Front Row

Today we launch Queer Icons, Front Row's celebration of LGBTQ culture to mark the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality. Prominent LGBTQ guests will champion the queer artwork that is special to them, from the poetry of Sappho to the songs of Frank Ocean. Guests include Alan Carr, Tony Kushner, Mary Portas, Olly Alexander, Paris Lees, Christine and the Queens, and opening the season tonight is the artist Maggi Hambling. The musician, producer and composer Nitin Sawhney was awarded the Lifetime Achievement award at this year's Ivor Novello Awards. He talks to John about 25 years in music and forthcoming projects including a fully choreographed production of his album Dystopian Dream, and writing soundtracks for big budget blockbusters.Sir John Soane's Museum in London is the subject of the latest report on the finalists for the Art Fund Museum of the Year 2017. Artist Marc Quinn discusses his fascination with the eclectic collection.Presenter John Wilson Producer Jerome Weatherald.

The Donmar Theatre's latest show is catchily titled 'The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee takes oral evidence on Whitehall's relationship with Kids Company'. Kirsty Lang finds out from composer Tom Deering and lyricist Hadley Fraser how they turn such proceedings into a thought provoking and entertaining musical.Producer Tom Chivers reckons the Middle English poem 'The Vision of Piers Plowman' is entirely relevant to modern England. He explains why, and how, he's taking 'Fair Field', his theatrical version of it home to the Malvern Hills, where William Langland composed the poem 650 odd years ago. We hear the original language, the modern take on this, and music from the production.With the announcement next week of the winner of this year's Art Fund Museum of the Year, Front Row reports on each of the five finalists. Today the focus is on The National Heritage Centre for Horseracing & Sporting Art in Newmarket, where visitors can learn about the history, science, art and culture of horseracing, and can meet racehorses in the restored stables.Composer, beatboxer, vocal sculptor and sound artist, Jason Singh, has been working with the people of Hull to create music for his sound installation, 'Ebb And Flow'. This 23-speaker, fully immersive work explores people's memories of the city, its links to water, its transformation, regrowth and change. It runs this weekend and Front Row gives you a taste.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Julian May.

For the first time the opening event of the Manchester International Festival isn't a big show or concert, instead it's a large-scale public event, What Is The City But The People, starring Mancunians. We hear from some of those selected to represent their city, and Jeremy Deller, the artist behind the commission, discusses making art for the public with the public. A Man Called Ove was a surprise international bestseller in 2014. The book, which depicts the effect of new neighbours on a grumpy middle aged man called Ove, has now been made into a film in the book's original language, Swedish. Briony Hanson reviews.In 2015 Kenneth Steven, a poet known for writing about the wilds of Scotland and the distant past, started writing a novel set five years hence. His story revolves around terrorist atrocity, retaliation from the far right and a fractured society. He talks to Samira Ahmed about his prescient book, called 2020.The Art Fund Museum of the Year is the world's biggest museum prize and back in April we revealed the finalists in a special programme from The British Museum. The overall winner will be announced next Wednesday but on the run up to the ceremony Front Row will be looking at each of the five shortlisted finalists. Tonight, photographer Martin Parr and art collector Tim Sayer share their appreciation for The Hepworth Wakefield.

This Friday the new Exhibition Road Quarter at London's Victoria & Albert Museum opens to the public. The architect behind the six-year project, Amanda Levete, and the museum's new director Tristram Hunt, discuss the £48m design which features a new porcelain-tiled courtyard, entrance hall, and a cavernous underground gallery for the museum's temporary exhibitions.Risk, a new documentary about Julian Assange from Academy Award-winning director Laura Poitras, was filmed over six years and with unprecedented access to the Wikileaks founder. The film was originally shown at last year's Cannes Film Festival, but Poitras has since re-cut it to incorporate the DNC email leaks that took place during the US Presidential election, and the sexual abuse allegations brought against one of the film's subjects. The director discusses her controversial film.After the result of last year's European referendum, Meike Ziervogel, founder of Peirene Press, commissioned Anthony Cartwright to write a novel in response to it, one that explored the conflict that was so evident in society. They discuss their working relationship throughout the writing process, and the resulting novel, The Cut. Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Jerome Weatherald.

2017 sees the 30th anniversary of Ian Rankin's creation Detective Inspector Rebus. Rankin was just 24 when he wrote the first book Knots & Crosses in his Edinburgh student flat and he's now gone on to sell over 30 million copies making him the UK's No 1 best selling crime writer. He talks to John about the enduring popularity of John Rebus.American artist Gregory Crewdson is known for his large cinematic photographs of suburban America - he often takes days or weeks to prepare, light and stage a single shot. As his latest exhibition of new work opens - Cathedral of the Pines - Gregory discusses his move to a more rural subject matter and the lasting appeal of ambiguous narratives which leave the viewer unsettled.The National Rural Touring Forum supports high quality art experiences at rural venues. As Arts Council England announce increases to investment outside London, board member Elizabeth Freestone discusses the Forum's work as well as the inaugural awards which are presented on 28 June. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is the first in Britain to embrace a new classical music app which sends programme notes to audience members' phones during the performance. BBC Music critic Daniel Jaffé reviews the app Octava which was trialled in London's Cadogan Hall earlier this year.Presenter : John Wilson Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

