Front Row

John Wilson talks to Sir Trevor Nunn, as he returns to his hometown of Ipswich to direct A Midsummer Night's Dream. With this new production Nunn will have directed all of Shakespeare's 37 plays. Singer-songwriter Jake Bugg talks about his third album, On My One, and plays his new song The Love We're Hoping For live in the studio. Natasha Walter, known for her non-fiction books The New Feminism and Living Dolls, discusses her first novel, A Quiet Life, inspired by the wife of Cambridge spy Donald Maclean.

The film Tale of Tales is a fantastical interweaving of fairytales, based on a collection of stories published by the 17th Century poet Gianbattista Basile. It stars Salma Hayek, Toby Jones, Vincent Cassel and John C Riley and is directed by Matteo Garrone, who previously made Gomorrah. Larushka Ivan-Zadeh reviews.Playwright Mike Bartlett, who won Olivier Awards for his plays King Charles III and Bull, discusses his new play Wild, based on an Edward Snowden-like character who faces the consequences of leaking thousands of classified documents about US operations at home and abroad.Charlotte Mullins reviews the exhibition of drawings by 19th Century spiritualist Georgiana Houghton at the Courtauld Gallery in London. Layers of watercolours and gouache, painted, she believed, under the influence of a spirit, Houghton's work has long been neglected. Now her abstract works have been reexamined as precursors of the work of artists such as Kandinsky and Mondrian. Suburra portrays a dark and rain-soaked Rome, where m

Ashley Pharoah, writer of Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes, discusses his latest creation for BBC TV - The Living and the Dead. Set in rural Somerset in 1894, this supernatural drama follows Nathan Appleby, a reluctant gentleman farmer who is obsessed with proving the existence of the afterlife, as he investigates hauntings, paranormal happenings and ghostly visitations.Writer Sarah Crossan has won the 2016 Bookseller YA prize for her novel One. It's the story of conjoined twins, written in verse. Ros Barber's debut novel The Marlowe Papers is a fictional account of the life of Christopher Marlowe, also written in verse. They talk to Kirsty about writing novels which take the form of series of poems.Sound artist Chris Watson, who has worked alongside David Attenborough on many of his BBC nature series, discusses his new project The Town Moor - A Portrait in Sound. Over the course of a year he documented the sounds of the ancient and vast grazing common at the heart of Newcastle, and will be presenting the audi

Tate Modern opens its new £260m extension to the iconic former power station on London's South Bank on Friday. Architect Amanda Levete, who has remodelled the V&A, and the art critic Andrea Rose visit the Switch House to discuss the opportunities the new space offers for international and female artists.Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard is performing Messiaen's two-hour celebration of birdsong, Catalogue d'Oiseaux, at the Aldeburgh Festival this Sunday from dawn to dusk. We join him in front of the piano for a tour of the different bird calls in the piece and he reveals how Messiaen's personal connection to nature informed his work. Emma Cline discusses her debut novel The Girls which is tipped to be the summer bestseller. It follows teenager Evie Boyd who gets caught up in cult that will eventually lead to murder, in a narrative loosely based on the Manson murders of the '60s. As the publishers Penguin prepare to relaunch their series Modern Poets for the first time this century, Samira takes soundings on th

Wrong Crowd is Tom Odell's second album, the follow-up to his number one album Long Way Down. The singer-songwriter talks about avoiding writing about luxury hotel rooms since his success, and drawing more on childhood memories for inspiration.The structural engineer Ove Arup is the subject of a new exhibition at the V&A in London. The co-curators discuss the work of the philosopher and designer, who was responsible for the construction of a number of high-profile buildings including the Penguin Pool at London Zoo and Sydney Opera House.July marks the hundredth anniversary of the first day of the Battle of the Somme. It's an event that playwrights have often grappled with and there are three plays on stage now; Frank McGuinness's Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, Furious Folly, an immersive, outdoor piece, co-created by Mark Anderson, and First Light which tells the story through the lives of two young soldiers shot at dawn for deserting. The writers and directors explain how they app

Andy Hamilton is co-creator of Power Monkeys, a new Channel 4 comedy that responds to the daily events in the EU referendum campaign. He tells us about the last minute rewrites required on the day of broadcast and the challenge of re-creating the interior Donald Trump's plane.Two Terence Rattigan's plays have opened this week: The Deep Blue Sea starring Helen McCrory at the National Theatre in London, and Ross at the Chichester Festival Theatre with Joseph Fiennes. Henry Hitchings reviews both productions and the current Rattigan revival. Studio Ghibli, the legendary Japanese animation house behind Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle, has ceased in-house production. So is its latest film a fitting swansong? Marc Eccleston reviews When Marnie was There, an adaptation of a 1967 book by British author Joan G Robinson about a reclusive girl who discovers an otherworldly new friend. Poet Blake Morrison and composer Gavin Bryars tell us about their celebration of the train journey between Goole and Hull that wil

Frances Morris became the first female Director of Tate Modern only a few months ago, but has been instrumental in developing its collections for many years. Next week she will open a new 260 million pound extension to the iconic former power station on London's Southbank; boasting four new galleries. The new space is a great opportunity to display more international works and more female artists alongside old favourites and, she says, will make us view contemporary art in a whole new way.Sculptor Anish Kapoor on his epic set design for English National Opera's new production of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde. Embrace of the Serpent, directed by Colombian film maker Ciro Guerro, is inspired by the true stories of two European explorers who travelled through the Amazon in parallel journeys, decades apart, hunting for a mythical plant. Hannah McGill reviews.

