Front Row

Former Children's Laureate, Malorie Blackman takes a twist on Othello into the future and outer space in her new book for young adults, Chasing the Stars. She tells Kirsty why she chose sci-fi to explore contemporary issues such as immigration and prejudice.Idris Elba plays a lone wolf CIA operative in the new Paris-based thriller Bastille Day, who enlists the assistance of a reluctant American played by Richard Madden from Game of Thrones. Antonia Quirke reviews the film whose release was postponed after the Paris attacks.The Flick is a Pulitzer Prize winning play about the staff at a run-down cinema in Massachusetts. Kirsty talks to its director Sam Gold as it starts its run at the National Theatre this week.As part of our Shakespeare's People series, Simon Russell Beale chooses Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing.Presenter : Kirsty Lang Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

With Kevin Costner's new film Criminal shot in London, Mark Eccleston assesses the appeal of the capital to international film-makers.Henry Lewis, Henry Shields and Jonathan Sayer are the brains behind the hit Olivier Award-winning farce The Play That Goes Wrong. Kirsty Lang talks to the trio about their new play The Comedy About A Bank Robbery.As part of our Shakespeare's People series, Kenneth Branagh chooses the troubled King Leontes from The Winter's Tale.The multi-award-winning children's opera Laika the Spacedog from the English Touring Opera was performed across the UK and Europe in 2013 and 2014 and has now returned for a second extensive run across the UK. The show's composer Russell Hepplewhite and director Tim Yealland discuss why opera is the perfect art form for children and why children are the perfect audience.Presenter Kirsty Lang Producer Jerome Weatherald.

Peter Greenaway on Eisenstein in Guanajuato; the first in a trilogy of films about his all-time cinema idol, Sergei Eisenstein. The British director, now expatriated to Holland, describes tackling the sexual awakening of one of Russia's national heroes, how films should be led by image and not text, and why he thinks provocation in art is so important.The talk of the London Book Fair is a former management consultant who has landed a series of deals worth millions of pounds. Chloé Esposito gave up her job last summer to take a writing course and now has signed deals with publishers around the world for a trilogy of books.As part of Front Row's Shakespeare's People series, Zoe Wanamaker chooses Emilia from Othello, a maid and companion to Desdemona and the wife of Iago.The artist George Shaw, who grew up on a council estate in Coventry, is coming to the end of a two-year residency in a studio at the heart of the National Gallery in London. As he prepares for his new exhibition he explains how the collection ha

PJ Harvey releases her first album for five years this week, and it's already attracting controversy with its lyrics about a run-down area of Washington DC. Writer and critic Kate Mossman reviews the album The Hope Six Demolition Project, which she and John Wilson saw being recorded in a glass box in Somerset House last year.David Edgar pays tribute to his friend and fellow playwright Sir Arnold Wesker. David Pickard announces the programme for the 2016 BBC Proms in his first year as its Director.This is a Voice is a new exhibition at the Wellcome Collection in London which has brought together a number of works by artists who have been inspired by the voice. It examines how tone, pitch and tempo can communicate meaning and emotion so effectively that words become unnecessary. Joan La Barbara, a composer known for her explorations of "extended" vocal techniques, and Imogen Stidworthy, whose video work explores how our voice affects our sense of self, respond to the exhibition and discuss why the voice is such

The 1967 classic Disney animation, The Jungle Book, has undergone CGI treatment in a new live-action version of the Rudyard Kipling tale. Film critic Jason Solomons reviews.Lindsey Davis is best known for her widely-acclaimed detective novels set in the first-century AD Roman World. As she publishes her 30th book, The Graveyard of the Hesperides, Lindsey and her editor Oliver Johnston discuss working together on all her books since 1989.Quadriga, the bronze sculpture on top of Wellington Arch at Hyde Park Corner in London, is being cleaned, repaired and re-waxed. To find out more, Samira climbed to the top and stood alongside the work with historian Steven Brindle and conservator Katrina Redmond.As part of our Shakespeare's People series, Romola Garai chooses the nun Isabella from Measure for Measure, faced with a terrible choice.RL Stine's series of horror stories, Goosebumps, have been brought to life as the immersive theatre experience Goosebumps Alive. Director Tom Salamon discusses adapting the children'

Samira Ahmed and judge Elif Shafak reveal the shortlist for this year's Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, plus reaction from Alex Clark.As part of our Shakespeare's People series, Adrian Lester chooses the character of Othello, consumed by jealousy.A new exhibition at Tate Britain looks at British Conceptual Art in the 1960s and 70s, including Michael Craig-Martin's seminal work An Oak Tree - a glass of water on a shelf. Andrea Rose reviews.The National Theatre's Another World: Losing our Children to Islamic State is a new verbatim play created by Gillian Slovo and Nicolas Kent that explores why young people join Isis.

