Front Row

Actor Ruth Wilson talks about starring in Clio Barnard's new film Dark River, a powerful psychological drama about a sheep farming family in Yorkshire. She also discusses the BBC TV drama she is making about her grandfather, a novelist who she recently discovered was also a spy with several wives. A new report, commissioned by the Art Fund, has called for greater investment in museum collections as museums and galleries in Britain struggle to keep up with the international art market. Cultural policy expert and honorary fellow at University of Edinburgh, Tiffany Jenkins responds.Cal McCrystal, the physical comedy expert brought in to add laughs to the National Theatre's hit One Man, Two Guvnors and the Paddington films, is now directing the new English National Opera production of Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe and explains how he makes Gilbert and Sullivan funny to a contemporary audience.Creative Scotland, Scotland's public arts funding body, is in the firing line over its recent funding decisions, and its

Greta Gerwig recently made history as the first woman to be Oscar-nominated for her directorial debut, Lady Bird. She tells Kirsty why she wrote a coming of age drama about a confused teenage girl growing up in her own hometown of Sacramento, and why she is now keen to write a play or act on the West End stage.Writer Benjamin Markovits was shortlisted for the BBC's National Short Story Award last year. This year he is one of the judges alongside television presenter Mel Giedroyc, poet Sarah Howe, BBC Books editor Di Speirs and last year's winner KJ Orr. Benjamin Markovits discusses the significance of the award now in its 13th year.Recent episodes of BBC One's Silent Witness have drawn praise from critics and audiences especially for Liz Carr role as forensic scientist Clarissa Mullery. The disabled actress has been in the series for 5 years, but this storyline put her at the heart of the drama as well as tackling the issue of abuse of disabled residents in a care home. Silent Witness writer Tim Prager tells

The Shape of Water leads this year's Oscars race with 13 nominations. Directed by Guillermo del Toro, it's an other-worldly fairy tale about a mute cleaner (Sally Hawkins) who falls in love with an alien-like creature imprisoned at the high-security laboratory where she works. Mark Eccleston reviews. As a blockbuster exhibition of the Terracotta Warriors opens at the World Museum in Liverpool, featuring objects from the burial ground of China's First Emperor never before seen in this country, Samira is joined by Fiona Philpott, Director of Exhibitions and Mike Pitts, editor of British Archaeology magazine.Samira is joined by another Samira Ahmed, an American writer whose latest book - Love, Hate & Other Filters - is a coming of age novel about an Muslim teenager coping with Islamophobia in her small town. As the latest series gathers momentum, Louis Wise explores the television phenomenon that is RuPaul's Drag Race, the American reality show where drag queens compete against each other to win the crown, P

Musician and campaigner Bob Geldof discusses A Fanatic Heart, his feature length documentary about poet W B Yeats. He explains how he came to love the poetry of Yeats and why he considers the Nobel prize-winning poet to be one of the founders of modern Ireland.As Fifty Shades Freed, the third and final instalment of the Fifty Shades franchise is released in cinemas this week, literary critic Alex Clark and Clare Binns, director of programming and acquisitions for Picturehouse Cinemas discuss the cultural impact of the Fifty Shades phenomenon.The bandoneon is a traditional Argentinian squeezebox and a key component in tango music. Virtuoso Julian Rowlands performs on the instrument alongside the Santiago Quartet and gives Stig Abell a lesson in how to play it.Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Edwina Pitman.

Chadwick Boseman discusses taking on the role of Black Panther, the first black mainstream comic book hero, and talks about the responsibility he feels in taking on the first black lead in a superhero film. Following the release of Black Panther, critic Dreda Say Mitchell, and comic book writer, Kieron Gillen, review the film, and consider whether the time of the black superhero has finally arrived.When and how should we be introducing children to Shakespeare? Is it better to start with the stories and move onto the complexity of the language or do we miss out on something vital by not starting with the text? Purni Morell, Artistic Director of the Unicorn Theatre and Erica Whyman, Deputy artistic director of the RSC, discuss.Today is Dydd Miwsig Cymru - Welsh Music Day, which celebrates not just Welsh music, but music in Welsh. Through the programme Stig Abell samples the variety of contemporary music performed in the Welsh language today.Presenter: Stig AbellProducer: Julian May.

