Front Row

Nicola Barker is one of Britain's most unconventional novelists. Her new novel H(A)PPY is set in a post-post apocalyptic future where everyone is eternally young, eternally knowledgeable and eternally happy, until cracks start to appear. Nicola talks to Samira about the novel. For Front Row's Queer Icons, Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner champions Alison Bechdel's graphic novel Fun Home, which has been turned into a hit musical. In the new Netflix drama Ozarks Jason Bateman plays a financial adviser trying to keep his family safe from a Mexican drug cartel after a money laundering scheme goes wrong. Although very different in tone to TV shows like Arrested Development and films like Horrible Bosses, Bateman is once again cast as the most normal character, the one the audience can connect with. He talks to Samira Ahmed about the appeal of such roles, why he wanted to direct the series and life as a child star.In Front Row's new series Hooked, actors, writers and musicians share the films, podcasts and music they currently love. Actress Jodie Whittaker - who has just been revealed as the 13th Doctor Who - explains why she's hooked on the podcast S-Town and Pete Tong's album Classic House. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Jack Soper.

Sofia Coppola discusses her new film The Beguiled starring Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst and Colin Farrell. Described as a feminist remake of the Clint Eastwood version in 1971, Coppola explains her approach, why she decided to cut the black character Hallie, and teaching the cast of women to be Southern belles.For our Queer Icons series, museum director Neil MacGregor chooses The Warren Cup, a Roman goblet from the British Museum that depicts men making love. Design journalist Corrine Julius looks at the new exhibition about plywood at the Victoria and Albert Museum and discovers its surprising versatility and appeal.Plus Kirsty speaks to Kate Wakeling, winner of this year's CLiPPA prize for Children's poetry, about her debut collection Moon Juice. Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Harry Parker.

As the Natural History Museum in London replaces Dippy the Dinosaur with a Blue Whale skeleton, we debate which animal group has inspired the best art. Broadcaster Matthew Sweet champions whales while historian Tom Holland is on the side of the dinosaurs, but who will convince Samira theirs is best?Frank Ocean's ground-breaking album Channel Orange is chosen for our Queer Icons series by rapper A.Dot, who presents the BBC Radio 1Extra Breakfast Show. Samira talks to pianist Igor Levit backstage at the Royal Albert Hall as he prepares to perform Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.3 in the First Night of the Proms tomorrow. The poet and novelist Nick Laird's new book, Modern Gods, is set in Ulster and New Ulster, which is an imaginary part of very real Papua New Guinea. Despite seeming worlds apart, Laird explores the strange parallels between these contested tribal lands. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Hannah Robins.

A month ago, Maria Balshaw took over the role of Director of Tate from Sir Nicholas Serota, having been Director of The Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester. In one of her first interviews the only woman to hold the post discusses her plans for the future of the institution.For our Queer Icons series, Alan Carr chooses My Father and Myself, J.R Ackerley's memoir about being gay and out in the first half of the 20th Century, and the complex relationship with his father. We cross live to the National Theatre to speak to actress Paksie Vernon, who may get to go on stage tonight, and hear from theatre critic Susannah Clapp about the art of the understudy.The Festival of Britain sculpture The Sunbathers, by Peter Laszlo Peri was in a terrible state of repair when John Wilson took the artist's daughter to see it in the restoration studio. Now the pair see it back where it belongs on London's Southbank.

As the Planet of the Apes reboot reaches its climactic third chapter, film critic Kate Muir reviews War of the Planet of the Apes and explores the themes of the franchise from 1968's first with Charlton Heston as well as its source material, Pierre Boulle's novel.The Tate Modern's Soul of a Nation exhibition looks at the relationship between art and Black Power in the 1960s and 70s. We discuss how one influenced the other and talk to two of the founders of the Coalition of Black American artists.For our Queer Icons series, Man Booker prize winning author Alan Hollinghurst champions Ronald Firbank's humorous novel The Flower Beneath the Foot.Plus, after the vinyl revival, music journalist Ben Wardle celebrates the surprising return of the cassette.Presenter : Samira Ahmed Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

As Shirley MacLaine releases a new film about a woman curating her obituary, she reflects on her long career in Hollywood, including working with Alfred Hitchcock, being the only female member of the Rat Pack and starring in Downton Abbey alongside Maggie Smith.As the Bolshoi Ballet cancels the eagerly awaited adaptation about Nureyev, ballet critic Ismene Brown discusses what might have caused this to come about.For our Queer Icons series, trans rights activist and journalist Paris Lees chooses Neil Jordan's 1992 film The Crying Game, about an IRA man's relationship with a British soldier's lover. The baritone and composer Roderick Williams talks about his upcoming performances at the Cheltenham Music Festival and at the Proms where a world premiere of his new BBC commission, inspired by the text of a well-known aria from Mozart's Don Giovanni, will be performed.

