Front Row

Oceania at the Royal Academy is the first ever major exhibition in the UK of art from the Pacific. It is very ambitious, showing 200 works from across that vast ocean, from Hawaii to New Zealand, New Guinea to Easter Island. It spans time, too, the earliest piece being about 500 years old, the latest completed last year. A Hawaiian writer, Vanessa Lee Miller, and a western maritime historian, Robert Blyth, assess the exhibition.As the former Britpop band Suede release their eighth studio album, songwriter and lead singer Brett Anderson and bassist Mat Osman discuss The Blue Hour and their exploration of new sounds, including Brett’s own field recordings and the spoken word, as well as working with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.How do crime writers gain knowledge of the police to inform their writing? John speaks to Peter James, author of the Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series of novels, and to crime writer Clare Mackintosh, who worked in the police force for 12 years before becoming an author.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Julian May

Cary Fukanaga, recently announced director of the next James Bond film, discusses his new Netflix series Maniac. The show explores the minds of two strangers, played by Emma Stone and Jonah Hill, who take part in a mysterious drug trial in the hope of changing their lives for the better.The Royal Opera House has unveiled the results of its £50m, two-and-a-half-year Open Up project. For the first time it will be open to the public daily, with a new programme of free and ticketed events. Royal Opera House CEO Alex Beard explains what’s new and improved about the Covent Garden building.'In one section he’s polishing a scaffolding pole in the most provocative way imaginable' is how director Jacqui Morris describes the previously unseen footage of Rudolph Nureyev she has uncovered. Along with her brother David, the pair have created a new documentary film about the legendary ballet dancer's life through this new archival footage, his own memoirs and a newly-commissioned interpretive dance.Presenter Stig Abell Producer Ben Mitchell

New documentary Matangi/Maya/MIA about the political rapper MIA, uses self-filmed archive footage of the outspoken and ‘controversial’ Sri Lankan immigrant artist who took up the Tamil cause. So how does the film by director and friend Stephen Loveridge help us understand her life and music? Journalist Kieran Yates reviews.The Man Booker Prize 2018 shortlist of six books has just been announced and features two debuts, the youngest ever writer to make the list, a novel in verse and four women authors. Toby Lichtig of the Times Literary Supplement and critic Arifa Akbar give their thoughts on a list which includes some notable omissions - Sally Rooney and Michael Ondaatje for example.Nell Stevens is the final shortlisted writer for this year’s National Short Story Award. She joins Kirsty to talk about The Minutes, her darkly funny and mysterious tale which follows a group of students captivated by an enigmatic stranger as they protest against the demolition and gentrification taking place in their neighbourhood.Roy Williams pays tribute to fellow playwright Stephen Jeffreys, who has died aged 68. He is best-known for writing The Libertine, about the hedonistic Restoration poet and courtier - the Earl of Rochester. Jeffreys also long championed the work of young, new dramatists, including Roy, offering them support and advice.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Harry Parker

Eileen Atkins talks about her latest stage role in Florian Zeller’s The Height of the Storm, a play about a couple who have been in love for 50 years. The actress, who began her career in the 1950s explains the challenges of Zeller’s writing and her preference for new theatre. 10 years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, John Kampfner, co-founder of the Creative Industries Federation, and arts journalist Jo Caird discuss the impact of the financial crisis on the arts.Today it was announced that Denis Norden has died. His long career as a comedy writer and performer spanned radio sitcoms in the late 1940s , Hollywood films, and the hugely successful television out-takes show It’ll be Alright on the Night. Dick Fiddy, Archive TV Programmer at the BFI explains his significance.Ingrid Persaud has been shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award with The Sweet Sop. She explains what inspired her story which explores the relationship between a father and his estranged son. Set in Trinidad and told in a distinctively Caribbean voice, it deals with themes of masculinity, death and…chocolate. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Hannah Robins

Director Lenny Abrahamson on his film adaption of Sarah Waters’ novel The Little Stranger, a ghost story set in a dilapidated English manor in the 1940s. Abrahamson, who was Oscar nominated for his previous film Room, explains the how it is more than just a ghost story and talks about the challenges of adapting an unreliable narrator from the book onto screen.As the days get shorter and the light starts to fade, three artists discuss the appeal of darkness and how they use it as a source for their creativity. Artist Sam Winston and photographer Eva Vermandel spend long hours in complete darkness to develop or create their artworks, while TV editor Paulo Pandolpho, whose work includes the recent dramas The Split, Trust Me and Apple Tree Yard, considers the attraction of spending months at a time in a darkened editing suite. Kiare Ladner has been shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award with Van Rensburg’s Card. She discusses her story which is set in South Africa and is about a woman in middle age dealing with loneliness following the death of her husband and her daughter’s move to Canada. The story is broadcast on Radio 4 at 3.30pm on Tuesday and the winner of the BBC NSSA is announced on Front Row on 2 October.Presenter : John Wilson Producer : Dymphna Flynn

