Front Row

Matt Lucas talks to Stig Abell about his autobiography 'Little Me: My life from A-Z', in which he writes about the challenges of his childhood, his start on the comedy circuit 25 years ago, and the phenomenal success of TV show Little Britain. Tamsin Greig and Martin Freeman discuss James Graham's new play Labour of Love, about the three decade battle between old and new Labour in a North Nottinghamshire constituency, in which they play a labour party agent and an MP. Jacky Klein on the surprising relationship between the father of conceptual art Marcel Duchamp, and the surrealist Salvador Dali, the subject of a new exhibition at the Royal Academy.Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Timothy Prosser.

A Front Row special from Hull which is hosting the BBC's new poetry and spoken word festival - Contains Strong Language. John Wilson talks to James Phillips, the playwright behind Flood, the epic year-long, four part multi-media theatrical event that has been one of the big commissions in Hull's year as City of Culture. Poet Louise Wallwein on Glue - the story of her search for her birth mother, and the impact of meeting her, which she has turned into a one-woman show, a debut collection of poetry, and Radio 4 drama.Filmmaker and writer Dave Lee and artist Sharon Darley debate the lessons that future cities of culture could learn from Hull's experience.Poets Dean Wilson and Vicky Foster read a selection of poems written by the people from the Humberside region about the places where they live. Dean and Vicky spent months travelling around the region doing workshops to inspire local people to put their thoughts about their neighbourhoods into poetry.Imtiaz Dharker, winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, reads from her new BBC commission, This Tide of Humber and discusses finding poetic inspiration in her trips to Hull and seeing her poetry set to dance.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Ekene Akalawu.

Benny Andersson, the musical mastermind behind all those Abba hits and the musical Chess, talks to Kirsty about his new album on which he presents solo piano versions of many of his best loved tunes.Sophie Wu is known as an actor for her roles in series such as 'Fresh Meat' and the film 'Kick Ass'. Now she has written a play. Ramona Tells Jim is about two teenage outsiders who fall for one another, before Ramona tells Jim something that changes everything. Sophie talks to Kirsty Lang about exploring how a single decision can have life-changing consequences.A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is the best-selling 2005 novel by Marina Lewycka which has now been adapted for the stage and is playing at the Hull Truck Theatre. Sam Marlowe reviews.To mark National Poetry Day, William Sieghart discusses the healing power of poetry. Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Helen Fitzhenry.

Since he retired last year, the international ballet Star Carlos Acosta has set up a dance company in his native Cuba, Acosta Danza. The company will debut in the UK at Sadler's Wells in London late this September. Carlos spoke to John Wilson in between rehearsals. John reviews the V&A's exhibition about 400 years of opera with top soprano Mary Bevan and critic Peggy Reynolds. John Wilson speaks to Michael Winterbottom about his new film On the Road, and the decision to include actors in what would otherwise be a classic rock documentary about the band Wolf Alice. Does the mixing of fact and fiction work?

On Saturday at the Barbican 18 musicians from several countries will play in a concert of Christian music from the East - Greece, Syria and India. Three of them, the singer Susheela Raman, guitarist Sam Mills and percussionist Pirashanna Thevarajah, talk to Samira Ahmed about the music and where they found it, and perform live in the Front Row studio.Elizabeth Dawn played Vera Duckworth in Coronation Street; Tony Booth, was Alf Garnett's Scouse son-in-law, Mike Rawlins, in Till Death Us Do Part, and was also in Coronation Street. The death of both actors was announced today and Susannah Clapp, the theatre critic of the Observer, and a keen Corrie fan, discusses the characters and the actors.This weekend many students will be going to university. As well as being a place of sober (and lewd) learning the university campus has, since the Second World War, been the setting of so many novels and films these have become a genre. Hannah Rose Woods captained her team to victory in University Challenge last year. She and Toby Lishtig, fiction editor of the Times Literary Supplement, consider the role of the campus in modern culture.It was announced today that playwright and director Kwame Kwei Armah, who for the last few years has been running the Center Stage theatre in Baltimore, will return to take over as Artistic Director of the Young Vic. Susannah Clapp tells Samira about him, and considers the significance of the appointment.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian May.

