Front Row

Caitlin Moran talks about writing her second novel, a characteristically candid and comic account of a young woman's misadventures in 1990s London at the height of Britpop. How to Be Famous, the follow up to Moran's 2014 debut How to Build a Girl, centres around an instance of revenge porn and its protagonist Dolly's novel means of fighting back.Superstars Beyoncé and Jay-Z, now billed collectively as 'The Carters', unexpectedly released their first collaborative album Everything is Love over the weekend. Natty Kasambala, music contributor for gal-dem magazine reviews. As part of the Great Exhibition of the North, freehand spray painter Frank Styles has created a 150-metre-long mural that showcases the North's impact on modern Britain. Fifty Northern Icons is based on an eclectic range of images chosen by the public, from York Minster to Gregg's Steak Bakes.The National Youth Folk Ensemble is about to accept its third intake of musicians aged 14 to 18. We meet two young players who if accepted to the group will learn entirely by ear, guided by tutors who are themselves well-known musicians. The artistic director, fiddle player Sam Sweeney, explains how the ensemble is dedicated to raising the standard of players as well as the profile and popularity of English traditional music. Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Hannah Robins.

Snatches is a series of eight monologues celebrating the lives of women over the past 100 years, to be broadcast on BBC Four. The director, Vicky Featherstone, tells Kirsty Lang about her ambition for the project and we hear from writer Theresa Ikoko in whose episode a woman celebrates her 100th birthday as, outside her window, a revolution ignites.Stuart Robertson, Director of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society, joins Kirsty from Glasgow with the latest on the consequences of the fire at the School of Art not just for the buildings but the 2,000 students and the city itself. The Carnegie Medal, awarded annually, is the most prestigious award for children's books. This year's winner was announced today and is Geraldine McCaughrean, who first won the award 30 years ago. She talks to Kirsty about her book, Where The World Ends, which is based on the true survival story of a group of Scottish boys marooned on an island.Videogames Editor at The Guardian, Keza MacDonald, brings all the news from the games industry's biggest conference E3, which took place in Los Angeles last week and saw the major companies previewing next year's new releases. And Keza will also recommend the best games currently available. Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Julian May.

The V&A's latest exhibition includes 13 artworks by the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, but far more of her colourful skirts, blouses and pieces of jewellery because Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up concentrates on Kahlo's greatest creation - the artist herself. Design critic Corinne Julius considers what it reveals about the famous modern Latin American artist and our attitude to her.When we think of John Keats, we mostly think of Odes, Grecian Urns, Nightingales, and Autumn - we certainly don't think of cats. 200 years after Keats wrote his little-known comic gem To Mrs Reynolds's Cat, we consider the place of cats in literature - from Hemingway to Colette, and Stephen King to Tove Janssen. Cat-lover and writer Lynne Truss and literary historian John Bowen consider the relationship between writers and their feline 'mewses' and asks what makes a 'purr-fect' piece of cat prose? 1500 pigeons with small LED lights attached to their legs representing the messages they would once have carried over the battlefields of the First World War are the latest work by the American artist Duke Riley, who brings his performance piece Fly by Night to the UK for the first time. The work's co-ordinator Kitty Joe describes the event.As the second series of Queer Eye launches on Netflix, writer Louis Wise assesses the show's popularity.Presenter Stig Abell Producer Jerome Weatherald.

Ocean's 8 is the latest in the Ocean's heist movie franchise - but this time with an all-female gang starring Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett. Does the twist work? Larushka Ivan-Zadeh reviews.As the World Cup kicks off the team strips are attracting as much attention as the scores: the new Nigeria home kit sold out minutes after its release. Simon Doonan, fashion commentator and soccer obsessive, talks about his favourite World Cup outfits and why some kits are such a hit.Pianist and composer Alexis Ffrench, fresh from his performance at the Classical Brit Awards, tells John what he thinks the sphere of classical music could learn from the very different world of hip-hop.A Slice through the World: Contemporary Artists' Drawings is a new exhibition in Oxford that celebrates the power of drawing in the digital age. Curator Stephanie Straine considers the state of drawing today with artists Olivia Kemp and Tacita Dean, whose work includes drawing, painting, photography and film, and whose new exhibition, Landscape, at the Royal Academy in London features monumental blackboard drawings in chalk.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Harry Parker(Main Image: (L-R) Sandra Bullock as Debbie Ocean, Cate Blanchett as Lou in Warner Bros. Pictures' and Village Roadshow Pictures' "Oceans 8", a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Credit: Barry Wetcher (c) 2018 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

After discovering that he was almost exactly 150 years younger than Charles Dickens, comedian Eddie Izzard set himself the task of reading all of Dickens' works aloud. The first to be turned into an audiobook is Great Expectations. The stand-up discusses his love of Dickens and the unique challenges that come with reading the author's work. Guitarist and singer Wilko Johnson is about to release Blow Your Mind, his first album of new material in 30 years, and the first since recovering from a mayor life-saving operation to remove a large cancerous tumour in 2014. Johnson looks back over the four years of his recovery, and performs some of his distinctive R&B.In A Weekend in New York, the latest novel by Benjamin Markovits, very little happens, but a great deal is revealed about the Essingers, a large close-knit family who are at their yearly get-together and the city of New York itself. Markovits discuses his motivation for the book and explains his desire to follow in the tradition of Philip Roth and Henry James. Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Julian May.