Playwright David Hare talks to Samira about his latest television drama Collateral, a series that begins like a police procedural but drifts into a state-of-the-nation thriller. Carey Mulligan stars as a police detective whose investigation into the shooting of a pizza delivery man has spiraling repercussions. Carmen is opera's greatest femme fatale, the sexually liberated cigarette factory worker killed by her spurned lover. Opera critic Alexandra Coghlan and opera historian Flora Willson discuss how we view Carmen in the 21st Century, as two new productions - at the Royal Opera House and in Florence - re-interpret this mythic heroine. John Burningham, author and illustrator of Mr Gumpy's Outing, and Helen Oxenbury, the illustrator of We're Going on a Bear Hunt, have been announced as the joint winners of the BookTrust Lifetime Achievement Award. Their books are family friends to many children - and adults. They talk about how they work, their distinctive styles and the secrets of their long marriage.Present

Colin Firth and Rachel Weisz on their new film The Mercy, which tells the true story of the ill-fated attempt in 1968 by the amateur sailor Donald Crowhurst to become the first person to sail solo, non-stop, around the world.Vaseem Khan discusses his latest Inspector Chopra novel, about an Indian detective with a baby elephant as his sidekick, which he has written as a Quick Read.As Irish and Northern Irish women poets campaign for greater recognition in their home country, we discuss the gender battle currently taking place in Irish literature, with campaign co-founder Mary O'Donnell, playwright Rosemary Jenkinson and novelist John Boyne. Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Timothy Prosser.

As artists back photographer Nan Goldin's call to hold arts patrons the Sackler family to account over the US opioid crisis, we discuss the ethics of funding the arts. Soul singer Mica Paris talks about her current projects exploring the life and work of legendary jazz pioneer Ella Fitzgerald, and performs live in the studio.Jim Crace has twice been shortlisted for the Man Booker prize. He talks to John about his new novel The Melody. Set in an unnamed town on the Mediterranean, its main character is a composer facing loneliness as a recent widower. The novel, Jim Crace says, has its roots in seeing child foragers on a rubbish dump in India. And to mark the centenary of some women being granted the vote in 1918 we hear the poem Suffragette written by Jan Dean. It's from the anthology Reaching the Stars which contains poems about extraordinary women and girls.Presenter : John Wilson Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Mike Bartlett, the writer of Doctor Foster and Charles III, on his new three-part TV drama Trauma, in which Adrian Lester stars as a surgeon accused of negligence by a patient's father, played by John Simm. Last week a new prize was launched for thriller novels that do not include any violence against women. Since that announcement the Staunch Book Prize has been both lauded as much needed, and criticised for being censorial. We discuss the prize with its founder Bridget Lawless and crime-writer Val McDermid. Cornelia Parker was the official artist for the 2017 election. As her resulting work goes on display in the Palace of Westminster, she discusses her approach and the challenges she faced in maintaining impartiality.Presenter Samira Ahmed Producer Jerome Weatherald.

Nicola Benedetti has co-written a new cadenza for Beethoven's Violin Concerto. As she embarks on a tour with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, she talks to Kirsty Lang about the challenges of performing this classical masterpiece. Jason Solomons reviews Winchester: The House That Ghosts Built, which stars Helen Mirren in the first horror movie of her 50 year career and is set in the real life house that the Winchester gun heiress built to keep ghosts at bay.As part of Reading Europe Radio 4 is dramatising 'The Bride and Groom' , a novel by the award-winning Russian author Alisa Ganieva. Kirsty talks to Alisa about the contrasting picture of tradition and modernity she presents of Dagestan, her homeland in the Caucasus. Grigory Ryzhakov, author of a guide to modern Russian literature, gives us an overview of what Russians are reading both in terms of literary fiction and popular novels, from crime thrillers to the classics.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Timothy Prosser.

