The UK government has announced that it will support the arts and culture industry - which is suffering heavy losses through the COVID-19 crisis - with a £1.57bn emergency support package. Experts in theatre and culture from the University of Warwick react.

As the Chancellor prepares to announce a package of support for workers whose jobs are at risk because of COVID19, Dr Heidi Ashton from the Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies highlights the particular challenges for people in the creative sector.

Dr Jennifer Alexander, from the Department of the History of Art at the University of Warwick comments on the fire at the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.

She says:

"French buildings are more vulnerable here than UK ones because they don't usually have a stone tower in the centre that would act as a fire-break, this is what saved York Minster in 1984 when the transept roof caught fire but the tower stopped it spreading further."

Dr Elena Giusti, Assistant Professor in Latin Literature and Language, discusses the 2018 Women's Prize for Fiction, won by Kamila Shamsie for her novel Home Fire, a reworking of Sophocles' Greek tragedy.

Nominations for the 2018 Academy Awards were announced in Los Angeles today. Dr Julie Lobalzo Wright, a film writer from the University of Warwick's Department of Film & Television studies, talks us through the most significant Oscar contenders.