The French musician Christine and the Queens discusses bringing ideas about gender fluidity to the mainstream with a confident new persona, eighties influences, and her second album, named simply Chris, and released in both English and French versions. Writer Anil Gupta and director Iqbal Khan discuss turning Molière’s 17th century French comedy Tartuffe - which turned its fire on the hypocrisy of the Roman Catholic hierarchy of the day - into a 21st century Brummie farce with a British Pakistani Muslim family in thrall to a local 'holy man'.Sarah Hall has been shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award with her story Sudden Traveller. The writer discusses her piece about a young woman who’s preparing for her mother’s funeral. The story is broadcast on Radio 4 at 1530 tomorrow and the winner of the BBC NSSA will be announced on Front Row on 2 October.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Emma Wallace

Killing Eve is the next thing to come from the pen of Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge. It is a thriller, steeped in her stylistic black humour, about a psychopath, played by Jodie Comer, who's pursued by Sandra Oh as an unassuming detective. Audiences in America have loved it, and it's has been nominated for two Emmy Awards, but what will the UK audience make of it? Arts journalist Sophie Wilkinson joins Shahidha to give her verdict.The BBC National Short Story Award is in its 13th year and has a new partner, Cambridge University, along with First Story. Chair of Judges Stig Abell, alongside judge and previous winner KJ Orr, reveal this year's five shortlisted authors in line for the £15,000 prize, ahead of the announcement of the winner in a special edition of Front Row on 2 October. And the first of the shortlisted authors joins Shahidha in the studio.To coincide with the release of his new album, grime star Ghetts is exhibiting a series of artworks to complement each of the record's tracks. Having been at the heart of the grime movement since the very beginning, Ghetts discusses how it has changed as well as how the relationship with his young daughter has been such an inspiration.Presenter: Shahidha Bari Producer: Sarah Johnson.

Touching The Void. Memoir, documentary, now theatre performance - at the Bristol Old Vic. Written by David Greig , it's an adaptation of Joe Simpson's bestselling 1988 mountaineering memoir and the subsequent 2003 docu-drama detailing Simpson's disastrous 1985 attempt to make a first ascent of a mountain in the Andes. Theatre director Tom Morris talks to Kirsty about the challenges of transferring the story to the stage. And as the Bristol Old Vic prepares to re-open after a major refurbishment, he describes how the new design aims to mark the theatre's history and slave trade past and welcome in new audiences.Crazy Rich Asians is a box office hit in the US about a young Chinese-American woman who goes to a wedding in Singapore and encounters the fabulously wealthy Chinese family of her boyfriend. Its star Constance Wu talks to Kirsty about the issues it raises on the difference between Asian and American culture and the tricky question of stereotyping.Crazy Rich Asians is based on a best-selling book Kevin Kwan of the same name satirizing Singapore's super-rich. Depictions of the wealthy in novels is nothing new as literary critic Toby Lichtig explains as he gives is a potted history of rich-lit.As this year's Leeds International Piano Competition reaches the finals without a British finalist, concert pianist Murray McLachlan, Chair of the European Piano Teachers Association (UK) and Artistic Director of Chetham's International Summer School and Festival for Pianists, discusses whether British piano teaching is making the grade.

Hollywood legend Sir Michael Caine returns to the big screen in King of Thieves, the second cinematic adaptation of the infamous Hatton Garden burglary in 2015. The south London born actor looks back at his varied career, which he has seen him act alongside Sean Connery, Sylvester Stallone and even the Muppets and also become synonymous darker criminal roles, in films such as Get Carter, Harry Brown and the Italian Job.When Israel Public Radio recently broadcast part of Wagnar's Gotterdammerung or the Twilight of the Gods, it caused a furore leading the station issued an apology. This is because since 1938 there has been an understanding that, because for his anti-Semitism, Wagner's music is neither performed nor broadcast in Israel. Stig talks to Jonathan Livni, founder of Wagner in Israel, who is in favour of lifting the ban, and Yael Cherniavsky, the conductor and soprano, who used to run the offending radio network, who disagrees. Scotland's first design museum, the £80 million Victorian & Albert Dundee, opens this weekend on the city's waterfront. It will have a permanent collection which promises to tell the story of Scotland's design heritage. Art critic Moira Jeffrey has visited Dundee and lets us know if the museum lives up to its grand design.

The Irish writer Sally Rooney's second novel Normal People, the story of a relationship between two young people from very different backgrounds, has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and is winning ecstatic reviews. She talks about structure, being true to her characters, and the pleasure and pressure of praise.TV critic David Butcher, reviews Trust, a new drama investigating the true story of the kidnap of the grandson of one of America's wealthiest families, the Getty's. Donald Sutherland stars as oil magnate, John Paul Getty, who after the death of his son looks to his grandson to take over the family business. But after a perceived shame he brings to the family name Sutherland's Getty turns him away, leading to his grandson's eventual kidnap on the streets of Rome.London Fashion Week starts on Friday and Front Row takes a close look at how the catwalk uses music to its advantage, and the close and enduring relationship between music and fashion. John Wilson talks to Jeremy Healy, who puts music on the runway for John Galliano at Maison Margiela, and to Katie Baron, author of the book Fashion and Music.The publication in an Australian newspaper of a cartoon of Serena Williams in the final of the US Open has drawn criticism and protests that it's racist. Leading international caricaturist Tayo Fatunla considers the line cartoonists tread between caricature and offence.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Julian May.