Front Row Folgen

Playwright David Edgar is 70 this year. He was 20 in 1968 coming of age, in Bob Dylan's words, when 'there was music in the cafes at night and revolution in the air'. In a revolutionary move for him David Edgar is taking to the stage himself in the latest of his many theatre pieces. In his one man show, Trying it On, Edgar reflects on the political eruptions of his lifetime and his engagement with them. Why did some revolutionaries embrace Thatcherism? What has his generation achieved? Viv Albertine, author of two bestselling autobiographies, and former member of The Slits, joins literary historian Rebecca Stott, whose ground breaking memoir The Days of Rain won the Costa Biography prize this year, to discuss women's non fiction writing. Aftermath: Art in the Wake of World War One at Tate Britain marks 100 years since the end of the war, and reflects on how artists responded to the physical and psychological effects of the fighting. Co-curators Emma Chambers and Rachel Smyth consider how art changed from the middle of the war in 1916 to the 1920s and early '30s.TV Critic Emma Bullimore on the British Soap Awards which took place on Saturday. Is there a greater appetite for dark themes?

Orlando Bloom swaps Middle-earth and the high seas for a Texas trailer park in his first West End production in over a decade, Killer Joe. He talks about playing Joe Cooper, a policeman turned assassin, employed by a family at their wits end to kill their mother for a cut of her life insurance money.Is death, the 'last taboo', finally being broken down by the arts? We consider the recent glut of writing and performance about grief with Cariad Lloyd, whose podcast Griefcast, in which she talks to fellow comedians about losing someone, swept the board at the recent British Podcast Awards. Stig is also joined by writer Kim Sherwood whose debut novel Testament is about family secrets and mourning the death of a grandfather. It has been a winning week for rap as Kenrick Lamar, Stormzy and Dave are all awarded prestigious song-writing prizes. We ask whether it's about the music, or the message, the poetry or the politics? In Antony Gormley's new exhibition, Subject, at the recently redesigned Kettle's Yard in Cambridge, the artist continues his investigations into the relationships between the human body and space. Critic Richard Cork gives his response to the works, some of which are new, and others not previously exhibited in the UK.Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Julian May.

The £23m Weston Tower and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Galleries at Westminster Abbey will be opening to the public next month. Architecture critic and historian Tom Dyckhoff gives his response to these two new additions to the abbey church, the site of all royal coronations since William the Conqueror in 1066.Why are so many British writers setting their stories in the countryside at the moment? From the second series of the BBC comedy drama This Country, to plays including Barney Norris's Nightfall, Joe White's Mayfly and Simon Longman's Gundog, and novels such as Jon McGregor's Reservoir 13 and Ali Smith's Autumn, writers are turning to a new vision of 'the pastoral' for inspiration. Writer Barney Norris joins novelist Sarah Hall - who was born and raised in the Lake District - to consider whether writing about the countryside has become part of the zeitgeist again and why.Gillian Allnutt's career as a poet stretches over four decades. In 2016 she was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. The poet discusses and reads from her new collection, Wake.Presenter Samira Ahmed Producer Jerome Weatherald.