old Version. She also wrote and stars in the movie which is inspired by her own experiences as a Black New York based playwright and rapper approaching her 40th birthday and frustrated at the lack of creative opportunities. It’s been praised as astute and funny and it’s filmed in black and white echoing many iconic New York films. She joins u to talk about the making of the movie.We talk to Chuck D, the frontman and lyricist of pioneering hip hop group Public Enemy. More than 30 years on from their debut, the group's new album 'What You Gonna Do When the Grid Goes Down?' addresses contemporary American issues, including the Coronavirus pandemic and Black Lives Matter.Novelist Lionel Shriver and journalist Michael Goldfarb make up our Friday Review Panel. They’ll be discussing two new US political dramas: The Trial of the Chicago 7, Aaron Sorkin’s film about the prosecution of Vietnam War protesters in 1969, and Sky Atlantic drama The Comey Rule, based on the memoir of the FBI boss James Comey that he wrote after being sacked by Trump, starring Brendan Gleeson as the President. This week the Governor of California declared a state of emergency in Napa, Sonoma and Shasta counties because of devastating wildfires. Dana Gioia, who was the Poet Laureate of California until last year, lives in Sonoma, on a wooded hillside, in a wooden house. He reads the piece he has written especially for Front Row about trying to live and work as a poet while the country around you is in flames and, at any moment, you might have to flee. Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Sarah Johnson Studio Manager: Matilda Macari

Graham Norton is one of the most successful entertainment presenters in British broadcasting. He has a popular Radio 2 show, is the face of the BBC's Eurovision song contest coverage and, above all, his Friday night BBC1 chat show draws the biggest names to his sofa. His shows have won him nine BAFTAs and he begins a new series on BBC1 tomorrow. His journey is a fascinating one: raised in county Cork, he went to drama school in London with the plan to be an actor, but after a start in stand up and TV comedy, including the sitcom Father Ted, it was quickly the chat show that became his natural home. More recently Norton has won recognition as a best selling novelist, always drawing on his Irish roots. His latest novel, Home Stretch, is about the consequences of a fatal car accident. The lives of the families involved are shattered and the rifts between them are felt throughout the small Irish town where they live. Connor is one of the survivors, but staying among the angry and the mourning is almost as hard as living with the shame of having been the driver. He leaves the only place he knows for another life, taking his secrets with him.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Simon RichardsonMain image: Graham Norton Image credit: Hodder & Stoughton