After the very British flavours of the Cornetto Trilogy: Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World's End, director Edgar Wright has made a very American heist movie. Baby Driver tells the story of a young getaway driver who listens to music constantly to sound track his great escapes and combat tinnitus. The cast includes Kevin Spacey, Jon Hamm, Lily James and Jamie Foxx, but as Kirsty Lang found out, music is the big star. She spoke to the director about car chases, Star Wars and of course killer tracks.In the first of a new Front Row series, Hooked, in which actors, singers and writers discuss their current cultural obsessions, actor Julie Hesmondhalgh reveals her love for Manchester, poet Tony Walsh, and Oasis.Earlier this month the artist Sam Durant gave the rights to his controversial artwork, Scaffold, to the Dakota community in Minneapolis. The artwork had been bought by the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis but after its installation in their sculpture garden there were protests from the local Native American community who said the work trivialised the hanging of 38 Dakota men by the US Army in 1862 - the largest mass execution in US history. Svetlana Mintcheva, Director of Programmes at the National Coalition Against Censorship, explains why the NCAC believe that this case sets an 'ominous precedent' in the world.The singer and writer Alba Arikha's father was the painter Avigdor Arikha, her mother is the poet Anne Atik and her godfather was Samuel Beckett. She talks to Kirsty about her memoir, Major/Minor, which recounts growing up in an artistic Parisian household in the 1970s, and sings a song from her album, Dans les Rues de Paris. Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Rebecca Armstrong.

Okja, a new Netflix feature film about a young girl in the South Korean mountains raising a giant pig, stars Tilda Swinton and the young Korean actor An Seo Hyun. The film was co-written by the British author and journalist Jon Ronson, who discusses the film and his career.It's 20 years on Monday since JK Rowling's first Harry Potter book was published and a whole generation of millennial Muggles have grown up with him in books, films and on stage. To mark the anniversary Front Row asks Tim Burke, the visual effects supervisor on most of the Harry Potter films; Viv Groskop, comedian, writer and parent; Rhianna Dhillon, film critic and self-confessed Potter nerd; Jonathan Douglas, Director of the National Literacy Trust; and the pupils of Oasis Academy in Salford what Harry means to them, and whether a world in which he'd never been created is even imaginable.Among the many victims of the Grenfell Tower fire was the 24-year-old artist and photographer Khadija Saye. Her images attracted international attention recently when they were featured in the new Diaspora Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, which opened last month and showcases work by established and emerging artists. The Pavilion's curator David A Bailey and Khadija's mentor, the artist Nicola Green, remember their friend and discuss the nature of her work.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Rachel Simpson.

Playwright Jez Butterworth and director Sam Mendes, two of the biggest names in theatre, discuss The Ferryman, one of the hottest plays of the year. The pair, who had previously worked together on Bond, reveal how a mutual love of football resulted in this latest collaboration.In a Front Row special John Wilson goes behind the scenes at the Gielgud Theatre as the cast and crew prepare to open in London's West End.The play is set in rural Derry in 1981 against the backdrop of the Troubles. The Carney family are preparing for the harvest feast when unwelcome visitors bring news of the discovery of a body forcing patriarch Quinn to confront the IRA past he had tried to escape. Northern Irish actress Laura Donnelly tells John the true story from her family's history that inspired the play and film star Paddy Considine discusses making his stage debut as part of a huge cast including a baby, a real rabbit and a live goose.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Marilyn Rust.

Joseph Fiennes joins Kirsty to discuss his role of the Commander in the sinister television adaptation the Handmaid's Tale currently on Channel 4.Daljit Nagra, Radio 4's poet in residence, reads a new poem commissioned for the summer solstice. Plus he discusses British Museum, his third volume of poetry which marks a significant departure of style. One hundred years since Wyndham Lewis was first commissioned as an official war artist in 1917, a major retrospective at Imperial War Museum North tells the story of the controversial and radical British artist. The exhibition's curator Richard Slocombe joins Kirsty to discuss. Scottish mezzo-soprano Catriona Morison has been awarded the 2017 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World title. Already a surprise finalist, she was the judges' choice as their wildcard entrant to compete in the final, she is also the first British winner of BBC Cardiff Singer of the World. She speaks to Kirsty from Germany where she is currently based as an ensemble member of Wuppertal Opera.

Broadway star Audra McDonald has won more Tony Awards than any other performer. She discusses the challenge of her new show Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill, in which she sings and performs as Billie Holiday, and what it was like doing Carpool Karaoke with James Corden.The Anglo-American artist John Singer Sargent's reputation as a portraitist reached its peak at the turn of the 20th century for his paintings of the distinguished personalities of his day. During painting expeditions to Southern Europe and the Middle East, he also mastered the medium of watercolour, and whilst often dismissed as simple travel souvenirs, a major new exhibition of Sargent's watercolours argues that they were an integral part of his artistic production. Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones reviews. Equity, the actors' union wants the way plays, films and television shows are cast to be made clearer, fairer and more inclusive. Ahead of the launch of their manifesto calling for changes, actor and President of Equity Malcolm Sinclair explains why these have to be made and what goes on in auditions.Irish novelist Paula McGrath discusses her new book A History of Running Away, set in 1980s Ireland and contemporary Ireland and America. It follows the story of three women, including would-be boxer Jasmine, who trains in the sport despite it being illegal for women to box in Ireland.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Edwina Pitman.