Front Row

Tuyen Do has acted at the Royal Court and the National Theatre and now sh'e written a play. Not only is it her first drama, it’s the first by British-Vietnamese writer to have a full professional production in the UK. Summer Rolls is a family saga that centres on Mai, whose parents have escaped war-torn Vietnam, but carry psychological wounds. They are anxious not just for their children to succeed, but that their daughter in particular should not stray from Vietnamese culture and language. But Mai is young, inquisitive and growing up in multicultural Britain. She yearns for the freedom her parents fled to the UK for but which they won’t allow her. Tuyen Do talks to Kirsty Lang about dramatizing dual identity, and the importance of telling such stories.

The first retrospective in Britain of the American artist Cindy Sherman opens at the National Portrait Gallery this week, spanning her 40 year career. Best known for her fictionalised photographic self-portraits, Sherman manipulates her own appearance and imagery derived from film, advertising and fashion in her work. Critic Andrea Rose reviews.

This week marks the 50th anniversary since the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York, a key moment in the birth of the gay rights movement. Each night this week Front Row is reflecting on the best examples of queer fiction since then, one night for each decade. Tonight is the turn of the 1980s and our guide to the decade is the novelist VG Lee.

It's a decade today since Micheal Jackson died. Even in death his career has been stunningly successful - in the past 10 years his estate has made $2.4bn. We consider his continuing success and ask whether it's ever going to end

Presenter: Kirsty Lang

The 2019 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition has been won by the Ukrainian baritone Andrei Kymach. The week-long competition held every two years is one of the most significant competitions in the classical calendar and has helped make stars of many participants since its inception in 1983. We hear from this year's winner Andrei Kymach and from music critic Anna Picard.

This week marks the 50th anniversary since the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York, a key moment in the birth of the gay rights movement. Each night this week Front Row will be reflecting on the best examples of queer fiction since then, one night for each decade. We begin with the 1970s and our guide to the decade is poet and critic Gregory Woods.

As we head into the final weeks of this year's prestigious Art Fund Museum of the Year competition, Front Row looks at the five shortlisted institutions vying for the top prize of £100,000. Today it’s the turn of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, whose director Dr Laura Van Broekhoven explains why she believes the Pitt Rivers would be a worthy winner.

Plus novelist Celia Brayfield joins Stig to discuss the work of writer Judith Krantz whose glamorous romantic novels have sold over 85 million copies worldwide.

Presenter : Stig Abell

Richard Curtis talks to John Wilson about The Beatles, the rom-com and time itself. He's written Yesterday, a musical fantasy comedy directed by Danny Boyle in which a musician, after an accident, finds himself in another world. Here he is the only person who remembers The Beatles, a fact he turns to his advantage. He takes the credit and becomes famous for writing and performing their songs. Himesh Patel stars as the singer and Lily James, Kate McKinnon, and Ed Sheeran also appear.

Several writers and commentators have now withdrawn from the Bradford Literature Festival because of the funding of a pre-festival programme by Building a Stronger Britain Together, a Home Office counter extremism programme. Front Row hears from one of them, Hussein Kesvani, author of Follow Me, Akhi : the Online World of British Muslims, and discusses the reasons for the withdrawals.

It's the summer solstice and Radio 4 has been celebrating with new poems throughout the day. In Front Row Mona Arshi reads her specially written midsummer song. She talks, too, about her new collection, Dear Big Gods, in which she explores both the intimacies of ordinariness and the collective experience of myth.

Presenter: John Wilson

Ben Platt has been acting or singing for most of his life, and after winning critical acclaim, and a Tony for the title role in Dear Evan Hansen, and also for playing the loveable, if quirky, Benji, in Pitch Perfect, he’s now shed his characters and written his debut album, very much from the heart. He tells Shahidha why he felt compelled to write an autobiographical album and why it was important not to hetero-wash it.

American artist Lee Krasner was a true innovator working with bold colours in an abstract expressionist style from the 1940s onwards. She struggled to find recognition in her own lifetime, working mainly in the shadow of her husband Jackson Pollock. As the Barbican in London holds a huge retrospective of Krasner’s work, Shahidha asks the artist’s biographer and friend Gail Levin and art critic Jacky Klein how far this exhibition goes to give Krasner the recognition she deserves.

Shahidha visits Hoxton Hall, a beautiful old music hall in East London to talk to the makers of Chasing Rainbows, a new play about a pioneering black, female astronaut. It’s fictional but inspired by a real space engineer and in it, Oneness Sankara explores the impact of the astronaut's determination to fly in space on her daughter. Donna Berlin, who plays the spacewoman, spends the performance recreating weightlessness. Shahidha finds out how this is done, talking to the actors, director, writer and an aerialist.

Presenter: Shahidha Bari

Producer Mark Ronson releases his fifth studio album ‘Late Night Feelings’ which features female singers from an eclectic range of pop music including Miley Cyrus and Alicia Keys. A ‘breakup album’ consisting of songs charting the disintegration of a relationship, Mark talks about how collaboration works on such personal material.

In the past weeks, both the National Portrait Gallery and the Royal Opera House have faced protests from climate campaigners over BP sponsorship, and more look set for the summer months. Author and academic Tiffany Jenkins and Chris Garrard co-founder of campaigning organisation Culture Unstained discuss the ethics of arts sponsorship.

