Front Row

Front Row marks 60 years of The Royal Court Theatre by discussing the value of new writing for the stage. In front of an audience John Wilson is joined by The Royal Court's Artistic Director Vicky Featherstone, The Guardian's theatre critic Michael Billington, and playwrights Simon Stephens, Stef Smith and Diana Nneka Atuona. Scenes from key plays are performed by David Tennant, Daniel Mays and Ami Metcalf, Ashley Zhangazha and Lisa Mcgrillis, Roy Williams, Kate Ashfield and Tom Hollander.Producer: Dixi Stewart.

Wilko Johnson, the former Dr Feelgood guitarist and songwriter, was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2013. In his new book, Don't You Leave Me Here: My Life, he takes stock of his life following an 11-hour, life-saving operation and looks forward to a future he wasn't expecting. Wilko Johnson discusses his extraordinary and unexpected change of fortune.Kenneth Branagh's latest play in his year-long season at the Garrick Theatre is Romeo and Juliet. Lily James and Richard Madden star as the eponymous lovers, with Derek Jacobi as Mercutio and Meera Syal as the Nurse. Susannah Clapp reviews.The late American artist Walter De Maria is best known for his large-scale works, including The Lightning Field, a grid of 400 stainless steel poles in the New Mexico desert, and The Vertical Earth Kilometer, a brass rod that extends 1 kilometre into the ground in the German city of Kassel. John Wilson talks to De Maria's assistant and former studio manager Elizabeth Childress and curator Kara Vander Weg about the artist's f

Four of writer Neil Gaiman's short stories have been adapted for television. Likely Stories stars the likes of Johnny Vegas, Rita Tushingham and Kenneth Cranham, and has an original score by Jarvis Cocker. Neil Gaiman talks to John about his journey from writing rock biographies to becoming a million-selling author.Earlier this year Liz Lochhead stepped down as Makar, or National Poet of Scotland, As her new play opens in Edinburgh, she discusses Thon Man Moliere, and her new collection of poetry, Fugitive Colours.Plus award-winning writer Roy Williams on his new play Soul, which tells the story of the legendary musician Marvin Gaye. Son of Reverend Marvin Gaye Snr, it was in the church where young Marvin fell in love with music. But sadly, it was the tempestuous relationship between the two men which led to Marvin being shot by his father at point-blank range on April 1st 1984.Presenter John Wilson Producer Ella-mai Robey.

Sue Johnston, best known for her TV portrayal of The Royle Family's matriarch Barbara, on reuniting with Craig Cash from the series in Rovers, a new TV comedy about lower-league football team Redbridge Rovers and their oddball set of fans.Actor Burt Kwouk, famous for playing Cato in the Pink Panther films and for his role in TV drama series Tenko, is remembered by film historian Matthew Sweet.Yayoi Kusama had the highest global exhibition attendance of any artist in 2014, and this year she was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People. Now, at 87, she has an exhibition of new work in London, featuring pumpkin sculptures and her continuing preoccupation with polka dots and finely-scalloped 'infinity net' patterns. Louisa Buck reviews.Simon Stone discusses directing The Daughter, starring Geoffrey Rush and Sam Neill. The film is a re-imagining of Ibsen's The Wild Duck and is based on Stone's own critically-acclaimed adaptation for stage.Composer Philip Venables tells Samira about his operatic ada

Russell T Davies first encountered A Midsummer Night's Dream as an 11 year old cast in the role of Bottom. Now the man who relaunched Dr Who and who has been described as the saviour of British television drama, discusses his desire to make his own production of Shakespeare's most exuberant play for TV with Kirsty Lang.Jane Austen is back on the big screen - this time based on her novella Lady Susan and adapted on film as Love and Friendship, starring Kate Beckinsale. The scheming Lady Susan Vernon dedicates herself to a hunt for a husband both for herself and her daughter Frederica, with implacable determination. Viv Groskop reviews.Rufus Norris, the artistic director of the National Theatre in London, talks about his new production of The Threepenny Opera. With a new translation by Simon Stephens, who also adapted The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, it stars Rory Kinnear as the amoral, antiheroic criminal Macheath, and Haydn Gwynne as the vengeful Mrs Peachum.On the eve of the 25th anniversar

