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Front Row: Organist Anna Lapwood, The Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist, Gangs of London

21/04/2020

Organist Anna Lapwood, The Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist, Gangs of London

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Organist Anna Lapwood, The Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist, Gangs of London

Organist Anna Lapwood performs, and we announce The Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist.

Organist Anna Lapwood performs in her living room; The Women’s Prize for Fiction  - we announce the shortlist; and Gangs of London - John speaks to creator Gareth Evans.

Organist Anna Lapwood, who is Director of Music at Pembroke College Cambridge, performs a Bach chorale prelude, live on the new organ she has installed in her living room. She talks about her virtual Bach-a-thon, for which musicians post videos of themselves playing Bach, and her new role as conductor of the NHS Chorus-19 - a virtual choir of over 700 NHS staff across the UK. 

Front Row announces the shortlist for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2020, and critics Alex Clark and Sarah Shaffi comment on the six novels that made it through from the longlist of 16. 

Gareth Evans, co-creator of the new Sky drama series Gangs of London, discusses how video games and his background in martial arts films influenced the look and feel of his story of a city being torn apart by the turbulent power struggles of the international gangs that control it.

And the curlew. There are eight species of curlew. Or there were. Neither the Eskimo and the Slender-Billed curlew has been seen for decades. Out of the remaining six species, three are at risk of extinction. To draw attention to their plight, 21April has been designated World Curlew Day. These beautiful waders, with their elegant curved bills and haunting song, have long inspired musician and poets. The poet Jeremy Hooker lived in an area of rural Wales mid Wales. Every year the curlews came and he tried to capture them and their calls in language. We hear his poem, Curlew.   

Presenter: John Wilson
Producer: Julian May
Studio Manager: John Boland

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