Helen Mirren talks about her role as a military intelligence officer in a new thriller about drone warfare, Eye in the Sky.Two new plays opened at the Royal Court Theatre in London this week: Alistair McDowall's X, set on Pluto and David Ireland's Cyprus Avenue, set in Belfast. In both locations life's certainties unravel. Ian Shuttleworth, who grew up close to Cyprus Avenue, reviews.Barrie Rutter, founder of Northern Broadsides theatre company, chooses the character of Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor, as part of our Shakespeare's People series.Jem Lester's debut novel Shtum focuses on 10-year-old Jonah who is severely autistic and told from the perspective of his struggling, alcoholic father. Jem, who has an autistic son, explains why he put his own experience in a work of fiction.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Rachel Simpson.

Dheepan, the winner of the Palme d'Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, tells the story of a former Sri Lankan Tamil fighter who flees the civil war to France with a woman and young girl he has never met. After finding work and housing in the suburbs of Pairs this fake family soon find that the violence they have run from is replaced by a new danger. Agnes Poirier reviews the film.German soprano Diana Damrau discusses her role as Lucia di Lammermoor in a controversial and bloody new production at the Royal Opera House in London.Noma Dumezweni, who is about to star as Hermione in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on stage, chooses Paulina from The Winter's Tale as part of our Shakespeare's People series.US writer Garth Greenwell's debut novel What Belongs to You is the story of a American teacher who becomes obsessed with a sex worker in Bulgaria. Garth talks to Samira about the mixture of fact and fiction in the novel, and his growing up gay in Kentucky and his advocacy of 'queer culture'.Presenter Samira Ahm

As the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art opens with exhibitions across the city, Kirsty Lang asks if it's Glasgow's industrial legacy, its history of metal work and textiles, or the very buildings and environment of the city itself that makes it such an inspiration for artists.Turner Prize winner Duncan Campbell, Muriel Gray, and the artist Claire Barclay, among others, share their views as Kirsty visits exhibitions at Tramway, GOMA, Kelvin Hall and the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum to see some of the many works in the festival reacting to the city. She meets the artist Tessa Lynch who is showing her Painter's Table at the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA), views the Tramway group show featuring artists Alexandra Birken, Sheila Hicks, Lawrence Lek, Mika Rottenberg and Amie Siegel, speaks to Claire Barclay who is installing Bright Bodies at Kelvin Hall, and Aaron Angell who has his installation The Death of Robin Hood at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Glasgow Botanic Gardens.Presenter: Kirsty Lang

Timothy Spall talks to John Wilson about his return to the stage. It's at the Old Vic but is scarcely glamorous. He's playing Davies in Pinter's The Caretaker. "He's a hobo," Spall says, "a dosser." He and John discuss the attractions and challenges of playing such as character. Catherine Tate chooses the outspoken and witty Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing, as part of our Shakespeare's People series. Writer and critic Michael Carlson reviews the TV adaptation of Stephen King's novel 11.22.63. James Franco plays a teacher who discovers a time portal that leads to October 21st, 1960 and goes on a quest to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy.As a display of twenty-two intricate paintings of Dutch Flowers goes on show at the National Gallery, curator Betsy Wieseman tells us the story of the growth of a genre, which began in the Netherlands in the early 1600s.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Jack Soper.

Exhibitionism: The Rolling Stones features over 500 items including backstage paraphernalia, costumes, video footage, and personal diaries. Music critic Kate Mossman takes a look.Hans Rosenfeldt, creator of Scandinavian crime drama The Bridge, discusses writing his first UK drama Marcella, starring Anna Friel.Arctic Monkeys singer Alex Turner has returned with his side project The Last Shadow Puppets. He joins John to talk about how his songwriting has evolved for their second album Everything You've Come To Expect.Plus Sir Ian McKellen chooses one of Shakespeare's darkest characters, the Machiavellian Richard III, for our new series Shakespeare's People.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Ella-mai Robey.

Kirsty Lang talks to Adrian Lester who stars in Undercover, the new legal thriller on BBC1 written by former barrister Peter Moffat.As part of our Shakespeare's People series, leading scholar James Shapiro chooses one of the playwright's smallest roles, the First Servant in King Lear.Hannah McGill reviews Victoria, the acclaimed new German film shot in one long take. As Radio 4's Home Front hides Shakespeare quotes in its scripts, Kirsty talks to writer Sebastian Baczkiewicz and historian Sophie Duncan, who looks at how Shakespeare's 300th anniversary was marked during World War I.Plus Eric Berlin, winner of the National Poetry Competition.