Jack O'Connell, whose previous lead roles include Starred Up, '71 and Angelina Jolie's Unbroken, discusses his latest film in which he plays a disgruntled New Yorker with a grudge who takes George Clooney's character hostage in the financial thriller Money Monster, directed by Jodie Foster.Seeing Round Corners at Turner Contemporary in Margate explores the role of the circle in art. From sculpture to film and painting to performance, the exhibition brings together works by leading historical and contemporary artists including Leonardo da Vinci, Barbara Hepworth, JMW Turner and Anish Kapoor. Art historian and critic Richard Cork reviews.Jason Solomons rates the contenders for the Palme d'Or as the Cannes Film Festival comes to an end this week.Spymonkey's The Complete Deaths brings all of the killings in Shakespeare's works into one play. Kirsty speaks to actor Toby Park and director Tim Crouch.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Rachel Simpson.

In A Hologram For The King, Tom Hanks stars as a stressed-out executive with problems at home, trying to land an IT deal with the King of Saudi Arabia. Sue Turton, a former correspondent with Al Jazeera and Channel Four, assesses whether the film captures the realities of doing business in the region.Michael Morpurgo's book Running Wild, about a young boy's adventures lost in the Indonesian jungle, has been brought to life by Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in London. Morpurgo, the play's director Timothy Sheader, and Toby Olie - designer of many of the animal puppets - discuss the challenges of the production.Jo Brand returns as nurse Kim Wilde in Going Forward, a brand-new three-part TV comedy series that turns the spotlight on domiciliary care. It's a spin-off series of the critically acclaimed Getting On. Dreda Say Mitchell reviews.After winning the Lifetime Achievement Award at the International Opera Awards on Sunday, the German mezzo-soprano opera singer and director Brigitte Fassbaender discusses the d

Poet Ian McMillan has described his home town Barnsley as 'the filter I see everything through' and this is clear from his new book To Fold the Evening Star which gathers work from eight key collections as well as new and previously unpublished work. He talks to John Wilson about being a Yorkshire poet, politics and poetry, and getting older. As the first series of Undercover and Marcella end this week with questions left unanswered for a potential second series, we discuss how and when channels decide whether a TV drama should return for more series. Writer Kay Mellor and critic Boyd Hilton give us their insights.Black Chronicles: Photographic Portraits 1862-1948 is a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London which presents a snapshot of black lives and experiences in 19th and 20th century Britain. Curator Renée Mussai discusses the context of the exhibition which focuses on the period before the arrival of the Empire Windrush which brought the first large group of Caribbean migrants to Great

Sunken Cities: Egypt's Lost Worlds is the British Museum's first major show on underwater archaeology, and brings together more than 200 discoveries by the French diver and archaeologist Franck Goddio. It tells the tale of two cities, Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus, and the relationship between Greece and Egypt. Professor Edith Hall reviews.John Carney' s film Once won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 2007. The writer and director discusses his latest film Sing Street, about a boy growing up in Dublin during the 1980s who escapes his strained family life by starting a band to impress the mysterious girl he likes.Han Kang, winner of the 2016 Man Booker International prize, talks to John about her novel The Vegetarian. The story centres on an ordinary wife, Yeong-hye and her ordinary husband, whose lives change dramatically when Yeong-hye decides to stop eating meat.As his Hellens Music Festival prepares to open, the concert pianist Christian Blackshaw explains why less is more when it comes to interpreting t

The winner of this year's BBC Young Musician of the Year, 17-year-old cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, discusses Shostakovich and Britain's Got Talent.Bryan Singer has directed his fourth instalment of the X-Men series since he began the superhero franchise 16 years ago. We talk to him about the biblical scale of new film, X-Men: Apocalypse.As part of preparations to mark its 250th anniversary, the Royal Academy of Arts in London has commissioned the artist Yinka Shonibare to create a major new public artwork, which was unveiled today. The artist discusses his approach to creating his 71-metre-wide canvas, which features photographs from the RA's archive, as well as Shonibare's distinctive colourful textiles.On Saturday the winner of the International Dylan Thomas Prize was announced. Awarded for the best published literary work of fiction in the English language, it was won by Max Porter for Grief is the Thing with Feathers - part novella, part polyphonic fable, part essay on grief. He talks to Samira.Playwright

