Front Row

Rocks is the new feature film directed by Sarah Gavron with a screenplay by Theresa Ikoko and Claire Wilson. Writer Niellah Arboine reviews the film which is set in Hackney with an ensemble cast of largely non-professional actors, and it tells the story of a teenage Londoner nicknamed Rocks who takes responsibility for her little brother Emmanuel in an attempt to stop them both from being taken into care, supported by a chaotic but loving group of friends.Poet Phoebe Stuckes discusses her first collection, Platinum Blonde, which gives us a glimpse of the life of a lively young woman today. She is only 24, but Phoebe Stuckes is a seasoned poet and performer, winner of the Foyle Young Poets Award - four times - she has also been Barbican Young Poet and the Ledbury Poetry Festival’s young poet-in-residence.Troubled Blood is the title of JK Rowling’s latest novel, written under her crime writing pseudonym Robert Galbraith. And it’s generated something of a troubled reaction so far as reviewers and then social media reacted to the inclusion of a character who cross dresses. Alex Clark joins Front Row to explain.BBC National Short Story Award shortlisted author Eley Williams on her story Scrimshaw, about a women texting late at night, and how Eley was influenced by the nonsense literature of Edward Lear. Presenter Kirsty Lang Producer Simon Richardson

Twenty five years ago Bristol musician Tricky pioneered a new genre of downtempo hip-hop with his album Maxinquaye. As he releases his 14th studio album, Fall to Pieces, Tricky joins us from his Berlin studio. Live theatre returns to Northern Ireland this evening with the play Anything Can Happen: 1972 at The Playhouse in Londonderry, in which people whose lives were affected by the Troubles tell their stories. We hear from playwright Damian Gorman, cast member Susan Stanley, whose brother was killed in a bombing, and Sarah Feeney-Morrison, who has contributed a photo of her aunt, shot by an IRA sniper.Netflix's new drama this week is Ratched, the origin story of Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It stars Sarah Paulson, Cynthia Nixon, Judy Davis and Sharon Stone. Karen Krisanovich reviews.Our latest interview with an author shortlisted for the 2020 BBC National Short Story Award is Jack Houston, whose powerful story Come Down Heavy is about two people struggling on the edges of society, in a world of homelessness and drugs.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Timothy Prosser Studio Manager: Giles AspenMain image: Tricky Image credit: Erik Weiss

Nica Burns, owner of some of the biggest West End theatres, discusses her plan to re-open them in sequence from 22 October, starting with Adam Kay’s one man show This is Going to Hurt and, in November, the hit musical Six. But what about large-scale shows like Harry Potter or Everyone’s Talking About Jamie? Writer Dennis Kelly tells Samira about The Third Day, his new project starring Jude Law and Naomie Harris. It's a psychological thriller, set on an alluring and mysterious island, that's been brought to life through a collaboration between Sky Atlantic and the immersive theatre company Punchdrunk. The drama consists of six one-hour episodes for TV plus a live-streamed twelve-hour event. The Northern Irish writer Jan Carson is best known for her award-winning magic realist novels. But her new work - shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award – is an authentic slice of rural protestant life. She discusses why this community is not often written about and explains why it’s important that their voices are heard now.And in an interview with John Wilson from 2013, the designer Sir Terence Conran - who died this weekend at the age of 88 - remembers how his collaboration with the Italian/Scottish artist Eduardo Paolozzi changed the direction of his approach when he was a young student of textile design in the 1940s.Presenter Samira Ahmed Producer Jerome WeatheraldMain image above: Jude Law in The Third Day Image credit: (c) 2020 Sky UK Ltd & Home Box Office , Inc