Kirsty Lang sees, Eddie the Eagle, the film starring Taron Egerton and Hugh Jackman, which tells the story of unlikely British ski-jumper, Michael Edwards. Does it take off, glide elegantly, go the distance and land safely or, like its subject so often, crash in a heap? Critic Tim Robey gives his verdict.In the second in Front Row's series Shakespeare's People, in which a famous actor, director or writer reflects on the Shakespeare character of their choice, David Tennant considers the 'sweet prince', Hamlet.Kirsty talks to the acclaimed director Jeff Nichols about his new film, Midnight Special, an intriguing paranormal road movie.The poet Alison Brackenbury's ninth collection, Skies, deals incisively with the passing of the seasons, with ageing, love and nature and, she reveals to Kirsty, the really important things in life, such as eating honey and peeling parsnips.Percussionist Evelyn Glennie has made a new piece for the Edinburgh International Festival called 'The Sounds of Science', before its world pre

Sonia Friedman is one of the most prolific and successful producers in the history of the West End and Broadway. This year she has been nominated for 20 Olivier Awards, one more than she has already won. They sit like chess pieces next to the half a dozen Tony Awards she has won, in her office above the shop at the Duke of York's Theatre. In her eyrie she talks to Kirsty Lang about risk and reward, the changing ecology of theatre, how she began producing - at the age of 3- and professionally in her early 20s. She has worked with a catalogue of great actors, directors and writers on, she thinks, about 140 productions, and we hear from three of them: Tom Stoppard, Mark Rylance and Richard Eyre. But has she, the editor of The Stage newspaper muses, perhaps become too dominant? And Sonia explains why she has supported the Good Chance Theatre in the Jungle camp in Calais.Producer: Julian MayImage: Sonia Friedman Image credit: Jason Alden.

Samira Ahmed talks to director Penny Woolcock and conductor Harry Christophers about a new version of Bach's St Matthew Passion, performed by homeless people in Manchester.Viv Groskop reviews Disney's animation, Zootropolis.Director Max Stafford-Clark on his new production of Samuel Becket's play All That Fall, in which the audience are blindfolded.And Bridget Kendall reviews Blue Eyes, the Swedish TV drama series about far-right extremists.

In 1986, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe released their first album as Pet Shop Boys.30 years on, the most successful British pop duo of all time look back over three decades of stardom and electronic dance music as they prepare for a four-night residency at the Royal Opera House in London in July, and the release of their 13th studio album, Super, this week.Presenter John Wilson Producer Jerome Weatherald.

The Royal Shakespeare Company's latest production of Hamlet sees Paapa Essiedu become the first black actor in the company's history to take on the title role. Theatre critic Susannah Clapp joins Samira Ahmed to review it. Hamlet runs until August 13th and will be in cinemas from June 8th.Culture Minister Ed Vaizey discusses his new Culture White Paper, the first for 50 years.Director Zack Snyder on his new film Batman v Superman.Electronic group Underworld have released their ninth album, Barbara Barbara We Face A Shining Future. One half of the duo Karl Hyde tells us about synaesthesia, music as architecture and whether their biggest track, Born Slippy, is an albatross round their neck.Producer: Dixi Stewart.

Glenn Close discusses reprising her role as Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Webber's hit musical Sunset Boulevard on stage at the English National Opera in London.Rowan Atkinson is the latest actor to take on the part of Inspector Jules Maigret in ITV's new adaptation of Georges Simenon's novel Maigret Sets a Trap. Crime fiction specialist Jeff Park reviews.As a series of cartoons drawn by the Sex Pistols' Johnny Rotten in the mid-1970s on the wall of a house in London's Denmark St are given listed status, Roger Bowdler, director of listings at Historic England, and Henry Scott-Irvine from the Save Denmark St campaign, assess the importance of the preservation.Sunken Cities: Egypt's Lost Worlds, the British Museum's first major show on underwater archaeology, will open in May. As the first of more than 200 discoveries found beneath the sea by the French diver and archaeologist Franck Goddio are installed, John Wilson gets an early preview. Goddio and curator Aurélia Masson-Berghoff introduce him to 'Hapi', a 5.

The A Word is a six-part drama on BBC One that portrays a family coming to terms with their son being diagnosed as autistic. Its writer Peter Bowker joins us in the studio.Four years after breaking up Steph and Greg think they might get together again. Trouble is, she's married to someone else, and he's taken up with her best friend. Kirsty talks to playwright Neil LaBute about 'Reasons to be Happy', the second in his trilogy about these characters, and to director Michael Attenborough, about staging this very American work in Britain. The death was announced yesterday of the writer Barry Hines. The poet Ian McMillan used to work in the office next door to the one he wrote in and Barry used to try dialogue out on him. McMillan tells Kirsty about the example Hines set him, and the importance of this northern writer's work, which was far from confined to Kes.Ottessa Moshfegh is a novelist from Boston whose thriller, Eileen, has had rave reviews in the US and has already been optioned by film producer Scott Rudi

As Bristol Old Vic celebrates its 250th anniversary, Jeremy Irons, Lesley Manville, Richard Eyre and artistic director Tom Morris discuss their new production of Long Day's Journey Into Night and look back over the history of the theatre.Director Alice Winocour and actor Matthias Schoenaerts talk to John Wilson about their new film Disorder, about a French Special Forces soldier coping with PTSD.Tim Robey reviews the new thriller 10 Cloverfield Lane, about a woman who wakes up in a basement following a car accident and is told by the man who claims to have saved her that the world above them is too dangerous to venture out in.Presenter John Wilson Producer Jerome Weatherald.