Front Row

Maggie Gyllenhaal discusses her new film The Kindergarten Teacher, in which she plays a teacher who believes one of her students is a child prodigy and begins to pass his poems off as her own. She also talks about having an intimacy director on the set of The Deuce, and her upcoming directorial debut - an adaptation of an Elena Ferrante novel.This week Akwaeke Emezi became the first non-binary author to be long-listed for the Women's Prize for Fiction. Critic Vic Parsons discusses the consequences of this for women's prizes. The BalletBoyz dancers have dispensed with a traditional choreographer to create a new work themselves, called Them. Front Row goes backstage at Sadler's Wells with dancers Matthew Sandiford and Bradley Waller, artistic director Michael Nunn and composer Charlotte Harding. Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Timothy Prosser

In ITV’s new psychological thriller Cheat, a university lecturer accuses a student of cheating in her essay, sparking a series of retaliations which threaten to spiral out of control. Film and TV lecturer James Walters reviews the show which stars Katherine Kelly and Molly Windsor.Photographer Richard Billingham, dubbed the 'pioneer of squalid realism', won a Turner Prize nomination for his images of his parents’ alcoholic and troubled life in a Black Country tower block. He discusses his return to those roots with his first feature film Ray & Liz, an unflinching portrait of growing up in poverty and on the margins of society.The late editor and memoirist Diana Athill, who died in January aged 101, agreed to be the subject of a long one-to-one interview, which had the premise of it only being broadcast after her death. Eddie Morgan, the man behind Diana Athill: Final Say - which goes out on Sky Arts tonight - discusses the background to the project.As London club Fabric hits 20 this year, despite other clubs closing across London and the UK, we look at the changes and challenges in clubbing today, the value of club culture, and what it takes to be successful. John speaks to journalist and DJ Kate Hutchinson and to Bill Brewster, author of Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey.Presenter John Wilson Producer Jerome Weatherald

The career of Hollywood superstar Samuel L Jackson was recently revealed to have made him the highest-grossing actor of all time. He joins Samira to discuss the new Marvel superhero film, Captain Marvel; in which he reprises the role of Nick Fury... This time around he's playing a Nick Fury who is twenty years younger than before, as the film is set in the 90s. He reveals how he de-aged himself for the part and also talks to Samira about The Oscars, why he chooses “popcorn” films to star in, and which of the 120 films in which he's appeared is his favourite.Amy Ng’s new play, Under the Umbrella, opens tonight at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry. The story is about Wei, a Chinese PhD student researching human fertility, enjoying life with her English flatmate in the city. But family pressure to return home and get married grows intense. Her grandmother survived famine, her mother the Cultural Revolution and the one-child policy, so while this is a highly entertaining comedy, it's a dark one, exploring the dilemmas and traumas of three generations of contemporary Chinese women. There are ghosts, too. Samira Ahmed talks to Amy Ng and unpacks the issues.There's a new classical music station available on your DAB radio. Scala Radio launched on Monday with a morning show hosted by Simon Mayo. It's being pitched as a rival to Classic FM and BBC Radio 3. The Sunday Times' radio critic Gillian Reynolds has been listening to it for us and will let us know whether she thinks it'll be a serious rival.Presenter, Samira Ahmed Producer, Oliver Jones

When The Specials released their new album Encore recently, their first new music with Terry Hall since the classic Ghost Town in 1981, it went straight to Number One. Nearly four decades on from their split, the Coventry band’s lead singer Terry Hall discusses the new album and how he found himself back in the recording studio with his long-term collaborators Lynval Golding and Horace Panter after all these years.This year is the 25th anniversary of the first universal democratic elections in South Africa which resulted in Nelson Mandela becoming President of the new rainbow nation. Athol Fugard’s plays dramatise the injustices of apartheid and were part of the struggle that led to those elections. Now two of his plays are about to open in the UK, 1961’s Blood Knot, and, A Lesson, which was first performed in 1978. Directors Janet Suzman and Matthew Xia discuss the importance of Fugard and how, 25 years after the end of apartheid, his plays speak to us today. As the National Gallery's newly acquired self-portrait by Artemisia Gentileschi begins a grand tour of the UK starting at the Glasgow Women’s Library, curator Letizia Treves discusses the significance of this early 17th Century painting and Gentileschi's extraordinary career as one of the leading artists of the Baroque. Music journalist Dorian Lynskey looks at the life of Keith Flint, lead singer of dance band The Prodigy.Presenter, John Wilson Producer, Dymphna Flynn

Stephen Merchant has written and directed the feature film Fighting with my Family, which tells the unlikely true story of a young British woman from Norwich who found fame on the women’s wrestling circuit in America. Merchant discusses going in at the deep end and working alongside former champion wrestler and Hollywood star Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. Arifa Akbar reviews new books by Leila Aboulela (Bird Summons), Oyinkan Braithwaite (My Sister the Serial Killer) and 2015 Man Booker winner Marlon James (Black Leopard, Red Wolf).Theatre company Clean Break has been working with women with experience of the criminal justice system for 40 years. In their anniversary year, Front Row talks to joint artistic director Roisin McBrinn and Clean Break member Jennifer Joseph. Jennifer co-created and stars in the company’s latest show, Inside Bitch, which challenges the portrayal of women’s prisons on our screens.Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Timothy Prosser