Simple Minds, the stadium-filling band from Glasgow, have been together for 40 years. As they release Walk Between Worlds, lead singer Jim Kerr looks back on the four decades and the band perform an acoustic version of a song from the new album.Reputed to be Daniel Day-Lewis' final film before retiring from acting, Phantom Thread travels behind the doors of London's 1950s fashion houses. Film critic Catherine Bray discusses director Paul Thomas Anderson's latest project.Theatre company Told by an Idiot's latest production Napoleon Disrobed imagines a comical alternative history in which instead of dying in exile, Napoleon traverses Europe alive, well and in disguise. Director Katherine Hunter and actor Paul Hunter explain the challenges of re-writing history on stage.Writer and broadcaster Lindsay Johns argues that the South African novelist Alex La Guma is an overlooked literary colossus who should be restored to his rightful place at the centre of the literary canon.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Edwina

All day long I'd bidi-bidi-bum... Sheldon Harnick is 93 and won worldwide acclaim as the lyricist of the hugely successful Fiddler on the Roof. As a new production of Rothschild & Sons, one of his lesser-known musicals, opens in this country he talks about a lifetime of lyrics.Britain's first professor of Musical Theatre, Professor Millie Taylor, and theatre critic David Benedict discuss the evolution of the musical since the premiere of Fiddler on the Roof in 1964.The Danish Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson is best known for his large-scale installation art using natural elemental materials, such as The Weather Project, a dazzling sun in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. Nikki Bedi met him at his studio in Copenhagen to discuss his views on the cultural landscape of Denmark, artistic collaborations and breakdancing.Presenter: Nikki Bedi Producer: Rebecca Armstrong.

Last year, wunderkind playwright James Graham premiered three plays Ink, Labour of Love, and Quiz which looked respectively at the rise of the Sun newspaper, Labour party history; and the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire "coughing Major" scandal. As he begins 2018 with another premiere, The Culture: A Farce in Two Acts, he discusses turning his attention to Hull's year as City of Culture and his desire and energy to keep creating new work.The V&A's new exhibition Ocean Liners: Speed and Style explores the golden age of ocean travel through all aspects of ship design from ground-breaking engineering, architecture and interiors to the fashion and lifestyle aboard. Design critic Corrine Julius reviews.Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi on her novel Kintu - lauded as 'The Great Ugandan Novel' - which has just been published in the UK for the first time.And we speak to the winner of the 2017 Costa Book Prize, live from the ceremony. The book is chosen from the five category winners - Inside the Wave by Helen Dunmore (Poe

Former National Theatre director, Sir Nicholas Hytner on his new production of Julius Caesar, starring Ben Whishaw and David Morrissey, which offers the audience a chance to stand and be immersed in the action. Sir Nicholas talks about the staging, how contemporary politics resonates with this Shakespeare play and about his new venue the Bridge Theatre. Ruth Barnes looks at what the list of Grammy winners says about the current state of popular music.The pioneering architect Neave Brown, responsible for celebrated landmark designs in social housing, died earlier this month. Architects Joanne McCafferty and Paul Karakusevic assess Brown's legacy and his influence on social housing design today.Joe Dunthorne, who achieved great success with his debut novel Submarine whilst still in his twenties, talks to John about his third book, The Adulterants. Set in trendy East London it's about a group of thirtysomethings making life choices against a backdrop of the 2011 summer riots.

As part of Radio 4's Reading Europe season, Kirsty Lang explores Turkish literature in Istanbul, talking to leading writers including Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk.Critics Kaya Genc and Nagihan Ibn Haliloglu discuss how the Turkish literary scene compares to our own: what are the bestselling books, and how are writers dealing with the current political situation, given Turkey has imprisoned more writers recently than any other country. Orhan Pamuk on his latest novel The Red-Haired Woman (Radio 4's current Book at Bedtime), and its themes of authoritarianism and the clash between the old and new Turkeys. Since being sacked from her job as one of Turkey's most-read newspaper columnists because of her political views, Ece Temelkuran has concentrated on her career as a novelist, including writing the bestselling Women Who Blow on Knots. Burhan Sönmez, the prize-winning Kurdish writer whose latest novel Istanbul, Istanbul, inspired by his own experience of torture and imprisonment, is about four political prisoners

