Front Row

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Front Row: Tina Turner and Demi Lovato documentaries, author Dean Koontz, poet Marvin Thompson, artists on the high street

Tina Turner and Demi Lovato documentaries, author Dean Koontz, poet Marvin Thompson, artists on the high street

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Tina Turner and Demi Lovato documentaries, author Dean Koontz, poet Marvin Thompson, artists on the high street

New films about Tina Turner and Demi Lovato reviewed.

Tina Turner and Demi Lovato documentaries reviewed, best-selling novelist Dean Koontz, prizewinning poet Marvin Thompson, Hypha Studios putting artists on the high street.

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 Macari

Image: Tina Turner in 'Tina' (2021)
© Marc Gruninger

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