Guy Garvey talks to John Wilson about the Meltdown festival he's curating at London's Southbank Centre, featuring Femi Kuti, Laura Marling and a Refugee special.John is joined by Lisa McInerney, the winner of this year's Bailey's Prize for Women's Fiction, live from the ceremony.Michael Crawford returns to the West End stage in The Go-Between, a new musical based on LP Hartley's classic novel. Matt Wolf reviews.And Mexican curator Pablo León de la Barra discusses the exciting new art coming out of Latin America.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Timothy Prosser.

Ben Kingsley discusses his role as a driving instructor in his new film Learning to Drive.The director and choreographer Casey Nicholaw, whose credits include The Book of Mormon, on bringing Disney's Aladdin to the West End stage.The sculptor Richard Wilson, co-ordinator of the 2016 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, discusses his selection for the world's largest open submission exhibition, and its focus this year on celebrated artistic duos.Outcast is a new TV series based on the comics by Robert Kirkman that follows a young man plagued by demonic possession. Kim Newman reviews.Presenter Samira Ahmed Producer Jerome Weatherald.

Playwright Peter Shaffer is remembered by theatre critic Michael Billington and director Thea Sharrock, who worked with him on the revival of Equus in 2007. In a rare interview, American novelist Don DeLillo talks to Samira Ahmed about his new novel Zero K which explores cryogenics, immortality and death. New Blood, is the latest series from Anthony Horowitz, creator of Foyle's War and the Alex Rider novels. In it, two junior investigators for the police and the Serious Fraud Office, Rash and Stefan, are brought together on television for the first time, linked by two seemingly unrelated cases. Beth Orton has ditched the acoustic guitar and folk songs for her new album Kidsticks which is mostly composed from electronic loops, drum machines and keyboards. She describes the freedom of creating music without any expectations.

Jimmy McGovern is a writer well-known for bringing controversial stories to our televisions with dramas like Hillsborough and Accused. He has now written Reg, a feature-length film for BBC One, which tells the true story of Reg Keys, who decided to run against Tony Blair in the 2005 election as a protest against the Iraq War. He explains why he decided to bring the tale to our screens.James Schamus has been behind some of the most successful independent films of the last 15 years including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain, Lost in Translation, Atonement and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, as a producer, screenwriter and former head of Focus Features. Now he makes his directorial debut with Indignation, based on Philip Roth's novel. While in London for the Sundance Film Festival, he came into Front Row to talk about his first directing role and the future of independent film-making.Playwright Alexi Kaye Campbell, author of the 2008 multi-award winner The Pride, has set his latest play

Nile Rodgers, Ambassador for BBC Music Day, talks to John Wilson about his decades in the music industry, from pioneering disco with Chic to creating the massive hit Get Lucky with Daft Punk.Jesse Eisenberg and Kunal Nayyar on The Spoils, a darkly comic play about roommates written by Jesse in which he stars alongside Kunal, known for TV series The Big Bang Theory.Alex Clark reviews the film Race, about the African American athlete Jesse Owens who won a record-breaking four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.A new exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery for Modern Art - Surreal Encounters: Collecting the Marvellous - throws the spotlight on four key collectors of the modern art movement. Curator Keith Hartley.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Timothy Prosser.

Versailles is the new high-budget, 10-part BBC2 drama series which is already creating controversy ahead of its first broadcast. Boyd Hilton reviews the period costume drama set in the court of Louis XIV with its themes of sex, murder and conspiracy.The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is one of five museums and galleries in the UK to make the shortlist for Museum of the Year. In the first of our reports from the shortlisted venues, the Museum's director Martin Roth explains how to choose a record-breaking exhibition like the Alexander McQueen and why the V&A is planning to expand into the Olympic Park, Dundee and China. A Jewish Italian family ends up among Mussolini's most ardent supporters in Louisa Young's new novel Devotion, the latest in her series begun by the WWI novel My Dear I Wanted To Tell You and The Heroes' Welcome. She charts the political awakening of the next generation as another war looms, and tells Kirsty Lang why she found the Italian experience so compelling. The credits to the f

Nina Stibbe's latest novel Paradise Lodge follows Lizzie Vogel as she skips school to work at a residential care home. The book draws on the author's own experience as a teenager and is the second of a trilogy of Lizzie Vogel novels. Nick Hornby's TV adaptation of Stibbe's highly successful first book Love, Nina - based on the author's time as a nanny to a literary north London family - is currently on BBC1 on Saturday nights starring Helena Bonham Carter.Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling team up in The Nice Guys, the neo-noir crime buddy comedy film directed and co-written by Shane Black in which the unlikely pair investigate the apparent suicide of a fading porn star in 1970s LA.Michael Pennington talks to Samira about his new book King Lear in Brooklyn, a combination of an analysis of the play and its characters, alongside his experiences playing the role for the first time - in Brooklyn, New York.Moby's memoir Porcelain details the electronic musician's life before he released his album Play in 1999 and beca

Singer-songwriter Charlotte Church discusses her 'musical fairy tale' which receives its premier next weekend at the inaugural Festival of Voice in Cardiff. The Last Mermaid is inspired by The Little Mermaid and tackles the challenging issues facing our world.Tracy Chevalier has just edited a collection of short stories inspired by the line, 'Reader I Married Him' from Jane Eyre. She and Lionel Shriver, who's contributed, discuss the importance of one of the most famous lines in literature.The Young Adult fiction genre has been a major growth area in publishing over the last decade and as more titles flood the market this year, 3 of the top selling YA authors, Juno Dawson, Patrick Ness, Holly Smale join John Wilson to discuss what defines this area of fiction and where it allows them to go as writers that adult fiction and children's doesn't.Welsh folk musician and BBC Wales presenter, Frank Hennessy, teams up with fellow Hennessys band mate, Iolo Jones, and Appalachian musicians Rebecca Branson Jones and Tre

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