David Tennant talks to Front Row about new ITV drama DES, in which he plays one of the most infamous serial killers in UK history, Dennis Nilsen - a civil servant who went undetected as he murdered boys and young men he met on the streets of London from 1978 to 1983.2020 is the 15th anniversary of the BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University. Tonight, with the help of judge Lucy Caldwell – who has herself been twice shortlisted for the award – Front Row announces this year’s shortlist.Critics Arifa Akbar and Leslie Felperin join Front Row to look back at the week in culture and to review The Painted Bird, a new film by Czech director/producer Václav Marhoul - an adaptation of Jerzy Kosiński's classic novel. 3 hours long, in black and white, it is the first film to feature the Interslavic language and tells the tale of a young Jewish boy who undergoes a series of harrowing, life-changing episodes in rural Eastern Europe during the Second World War. It was the Czech entry for the Best International Feature Film at the Oscars but its brutal depictions of violence have led to walkouts at festivals. Presenter: John Wilson Studio Manager: Emma Harth

Diana Rigg has died aged 82. Her breakthrough role was as Mrs Emma Peel in The Avengers, going on to have a distinguished career across film, theatre and television with roles including as a Bond Girl in Her Majesty's Secret Service, Lady Macbeth at the National Theatre and Olenna Tyrell in Game of Thrones. Charles Dance remembers the actress alongside Mark Gatiss who wrote an episode of Doctor Who for Diana especially. On the line from Beijing, Chinese pianist Lang Lang discusses his new recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, the culmination of a 20-year musical journey for the musician. One version was recorded in the studio, the other in the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, Germany, where Bach worked and is buried. Cinemas have faced huge disruption through this pandemic - closing and now re-opening, so how have film distributors managed to get their movies seen? Kirsty asks film producer Julie Baines and Hamish Moseley of the independent distributor Altitude whether the altered landscape of the cinema industry is here for good.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Hannah Robins Studio Manager: Emma Harth

Tonight the winner of the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction is announced at a special virtual ceremony – the judgement delayed because of Covid 19. We talk to the winner live on air. How has the pandemic affected what viewers expect from the major arts broadcasters? We ask Director of Sky Arts Philip Edgar-Jones, whose channel becomes free to watch on the 17th of September and to Director of BBC Arts Jonty Claypole, who has just announced an extension to the BBC’s Culture in Quarantine season bringing the best of the UK arts world to people in their homes under lockdown. Film Director Antonio Campos tells us about his Southern Gothic thriller: The Devil All The Time, which stars Robert "Batman" Pattinson and Tom "Spider-man" Holland in a bloody revenge drama adapted from the award-winning novel by Donald Ray Pollock. It's a story which follows a cast of compelling and bizarre characters from the end of World War II to the 1960s. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Julian May

Andrew Lloyd Webber told MPs today that the arts are at the "point of no return". Also speaking to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee was Rebecca Kane Burton, chief exec of LW Theatres, who joins us to discuss the crisis, and Lucy Noble, chief exec of the Royal Albert Hall. Will performing venues be saved by the government's recently announced Operation Sleeping Beauty? Andrew O’Hagan’s latest novel, Mayflies, is the story of two young friends in a small Scottish town who spend the summer of 1986 escaping from the world of their fathers and into the freedom of a magical weekend in Manchester. Thirty years after that, one calls the other with devastating news. O’Hagan talks about how the novel was inspired by the joy and sadness of a real-life friendship.A Christopher Hampton adaptation of J G Farrell’s 1978 novel The Singapore Grip starts on Sunday on ITV, starring David Morrissey, Jane Horrocks, Charles Dance and Luke Treadaway. Set in the Second World War it tells of the fortunes of a family of rich rubber planters in the months before and during the Japanese invasion of Singapore. Actor and writer Daniel York Loh reviews.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Timothy Prosser Production Co-ordinator: Lizzie Harris