Nancy Meyers has made her career making hugely popular romantic comedies such as The Holiday, It's Complicated and What Women Want. As her latest venture, Home Again, comes to cinemas we speak to Nancy Meyers about the rom-com and her career in Hollywood. Last week, UK book publishers Bloomsbury launched their first 'Modern Classics' series, joining the likes of Picador, Faber & Faber and of course Penguin, who established their iconic series way back in 1961. But why are certain books deemed worthy of the label? And what exactly does the term mean in the first place? The curator of Bloomsbury's new series, Alison Hennessey, and literary critic Suzi Feay discuss what makes a modern classic.The migration crisis was seen as a key factor in Germany's election results this weekend with the nationalist AfD party winning enough parliamentary seats to become the third-largest party in the Bundestag. Award-winning novelist Jenny Erpenbeck was born in East Germany and she discusses her latest novel - Go, Went, Gone - which explores the crisis from the perspective of a recently-retired German professor based in East Berlin, who discovers that the transitions in his own life connect him in ways he had never imagined to the thousands seeking new lives in Germany.With the Turner Prize scrapping its eligibility age limit of 50, the work of the four artists who've made the shortlist - two of whom are over 50 - goes on display this week. Critic Jonathan Jones casts an eye over the Turner Prize exhibition which this year takes place at the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull for the first time. Presenter Kirsty Lang Producer Jerome Weatherald.

The political cartoonist Gerald Scarfe discusses Stage and Screen, a new exhibition at House of Illustration of his designs for theatre, rock, opera, ballet and film over the last 30 years, from Orpheus in the Underworld for English National Opera to Pink Floyd's 1982 film The Wall. Maja Lunde, author of the best-selling novel The History of Bees, tells Kirsty why she was inspired to write about these insects whose future is under threat, and how this led her to explore what the world might look like without them.Composer Sally Beamish and librettist David Harsent discuss The Judas Passion, their new oratorio which tells the Passion story from the perspective of Judas Iscariot.And today is the autumn equinox and on Radio 4 we've been marking the turning of the year and the darkening of the days with poems. Live in studio we have the poet Nick Makoha with a poem called The Good Light.

Last time they worked together director Natalie Abrahami buried Juliet Stevenson up to her neck in Samuel Beckett's play Happy Days. In their new collaboration, Stevenson spends almost the entire evening flying about above the stage, for her role as a stuntwoman who suffers a stroke. Juliet Stevenson and Natalie Abrahami talk to Samira Ahmed about staging Arthur Kopit's Wings.The New York street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, who died at the age of 27 in 1988, is the subject of a comprehensive new exhibition at the Barbican in London. The writer and former director of the ICA, Ekow Eshun, considers whether Basquiat was really 'one of the most significant painters of the 20th century', as the show claims.As Radio 1 prepares to celebrate its 50th birthday later this month, Tony Blackburn - the 24-year-old who launched the station in 1967 - looks back at the landscape of the time and how pop music changed radio for good.And the final shortlisted author for the BBC National Short Story Award, Jenni Fagan, talks about her story The Waken, an evocative tale of transformation and death set in the Scottish islands.Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Sarah Johnson.

Benedict Cumberbatch on bringing Ian McEwan's novel The Child in Time to BBC1, playing a children's writer whose marriage breaks down following the disappearance of his daughter.Giles Coren talks about the new Front Row television programme which begins this Saturday, and discusses his recent remarks about theatre which caused controversy in the press. Sports journalist Eleanor Oldroyd reviews Borg vs McEnroe, a feature film about the intense 1980's rivalry between the two tennis superstars. BBC National Short Story Award shortlisted author Will Eaves discusses his story, Murmur. Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Timothy Prosser.

The Hollywood actor and cellist Jan Vogler discuss their new classical album.