Front Row

When Haifaa Al Mansour released Wadja in 2012 she became Saudi Arabia's first female director of a feature film. She has now directed her first English-language film - a biopic about Mary Shelley. Al Mansour talks why she wanted to make a film set in 19th-century England about the teenage creator of Frankenstein and how much film-making has changed in Saudi Arabia since her debut film six years ago. Based on the debut novel of Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl), Sharp Objects is a new HBO drama series starring Oscar nominee Amy Adams as a crime reporter forced to confront her own demons, directed by Jean-Marc Vallee (Big Little Lies). Sophie Wilkinson reviews.Ahead of the announcement of the winner of the £100,000 Art Fund Museum of the Year Prize 2018, we are reporting from each of the five shortlisted museums. Today we hear from Brooklands Museum in Surrey, home of the world's first motor racing circuit. The museum's new exhibition spaces - the Aircraft Factory and Flight Shed - highlight the crucial role Brooklands has played in aviation, from Concorde to the Hawker Hurricane.We're getting in the mood for holiday reads. Over the next few weeks we'll be offering inspiration on which books to cram into your suitcase. Today Sarah Ditum of the New Statesman joins us to recommend books for travellers destined for Italy, Germany and France.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Kate Bullivan.

Maxine Peake discusses her new stage play, Queens of the Coal Age, which dramatizes the incident in 1993 when, armed with wet wipes and nicotine gum, Anne Scargill led a group of women to occupy Parkside Colliery in protest against pit closures.The acclaimed dancer and choreographer, Gillian Lynne, has died aged 92. Best known for Cats and The Phantom of the Opera, she worked on more than 60 shows on Broadway and in the West End. Elaine Paige, Cameron Mackintosh and choreographer Arlene Phillips pay tribute.Kevin Macdonald's film Whitney is released this week, the second documentary in just over a year looking at the icon's life (and demise). While Macdonald's new film is officially supported by the late singer's estate, Nick Broomfield's 2017 Whitney: Can I Be Me?, was unauthorised. Critic Grace Barber-Plentie considers how access and the involvement of the family affected the feeling of the film, and whether the chorus of interviewed voices bought us any closer to understanding Whitney Houston.Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Rebecca Armstrong.

Winner of five Tony Awards, Fun Home is a ground-breaking new musical about a lesbian girl coming out, based on Alison Bechdel's autobiographical graphic novel. Briony Hanson reviews the UK premiere at London's Young Vic theatre.Remarkably, Fun Home is the first Broadway musical with a lesbian protagonist. But are queer women underrepresented in drama in general? Briony is joined by theatre director Hannah Hauer-King to discuss the visibility and portrayal of lesbian characters in theatre, film and TV. The latest novel by the prolific Caryl Phillips, A View of the Empire at Sunset, is a fictional account of the life of Jean Rhys, author of The Wide Sargasso Sea, who came from the West Indies to London in 1906 at the age of sixteen. Caryl Phillips discusses his fascination with Rhys, and how writing her life in this way allows him to observe the decline of the Empire.Ahead of the announcement next week of the winner of the £100,000 Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018, we'll be reporting from each of the five shortlisted museums. Today we hear from Tate St Ives, which originally opened in 1993, but which re-opened to the public last year after two-year architectural extension. Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Kate Bullivant.

A Japanese-themed edition of Front Row as the Oscar-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, whose scores include Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence and The Last Emperor, talks to Stig about being inspired by nature, and how he came back from treatment for throat cancer to write the music for The Revenant.The editor of The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories, Jay Rubin, tells how he curated the selection and reflects on his career as one of Haruki Murakami's main translators. And Junko Takekawa, Senior Arts Programme Officer at the Japan Foundation and a guest curator at this year's Cheltenham Festival of Literature, selects some of her favourite Japanese novels. The architect Sou Fujimoto describes how the boundaries between nature and buildings, inside and outside, inspire his work - and reveals the artistic potential of a pile of crisps!Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Sarah Johnson.

Bartlett Sher's adaption of The King and I won four Tony Awards during its run on Broadway and is transferring to London this month. The American director was highly praised for his updating of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, which is set in 19th century Siam but has been criticised for sexism and orientalism. Bartlett Sher discusses taking on this classic musical for a modern-day audience.Writer and critic Olivia Laing, known for her non-fiction writing about art, sexuality and cities, discusses her debut novel. Crudo is a highly personal 'real time' account of the political and social upheavals taking place across the world during the summer of 2017, told from the dual perspectives of the writer herself and American experimental novelist Kathy Acker.Ahead of the announcement next week of the winner of the £100,000 Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018, we'll be reporting from each of the five shortlisted museums, starting today with The Postal Museum in London, and its famous subterranean Mail Rail, which opened to the public last year.