Francis Bacon: Invisible Rooms at Tate Liverpool is the largest exhibition of the artist's work ever staged in the north of England, featuring more than 30 paintings and a group of rarely-seen drawings and documents. Kasia Redzisz, senior curator at the gallery, shows John Wilson round the exhibition.The Pulitzer Prize-winning Pakistani American actor, screenwriter, novelist and playwright Ayad Akhtar discusses his play The Invisible Hand. Kidnapped by an Islamic militant group in Pakistan, with no-one negotiating his release, an investment banker takes matters into his own hands.Mum is a new BBC TV sitcom starring Lesley Manville and Peter Mullan about a mother who is trying to re-build her life following the death of her husband. David Butcher reviews.Jason Solomons reports from the Cannes Film Festival as it reaches the end of its first week.Presenter John Wilson Producer Jerome Weatherald.

Mark Billingham talks to Samira Ahmed about his latest novel - Die of Shame. Departing from his highly successful DI Tom Thorne novels, this book focuses on a group of recovering addicts who meet each week for their support group, that is, until one of them is murdered. Tate Britain's director, Alex Farquharson, on the Turner Prize shortlist while Rachel Campbell Johnston reviews.As the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra announce their 2016-17 season today, their newly appointed music director, Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla reveals what she believes is the secret behind the chemistry she and the orchestra immediately shared, and looks ahead to what she intends to programme in the future.And out-going BBC Diplomatic Correspondent Bridget Kendall reviews Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, starring Tina Fey, Martin Freeman and Margot Robbie. The film is based on real life reporter Kim Barker's autobiography.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Elaine Lester.

The pioneering artist and musician Laurie Anderson discusses her role as Guest Artistic Director for this year's Brighton Festival, which includes a futuristic sound and vision installation on the beach and a film and music project called Symphony for a City which premieres tonight.AL Kennedy talks about her new novel Serious Sweet, which charts a day in London as two characters, each in crisis, try to meet in the hope of salvation. Shortlisted for an Oscar in the Foreign Language Film category, Mustang follows the story of five orphaned sisters growing up in rural Turkey. After playing on the beach with some boys from their school they are imprisoned in the family home as their marriages are arranged. Hannah McGill reviews.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Angie Nehring.

The hit American series Billions starts in the UK this week and is set in the power-hungry and corrupt world of New York finance, starring Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis. Boyd Hilton Reviews.As part of our Shakespeare's People series, Hugh Bonneville chooses Malvolio from Twelfth Night.Bryan and Mary M Talbot, authors of the award-winning Dotter of Her Father's Eyes, discuss their latest graphic novel The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia.Folk musician Olivia Chaney will be performing songs by Henry Purcell this weekend at the London Festival of Baroque Music. Olivia discusses reinterpreting the composer's songs in the folk tradition.And with the Zac Efron/Seth Rogan comedy Bad Neighbours 2 in cinemas this week, Adam Smith considers how much cinema loves it when you just can't get along with the folks next door.

Lionel Shriver's latest novel, The Mandibles, is set in 2029, and also in 2047, and looks at what might happen in America should the economy completely collapse. She reveals what inspired her to tackle this subject matter.Music critic Pete Paphides reviews A Moon Shaped Pool, the new album from Radiohead and the group's first since 2011's The King of Limbs.Richard Linklater, acclaimed director of Dazed and Confused and Boyhood, on his latest offering, the nostalgic 1980s college film, Everybody Wants Some!!Painting with Light: Art and Photography from the Pre-Raphaelites to the Modern Age is a new exhibition at Tate Britain exploring how the emergence of photography influenced painters. Spanning 75 years across the Victorian and Edwardian ages, the exhibition brings together paintings from artists including Millais, Rossetti, Whistler and Sargent, and photographs by pivotal figures such as Julia Margaret Cameron.

