Front Row

Director Richard Linklater discusses his new film Last Flag Flying, starring Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne and Steve Carell, about three former US servicemen who re-unite in 2003 for a road trip to bury the son of one of the men, killed in the Iraq War.A recent Arts Council England report into literary fiction shows that sales, advances and prices have slumped over the last 15 years with the average writer earning around £11,000 a year - less than the minimum wage. The Arts Council have responded by pledging more support for authors including possible tax breaks for small publishers. The co-editor of the online magazine Books Brunch Neil Denny, critic Alex Clark and publisher Sharmaine Lovegrove discuss the report's implications for the future of literary fiction.In a new collection Don't Call Us Dead, young American poet Danez Smith muses on their experiences as a black HIV positive and genderqueer person living in America today.Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Hannah Robins.

Bridget Riley is known for her abstract geometric images featuring grids, lines, circles and squares. As the artist prepares to open a new exhibition of her recent work, art critic Charlotte Mullins assesses the importance and impact of the canvases and murals created in the last four years. As the Bayeux Tapestry is set to come to the UK from France we consider the extraordinary qualities of this artwork, the soft power of such cultural moves and the messages that might lie within Macron's gesture. Nick Park's new film is set aeons earlier than his Wallace and Gromit adventures. Dug, a resourceful cave-youth, and best friend Hognob, a prehistoric wild boar, unite their Stone Age tribe in defence of their green and pleasant land using not weapons but guile and football. Park explains how he came to make Early Man, the first feature the four-time Oscar winner has directed on his own, and Front Row asks if, actually, it's all about Brexit.David Lodge is both a leading comic novelist and a renowned literary critic. He talks about his memoir, Writer's Luck which covers the years 1976-1991 in which he found his greatest success with books like How Far Can You Go?, Small World and Nice Work . He was also Chair of Judges of the 1989 Booker Prize when to his disappointment Martin Amis failed to be shortlisted.

Carleen Anderson, former singer with Young Disciples and the Brand New Heavies, discusses her album and 'tribal opera' Cage Street Memorial, and performs a song from it in the studio.Turkish writer Elif Shafak discusses her bestselling novel The Bastard of Istanbul about a family of women, for which she was accused of 'insulting Turkishness' in 2006 and put on trial. The novel has been made into a two-part drama as part of Radio 4's Reading Europe season. Kirsty will be exploring the state of Turkish literature in a special Istanbul edition of Front Row next Friday, 26 January. In the week that Liam Neeson's new film The Commuter opens in cinemas, film critic Mark Eccleston considers the portrayal of commuting on film, from Brief Encounter to The Girl on the Train. Presenter Kirsty Lang Producer Jerome Weatherald.

As Will & Grace is revived twenty years after its premiere, TV critic Louis Wise discusses how the ground-breaking sitcom about two gay men and their best girl pal comes across in 2018. Disney and Pixar's new film Coco is about a Mexican boy who travels through the Land of the Dead to unlock a family mystery. We consider the evolution of Disney films, how they depict and reflect international cultures, and also ask where they sit in the wider animation landscape. The London Sinfonietta, world renowned contemporary classical ensemble, will perform at the Royal Festival Hall on 24th of this month, 50 years to the day since their first concert, at the same venue. Since then they have commissioned more than 300 pieces of music from composers such as Sir Harrison Birtwistle and Steve Reich. They have also worked with musicians such as Thom Yorke from Radiohead and Mica Levi. Artistic director and chief executive, Andrew Burke, leads Samira through the history of the London Sinfonietta, in four pieces of music closely associated with the ensemble.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian May.

Liam Neeson stars in action thriller The Commuter in which an insurance salesman is caught up in danger and conspiracy on his way home from work. He talks about the appeal of the ordinary man as hero.Jamie Hewlett is best known for his artwork for the comic strip Tank Girls, the group Gorillaz, and Damon Albarn's Chinese opera Monkey: Journey to the West. With the publication of a new monograph which features more than 400 of his artworks, Hewlett discusses his approach to graphic art and how tastes have changed over the last 20 years.This evening the winner of The T.S. Eliot Prize, is announced. To mark the 25th anniversary of Britain's most prestigious award for poetry the prize money has been increased to £25,000. Front Row will have the first interview with the winner, live from the award ceremony, and comment from one of the judges about this year's shortlist and how they made their choice.Following the news that Italian police are investigating three organisers of a Modigliani exhibition in Genoa after all but one of the paintings were shown to be fake, Anna Somers Cocks looks at forgery and 20th Century art.

