Front Row

Minari tells the story of a Korean family who move to a farm in Arkansas in pursuit of the American Dream. The film’s director, Lee Isaac Chung, explains how his own family story inspired events in the film, and the impact Awards nominations have on his career as a director.Pianist and musicologist Samantha Ege has launched an album of piano music from the often overlooked African-American composer, Florence Price. She discusses the revival of Price's music, and why it is important her work is remembered today.With news that Paul Simon has joined a high-profile group of singer/songwriters - including Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Stevie Nicks – who’ve recently sold the entirety of their musical output, comedian and singer Amy Webber muses on the 50 Ways to Monetize Your Back Catalogue. Professor John Mullan has been celebrating the pleasures of reading, and re-reading, the novels of Jane Austen during lockdown for Front Row. For the final novel he recommends Persuasion, with its depiction of a thwarted love, and reflects on the series.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Jerome Weatherald Studio Manager: Emma Harth

Andrew Miller, the Government’s first Disability Champion for Arts and Culture, is stepping down after three years in the post. He discusses the challenges facing disabled people in the creative industries and his hopes for the future. Jenny Sealey is Artistic Director of deaf and disabled theatre company Graeae and Robert Softley Gale is Artistic Director of Birds of Paradise, Scotland’s first touring theatre company employing disabled and non-disabled actors. They discuss the impact of the pandemic on disabled theatre makers.The London Symphony Orchestra has announced that Sir Antonio Pappano will be their next Chief Conductor, starting in September 2024. He takes over from Sir Simon Rattle who made a surprise announcement in January that he would be returning to conduct in Germany. Norman Lebrecht - author of The Maestro Myth - discusses the significance of this appointment for classical music in the UK. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Timothy ProsserMain image: Graeae Theatre Company's 2018 tribute to wounded British veterans, This is Not For You Image credit: Dawn McNamara

Novelist Nadifa Mohamed and translator Maureen Freely review the just-announced longlist for the International Booker Prize 2021.Author Joanne Harris talks to her Italian translator Laura Grandi, her collaborator of 22 years, about their special partnership.Plus writer and artist Khairani Barokka and Maureen Freely explore the question of how to choose who is the best person to translate each text, in light of the recent departure of several translators from the project of translating the work of Black US inauguration poet Amanda Gorman. Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Simon Richardson Studio Engineer: Donald MacDonald

Kevin Macdonald’s new film The Mauritanian is based on the true story of a prisoner held in Guantánamo Bay for 14 years but never charged. The French-Algerian actor Tahar Rahim, recently seen in the TV drama series The Serpent, discusses the challenges of playing Mohamedou Slahi, who was shackled, beaten and waterboarded by the US authorities.The Lip depicts a hidden Cornwall, the one we rarely see. Its author, Charlie Carroll discusses writing about the second poorest region in all of Europe and how he included mental health issues within his work.Ready for a new radio soap opera? Greenborne launched this month and this new audio drama aims to reflect the real world we live in. Ella Watts reviews.Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Oliver Jones

For our Friday Review, critics Jacqueline Springer and Sophie Harris give their verdict on two new documentaries, Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil and Tina. Both detail each of the star’s respective troubles with abuse and drug addiction while in the limelight, and our reviewers discuss their candid telling of trauma.The Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition winner was announced this Thursday in a virtual ceremony. The first prize, and the £5000 that came with it, was awarded to Marvin Thompson, a London-born poet of Jamaican heritage who now lives in mountainous south Wales. He explains what winning the prize means to him and how he explores his identity through his poetry.Dean Koontz is an extraordinarily successful author. His books have sold over 500m copies and been translated into 38 languages with many of them also being turned into screenplays. His first was published more than half a century ago in 1968 and his latest - The Other Emily – has just been published. He joins me from his home in California.Hypha Studios is a new organisation which seeks to regenerate Britain's high streets - 14 percent of whose shops are empty - and meet the needs of the thousands of artists across the UK in need of studio space. Kirsty Lang talks to its founder Camilla Cole about the process, and to its first beneficiary, artist Molly Stredwick whose temporary studio space is now a shop front in Eastbourne.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Sarah Johnson Studio Manager: Matilda MacariImage: Tina Turner in 'Tina' (2021) © Marc Gruninger

