Front Row - Picasso in Liverpool, Tosca in London and Tracey Thorn

With John Wilson. A major new exhibition at Tate Liverpool reveals Picasso as a political activist and post-war campaigner for peace. Richard Cork discusses the exhibition and the new light it sheds upon our understanding of the artist. Tracey Thorn dominated the pop charts in the 1990s with Everything But The Girl. She talks about her new solo album, plays live in the studio and reflects on a career which started at the age of 16 with post-punk act Marine Girls, through to her time recording with The Style Council and Massive Attack. ENO's new production of Puccini's Tosca is directed by the American soprano Catherine Malfitano, famous for playing Tosca herself in an Emmy Award-winning, real-time performance alongside Placido Domingo in Rome. Roderick Swanston reviews. Rana Dasgupta discusses his novel Solo, which recently won the 2010 Commonwealth Writers Prize . Set in Bulgaria, the story follows a blind chemist who lives alone and tries to overcome the hopelessness of his existence through dreaming.