Front Row

Director Martin McDonagh talks about his new film The Banshees of Inisherin.The former Young People's Laureate for London, Selina Nwulu, discusses her latest collection of poems.John McDiarmid reports from The Royal National Mòd, Scotland’s festival of Gaelic culture.

Theatre producer Nica Burns talks about her brand new theatre building @sohoplace which is about to open in London’s West End.Film director Edward Berger discusses his German anti-war film All Quiet on the Western Front.Jenny Beavan has designed costumes for some of Hollywood’s most celebrated and loved films, including Mad Max: Fury Road, Gosford Park, and A Room with a View. The film that led to her winning her third Oscar, Cruella, has also led her to question the position of costume and wardrobe workers in the film industry. She joins Front Row, along with Charlotte Bence, a negotiator for Equity, the trade union for the performing arts and entertainment industries.Presenter: Kate Molleson Producer: Eliane GlaserPhoto Credit: Tim Soar and AHMM

The live ceremony for the 2022 Booker Prize for Fiction, hosted by Samira Ahmed. The winner of the £50,000 prize will be announced by the chair of judges Neil MacGregor in the presence of Her Majesty The Queen Consort, who will award the trophy. The author Elif Shafak reflects on the recent violent attack on Sir Salman Rushdie, whose novel Midnight's Children was chosen as the Booker of Bookers. And the singer songwriter Dua Lipa gives her thoughts on the power of books.Photographer credit: John WilliamsPresenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Sarah Johnson

Emily is a new film starring Emma Mackey (of Sex Education fame) as the author of Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë. Emily is as wild as the windswept moorland she lives in; her relationships with her sisters, Anne and Charlotte, her dissolute brother, Branwell, and her lover, the curate Weightman, are as raw as the relentless rain, and as tender as the flashes of sunshine. But writer and Director Frances O’Connor’s debut film is very much an imagined life. So, what will reviewers Samantha Ellis, author of a biography of Emily’s sister, Anne, and the archaeologist Mike Pitts make of it?Samantha and Mike will also review Hieroglyphs: unlocking ancient Egypt. The new exhibition at the British Museum brings together more than 240 objects, some shown for the first time, and some very famous -the Rosetta Stone, Queen Nedjmet’s Book of the Dead - to tell the story of the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Exhibitions about ancient Egypt tend to focus on the dead – mummies, Tutankhamun – this one is about how the Egyptians lived, wrote, and spoke.Lord Vaizey, former Conservative Culture Minister from 2010- 2016 has been appointed Chair of the Parthenon Project advisory panel. He joins Front Row to discuss the campaign to return the “Elgin Marbles” to Greece. Concluding Front Row's interviews with all of this year's Booker Prize shortlisted novelists is Shehan Karunatilaka. He discusses his second novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almedia, a dark satire set against the backdrop of a civil war-ravaged Sri Lanka.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Kirsty McQuireMain Image: Temple lintel of King Amenenhat III, Hawara, Egypt, 12th Dynasty, 1855 - 08 BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Front Row comes from Belfast where Steven Rainey hears about some of the highlights of this year’s Belfast International Festival.Pianist Ruth McGinley talks about her new album AURA, a collection of traditional Irish airs re-imagined for classical piano. Ruth found success at a young age after winning the piano final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition but felt burnt out by the pressure and demands of life as a concert pianist. She discusses her return to playing and the freedom she’s found in collaborating with other musicians and composers. Composer and theatre maker Conor Mitchell is known for his ground-breaking operas covering topics including the trial of Harvey Weinstein and homophobic comments from a DUP politician. His new musical, Propaganda, is set during the Berlin blockade and asks questions about the ransoming of supplies. He discusses Propaganda’s contemporary parallels and using a musical to explain political turmoil. Claire Keegan has been shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize for her novel Small Things Like These. Set in the 1980s in County Wexford, Ireland, at a time when the infamous Magdalene laundries were still operating, the book follows a coal merchant and father of five daughters who is faced with a moral choice. Presenter: Steven Rainey Producer: Olivia Skinner

Jazz saxophonist Camilla George plays live in the studio and talks about her new album Ibio-Ibio - a tribute to her Ibibio roots in Nigerian.Iranian artist Soheila Sokhanvari joins Samira to discuss Rebel Rebel, her first major work in the UK. The exhibition at the Barbican’s Curve features 27 miniature portraits of pioneering female performers who blazed a trail in cinema, music and dance before the Islamic Revolution of 1979.Elizabeth Strout is the latest of the authors shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize to be featured on Front Row. She's been shortlisted for the third novel in her series of Lucy Barton novels, Oh William! We hear an extract from her interview with Open Book about the novel. BBC Scotland's arts correspondent, Pauline McLean, reports on the financial pressures that are besieging Scotland's cultural institutions.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian MayMain image: Camilla George Photographer's credit: Daniel Adhami

Alan Garner’s 10th novel, Treacle Walker, may be one of the shortest books to make the Booker Prize shortlist but once read the slim volume which explores the nature of time weighs on the reader’s mind. Alan talks to Nick Ahad about the creation of Treacle Walker and what’s it like to be the oldest author ever to be nominated for the UK’s most celebrated literary prize.Monteverdi’s opera, Orfeo, is regarded as the first great opera and while there have been numerous productions since its premiere in 1607 none of those have attempted the approach being taken by Opera North this week. Monteverdi’s opera is being recreated through a collaboration between Indian and Western classical music traditions. The co-music directors - composer and sitarist Jasdeep Singh Degun and conductor and harpsichordist Laurence Cummings - along with the opera’s director, Anna Himali Howard, join Nick to discuss why Monteverdi’s opera provides the perfect gateway to a new form of music storytelling.When Baz Luhrmann was a young theatre and opera director he had the opportunity to assist Peter Brook on his epic production of the Mahabharata, which Brook was staging in a quarry in Australia. Luhrmann tells Nick Ahad that he didn't have much to do he did a good deal of observing, and that he learned a great deal.Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu Production Co-ordinator: Lewis ReevesMain image: Alan Garner Photographer’s credit: David Heke

Author Percival Everett talks to Tom Sutcliffe about his Booker Prize nominated novel, The Trees, which uses dark humour to explore gruesome events in Mississippi. Science Fiction writer Una McCormack and historian Prof Anthony Bale review Stephen Frears's new film The Lost King, about the real life search for the remains of Richard III and a new exhibition at the Science Museum devoted to Science Fiction.And writer Hari Kunzru on the life and work of Annie Ernaux, who has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Emma WallaceImage Credit: Photographer - Graeme Hunter, © PATHÉ PRODUCTIONS LIMITED AND BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION 2022ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Mercurial musician Björk has just released her tenth album Fossora. She discusses the experience of making the album and her interest in mushrooms.Zimbabwean author NoViolet Bulawayo has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize for the second time, this time for her second novel Glory. It recounts the political turmoil of Zimbabwe’s recent past through a cast of animal characters. NoViolet tells Samira what made her want to approach the subject in this way.To celebrate the 60th anniversary of James Bond, Samira speaks to producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson about the immense impact and legacy of the franchise.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Eliane GlaserMain image: Björk Photographer's credit: Vidar Logi

The announcement of the winners of the BBC National Short Story Award and Young Writers’ Award with Cambridge University live from the Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House in London. Joining Tom Sutcliffe to celebrate the imaginative potential of the short story are chair of judges Elizabeth Day, previous winner Ingrid Persaud, and the poet Will Harris. All the stories are available on BBC Sounds. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Sarah Johnson