Tom Hanks discusses his new film The Post, co-starring Meryl Streep and directed by Steven Spielberg, which tells the story of the part The Washington Post played in publishing the top secret Pentagon Papers that changed American public opinion about the Vietnam War. Sir Simon Rattle is conducting the European concert premiere of The Genesis Suite, a work with narration based on stories from the first book of the Bible, such as Adam and Eve, the Flood and the Tower of Babel. The conductor discusses the little-known piece from 1945 which was written by seven different European composers, émigrés to America, including Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Milhaud, who each composed a movement. The French culture minister Françoise Nyssen has unveiled plans to launch a heritage lottery. The money will go towards restoring ancient monuments. It follows reports of a fall in lottery receipts in the UK. French journalist Agnes Poirier and cultural historian Robert Hewison discuss the proposal, and consider how far arts and heritage funding should be lottery-dependent. Presenter Kirsty Lang Producer Jerome Weatherald.

In December the Royal Court withdrew and then reinstated its invitation to stage a new touring production of Andrea Dunbar's semi-autobiographical 1982 play Rita Sue and Bob Too as a result of sexual harassment allegations made against its co-director Max Stafford Clark - himself a former Artistic Director of the Royal Court and one of the most influential theatre directors of his generation. The Royal Court's current Artistic Director Vicky Featherstone and theatre critic Lyn Gardner discuss the way in which the play continues to speak to young women today and the impact of the recent controversy on this particular production in the context of the continuing revelations about sexual harassment in the arts industries. Kirsty Lang speaks to Jonathan Ruffer, the city financier who has donated almost £200 million to fund arts and restoration projects in the town of Bishop Auckland. For the past two summers the town has hosted the open-air drama Kynren, with the participation of 100 volunteers. In October Front Row covered the opening of a new mining art museum in the town, this year sees the re-opening of Auckland castle, a new Auckland Tower visitor attraction and, in 2019, a Spanish Art Gallery and Faith Museum.Sasha Dugdale reads from her new collection, Joy. The title poem, which won the Forward Prize for the best poem published in 2016, is a monologue in the voice of Catherine Blake, as she grieves for her husband William and in doing so celebrates their close and creative life together. Dugdale is also a playwright and translator and was until last month editor of the international magazine Modern Poets in Translation. She reflects on the impact this has on her own writing.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Julian May.

As The Southbank Show marks its 40th anniversary we discuss the legacy of this historic arts programme with host Melvyn Bragg. As ITV makes a return to arts programing with Great Art, and the BBC prepares to revive its landmark series Civilisations, we discuss the state of arts on TV today. With Phil Grabsky, the award-winning executive producer of Great Art and the founder of Seventh Art Production, and the TV writer Julia Raeside. 50 years ago this week saw the release the song Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay, performed and co-written by Otis Redding, considered to be one of the greatest singers in the history of American popular music. The song, which was recorded just days before Redding died in a plane crash at the age of 26, became one of his best-known and loved. Music journalist Kevin le Gendre considers why.As Michael Wolff's expose of the US president's administration sells out, we ask if you can ever predict what will be publishing hit or a miss. Cathy Rentzenbrink, author and former contributing editor of The Bookseller and bookseller joins Front Row.Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Rebecca Armstrong.

The 1996 radical feminist theatre piece, The Vagina Monologues, made a huge impact in America and around the world as well as inspiring V-Day, an organisation working to stop violence against girls and women. As the writer Eve Ensler updates it with some contemporary voices, we ask about the original production and why now is the right time to revisit it.We also look at feminist theatre in Britain today. In an age where so many people describe themselves as feminist, what defines a play as such? Which issues are being explored, and are dramatic techniques, such as shocking language and violence, employed in the same way as in the past? Theatre critic Sam Marlowe and playwright Phoebe Éclair-Powell discuss. With the return of French tv crime drama Spiral to BBC Four, critic Adrian Wootton gives us a guide to this cult series, and explains why it's worthy of a bigger audience in the UK. Presenter : Samira Ahmed Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

A special episode featuring all five winners of the Costa Book Awards 2017. The winner of the novel category Jon McGregor talks about how he wrote his stunning portrait of an English country village, Reservoir 13. Katherine Rundell, winner of the children’s book category, reveals how she ate tinned tarantula for her adventure story The Explorer. The biography winner Rebecca Stott discusses In the Days of Rain which tells the story of her family’s life in a cult and how they escaped. The novelist Louise Doughty discusses the late Helen Dunmore and her last collection of poems, Inside the Wave, which was awarded the poetry prize. And debut novelist Gail Honeyman discusses how she wrote Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine which won the Costa First Book Award.