Front Row

We hear about the second series of the American Crime Story television franchise which began in 2016 with The People Versus OJ Simpson. John Wilson is joined in the studio by novelist turned screenwriter Tom Rob Smith. He has written the next instalment - The Assassination of Gianni Versace - which dramatises the events surrounding the murder of the Italian fashion designer outside his Miami home in 1997. Freud and Bacon are at the heart of Tate Britain's latest show, and there is a whole room of Paula Rego paintings,too. All Too Human follows the depiction of the human in figurative art in the last 100 years. John Wilson speaks to the curator Elena Cripps and David Dawson who was Lucian Freud's assistant. Freud's portrait of Dawson is included in the exhibition. Art critic Louisa Buck reviews the show and considers if an exhibition with such a broad theme allows for a more interesting range of work than most.Debut novelist Mick Kitson explains the thinking behind his audacious debut novel Sal, which tells the story of two young girls, sisters, who go on the run in Scotland's Galloway Forest after one of them, in self defence, commits a shocking crime. The novel portrays their attempts to survive in the wilderness based on bushcraft skills acquired from watching YouTube videos.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Julian May.

Jennifer Lawrence stars in new film Red Sparrow as a prima ballerina turned Russian spy trained to seduce her targets. The film is based on a successful novel by former CIA operative Jason Matthews and helmed by Frances Lawrence who also directed Lawrence in the Hunger Games film series. Film critic Anna Smith reviews.David Edgar's adaptation of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, starring Phil Daniels, is currently touring the country. April de Angelis has adapted Frankenstein for the Manchester Royal Exchange. Both playwrights talk about how they have brought these science fiction classics to the stage and consider why so many new theatre shows are adaptions from famous books. Paintings deep in caves in Spain reveal that Neanderthals were artists, according to new research published in the journal Science. Professor Paul Pettitt from Durham University tells us how fundamental the making of art is to us and our ancestors.The Diaspora Pavilion at last year's Venice Biennale showcased the work of 19 British artists responding to the idea of the diaspora of their various cultures. Michael Forbes, one of the artists, gives John a tour of a selection of the works now on display in the UK at the Wolverhampton Art Gallery.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Sarah Johnson.

Tracey Thorn describes her new record 'Record' as 'nine feminist bangers'. She talks to John Wilson about why electro-pop turns out to be her preferred style for a musical look back at various stages in her life from birth, through teenage crushes and learning to play guitar to motherhood.The Finnish National Gallery has just become the latest institution to make digital images of works in its collection, that are no longer in copyright, freely available to the public. No major UK arts institution has taken a similar step. Art Historian Dr Bendor Grosvenor has been campaigning on this issue and explains his position.As two biographies of Mary Shelley have been published since Christmas "In Search of Mary Shelley the girl who wrote Frankenstein" by Fiona Sampson and "Mary Shelley" by Miranda Seymour we look at the competing claims and different perspectives that biographers bring to the lives of their subjects. Biographer and critic Kathryn Hughes and critic and editor of on-line literary magazine Boundless, Arifa Akbar, discuss what "rival" biographies reveal about the process of writing biography itself.Grime artist Stormzy took two of the top awards at the Brits and used his platform to criticise the government over its response to Grenfell Tower fire. From an interview with Front Row on the occasion of last year's awards he throws light on what motivates his rapping and his thoughts on grime's place in the awards.

Playwright Dennis Kelly's emotional new play Girls and Boys centres on the story of a woman in an aggressive man's world. Kelly and actor Carey Mulligan, the star of the one-woman show, discuss the disturbing themes in the play and the challenges of performing it.Following a major leak from the Game of Thrones set - and the accompanying outrage - we ask writer Gareth McLean and TV critic Emma Bullimore whether our aversion to spoilers has now gone too far.Boyd Hilton reviews Mosaic, a new TV drama series from Steven Soderbergh, which stars Sharon Stone as a murdered novelist. The HBO series is accompanied in the US by a mobile phone app whereby the viewer can choose from which perspective the plot is viewed. Matt Bellamy, the axeman who fronts Muse and is famous for his searing solos, has said the guitar as a lead instrument is dead. It has retreated into the texture of the music. Front Row plays a lament in tribute to the lead guitar, as it loses its leading role.Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Julian May.

I, Tonya is a new biopic about figure skater Tonya Harding, who was known as the bad girl of the ice rink. The film stars Margot Robbie and Allison Janney who've won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA respectively for their performances. Briony Hanson reviews.With the Winter Olympics in full swing we ask 'is figure skating a sport or an art'? Robin Cousins, former Olympic champion and current commentator at the figure skating at the Games in Pyeongchang, and Debra Craine, dance critic of The Times, discuss how ice dancing relates to more classical forms of dance on terra firma. Jess Kidd won the Costa Short Story Award in 2016 and that year published her debut novel Himself to critical acclaim. She discusses her new novel The Hoarder about a care worker and her relationship with the belligerent Cathal Flood and the junk-filled house he inhabits.Yesterday the BBC launched two new African language services, bringing the news, and telling stories in Yoruba and Igbo. Wole Soyinka, the first African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, is Yoruba; Chinua Achebe, author of arguably the most famous African novel, Things Fall Apart, was Igbo. The editors of the new services discuss the importance of Yoruba and Igbo art and culture today.Presenter Samira Ahmed Producer Jerome Weatherald.

