Front Row

Gerard Butler talks to John Wilson about starring alongside Gary Oldman in his latest action film, Hunter Killer. Set deep under the Arctic Ocean, Butler plays an American submarine captain on the hunt for another US vessel in distress when he discovers a secret Russian coup that could lead to another world war.

Bigger budgets, bigger explosions and bigger torsos seem to be dominating our movie screens, with actors such as Dwayne Johnson and Mark Wahlberg known for their intense workout regimes. But how damaging is this trend for audiences and is bigger always better? Film critic Adam Smith and Mark Twight, the Hollywood personal trainer responsible for getting Superman, Wonder Woman and the cast of 300 into shape, discuss.

Leading Polish novelist Olga Tokarczuk on her International Man Booker prize-winning novel Flights, her new novel in translation, Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of the Dead, and how the history and politics of her home country informs her literary life

And, a classic song is 55 today...

Presenter: John Wilson

Willy Loman is very much the heart and soul of Arthur Miller’s Pulitzer-prizewinning play, Death of a Salesman. However as a new production opens at the Royal Exchange in Manchester, two actors Maureen Beattie and Marion Bailey - who have played the role of Linda Loman- join Stig to discuss what they found when they played the salesman’s wife.

Crime novelist AA Dhand reviews ‘Informer’ a new criminal intelligence thriller set in East London about a police informant programme targeting radicalised youth. ‘Informer’ stars Paddy Considine and newcomer Nabhaan Rizwan.

Geology and technology come together in two new exhibitions. The work of artist Dan Holdsworth is the focus of Continuous Topography at the Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art in Sunderland, while at York Art Gallery, there’s a group show, Strata-Rock-Dust-Stars. Cherie Frederico, editor of Aesthetica magazine and Dan Holdsworth join Stig to discuss why the planet has become a new frontier for artists working with digital technology.

Liverpool-based Irish poet Ciarán Hodgers is about to take part in the annual Liverpool Irish Festival, which coincides with the publication of Cosmocartography, his first full collection of poetry. The poet discusses his personal experience of migration, which features in his collection, and which is also a theme in this year’s festival.

Presenter: Stig Abell

#MeToo one year on – what impact has the hashtag popularised by Hollywood actresses had on the arts and on women around the world? We speak to Jude Kelly, Founder & Director of the Women Of the World Foundation, film critic Larushka Ivan Zadeh, Helen Lewis, Associate Editor Of The New Statesman, and to Naomi Pohl, Assistant General Secretary Of The Musicians Union.

Forgotten is a new play about the Chinese Labour Corps, the 140,000 Chinese men who at the height of the First World War travelled half way round the world to work for Britain and the Allies behind the front lines, and whose story is hardly known. Playwright Daniel York Loh talks to Kirsty Lang about his play whose title, written in Chinese characters, can also mean for Left Behind or maybe Erased.

The 2011 Norwegian terrorist attack at Utøya island summer camp has been made into a film by Paul Greengrass. The director, whose previous work includes the Jason Bourne thrillers, Bloody Sunday and Captain Phillips, explains his approach to making such an emotional and politically charged picture, which shows both the attack itself and the perpetrator Anders Breivik’s justifying his actions in court.

Best mates and actors Lisa Hammond (formerly of EastEnders) and Rachael Spence wanted to make their own show but had no idea where to start. So in 2010 they asked members of the public to come up with stories for them. When they saw Lisa in a wheelchair and Rachael not, what the public suggested was funny, staggering and sad. They made a show about it and called it No Idea. Fast forward to 2018 and Lisa and Rachael felt that by now attitudes had surely changed. Their new show Still No Idea reflects what they found.

A new report commissioned by Arts Council England, ‘What is Resilience Anyway?’, offers advice for tackling challenges faced by arts organisations from funding shortages to the increasing dominance of screens in audiences’ lives. It includes some challenging findings. Kirsty is joined by former Culture Minister Ed Vaizey and one of the main authors of the report Patrick Towell, Executive Director of Golant Media Ventures, the enterprise arm of The Audience Agency.

Presenter: Kirsty Lang

Desiree Akhavan has not only co-written Channel 4's new comedy drama The Bisexual, but directs and stars in it as well. The series centres on Leila, who after splitting from her long-term girlfriend, attempts to navigate the dating scene as she becomes involved with both men and women.

Film critic Rhianna Dhillon reviews ensemble thriller Bad Times at the El Royal starring Jeff Bridges, Chris Hemsworth and Dakota Johnson, where seven strangers, each with a secret to bury, meet at a rundown motel on the California/Nevada border.

The 2018 RIBA Stirling Prize for the UK’s best new building has been awarded to Bloomberg, London, the billion-pound structure sometimes described as the world’s most sustainable office. Former jury member, architectural historian and writer Tom Dyckhoff comments on this year’s choice.

Bertolt Brecht’s play Mother Courage, set in the midst of the Thirty Years War, turns 80 next year. Theatre Directors Rod Dixon and Hannah Chissick discuss why the German playwright's creation continues to resonate in the twenty first century.

Presenter: Kirsty Lang

When Stig Abell was in his mid-twenties he went through a period where he would wake up in the middle of the night uncontrollably anxious and found reading, especially the novels of PG Wodehouse, provided respite. In this special programme on World Mental Health Day, Stig goes on a journey to try and understand what it is about reading which can improve mental well-being, and talks to writers Marian Keyes and Laura Freeman, and comedian Russell Kane about the role reading has played in helping their own. He visits Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust to talk to Dr Pravir Sharma about the efficacy of reading as a treatment for mental health conditions and peer support worker Eugene Egan, a former service user, whose involvement in the Trust's Reading Well group has contributed to his recovery amid other positive outcomes.