In 2016 Paapa Essiedu became the first black actor to play Hamlet for the RSC. As he reprises the role for a tour of the production we speak to the actor tipped to be a star, about Hamlet and his performances in television dramas Kiri and The Miniaturist. It's rare for a poetry essay to make the news headlines but that's exactly what's happened to the essay written by Rebecca Watts in the current issue of PN Review. She talks to Samira about her problem with the poetry establishment and explains why her criticism of poet Hollie McNish wasn't personal. Award-winning poet Don Paterson responds.Publisher Daniel Mallory turned debut novelist A J Finn discusses making it to the top of the best-seller charts with his psychological thriller, The Woman In The Window.On tonight's podcast, artist Grayson Perry explains why the late Mark E. Smith of the post-punk group The Fall, was one of his heroes.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Edwina Pitman.

Now just 18, cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason won the title of BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2016. His choice of repertoire ranges from Shostakovich to Bob Marley and he plays live in the studio on the release of his debut album, Inspiration.Following the announcement of the death of Ursula K. Le Guin, the Earthsea writer's literary agent Ginger Clark and fantasy novelist Vic James discuss her legacy. Charles I (1600-1649) acquired and commissioned an extensive collection of art, including works by Rubens, Van Dyck, Holbein and Titian. Jerry Brotton, author of The Sale of the Late King's Goods, assesses the new Royal Academy exhibition Charles I: King and Collector, which includes works reunited for the first time since the 17th century.As two Belfast-based arts institutions - the arts complex The MAC and the Ulster Orchestra - receive emergency funding after financial problems put them at risk, the BBC's Northern Ireland Arts Correspondent, Robbie Meredith, discusses the current state of arts funding in Northe

The nominations for the 90th Academy Awards were announced earlier today, with Guillermo del Toro's fantasy romance The Shape of Water receiving the most, including best picture.Stig Abell is joined by film critics Larushka Ivan-Zadeh, Gaylene Gould and Tim Robey to consider the winners and losers, and to assess whether the nominations reflect events of 2017 including Weinstein and #MeToo, and whether there is a better representation of BAME talent than in previous years. Presenter Stig Abell Producer Hannah Robins.

Matt Damon's new film Downsizing imagines a solution to over-population is to shrink humans to five inches tall. Director of Film for the British Council Briony Hanson reviews the film which is part midlife strife part speculative science-fiction.A choreographer for sex scenes on stage or on screen is just as important as that for a fight scene - so says movement director Ita O'Brien, who is calling on the industry to do more to protect performers in scenes involving sex or nudity. Ita O'Brien and casting agent Chris Carey discuss her proposals in the post-Weinstein, #MeToo era.Political cartoonist Martin Rowson joins John at the British Museum to meet Patricia Ferguson, curator of a display called Pots with Attitude: British Satire on Ceramics, 1760-1830 which looks at the Georgian fashion for printing satirical drawings onto pottery .And on the day the BFI re-issues of the classic British nuclear disaster film When the Wind Blows, based on the cartoon by Raymond Briggs, Ian Christie considers the film's rel

Director Richard Linklater discusses his new film Last Flag Flying, starring Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne and Steve Carell, about three former US servicemen who re-unite in 2003 for a road trip to bury the son of one of the men, killed in the Iraq War.A recent Arts Council England report into literary fiction shows that sales, advances and prices have slumped over the last 15 years with the average writer earning around £11,000 a year - less than the minimum wage. The Arts Council have responded by pledging more support for authors including possible tax breaks for small publishers. The co-editor of the online magazine Books Brunch Neil Denny, critic Alex Clark and publisher Sharmaine Lovegrove discuss the report's implications for the future of literary fiction.In a new collection Don't Call Us Dead, young American poet Danez Smith muses on their experiences as a black HIV positive and genderqueer person living in America today.Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Hannah Robins.