Front Row

The shortlist for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2018 has been announced today, critics Alex Clark and Toby Lichtig comment on the six novels that made it through from the longlist of 16. Country band The Shires perform live and discuss their new album, Accidentally on Purpose, working with Ed Sheeran and why country music is having a resurgence in popularity in the UK.Sean O'Brien is a man of letters, writing essays, plays and novels; as well as his celebrated poetry. He talks about and reads from Europa, his latest collection - and his ninth. The tenet is that Europe is not a place we can choose to leave and the poems explore how our culture, language, history and identity are inextricably entwined with mainland Europe. Presenter : Samira Ahmed Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Romola Garai is known for her roles in films such as Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights, and in The Hours, Emma and The Miniaturist on television. For her latest role she's on stage in Ella Hickson's new play, The Writer. Garai discusses playing the writer, who battles patriarchy and capitalism in her determination to create a pure art that will change the world. The South African choral group Ladysmith Black Mambazo have been singing and touring for over 50 years. On the eve of their performance in the Queen's 92nd birthday concert and subsequent UK tour they perform live for Front Row.Guy Gunaratne's debut novel, In Our Mad And Furious City, focuses on the lives of five inhabitants of a London Council Estate and explores themes of violence, extremism, and division in society over a 48 hour period. Guy joins Kirsty to discuss.

When the Empire Windrush docked, the first contribution of the arrivals from the Caribbean was cultural - Lord Kitchener singing his calypso "London is the Place for Me". Stig Abell talks to publisher Sharmaine Lovegrove and calypsonian Alexander D Great about the artistic contribution of the Windrush Generation, and their offspring. Alexander sings 'After the Windrush', a new calypso written especially for Front Row.Comedian David Walliams pays tribute to his friend the television presenter Dale Winton who has died. Known for his warmth and unpretentious style he presented many programmes including Supermarket Sweep, Pet Win Prizes and In It To Win It. As the BBC Proms 2018 season is announced, music critic Alexandra Coghlan assesses this year's offerings.Imtiaz Dharker is an interesting mixture, she grew up as a Muslim Calvinist in a Lahori household - in Glasgow. So she has plenty to draw on as a poet. She talks about and reads from her new collection 'Luck is the Hook'. Her poems range widely and intriguingly, and include one about an elephant walking on the Thames.Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Edwina Pitman.

Tina Turner has been closely involved with Tina, the musical which tells the story of her tempestuous life. It has just opened and Front Row has a review. The actor Nicola Walker discusses her role in Abi Morgan's new television drama series about divorce lawyers, The Split, and some of her other roles.A report was published last week looking at booking accessible tickets for people with disabilities, for music and entertainment venues. Samira Ahmed speaks to Claire Griffin from the Roundhouse in London and Richard Howle from the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham - both venues praised in the report for their progress in becoming accessible venues. Mik Scarlet, Access and Inclusion Advisor and a regular gig goer himself, joins the conversation to discuss if the report reflect his own experience and to consider what further improvements need to be made to the industry as a whole.The cherry trees are blooming here and in Japan, where the blossom prompts celebration - drinking, picnics, poetry reading and the writing of haikus under flower festooned branches. But, Samira hears from a poet in Kyoto, an invasive beetle is threatening the trees, and this loved tradition.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian May.

Following last night's broadcast of The Queen's Green Planet on ITV, which features the Queen in intimate conversation with Sir David Attenborough, we talk to the documentary's director Jane Treays about working with the Queen and look back over the history of royal TV projects with critic Chris Dunkley.Luke Evans has featured in many Hollywood films including The Girl on the Train, Fast & Furious, the Hobbit franchise and last year as Gaston in Disney's live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast. The Welsh actor discusses his new Netflix series The Alienist, in which he plays a newspaper illustrator who teams up with a criminal psychologist to catch a serial killer in 1890s New York. Composer Sir James MacMillan's choral work Stabat Mater will make history on 22 April, when it becomes the first work to be video-streamed live from the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. It will be performed by The Sixteen and Britten Sinfonia under conductor Harry Christophers. MacMillan and Christophers discuss the challenges of performing in this revered venue.Presenter Kirsty Lang Producer Jerome Weatherald.

