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Front Row: Martina Cole, Sam Lee, opening date for museums

24/02/2021

Martina Cole, Sam Lee, opening date for museums

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Martina Cole, Sam Lee, opening date for museums

Martina Cole has won the Diamond Dagger award for crime writing.

Martina Cole on a life of crime writing; Museums one of last categories to re-open; folk musician Sam Lee's latest project.

As she is awarded one of British crime writing’s top accolades, the Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger, Samira talks to crime novelist Martina Cole. Hailed as the Queen of Crime Drama, Cole has written 25 novels and sold 10 million books since records began but her work is rarely reviewed - so what’s her secret?

Under the road map unveiled by Boris Johnson on Monday public museums and galleries in England will be allowed to reopen no earlier than 17 May, along with other indoor venues such as cinemas and soft play areas, whilst commercial galleries, public libraries, community centres and gyms are allowed to open from 12 April. Sharon Heal, director of the Museums Association talks to Samira Ahmed about the impact the continued classification of museums as "indoor entertainment venues" will have on the sector and whether there might be a shift on behalf of the government.

Folk musician Sam Lee has collaborated with English Heritage on a project called Songs of England, a series of online films of sites from Stonehenge and Tintagel to Hadrian’s Wall and Whitby Abbey accompanied by traditional folksongs performed by members of Sam’s Nest Collective. He talks about the connection between music and location and sings John Barleycorn especially for Front Row. Sam also tells Samira about his fascination with the nightingale which he has turned into a compendium of ornithology, verse, legends and illustration and his plans for open-air concerts where nightingales will sing with the musicians.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed 
Producer: Timothy Prosser 
SM: John Boland

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