Front Row

The acclaimed composer and conductor, Oliver Knussen, has died aged 66. He began composing at just six years-old and as well as continuing to write music, went on to conduct around the world and in 1994 he was made a CBE. He was perhaps best known for the operatic adaptation of the children's classic Where the Wild Things Are. Mark Anthony Turnage and Roger Wright pay tribute.A reimagining of the iconic Australian novel, Picnic at Hanging Rock, begins on BBC2 this week. The six episodes explore the mysterious disappearances of three schoolgirls and their governess on Valentine's Day in 1900. Natalie Dormer speaks to John about her starring role in the drama, and about her other roles portraying strong women in The Tudors and Game of Thrones. What's it like being a life model and what makes drawing from life a unique and important discipline for artists? We speak to professional life model Rachel Welch, artist Jonathan Yeo and tutor Charlotte Mann, as Quentin Crisp's autobiography The Naked Civil Servant which depicts his own experiences as a life model turns 50.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Ben Mitchell.

Live from Dublin, Seamus Heaney's wife and daughter, Marie and Catherine Heaney, talk to the writer Sinéad Gleeson about 100 Poems, a selection of the poet's work chosen by his family. The book runs the gamut of Heaney's writing life, yet is a personal collection, with poems of love for his wife, children and grandchildren, his parents and relatives. A favourite of Seamus Heaney's poems is The Rain Stick which ends with the words, "Listen now again." That's the title of a new exhibition which draws on the huge archive which Heaney donated to the National Library of Ireland in 2011. Curator Geraldine Higgins leads Sinéad through the manuscripts, unpublished pieces, diary entries, notebooks and letters that trace the development of the Nobel Laureate's career. The permanent exhibition continues at the Bank of Ireland Cultural and Heritage Centre on College Green, Dublin. Jesse Jones threw a spotlight on feminism and women's issues with her work Tremble Tremble when she represented Ireland at the 57th Venice Biennale last year. The film and performance artist talks about creating the multi-media installation which re-imagines feminist history and law. Dermot Bolger's stage version of James Joyce's Ulysses is currently playing at Dublin's Abbey Theatre. The novelist, playwright and poet reflects on the daunting task of putting the greatest modernist work in the world on the stage.Presenter: Sinéad Gleeson Producer: Julian May.

Rob Brydon, Daniel Mays and Adeel Akhtar were among the actors spending long hours in swimming pools last summer rehearsing for, and shooting, the new British film Swimming With Men, based on a true story about a group of male synchronised swimmers competing in the world championships. Stig Abell reports from the set at Basildon swimming pool, which was masquerading as Milan, the venue for the finals.Laura Wade, the playwright behind Posh and the stage adaption of Tipping the Velvet, discusses Home, I'm Darling, her new a play about a modern couple trying emulate the happy domesticity of the 1950s. With the announcement of the winner of the £100,000 Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018 later this evening, we have our final report from the five finalists. So far we've heard from Brooklands Museum in Weybridge, Glasgow Women's Library, The Postal Museum in London, and Tate St Ives. Tonight we visit Ferens Art Gallery in Hull, which was at the heart of Hull UK City of Culture last year.Filmmaker and writer Claude Lanzmann, famous for Shoah - his 1985 epic exploration of the Holocaust, has died. He's remembered by the writer and cultural critic Agnes Poirier.Presenter Stig Abell Producer Jerome Weatherald.

Actor Emily Mortimer on a new film adaption of Penelope Fitzgerald's The Bookshop, about a widow who decides to open a bookshop selling subversive literature in a small seaside town in 1950s England. She also tells Samira about her role in the upcoming Mary Poppins sequel.The 50th year of the Man Booker Prize is celebrated this weekend with a festival at London's South Bank. Literary Director Gaby Wood joins novelist Linda Grant and publisher Arifa Akbar to discuss the history of and issues surrounding Britain's most prominent award for literature. Tomorrow evening the winner of the £100,000 Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018 will be announced. We report from each of the five shortlisted museums and galleries - today it's the Glasgow Women's Library, the only accredited museum in the UK dedicated to women's lives, histories and achievements.Presenter: Samira AhmedProducer: Timothy Prosser.Main picture: Emily Mortimer as Florence Green. Credit: Vertigo Releasing

When Haifaa Al Mansour released Wadja in 2012 she became Saudi Arabia's first female director of a feature film. She has now directed her first English-language film - a biopic about Mary Shelley. Al Mansour talks why she wanted to make a film set in 19th-century England about the teenage creator of Frankenstein and how much film-making has changed in Saudi Arabia since her debut film six years ago. Based on the debut novel of Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl), Sharp Objects is a new HBO drama series starring Oscar nominee Amy Adams as a crime reporter forced to confront her own demons, directed by Jean-Marc Vallee (Big Little Lies). Sophie Wilkinson reviews.Ahead of the announcement of the winner of the £100,000 Art Fund Museum of the Year Prize 2018, we are reporting from each of the five shortlisted museums. Today we hear from Brooklands Museum in Surrey, home of the world's first motor racing circuit. The museum's new exhibition spaces - the Aircraft Factory and Flight Shed - highlight the crucial role Brooklands has played in aviation, from Concorde to the Hawker Hurricane.We're getting in the mood for holiday reads. Over the next few weeks we'll be offering inspiration on which books to cram into your suitcase. Today Sarah Ditum of the New Statesman joins us to recommend books for travellers destined for Italy, Germany and France.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Kate Bullivan.