Toy Story 4 sees Woody, Buzz Lightyear and the rest of the gang back and heading off on a road trip with Bonnie and a new toy named Forky. Front Row talks to Josh Cooley about directing the latest episode in the mega-franchise, the fourth instalment that some argue is a risky post-script to a hugely successful trilogy.

Presenter: John Wilson

The CILIP Carnegie Medal, and CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal are the most prestigious prizes for literature for children and young people. Both winners were announced today and are on tonight's Front Row. Elizabeth Acevedo’s Carnegie-winning novel tells the story of Xiomara, a Dominican-American girl growing up modern-day Harlem. Elizabeth explains why she chose to unfold the story of The Poet X in a long series of short lyrics. The Lost Words, for which illustrator Jackie Morris has won the Kate Greenaway Medal, is also a poetry book. It's her collaboration with writer Robert Macfarlane, inspired by the words left out of a new children’s dictionary, words such as bluebell and acorn. Jackie tells Stig how she approached illustrating the poems with three very different images, but of the same subject.

As we head into the final weeks of this year’s prestigious Art Fund Museum of the Year competition, Front Row begins looking at the five shortlisted institutions vying for the top prize of £100,000. Today it’s the turn of Nottingham Contemporary, and its director Sam Thorne joins Stig to explain why he believes Nottingham Contemporary would be a worthy winner.

It was the success of the Yorkshire-born sculptors Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth that contributed to the UK’s largest county becoming the pre-eminent destination for sculpture. As the opening of the inaugural Yorkshire Sculpture International draws near, Andrew Bonacina, chief curator at The Hepworth Wakefield, and Jan Dalley, arts editor of the Financial Times, discuss how sculpture has evolved since the heyday of Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore.

Presenter: Stig Abell

Joseph O’Connor, whose book Star of the Sea was critically acclaimed and a global bestseller, talks about his latest novel Shadowplay. Taking the well-known presumption that Bram Stoker based the character of Dracula on the Shakespearean actor Henry Irving, Shadowplay is about the close collaboration and intense friendship between Stoker, Irving and his famous acting partner Ellen Terry.

Portuguese-born artist Dame Paula Rego's work across paint, pastel, etching and fabric is often based on children's folktales. But the animals and people that populate her work convey tough political messages. A new exhibition at the recently extended and remodelled MK gallery in Milton Keynes offers an edited retrospective of the 84 year old artist's substantial body of work. Art critic Louisa Buck reviews.

Pauline Kael was a film critic renowned for her personal writing style that combined scathing wit and passion. In the week she would have turned 100, film critics Tim Robey and Gavia Baker Whitelaw consider her work, what makes a perfect review and the role of the critic in the digital age.

Presenter: John Wilson

Tracy K. Smith has just completed her time as the Poet Laureate of the United States and published Eternity, her selected poems. For Front Row she reads poems reflecting the variety of her work: the story of a clandestine border crossing; a poem linking David Bowie with the cosmos; another that she did not write so much as discover, a letter to Abraham Lincoln from a mother appealing for the release of her son from the Union army in the American Civil War.

Political commentator Helen Lewis joins Front Row to look at what the Tory leadership election might mean for the arts, considering the arts track records of the remaining candidates and exploring the value of a cultural hinterland in modern politics.

Today sees the release of new albums by Bruce Springsteen and Madonna. Kate Mossman reviews Western Stars and Madame X, as well as the posthumous new album Tim by Avicii.

Presenter: Stig Abell

Rob Lowe, the Brat Pack Hollywood heart-throb who went on to star in hit American series such as The West Wing and Parks and Recreation, talks to Kirsty Lang about his surprising role as a Chief Constable in Boston, Lincolnshire in ITV’s darkly comic new series Wild Bill.

Live in Moscow Maria Kornienko outlines the repression and harassment faced by artists making work publicly critical of Vladimir Putin's regime, and the moves they are taking to counter this.

Keith Haring was also an artist and activist, in 1980s New York. He was prolific and commercially successful with his signature black line images of crawling babies, dancing figures, and barking dogs. A friend of Andy Warhol, Madonna, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, he used art to make political points about apartheid, nuclear weapons and the AIDS crisis. The first major retrospective of his work in the UK is about to open at Tate Liverpool. Co-curator Tamar Hemmes, and artist Samantha McEwen who became friends with Haring at art school in New York, discuss the art, life, and legacy of the pop artist.

Presenter: Kirsty Lang

Bill Nighy on his latest film Sometimes Always Never, about a family torn apart and then reunited by a love of the board game Scrabble, written by Frank Cotterell Boyce and directed by Carl Hunter.

The unreliable narrator is a much loved staple of fiction but it's now a key ingredient in videogame storytelling. Ragnar Tornquist, author of the mystery game Draugen, which features an unreliable narrator, discusses with games writer Jordan Erica Webber.

Stig, who has always been intimidated by classical ballet, decides to confront his fear and learn how to watch ballet. He talks to English National Ballet artistic director Tamara Rojo and goes to watch their new production of Cinderella at the Royal Albert Hall.

Presenter: Stig Abell