The Venice Film Festival is currently underway, featuring films we’ll be seeing on our screens over the coming months. Jason Solomons is just back from the city and discusses the films to look out for and which to avoid!In light of some of the critical reaction to Christopher Nolan's new film Tenet, which found the film to be confusing and difficult to follow, we ask how much do you have to understand a work of art, be it a film, a complex poem, a piece of atonal music to enjoy enjoy it? Novelist Louise Doughty, music scholar and critic Alexandra Coghlan and film critic Jason Solomons discuss.When Benjamin Grosvenor first played at The Proms in 2011, he was just 19 and the youngest musician to give a solo recital. On Wednesday he’ll be back at London’s Royal Albert Hall performing Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto #1 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra but under Covid 19 restrictions – a socially distanced orchestra and without an audience. Benjamin talks to Front Row about taking a break from the piano under lockdown, setting up his own music festival in Bromley, South London, Shostakovich and the thrill of playing live. Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Simon Richardson Studio Manager: Giles Aspen

The much-loved story of the Chinese warrior Mulan is the latest Disney animation to get a live-action remake. Its less a direct remake of the 1998 original and more a retelling of the Chinese folk legend of Hua Mulan with an all-Asian cast. There have been changes - no cute animated dragon or songs - are we going to love it as much? Find out with critic Gavia Baker Whitelaw.Lorna Sage was a much admired literary critic but it was her memoir Bad Blood that made her a household name. Bad Blood examines Lorna’s childhood and adolescence in a small Welsh border town and is an exploration of thwarted desires, marital disappointment and the search for freedom from the limits and smallness of family life. The critic Frances Wilson has written an introduction to the twentieth anniversary edition and discusses the legacy of what is one of the most critically acclaimed memoirs ever written - vividly bringing to life Lorna’s dissolute but charismatic vicar grandfather, her embittered grandmother and her domestically inept mother. Hull’s annual Freedom Festival begins this weekend. Its an event rooted in the legacy of the Hull-born anti-slavery activist William Wilberforce and usually brings thousands onto the streets to celebrate. This year due to Covid 19, its moving online, but its keeping its strong commitment to “art that helps build a stronger and fairer society”, fuelled by current affairs from Black Lives Matter to the virus itself. But if artists have a political aim, does that affect the quality of the art? Should Art be valued for its political engagement even if we don’t rate the artwork itself? We'll be debating these questions with the director of the Design Museum Tim Marlow, Jazz saxophonist Soweto Kinch and artist Davina Drummond, part of the duo Yara and Davina.Across the country independent music venues are in serious crisis. They’re having to keep their doors closed - in spite of a cash injection of £3.36m from the government’s Cultural Recovery Fund - because they simply don’t have the room to operate within social distancing guidelines. Passport: Back to Our Roots is a campaign that aims to raise money for these stricken venues by asking some of the UK’s biggest bands to commit to playing small local gigs. All fans have to do is make a minimum £5 donation to be entered into a prize draw to see these artists, should the gigs go ahead. We find out more from Ash drummer Rick McMurray and campaign co-founder Sally Cook.Presenter Katie Popperwell Producer Olive Clancy

As major City firms and the likes of Facebook and Google allow their employees to work from home for the foreseeable future, does it herald the end of the office as we know it? And what does it mean for culture? From Working Girl to The Office, The Bell Jar to Joshua Ferris’s Then We Came To An End, the office has provided rich inspiration for the arts. We discuss the history of the office in culture and contemplate what comes next with writer Jonathan Lee and film and TV critic Hannah McGill.The Orwell Prize-winning writer and teacher Kate Clanchy has spent years with young people helping them to become poets. Some of her students are from migrant or refugee families and have brought with them rich poetic traditions; some from home backgrounds that haven’t traditionally seen poetry as a world open to them. Now she has written a book, How to Grow Your Own Poem, which details the way that she uses existing poems and her students’ lived experience to teach – a method that she believes anyone can follow to write their own poem.The start of September would always be a busy time for new books, jostling for attention in the run up to the lucrative Christmas buying period. But lockdown saw many publishers freeze releases from March onwards. And today the floodgates were opened meaning the launch of an unprecedented 590 hardbacks, 28% up on last year. To explore what this means for writers, publishers and consumers Samira is joined by Thea Lenarduzzi, commissioning editor at the Times Literary Supplement, and Kit Caless co-founder and editor at independent publisher Influx Press.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Studio producer: Hilary Dunn