Michael Jackson as a visual icon is the subject of a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery which brings together artists inspired by the global star. Art critic Ekow Eshun joins Todd Gray - Michael Jackson's personal photographer at the time of Off The Wall and Thriller - to discuss the star's relationship with his own image.An American podcast, which explores the way humans use music, has investigated the use of pop music by so-called Islamic State to spread terror. John Wilson talks to Pitch producer Whitney Jones.Kynren is a theatrical spectacular - a pageant involving more than 1,000 people telling 2,000 years of English history on an acting area of more than 7 acres, which includes a lake, longboat and working railway. We go behind the scenes in Bishop Auckland to find out how the cast and crew - all local volunteers - manage this extravaganza.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Timothy Prosser.

Forty years after forming, two of the original members of the iconic New Romantic band Duran Duran, Roger and John Taylor, talk about their time in the music industry and reveal what inspires them to keep making music together. The annual Bradford Literature Festival is a relatively new addition to Britain's literary landscape, but its junior status hasn't stopped it getting coups such as this year enticing Kate Bush to pay tribute in a public art installation to Emily Brontë. Five years on from the launch of the festival, Syima Aslam, director and co-founder of the Bradford Literary Festival, and Bradford-born crime-fiction writer A.A. Dhand discuss its significance.The artist Brian Clarke has been pushing the boundaries of working with stained glass for the last five decades, commissioned by architects including Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid and Renzo Piano. In his studio he discusses the challenges of the art form, and his new exhibition Brian Clarke: The Art of Light at The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich. Today the sun is shining everywhere in the UK (though there is some cloud in Shetland). The poet Alison Brackenbury reflects on the way the warm sunny weather not only makes people happy but, since the English language began to be written, it has inspired poetry.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian May.

Australian writer Tim Winton discusses The Shepherd's Hut, his first novel in five years. Set in the parched landscape of his native Western Australia, the young protagonist Jaxie attempts to flee from his abusive father on a journey that takes him to some dark and challenging places.England: Poems from a School is a anthology of poems that has just been published. They were written by school children aged between 11 and 18, most of whom come from migrant families who have settled in the UK. The children attend the comprehensive, Oxford Spires Academy, where the writer in residence is poet and writer Kate Clanchy - she runs workshops there and edited the anthology. Kate joins Sharmaine along with two of the young poets.As Norwich Castle reunites a 17th Century Dutch painting with the treasures and objects that feature in it, curator Francesca Vanke explores the mysteries behind the painting called The Paston Treasure.We return to Thamesmead to see the first performance of Fly by Night, a performance piece created by American artist Duke Riley involving 1500 pigeons. Each bird has a small LED light attached to their legs representing the messages they would once have carried over the battlefields of the First World War. Presenter: Sharmaine Lovegrove Producer: Rebecca Armstrong.

James Corden, who is bringing his Late Late Show to London, talks to John Wilson about the challenges of presenting a live daily topical show, how he'd like to act again on stage, and what Alan Bennett thought of Gavin and Stacey. As part of Radio 4's Four Seasons, Raymond Antrobus reads his poem to mark the summer solstice and discusses his new collection inspired by his experience of living with deafness. Michael Ellis, Minister for Arts, Heritage and Tourism discusses the Government's new £20 million Cultural Development Fund which is launched today.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Timothy Prosser.

The American photographer and former model Lee Miller had a leading role in championing Surrealism in Britain in the 1930s, which is the focus of a new exhibition at the Hepworth Wakefield. The show's curator Lauren Barnes, and Lee Miller's son Antony Penrose, consider her fascination for Surrealism and the artists involved, including Man Ray, Max Ernst and Salvador Dalí.Singer Kate Nash discusses dealing with fame after the success of her debut album Made of Bricks and the mega hit single Foundations. She explains how learning to wrestle for her role in Netflix comedy GLOW rebuilt her confidence and how her new album, Yesterday Was Forever, was inspired by her teenage diary. Pop-up restaurants, which appear in empty shops and car parks, have enlivened our food culture, and even had a rejuvenating impact on neighbourhoods. There are also pop-up galleries, music performance spaces and even, in York, a whole pop-up Shakespeare theatre and village. Cat Gardiner who has run pop-up galleries in Cardiff, the musician Sam Lee who is taking concerts out of buildings and putting them around campfires, and James Cundall, the man behind Shakespeare's Rose Theatre in York, discuss the impact of arts pop-ups.