Marian Keyes suffered a period of debilitating, clinical depression. As she recovered she turned to writers such as Margery Allingham and Agatha Christie, finding the gentle worlds they recreated, in which there was always a resolution, made her feel the world could be a safe place again.

Russell Kane stood out as an avid reader growing up in a working class family where reading – especially for boys - was frowned upon. Now a highly successful comedian, reading a wide range of fiction is an essential part of his daily life and helps with the stresses of performing.

Eugene Egan is a former inpatient with Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust whom he now works for the as a peer support worker and as a facilitator for the Recovery College Reading for Wellbeing groups. It was while on a mental health ward that he started reading Homer's Odyssey. Odysseus's travels related to his own periods of homelessness - and started a passion for reading which he continues to maintain his recovery.

Dr Pravir Sharma is a consultant psychiatrist at the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust which supported the creation of Reading Well groups.

Presenter: Stig Abell

An entire disused swimming pool has been built on the ground floor of the Whitechapel Gallery in London for the new exhibition from the Scandinavian duo Elmgreen & Dragset. The artists discuss how they have been inspired by the work of David Hockney and Ed Ruscha. Then film critic Mark Eccleston art critic Jacky Klein and artist and former Canadian national competitive swimmer Leanne Shapton reflect on the swimming pool in the arts.

Kwame Kwei-Armah opens his first season as the Artistic Director of London’s Young Vic with a musical adaptation of Twelfth Night. This reworking of Shakespeare’s comedy, which includes soul music and show tunes from songwriter Shaina Taub, has already impressed audiences in New York. Theatre critic Sam Marlowe gives her verdict.

Green Noise is the title of poet Jean Sprackland’s new collection which encapsulates her concerns with the natural world on which she focuses minutely, as well as the sounds of the street, the wind, and resonating history. She reads her work and talks about writing poems that listen to the green noise of life.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

The actor and entertainer Bernard Cribbins, who will be 90 in December, discusses his new memoir Bernard Who?: 75 Years of Doing Just About Everything, in which he tells his own story, very much in his own way, about a busy career which includes Jackanory , Right Said Fred, Doctor Who, The Wombles, Shakespeare, Hitchcock’s Frenzy, The Railway Children, Crooks in Cloisters, three Carry On films and lots of radio.

La La Land duo Ryan Gosling and director Damien Chazelle reunite for First Man, a film about the trials and tribulations of astronaut Neil Armstrong’s bold and costly mission to land on the moon. Ryan plays Neil Armstrong alongside The Crown star Claire Foy as his wife Janet. The actors consider how the astronaut and his wife had to deal with the high-pressured space race whilst processing the death of their young daughter.

The new ITV drama series Butterfly focuses on a child who socially transitions from Max to Maxine. Transgender author Juno Dawson gives her verdict on how well the drama tackles the issue on mainstream TV.

Montserrat Caballé has died aged 85. Opera critic Rupert Christiansen assesses the career and voice of one of the most exciting and successful sopranos of the 20th century.

Presenter John Wilson

“It’s about time” is the tagline for the new Doctor Who series, referencing the programme’s time-travelling exploits, but also the arrival of the first female Doctor in the show's history. Jodie Whittaker will be the 13th Doctor and tells us how she's tackling a role with so much history, attention and anticipation around it.

Haruki Murakami's novels are awaited by eager audiences not just in his native Japan but the world over. Killing Commendatore is his latest and it delivers all the things his readers have come to expect: brushes with the supernatural, an almost audible soundtrack and a narrator who’s lost his way. How successful is it? Critic Alex Clark reviews and analyses the Murakami phenomenon.

Quentin Blake, one of the world’s best loved illustrators, takes us around the first ever exhibition dedicated to his figurative art. Featuring large-scale oil paintings and drawings it reveals a more experimental side to his practice. Blake explains how this darker, more serious work emerged.

Presenter: Stig Abell

Alice Walker is famous for prose books such as The Color Purple and In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens. But her first book was a collection of poems and she has published eight more. Alice talks about her latest, Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart, which ranges from poems of rage about injustice, poems of praise to great figures - BB King for instance - and celebration of the ordinary like making frittatas.

Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama is known for her pumpkin installations and her obsession with polka dots. A new documentary charts her career beginning in New York in the 1950s during the Pop Art movement, where she became well known for her provocative immersive exhibitions and performances. It covers her return to Japan in middle-age, checking herself into a psychiatric hospital and fading from public view, to her current status as the world’s bestselling living female artist. The film-maker Heather Lenz tells us about her documentary. Alongside the film, a new show of Yayoi Kusama’s recent work opens this week in London. Jacky Klein reviews.

Today is National Poetry Day. Twenty years ago, in its first contribution to National Poetry Day, Radio 4 commissioned Sean Street to write a sequence of poems based on the network's day. So, Thought for the Day was a poem, there was a poem about the pips - the Greenwich Time Signal - and another on the Shipping Forecast. These were dropped between programmes throughout the day. Twenty years later Front Row has commissioned a new poem from Sean Street on this year's theme of change. He reads it publicly for the first time.

Presenter: Gaylene Gould