Front Row Late

This week's programme features an exclusive puppet production based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, created in confinement in Canada by acclaimed author Margaret Atwood and her sister Ruth. Plus, actress Emma Thompson reflects on mortality and exclusively reads a John Donne poem while in isolation in Scotland. Mary is also joined on a video link by writer and critic Shahidha Bari to discuss Titian's great mythological masterpieces, which are currently off-limits due to the temporary closure of the National Gallery.

As many of us are confined indoors, Mary and her guests discuss the importance of nature in art and writing. The programme also features an interview with Angel of the North sculptor Antony Gormley filmed via video link from his studio in Norfolk as well as performances by leading writers and performers.

Mary and her guests consider the effects of Covid-19 on the world of literature, asking whether isolation will lead to a post-pandemic rise in books. There is also a discussion on how writing and drama chronicled the HIV and Aids crisis of the 1980s and helped to shape public attitudes.

Mary discusses the power of poetry in a time of pandemic, with Game of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke, poet Lemn Sissay and historian David Olusoga. Plus, poetry performances from Helen Mirren and the so-called `Poet Laureate of Twitter", Brian Bilston.

Mary asks why people turn to music in times of crisis, from free concerts streamed by A-list names to benefit singles, cross-balcony singalongs and quarantine choirs. She also asks whether the spirit of sharing and caring change the way we consume music in the long term, or whether the generosity will run out if and when we 'get back to normal'.

With cultural institutions around the country closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, Mary Beard hosts interviews and discussions from her studio at home. Mary and her guests – including artistic director of the Young Vic theatre Kwame Kwei-Armah, music director of the Royal Opera Antonio Pappano and actor Juliet Stevenson - discuss the long-term effects of Covid-19 on the future of performance, and ask what culture might mean to us once the current lockdown is lifted. Featuring special performances from British Nigerian opera singer Le Gateau Chocolat and actors Emma Thompson and Greg Wise.

Mary and her guests examine the links between risk, culture and creativity. Director Lee Daniels explains why he thinks the current shutdown in Hollywood could be a radical creative opportunity for film-makers, and photographer Don McCullin questions the worth of a career spent risking his own life to alert the world to the suffering of warfare. Comedian and `guilty feminist" Deborah Frances-White joins Mary and David Spiegelhalter, Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk, to disentangle the complexities of emerging into life after lockdown, and artists Gillian Wearing and Michael Landy sign off the show with their first collaboration in more than 20 years.