Mike Newell discusses his film The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which stars Lily James as a writer uncovering a mystery from World War II on the Channel island. The director looks back at his career which includes Four Weddings and a Funeral, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Donnie Brasco.Joanna Walsh is one of the UK's leading experimental writers. She discusses her new novel, Break.up about a nameless woman recovering from a relationship with a man which was mainly conducted online. Break.up also challenges the borders between fiction and non-fiction, as it ranges into travelogue, essays on music, boredom, marriage and art.Film critic Hannah McGill examines the cultural legacy of the late Czech filmmaker Miloš Forman, known primarily for his two Oscar-winning masterpieces One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus.Music writer Ben Wardle attempts to prove that 1978 was the greatest and most significant year in the history of pop music - think Kate Bush, Blondie, The Village People, The Police, Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town, Buzzcocks, and Kraftwerk's The Man Machine for starters. Presenter: Alex Clark Producer: Hannah Robins.

Sharlene Teo on her debut novel Ponti, an account of teenage friendship and fraught mother/daughter relationships set in a sweltering Singapore, that's been called remarkable by Ian McEwan. Is Coronation Street the most feminist soap on television? Emma Bullimore makes the case.Radio 4 poet-in-residence Alice Oswald and artist William Tillyer discuss their collaboration Nobody. Both a book and an exhibition, it fuses the written word with watercolour. They talk about the nature of collaboration, taking inspiration from the Odyssey and learning from each other's work.And as 53 doors that used to lead to rooms occupied by legends such as Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin and Jack Kerouac at New York's Chelsea Hotel are auctioned off, writer Michael Carlson examines the cultural significance of the long-term residence for generations of singers, writers and bohemians.Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Sarah Johnson.

As singer Janelle Monaé's video for her new single PYNK goes viral, music journalist Ruth Barnes looks back at other game-changers in the genre. The new Young People's Laureate for London was announced yesterday evening as Momtaza Mehri. We bring her together with the outgoing post holder Caleb Femi to discuss what he learnt in the role and ask Momtaza what she hopes to achieve.The soundtrack to the film "A Clockwork Orange" is as famous as Kubrick's film is notorious. What's less well known is that Anthony Burgess, as well as writing a stage version of his own novel, also wrote music to accompany it. The combined musical play is getting its first British theatrical production at the Liverpool Everyman next week. Dr Kevin Malone, reader in composition at the University of Manchester, who was the first person to re-unite the author's music and words evaluates Burgess's musical style.A bridge in Tello, Iraq, was built in the third millennium BC and is believed to be the world's oldest bridge. The British Museum has embarked on a restoration project of the 4000-year-old structure, including training local Iraqi archaeologists. The project's Lead Archaeologist, Sebastien Rey, discusses the challenge as well as the issue of the recent destruction of so many ancient sites in Iraq.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Hilary Dunn.

Actress Naomie Harris talks about her latest role in Brad Peyton's big-screen video game adaptation Rampage, which sees her fighting a trio of oversized genetically-modified predators alongside Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. Has it got harder for working class talent to make a career on stage and screen? This week the Anna Scher Theatre School, which is responsible for launching the careers of working class actors such as Kathy Burke, Daniel Kaluuya and Adam Deacon, celebrates 50 years, and there are calls for drama schools to remove audition fees to boost access to more formal training. To discuss how working class talent can thrive in 2018 we are joined by director Asif Kapadia, producer Rebecca O'Brien and actor Johnny Harris.The aboriginal singer Gurrumul died last year at the age of 46. Before his death, the highest-selling indigenous musician of all time had spent four years working on his album Djarimirri with his long-term friend, producer and manager Michael Hohnen. On the line from Sydney, Michael reflects on Gurrumul's life, music and early death, as well as the richness and influence of Gurrumul's own Yolngu culture.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Hannah Robins.

Viv Albertine was the guitarist in the cult punk band The Slits and a key player in British counter culture before working as a film maker and launching a solo career. Her new memoir, To Throw Away Unopened, unpicks family secrets which shaped her childhood and her early creative influences. This book begins when she is at the launch party for her hugely successful first book Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys and her sister calls with news that their mother is dying. After a two-year £35m refurbishment, the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Purcell Room on London's Southbank re-open this week. The architect Richard Battye and Gillian Moore, Director of Music at the Southbank, give Samira a guided tour of the Brutalist buildings, which have been updated to cater for an even wider range of music, dance and performance for the 21st century.Damian Kavanagh, the Controller of BBC Three, discusses how the platform is different online to on air, considers why it has been a success with younger audiences, and what this means for the future of television.Plus, we gauge the public reaction to Tracey Emin's new artwork, named I Want My Time With You, unveiled at St Pancras Station in London today.Presenter : Samira Ahmed Producer : Dymphna Flynn.