Tom Hiddleston talks to Kirsty Lang about his new role as country singer Hank Williams in the biopic I Saw The Light. Susannah Clapp reviews A Midsummer Night's Dream, Emma Rice's first production as Artistic Director of Shakespeare's Globe.Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov, best known for his cult novel Death and the Penguin, talks about his new book The Bickford Fuse.And English Heritage celebrates the 150th anniversary of Blue Plaques.

Ewan McGregor stars in Our Kind of Traitor, based on a John Le Carré novel. The plot follows a couple on holiday in Marrakech who strike up a friendship with a Russian man who turns out to be a mafia kingpin. Ewan McGregor describes how the author visited the set and gave his blessing to play his character as a Scot.Upstart Crow sees the comedic quill of Blackadder writer Ben Elton return to the Elizabethan era. Starring David Mitchell this new BBC comedy follows William Shakespeare as he tries in vain to write some of his most famous works. Natalie Haynes reviews.Artist Katie Paterson is busy right now with work showing at The Lowry and Somerset House, and a new public artwork called Hollow, made from 10,000 tree samples from across the world, about to be unveiled at the University of Bristol. She discusses her fascination with capturing time, distance, and space. Liam Scarlett is Artist in Residence at The Royal Ballet, and his latest work is a brand new ballet based on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. He discu

Howard Brenton discusses his new play Lawrence After Arabia, which examines a little known period of TE Lawrence's life. Back in England, Lawrence wearied by his romanticised public image and disgusted with his country and himself, seeks solace and a place to hide in the home of the Bernard Shaws.Christian Bale stars as a disillusioned Hollywood writer in the new film Knight Of Cups from director Terence Malick. Film critic Kate Muir reviews.91-year-old photographer Dorothy Bohm looks back over her 75-year career at her latest exhibition Sixties London. Born in East Prussia before being sent by her father to England to escape the threat of Nazism, she then became co-founder of The Photographer's Gallery and worked alongside some of the greats, from Henri Cartier-Bresson to Bill Brandt and Don McCullin.Danish artist Olafur Eliasson is most famous for erecting a giant sun in the Tate Modern for his work The Weather Project. He talks about his new book Unspoken Spaces which has collected all his architectural wo

The artist Mona Hatoum has a major survey of her work at Tate Modern in London. It includes her early performance works, such as when she walked through Brixton after the race riots barefoot, but with heavy boots tied to her ankles. And her later large installations such as a floor of marbles; beautiful but dangerous to walk on. She describes how the political and personal has always influenced her work.Alexander Masters' first book Stuart: A Life Backwards, a biography of a homeless man, won prizes before being adapted for television and the stage. As his latest book is published, A Life Discarded - inspired by the discovery in a skip of a 148 volumes of a personal diary - the author discusses the appeal of the overlooked.Starring Harry Enfield as Prince Charles, The Windsors is a new six-part comedy soap opera that takes a weekly peek behind the curtains of Britain's most famous family. Its creators Bert Tyler-Moore and George Jeffrie discuss the challenges they set themselves.Charles Dance is the latest Sh

Capability Brown, born 300 years ago this year, changed the landscape of Georgian England.John Wilson visits Chatsworth House in Derbyshire where the Duke of Devonshire describes what it's like to live in a Brown design and Head Gardener Steve Porter explains how Brown shaped the estate.At the Royal Horticultural Society's Lindley Library Fiona Davison shows John Capability Brown's original accounts book, and Ceryl Evans, Director of the Capability Brown Festival, paints a picture of his background and influences.Garden designer Dan Pearson discusses Capability Brown's influence on him, and his impact on our appreciation of the English landscape.Performance poets Joe Cook and Aliya Denton share their poems inspired by Capability Brown, and Anisa Haghdadi from Beatfreeks explains how she's working with Warwick Castle to engage young people from diverse backgrounds with Brown's work and explore the socio-economic context of it.The Duchess of Rutland and her Estate Manager Phil Burtt describe the work they're be