To mark the 100th anniversary of women over 30 getting the vote in the UK we have a themed programme looking at the art that was created alongside the suffrage campaign and we celebrate the contribution of female artists. For the last two weeks we've been asking Front Row listeners to nominate their favourite art work by a woman. Jenny Éclair and Rosie Fletcher come into the studio to champion their picks in a head to head choosing Tracey Emin's My Bed and Nora Ephron's script for When Harry Met Sally respectively. In Spring 1907 the first suffragette play opened at the Royal Court - Votes for Women by Elizabeth Robins. This rarely performed play is being revived by the New Vic in Newcastle-under-Lyme and we speak to adaptor and director of the production Theresa Heskins about whether the play has relevance today. Annie Swynnerton was a suffragist and the first woman to be elected to the Royal Academy of Art. As a retrospective of her work prepares to open at Manchester Art Gallery, Charlotte Keatley gets a sneak preview and explains Swynnerton's significance. Performance poet Kat Francois reads and discusses a poem commissioned by Front Row to mark 100 years since women got the vote. Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Hannah Robins.

The trauma of child abuse lies at the heart of two new memoirs - Louise Allen's Thrown Away Child, and The Only Girl in the World by the French writer Maude Julien. As they look back over their years of mistreatment by the adults in their lives, they explain how they found solace in art and literature - which provided both a lifeline, and an escape from pain and deprivation that was being inflicted on them from a very early age. Presenter Stig Abell Producer Jerome Weatherald.

Actor Ruth Wilson talks about starring in Clio Barnard's new film Dark River, a powerful psychological drama about a sheep farming family in Yorkshire. She also discusses the BBC TV drama she is making about her grandfather, a novelist who she recently discovered was also a spy with several wives. A new report, commissioned by the Art Fund, has called for greater investment in museum collections as museums and galleries in Britain struggle to keep up with the international art market. Cultural policy expert and honorary fellow at University of Edinburgh, Tiffany Jenkins responds.Cal McCrystal, the physical comedy expert brought in to add laughs to the National Theatre's hit One Man, Two Guvnors and the Paddington films, is now directing the new English National Opera production of Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe and explains how he makes Gilbert and Sullivan funny to a contemporary audience.Creative Scotland, Scotland's public arts funding body, is in the firing line over its recent funding decisions, and its leaders have now been called to appear before the Scottish Parliament's Culture Committee. Robert Softly Gale and David Leddy, two artistic directors, discuss how their organisations have been caught up in the funding storm. Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Edwina Pitman.

Greta Gerwig recently made history as the first woman to be Oscar-nominated for her directorial debut, Lady Bird. She tells Kirsty why she wrote a coming of age drama about a confused teenage girl growing up in her own hometown of Sacramento, and why she is now keen to write a play or act on the West End stage.Writer Benjamin Markovits was shortlisted for the BBC's National Short Story Award last year. This year he is one of the judges alongside television presenter Mel Giedroyc, poet Sarah Howe, BBC Books editor Di Speirs and last year's winner KJ Orr. Benjamin Markovits discusses the significance of the award now in its 13th year.Recent episodes of BBC One's Silent Witness have drawn praise from critics and audiences especially for Liz Carr role as forensic scientist Clarissa Mullery. The disabled actress has been in the series for 5 years, but this storyline put her at the heart of the drama as well as tackling the issue of abuse of disabled residents in a care home. Silent Witness writer Tim Prager tells us about creating the storyline and the reaction to the episodes, and we also talk to broadcaster Mik Scarlet and deaf actress Genevieve Barr about current opportunities for disabled actors across TV, theatre and film.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Kate Bullivant.

The Shape of Water leads this year's Oscars race with 13 nominations. Directed by Guillermo del Toro, it's an other-worldly fairy tale about a mute cleaner (Sally Hawkins) who falls in love with an alien-like creature imprisoned at the high-security laboratory where she works. Mark Eccleston reviews. As a blockbuster exhibition of the Terracotta Warriors opens at the World Museum in Liverpool, featuring objects from the burial ground of China's First Emperor never before seen in this country, Samira is joined by Fiona Philpott, Director of Exhibitions and Mike Pitts, editor of British Archaeology magazine.Samira is joined by another Samira Ahmed, an American writer whose latest book - Love, Hate & Other Filters - is a coming of age novel about an Muslim teenager coping with Islamophobia in her small town. As the latest series gathers momentum, Louis Wise explores the television phenomenon that is RuPaul's Drag Race, the American reality show where drag queens compete against each other to win the crown, Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Timothy Prosser.