Sarah Hall's short story Mrs Fox won her the BBC National Short Story Award. Now it forms part of her new collection of short stories, Madame Zero, and she talks to John Wilson about depicting extraordinary transformations and where human behaviour meets the animal.For our Queer Icons series, actor Sir Antony Sher chooses the play and film Torch Song Trilogy by Harvey Fierstein, which tells the story of a New York drag queen's search for love and a family. As Fatherland, a play exploring relationships between fathers and sons, premieres at the Manchester International Festival, Front Row invites filmmaker Josh Appignanesi and Jeremy Davies of the Fatherhood Institute to discuss contemporary portrayals of fatherhood.And as world leaders at G20 settle down to a performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony conducted by Kent Nagano in Hamburg tonight, Tom Service talks about what he thinks is the most dangerous piece of music ever composed.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Sarah Johnson.

The Royal Shakespeare Company production of Queen Anne has opened at London's Theatre Royal Haymarket. Set in the early 18th century, the play charts the intimate and increasingly fraught relationship between the childless and insecure queen and her closest confidante Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough. Romola Garai who plays Sarah Churchill and writer Helen Edmundson discuss this often overlooked British monarch. For our Queer Icons series, the Oscar-winning writer of Moonlight, Tarell Alvin McCraney, champions the film Paris is Burning, about drag houses, drag balls and fabulousness in 1980s New York. Queer Icons is Front Row's celebration of LGBTQ culture, to mark the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality. The philanthropist Lloyd Dorfman today announced a major donation to the Royal Academy of Arts in London with a view to transforming the future of architecture at the institution. Architecture critic Hugh Pearman assess the significance of his contribution.The outgoing Poet Laureate of Jamaica, Mervyn Morris, was on Front Row recently. Today Samira meets his successor, Lorna Goodison, the first female to hold that post. She explains her role as 'praise-singer to the nation'. Her Collected Poems has just been published and from this monumental book she reads work that expresses her admiration for the Jamaican people, their language and her love of the landscape of the island. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Edwina Pitman.

For our series Queer Icons, Christine and the Queens chooses Jenet Genet's novel Our Lady of the Flowers, set in the Parisian underworld of thieves and drag queens, as her favourite LGBTQ artwork. Christine and the Queens is the stage name of Héloïse Letissier, the French singer-songwriter of the best-selling album Chaleur Humaine.As the Spider-Man gets its third reboot in 15 years Jason Solomon reviews what Spider-Man: Homecoming brings to the franchise.On Front Row Rachel Weisz remarked that in order to play the title role in My Cousin Rachel she had to decide whether or not she was guilty, but she told no one, not even the director. Michael Simkins has played a murderer, and a suspect who turned out not to be guilty. He also played Sion Jenkins, who was tried for the murder - and eventually found not guilty - of his foster-daughter Billy-jo Jenkins, in a docu-drama. Michael talks to Samira Ahmed about acting guilty - and not.In our final look at the shortlisted institutions vying for the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2017 prize, Front Row visited the Lapworth Museum of Geology in Birmingham which re-opened in June 2016 after a £2.7 million redevelopment and expansion. Since re-opening, the museum, which used to receive 20,000 visitors a year, has recently welcomed its 50,000th visitor.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian May.

She was nominated for the Turner Prize as an artist and directed a movie which grossed $571 million world-wide but now Sam Taylor-Johnson has turned her attention to TV with Gypsy. The Netflix drama stars Naomi Watts as Jean, a well-heeled New York therapist who gets overly involved with the people in her patient's lives through her alter-ego Diane; putting her own family life at risk in the process. Sam Taylor-Johnson directed the first two episodes and is an executive producer on the series. She has been talking to John Wilson about the difficulties she encountered directing her last film Fifty Shades of Grey and her reasons for getting into TV.For Queer Icons, Front Row's celebration of LGBTQ culture, singer Will Young chooses Joan Armatrading's Everyday Boy, a song which helped him come to terms with his sexuality when he was a teenager. Titus Andronicus is Shakespeare's bloodiest play involving rape, incest, cannibalism and massacres. As the RSC begin their new production they have announced they will be conducting research into the effect the violence on stage has on the audience both in the stalls and in the live cinema broadcast. We ask which is more shocking violence on stage or on screen, whether either have got more violence in recent years and if audience expectations and tolerance has changed as a result.Plus, Tate Modern in London is the subject of the latest report on the finalists for the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2017.