Front Row

Oceania at the Royal Academy is the first ever major exhibition in the UK of art from the Pacific. It is very ambitious, showing 200 works from across that vast ocean, from Hawaii to New Zealand, New Guinea to Easter Island. It spans time, too, the earliest piece being about 500 years old, the latest completed last year. A Hawaiian writer, Vanessa Lee Miller, and a western maritime historian, Robert Blyth, assess the exhibition.As the former Britpop band Suede release their eighth studio album, songwriter and lead singer Brett Anderson and bassist Mat Osman discuss The Blue Hour and their exploration of new sounds, including Brett’s own field recordings and the spoken word, as well as working with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.How do crime writers gain knowledge of the police to inform their writing? John speaks to Peter James, author of the Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series of novels, and to crime writer Clare Mackintosh, who worked in the police force for 12 years before becoming an aut