Front Row

As Doctor Foster returns to BBC One this week, Suranne Jones discusses reprising her BAFTA Award-winning title role.We remember Walter Becker, guitarist, bassist and co-founder of Steely Dan, who has died at the age of 67. Stephen Sondheim's rarely-staged musical Follies opens this week at the National Theatre in London. John Wilson speaks to director Dominic Cooke, actress Janie Dee and veteran soprano Dame Josephine Barstow about the demands of the show - a tale of lost youth, romance and nostalgia for a bygone showbiz era. Front Row goes on the road with Harriet Riddell, a textile performance artist who is cycling a 22-mile stretch of the Leeds to Liverpool canal as part of the Fabrications Festival, exploring textiles through the eyes of artists. We follow Harriet as she uses her portable sewing machine to make a record of the places and people she meets.

As news breaks of a new all-female film version of William Golding's classic Lord of the Flies, the novelist Joanne Harris and film critic Karen Krizanovich join Andrea Catherwood to discuss whether it's a good idea. Patti Cake$ stars Danielle Macdonald as an unlikely rapper with talent but little opportunity. It's the first film for writer-director Geremy Jasper and won a warm reception at the Sundance Film Festival. Critic Mark Eccleston reviews.The American writer Nicole Krauss' books include The History of Love, which became an international bestseller, and Great House - both were shortlisted for the Orange Prize. Ten years ago she was chosen as one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists. Now her first book for 7 years, Forest Dark, is published: a contemplation of identity and shaking off the stories we tell about ourselves. She talks about the novel's characters including 68-year-old former New York lawyer Epstein... and a novelist called Nicole. The Market Theatre is bringing its award-winning production of The Suitcase from Johannesburg to Hull and the northeast. It's about a young couple who leave their village hoping for a better life in Durban. It doesn't work out and when the husband steals a suitcase - with no idea what's inside - life really unravels. It is, says director James Ngcobo, very different from the anti-apartheid, oppositional theatre that made the Market famous around the globe in the years of struggle. Presenter: Andrea Catherwood Producer: Sarah JohnsonImage: Jheri (played by Siddharth Dhananjay) and Patti Cake$ (played by Danielle Macdonald). Credit: Twentieth Century Fox.

Following speculation as to who might play Nigel Farage in a forthcoming film about Brexit, actor Brian Cox, who recently played Winston Churchill, and casting director Leo Davis, who cast Michael Sheen as Tony Blair, discuss the challenges for actors in playing non-fictional characters; what sort of preparation is required, how important are physical characteristics and what advice would they offer to actors on portraying "a real life" character?The fantasy series Game of Thrones has been of the most successful TV shows worldwide in the last decade. But it hasn't just caused a stir on our screens; it's also transformed the film industry in Northern Ireland where much of the mega series is filmed. Richard Williams, Chief Executive of Northern Ireland Screen, explains whether the burgeoning business can be sustained after GoT airs its next and final season.English-Egyptian writer Omar Robert Hamilton's debut novel, The City Always Wins, has been released to acclaim by writers including Philip Pullman and JM Coetzee. His story is set during the Arab Spring of 2011, and follows a group of young activists in Cairo. The book mirrors Omar's own involvement in the revolution. Kirsty asks him what it was like to experience the hopeful fervour at the beginning of the uprising and what became of their aspirations.Film critic Jason Solomons reports from the opening of the Venice Film Festival, including the showing of Downsizing with Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig.

Twelve year-old composer, pianist and violinist Alma Deutscher tells Kirsty Lang about her new piano concerto and her opera Cinderella, which was performed in Vienna to rave reviews. Critics Stephen Armstrong and Lucy Mangan discuss the return of The Great British Bake off, now on Channel 4.Games critic Jordan Erica Webber reviews Last Day of June, a new videogame in which players time travel to try and avoid the tragic death of the protagonist's wife. Following on from the controversy surrounding the removal of Confederate statues in the US, what is the role of the artist in commemorating our past? Afua Hirsch and Griselda Pollack debate the ethics of celebrating historical figures in stone. Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Timothy Prosser.

Best known for his series of crime novels starring private detective Charlie Parker, John Connolly's new novel, He, is a fictional reimagining of the life of one of the greatest screen comedians the world has ever known, Stan Laurel, and his enduring partnership with Oliver Hardy, the man he knew as Babe.Actor Ed Skrein has stepped own from the role of Major Ben Daimo in the film Hellboy because he is British and the character Japanese American. Samira Ahmed probes the significance of this, the first time an actor has made such a move, with Rebecca Ford, an Asian American journalist who has been covering the story in Los Angeles for The Hollywood Reporter. Tanika Gupta talks to Samira about her new play Lions and Tigers, which opens tonight at Shakespeare's Globe. The play is based on Tanika Gupta's great-uncle Dinesh Gupta, and his violent resistance against British Rule in 1930s Calcutta. The playwright explains how family recollections of Dinesh and his letters from prison helped inspire the drama.Based on David Harrower's Oliver-Award winning play Blackbird, the film Una is the cinematic debut of acclaimed theatre director Benedict Andrews, starring Rooney Mara as a woman who confronts the older neighbour who sexually abused her when she thirteen. Kate Maltby reviews. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Julian May.