Timothy Spall discusses his new film Stanley, A Man of Variety, in which he plays every character on screen. It follows Stanley, the only inmate in a failing insane asylum, as he wrestles with the voices in his head which take the form of classic comedy stars such as George Formby and Noël Coward.30 years ago today, a concert to celebrate the 70th birthday of Nelson Mandela was staged at London's Wembley Stadium and broadcast to an audience of 600 million around the world. It was at this event that Tracy Chapman, a 24-year-old singer-songwriter from Cleveland, Ohio, first came to worldwide attention as she stepped in last minute and played a selection of songs from her new album. The album, with its hit singles including Fast Car and Baby Can I Hold You Tonight, went on to sell over 20 million copies worldwide and propelled Tracy Chapman to global fame. Music critic Jacqueline Springer reminisces about that watershed moment in musical history.Writer Lissa Evans talks about her latest novel, Old Baggage, which follows a firebrand suffragette yearning for her militant past. Lissa discusses her popular children's book Wed Wabbit and seeing her novel Their Finest Hour and a Half made into a successful film starring Gemma Arterton and Bill Nighy.An extraordinary photograph of the G7 summit showing the German Chancellor surrounded by other world leaders confronting a petulant, defiant looking Donald Trump has been shared widely online and been likened to a Caravaggio painting. Art critic, Richard Cork, gives his reaction. Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Hannah Robins.

Pieter-Dirk Uys, a leading satirist in South Africa, has spent his career poking fun at politicians. In a new show, The Echo of a Noise, he looks back at his life. As audience members, how does our relationship with the arts change as we age and in what way is that represented by the industry? Journalist and presenter Joan Bakewell and former Chairman of the Arts Council Christopher Frayling discuss the different ways in which older people consume the arts and the issues that it raises.Gaël Faye grew up in Burundi, the son of a Rwandan mother and a French father, and witnessed the horrors of the Rwandan civil war and genocide. He has now reflected upon that in his debut novel, Small Country, told from the perspective of 10-year-old Gabriel who desperately tries to cling onto his childhood despite what's happening around him. Gaël tells John how his experiences have shaped his work as a writer and musician.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Sarah Johnson.

Rupert Everett discusses his life-long passion for Oscar Wilde as he directs, writes and stars in his film The Happy Prince. Framed around Wilde's short story of the same name, the bio-pic focuses on Wilde at the end of his life, from his release from prison to his death in poverty in Paris three years later. Abir Mukherjee's creation of detective Sam Wyndham, a British officer who finds himself in Calcutta in the 1920s, and his sidekick 'Surrender-Not' Bannerjee, won him a £10,000 publishing deal. He discusses the third book in the series, Smoke and Ashes, set against the backdrop of non-violent protest and increasing demands for Indian independence. Twenty years ago this week Sex and the City launched in America on the HBO channel. To mark the anniversary, TV critic Emma Bullimore pours herself a Cosmopolitan and looks back at her favourite show... Mary Wilson, who died yesterday at the age of 102, was in the public eye as the wife of the former Prime Minister Harold Wilson. She was lampooned in Mrs Wilson's Diary in Private Eye as a suburban down-to-earth middle class housewife. She was, though, something much rarer - a very popular poet. From the archive we hear her talking about her writing, the public response, and one of her poems.Presenter Samira Ahmed Producer Jerome Weatherald.

Front Row announces the winner of the £30,000 Women's Prize for Fiction, 2018, and talks to her about her winning novel. Sunderland indie rocker and songwriter Nadine Shah performs live in the studio and talks to John about the importance of musicians taking a political stance.Critic Rhianna Dhillon reviews the latest outing of the Jurassic Park franchise which sees the return of Chris Pratt and Dallas Bryce Howard.A forest has been planted in Norway with a specific purpose, to supply paper for a library of books to be printed in 100 years' time. One writer every year - starting in 2014 with Margaret Atwood - is contributing a text to be held in trust, unread until the year 2114, when the Future Library will be published. Elif Shafak has just submitted her piece, handing over her manuscript in a ceremony in the young forest. Katie Paterson, the artist whose idea this is, explains her vision. Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Julian May.

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition opens on 12th June. It has been held every year without interruption since 1769 providing a platform for emerging and established artists. This year it is co-ordinated by Grayson Perry with the theme "Art Made Now". Art historian Jacky Klein joins Stig to review the exhibition.Shebeen is a new play set amongst the Caribbean community in 1950s Nottingham. Inspired by the Windrush generation and written by local playwright Mufaro Makubika, the drama deals with an immigrant Jamaican couple and the forbidden parties they throw at their shebeen - an illegal bar set up in their home. Writer Mufaro Makubika and director Matthew Xia discuss its relevance now. The offbeat comedy Flowers, about the dysfunctional family of a children's writer, starring Olivia Coleman and Julian Barratt, returns to Channel 4 for a second season. The Anglo-Japanese writer Will Sharpe, who also directed and acts in it, is in the studio to discuss its dark humour.We review Vampyr, the action role-playing video game with a moral dilemma at its heart which is released today. Jonathan Reid is a vampiric doctor whose thirst for blood compels him to kill innocent people, but how does that sit with his Hippocratic Oath? Games reviewer Jordan Erica Webber joins Stig to play the game and offers her verdict.Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Harry Parker.