In his new series After Life, Ricky Gervais plays a local journalist who tries to find humour as he struggles in the wake of his wife’s death, with a dog as his closest companion. Gervais discusses how he copes with people’s reactions and offence at his work and the controversy surrounding historical social media posts and celebrity redemption.Tom Walker, winner of this year’s British Breakthrough Act at the Brits, performs his new single Just You and I live in studio. He describes his music as a mix of “hip hop, a tiny bit of blues, a bit of pop with a splash of reggae” and his debut album, What a Time to be Alive, has seen him collaborate with producers such as Naughty Boy and Steve Mac, who has worked with Ed Sheeran.Critic and broadcaster Norman Lebrecht looks at the life of the late composer, conductor and pianist Andre Previn.With the sales of young adult literature falling by a third in the last year, Charlotte Eyre of the Bookseller and publisher Crystal Mahey-Morgan discuss the reasons for the drop and where potential for the future lies for these books.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Harry Parker

Charlotte Rampling discusses her new film Hannah, for which she won Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival playing a woman shunned by her family and society. She also talks about her five decade career, from Georgy Girl to her recent Oscar-nominated performance in 45 Years. Hector Berlioz died 150 years ago next week. Best-known for his Symphony Fantastique - described by Leonard Bernstein as the first musical work of psychedelia, he wrote the first symphony to feature the viola as a solo instrument, and once ascribed a piece to another composer because he thought the critics would take against it if they knew it was his. Conductor Jeremy Summerly discusses the composers legacy. Folk trio Leveret are about to release their fourth album, Diversions. Fiddle player Sam Sweeney and concertina virtuoso Rob Harbron perform a track from the album and explain how they find their material by delving into old manuscripts, archives and music books to reinvent them in their own style.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian May

How much should we separate art from the artist’s behaviour? With new sexual abuse allegations concerning Michael Jackson in the forthcoming documentary Leaving Neverland and R Kelly being charged with 10 counts of sexual abuse – writers Anna Leszkiewicz, Ekow Eshun and Dreda Say Mitchell consider the extent to which we should boycott or continue to appreciate an individual’s work in the light of questions over their behaviour.On the eve of his world tour, multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer, and Grammy award-winner Jacob Collier talks about working with an orchestra after his rise to fame as a solo performer. He also plays a composition from his latest record, Djesse Volume 1, live in the studio, the first of a quartet of albums to be released this year. Dorothea Tanning wanted to depict ‘unknown but knowable states’ in her work, flirting with ideas of surrealism and abstraction. Tanning was an American who emigrated with her husband Max Ernst to Paris in the 50s, where she moved away from painting to make sculptures out of fabric. As a retrospective of her work opens at Tate Modern and Virago re-publish her novel Chasm, we assess the life and work of Tanning, and consider if the new Tate show does her justice.Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Ben Mitchell

The return of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s black comedy Fleabag: we preview the new series of BBC3's biggest success. The main character continues to battle with her family and her own self-destructive behaviour, but can Fleabag be as fresh and surprising as before? And because it'll be broadcast weekly, one episode at a time (after the news on BBC1) rather than being released as a box set for bingeing), we consider how viewers' watching habits are changing. American glam metal band Mötley Crüe sold more than 100 million albums in the 80s and the members led the ultimate debauched rock and roll lives. Now there's a Netflix biopic - The Dirt. We speak to bassist Nikki Sixx (who overdosed several times and once was even declared dead) and the band's manager Allen Kovac about their reputation and how they reflect on their time as "the world’s most notorious rock band".Each year the Oscars throw up some surprises and there were quite a few raised eyebrows when last night's Best Picture was announced. Did Green Book really deserve to be crowned the best film of 2018? The writer and historian Colin Grant and film critic Larushka Ivan-Zadeh take us through the events of the night.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Oliver Jones

Award-winning journalist Jonathan Freedland talks about his alter ego, thriller writer Sam Bourne, and his new book To Kill The Truth. With the strap line “read it before it becomes fiction," this fast paced action thriller sees America taken to the brink of a new Civil War as academic and holocaust survivors are found dead, libraries destroyed and Black Live Matter protestors clash openly with slavery deniers. Jonathan Freedland talks to Kirsty about the inspiration behind the novel, the differences in writing fiction compared to journalism and the challenge to both when faced with a “post truth” world.Roma won the BAFTA for Best Film and on Sunday may become the first foreign language film to win at the Oscars, but figures show foreign language films are in decline at the UK box office. Why are foreign films doing less well in cinemas than they were ten years ago? Kirsty is joined by Charles Gant from Screen International and Clare Binns from Picturehouse Cinemas. Phyllida Barlow’s exhibition of entirely new work, entitled cul-de-sac, opens at the Royal Academy’s Gabrielle Jungels-Winkler Galleries, and features monumental pieces made from industrial and construction materials. Phyllida tells Kirsty about the importance of scale and fakery in her work.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Hilary Dunn