More often associated with comic films, actor Bill Nighy turns his hand to gothic horror in his latest movie The Limehouse Golem. Based on the Peter Ackroyd novel, Nighy plays Inspector Kildare, a compassionate detective, drafted in to investigate a series of grisly murders in Victorian London. He talks to Samira about the safety of comedy and how he hates a challenge.As Londoners were treated to three different productions of Hamlet this summer, we explore why audiences can never seem to get enough of The Prince of Denmark. Samira is joined by Dame Janet Suzman, who has both acted in and directed the play; Kosha Engler who is currently playing Gertrude and Ophelia in a 3 person abridged version with her husband Benet and her father-in-law Gyles Brandreth; and psychotherapist Mark Vernon.American photographer Steve McCurry's most famous image is Afghan Girl, a photo taken in 1984 for the cover of National Geographic Magazine. The multi award-winning photographer has been travelling regularly in Afghanistan since the 1979 Russian invasion and tells Samira about his latest book; Afghanistan, a collection of pictures taken over a four decade career. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Edwina Pitman.

Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood discusses his passion for painting, drawing and sculpture. In the year that marks his seventieth birthday, he tells Stig Abell how his relationship with art began.Veteran director James Ivory claimed this week he was struggling to get investors for his film Richard II, because financiers feared that no money could be made from films based on Shakespeare's plays. We ask film-maker Anne Beresford and Jerry Brotton, Professor of Renaissance literature, if there is a problem adapting the Bard for the big screen. After a social-media purge and a lot of speculation, Taylor Swift has released the first single from her new album, Reputation. Kate Mossman gives her verdict on What You Made Me Do, a song that credits Right Said Fred for an interpolation of the melody from their 1991 hit I'm Too Sexy. Danish writer Peter Hoeg found fame with his second novel, Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow. He talks about his new novel, The Susan Effect, which, like his most famous book, focuses on a woman who risks everything to get to the truth. Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Kate Bullivant.

Making TV comedy about of illness, with Peep Show writer Sam Bain, whose new series Ill Behaviour features a cancer sufferer refusing conventional treatment, and Alison Vernon Smith, producer of Bad Salsa, Radio 4's comedy drama about women who take up salsa dancing after their cancer treatment. Thomas Meehan was behind successful musicals including Annie, The Producers, and Hairspray but he's not the name you're likely to know because he wrote the book: the narrative glue that holds a musical together. Theatre critic Matt Wolf assesses his legacy and discusses his partnership with Mel Brooks. Ned Beauman on his latest novel Madness Is Better Than Defeat. Beauman is the author of four novels including Boxer, Beetle. He has been longlisted for the Man Booker prize, won a Somerset Maugham award, and in 2013 was named one of Granta's best British novelists under 40. This latest novel is inspired by the making of the films Apocalypse Now and Fitzcarraldo, though its setting is the earlier Hollywood golden age of the 1930s. As Oscar-winning film-maker Michael Moore takes on Donald Trump in a new one man show Terms of My Surrender, Matt Wolf evaluates his attempt to "convert the unconverted" and whether the the stage is the best place to do it.Main Image: Ill Behaviour: Nadia (Lizzy Caplan), Charlie (Tom Riley), Joel (Chris Geere), Tess (Jessican Regan) Image Credit: BBC / Fudge Park Productions / Jon Hall.

Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow's new film is set during the five days of unrest that took place in Detroit in 1967. The drama is based on first hand recollections, police records and eye-witness accounts of the race-riots. Bigelow talks to Front Row about why these 50-year-old events feel as contemporary and urgent as ever. 75 years ago the English painter, war artist, designer, book illustrator and wood engraver Eric William Ravilious was killed aged 39 when the aircraft he was in was lost off the coast of Iceland. Many of his works are seen as capturing a sense of Englishness that existed between the wars. He also designed many popular pieces for Wedgwood including a commemorative mug for the abortive Coronation of Edward VIII and the Alphabet Mug of 1937. Art critic Richard Cork explains the significance of his work and the artist design movement he was part of.Famous for the wrong book. It's 170 years since Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre was published, 160 years since Flaubert published Madam Bovary and 50 since Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude but are they their writer's best book? Critics Kevin Jackson and Alex Clark show off their literary knowledge of the famous writers whose "other" books we may have never heard of - and certainly not read - but possibly should have done. The BBC has just opened a service broadcasting to the 75 million people of West Africa who speak Pidgin. Stig Abell talks to one of the reporters, Helen Oyibo, about the language and its literature, and hears Shakespeare's Sonnet 18, 'Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day' translated into Pidgin by Oyibo especially for Front Row.Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Julian May.

Peter Kosminsky talks to Stig about his new drama The State, which follows four British men and women who travel to Syria to join the so-called Islamic State. Kosminsky made his reputation with difficult drama documentaries and the storylines in The State are all based on documented events. As writer and director, he discusses the challenges of humanising these characters, and the decision to focus on portraying life inside IS.Did Vermeer really use a camera obscura to help him paint? Artist Jane Jelley explains how she recreated 17th century painting techniques to find out the truth behind the Dutch Master's luminous paintings.And in his new stage role Ben Whishaw plays Luke, your average Silicon Valley aerospace billionaire...until God tells him to 'go where there is violence', and he sets out to change the world. With Ben Whishaw and the director Ian Rickson, Stig delves into the ideas and issues in their new play, Against.Presenter: Stig Abell Producer: Ella-mai Robey.