Maxine Peake discusses her new stage play, Queens of the Coal Age, which dramatizes the incident in 1993 when, armed with wet wipes and nicotine gum, Anne Scargill led a group of women to occupy Parkside Colliery in protest against pit closures.The acclaimed dancer and choreographer, Gillian Lynne, has died aged 92. Best known for Cats and The Phantom of the Opera, she worked on more than 60 shows on Broadway and in the West End. Elaine Paige, Cameron Mackintosh and choreographer Arlene Phillips pay tribute.Kevin Macdonald's film Whitney is released this week, the second documentary in just over a year looking at the icon's life (and demise). While Macdonald's new film is officially supported by the late singer's estate, Nick Broomfield's 2017 Whitney: Can I Be Me?, was unauthorised. Critic Grace Barber-Plentie considers how access and the involvement of the family affected the feeling of the film, and whether the chorus of interviewed voices bought us any closer to understanding Whitney Houston.Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Rebecca Armstrong.

Winner of five Tony Awards, Fun Home is a ground-breaking new musical about a lesbian girl coming out, based on Alison Bechdel's autobiographical graphic novel. Briony Hanson reviews the UK premiere at London's Young Vic theatre.Remarkably, Fun Home is the first Broadway musical with a lesbian protagonist. But are queer women underrepresented in drama in general? Briony is joined by theatre director Hannah Hauer-King to discuss the visibility and portrayal of lesbian characters in theatre, film and TV. The latest novel by the prolific Caryl Phillips, A View of the Empire at Sunset, is a fictional account of the life of Jean Rhys, author of The Wide Sargasso Sea, who came from the West Indies to London in 1906 at the age of sixteen. Caryl Phillips discusses his fascination with Rhys, and how writing her life in this way allows him to observe the decline of the Empire.Ahead of the announcement next week of the winner of the £100,000 Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018, we'll be reporting from each of the five shortlisted museums. Today we hear from Tate St Ives, which originally opened in 1993, but which re-opened to the public last year after two-year architectural extension. Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Kate Bullivant.

A Japanese-themed edition of Front Row as the Oscar-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, whose scores include Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence and The Last Emperor, talks to Stig about being inspired by nature, and how he came back from treatment for throat cancer to write the music for The Revenant.The editor of The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories, Jay Rubin, tells how he curated the selection and reflects on his career as one of Haruki Murakami's main translators. And Junko Takekawa, Senior Arts Programme Officer at the Japan Foundation and a guest curator at this year's Cheltenham Festival of Literature, selects some of her favourite Japanese novels. The architect Sou Fujimoto describes how the boundaries between nature and buildings, inside and outside, inspire his work - and reveals the artistic potential of a pile of crisps!Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Sarah Johnson.

Bartlett Sher's adaption of The King and I won four Tony Awards during its run on Broadway and is transferring to London this month. The American director was highly praised for his updating of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, which is set in 19th century Siam but has been criticised for sexism and orientalism. Bartlett Sher discusses taking on this classic musical for a modern-day audience.Writer and critic Olivia Laing, known for her non-fiction writing about art, sexuality and cities, discusses her debut novel. Crudo is a highly personal 'real time' account of the political and social upheavals taking place across the world during the summer of 2017, told from the dual perspectives of the writer herself and American experimental novelist Kathy Acker.Ahead of the announcement next week of the winner of the £100,000 Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018, we'll be reporting from each of the five shortlisted museums, starting today with The Postal Museum in London, and its famous subterranean Mail Rail, which opened to the public last year.

Michael Jackson as a visual icon is the subject of a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery which brings together artists inspired by the global star. Art critic Ekow Eshun joins Todd Gray - Michael Jackson's personal photographer at the time of Off The Wall and Thriller - to discuss the star's relationship with his own image.An American podcast, which explores the way humans use music, has investigated the use of pop music by so-called Islamic State to spread terror. John Wilson talks to Pitch producer Whitney Jones.Kynren is a theatrical spectacular - a pageant involving more than 1,000 people telling 2,000 years of English history on an acting area of more than 7 acres, which includes a lake, longboat and working railway. We go behind the scenes in Bishop Auckland to find out how the cast and crew - all local volunteers - manage this extravaganza.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Timothy Prosser.