Emerald Fennell is the director and writer of Promising Young Woman, a darkly comic revenge thriller starring Carey Mulligan. The film is nominated for five Academy Awards and six BAFTAs. Emerald is also a successful actress, most recently starring as the then-Camilla Parker Bowles in The Crown as well as a cameo in the movie. We hear about what sparked the film, reactions to it and what it’s like to combine direction, writing and acting. The Humboldt Forum in Berlin is currently planning to return its entire collection of Benin bronzes to Nigeria, looted in the late 19th century in the era of European colonial expansion, and Aberdeen University has just announced it is going to be the first UK institution to return its own Benin bronze sculpture to the country. Alice Procter, author of the new book The Whole Picture: The Colonial Story of the Art in our Museums discusses the significance of these two examples of restitution.One of the most published Chinese poets in English Yang Lian, has won the inaugural Sarah Maguire Prize for Poetry in Translation along with his long time translator Brian Holton. He talks to Samira Ahmed from his home in exile in Berlin about his prize winning anthology Anniversary Snow as well as how his mother’s sudden death whilst he was being “re-educated” during China’s Cultural Revolution led to him becoming a poetPresenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian May Studio Engineer: Emma Harth

The playwright Mark Ravenhill joins us to talk about his new play Angela. It is a tender portrait of his parents; his mother, Angela, who died in 2019, and of his father, Ted. Angela had dementia and the play is about the memories that make us, and how time is more fluid than we might think. Ravenhill began Angela as a play for the stage that he was going to act - and even dance - himself. But Covid restirctions made that impossible so it became an audio play, starring Pam Ferris (Harry Potter, Call the Midwife) as Angela and Toby Jones (Detectorists, Uncle Vanya ) as Ted.Melanie Abbott joins us to update on the select committee concerning the future of UK music festivals. We also hear about a test festival that took place this weekend in The Netherlands, organised by Fieldlab.The winner of the 2021 Rathbones Folio Prize is announced today and Front Row we will have the first interview.

Orlando Bloom talks to Samira Ahmed about taking on a very different kind of role in his intense and visceral film Retaliation, and the new career challenges he’s excited about.As the delayed Liverpool Biennial gets underway – showing only online and outdoor work for the moment because of the restrictions on galleries opening – art critic and editor of The Double Negative cultural website Mike Pinnington considers how the commissioned artists have responded to the theme of ‘the body’, and how the city is preparing to re-open its doors.Best selling New Zealand writer Elizabeth Knox discusses her new novel The Absolute Book, an apocalyptic fantasy novel which explores contemporary issues including climate change through a fusion of ancient myths, other worlds and a murder mystery in a spell binding story.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Simon RichardsonImage: Retaliation (2017) Credit: Zee Studios International

Nile Rodgers – guitarist, producer, songwriter, arranger, and co-founder of Chic in the 1970s – is the subject of what claims to be the world’s first voice-interactive digital portrait, In the Room with Nile Rodgers, in association with the National Portrait Gallery. Nile Rodgers and the project's director, Sarah Coward, discuss and explain the ambitious artwork.Hannah Peel’s latest album Fir Wave is inspired by nature, and finds links between patterns in nature and in early electronic music. She explains the inspiration behind her new album, how she’s reinterpreted iconic music by the Radiophonic Workshop, and why Delia Derbyshire is such an important figure for her.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Jerome WeatheraldMain image: Nile Rodgers Image credit: Dimitri Hakke/Getty Images

Today, Griff was awarded the 2021 BRITs Rising Star prize. The 20 year old singer-songwriter joins us to discuss how she writes her lyrics including to her breakout single Black Hole, making music in lockdown and what the future holds for her now she’s won this award. Line of Duty returns to our screens this weekend. Crime writers Dreda Say Mitchell and Abir Mukherjee review Jed Mercurio’s sixth series and consider the depiction of the police in TV drama more generally.After concern that the government's post-Brexit trade deal with Europe left them out, Labour MP Harriet Harman tells us about her proposed 10 point plan to help musicians and other touring artists who want to work in the EU. Giles Terera won an Olivier Award for his performance as Aaron Burr in Hamilton. His next role will be in a play he's written himself: The Meaning of Zong is a powerful account of the notorious massacre aboard the slave ship Zong in 1781. Originally conceived for the stage, it's now been made for Radio 3 as part of the BBC Lights Up festival. Giles talks about the play and about his new song cycle, Black Matter, inspired by the last year. Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Sarah Johnson Studio Manager: Matilda Macari