Wilko Johnson, the former Dr Feelgood guitarist and songwriter, was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2013. In his new book, Don't You Leave Me Here: My Life, he takes stock of his life following an 11-hour, life-saving operation and looks forward to a future he wasn't expecting. Wilko Johnson discusses his extraordinary and unexpected change of fortune.

Kenneth Branagh's latest play in his year-long season at the Garrick Theatre is Romeo and Juliet. Lily James and Richard Madden star as the eponymous lovers, with Derek Jacobi as Mercutio and Meera Syal as the Nurse. Susannah Clapp reviews.

The late American artist Walter De Maria is best known for his large-scale works, including The Lightning Field, a grid of 400 stainless steel poles in the New Mexico desert, and The Vertical Earth Kilometer, a brass rod that extends 1 kilometre into the ground in the German city of Kassel. John Wilson talks to De Maria's assistant and former studio manager Elizabeth Childress and curator Kara Vander Weg about the artist's first solo exhibition in the UK.


Presenter: John Wilson
Producer: Rachel Simpson. Published on May 26, 2016.

Wilko Johnson, Romeo and Juliet review, Walter de Maria

Front Row marks 60 years of The Royal Court Theatre by discussing the value of new writing for the stage. In front of an audience John Wilson is joined by The Royal Court's Artistic Director Vicky Featherstone, The Guardian's theatre critic Michael Billington, and playwrights Simon Stephens, Stef Smith and Diana Nneka Atuona. Scenes from key plays are performed by David Tennant, Daniel Mays and Ami Metcalf, Ashley Zhangazha and Lisa Mcgrillis, Roy Williams, Kate Ashfield and Tom Hollander.

Producer: Dixi Stewart. Published on May 30, 2016.

Front Row at The Royal Court Theatre

Singer-songwriter Charlotte Church discusses her 'musical fairy tale' which receives its premier next weekend at the inaugural Festival of Voice in Cardiff. The Last Mermaid is inspired by The Little Mermaid and tackles the challenging issues facing our world.

Tracy Chevalier has just edited a collection of short stories inspired by the line, 'Reader I Married Him' from Jane Eyre. She and Lionel Shriver, who's contributed, discuss the importance of one of the most famous lines in literature.

The Young Adult fiction genre has been a major growth area in publishing over the last decade and as more titles flood the market this year, 3 of the top selling YA authors, Juno Dawson, Patrick Ness, Holly Smale join John Wilson to discuss what defines this area of fiction and where it allows them to go as writers that adult fiction and children's doesn't.

Welsh folk musician and BBC Wales presenter, Frank Hennessy, teams up with fellow Hennessys band mate, Iolo Jones, and Appalachian musicians Rebecca Branson Jones and Trevor McKenzie to play the world premier of a song that began life as a Welsh hymn and morphed into a Bluegrass Gospel song. Published on May 27, 2016.

From Hay: Charlotte Church, Tracy Chevalier and Lionel Shriver, YA Fiction, Welsh-Appalachian Music Mashup

Nina Stibbe's latest novel Paradise Lodge follows Lizzie Vogel as she skips school to work at a residential care home. The book draws on the author's own experience as a teenager and is the second of a trilogy of Lizzie Vogel novels. Nick Hornby's TV adaptation of Stibbe's highly successful first book Love, Nina - based on the author's time as a nanny to a literary north London family - is currently on BBC1 on Saturday nights starring Helena Bonham Carter.

Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling team up in The Nice Guys, the neo-noir crime buddy comedy film directed and co-written by Shane Black in which the unlikely pair investigate the apparent suicide of a fading porn star in 1970s LA.

Michael Pennington talks to Samira about his new book King Lear in Brooklyn, a combination of an analysis of the play and its characters, alongside his experiences playing the role for the first time - in Brooklyn, New York.

Moby's memoir Porcelain details the electronic musician's life before he released his album Play in 1999 and became an international star. He tells us about what made the club scene in '90s New York so special and how he copes with his critics. Published on May 31, 2016.

Nina Stibbe, Moby, The Nice Guys, Michael Pennington

Versailles is the new high-budget, 10-part BBC2 drama series which is already creating controversy ahead of its first broadcast. Boyd Hilton reviews the period costume drama set in the court of Louis XIV with its themes of sex, murder and conspiracy.

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is one of five museums and galleries in the UK to make the shortlist for Museum of the Year. In the first of our reports from the shortlisted venues, the Museum's director Martin Roth explains how to choose a record-breaking exhibition like the Alexander McQueen and why the V&A is planning to expand into the Olympic Park, Dundee and China. 

A Jewish Italian family ends up among Mussolini's most ardent supporters in Louisa Young's new novel Devotion, the latest in her series begun by the WWI novel My Dear I Wanted To Tell You and The Heroes' Welcome. She charts the political awakening of the next generation as another war looms, and tells Kirsty Lang why she found the Italian experience so compelling. 

The credits to the forthcoming TV drama series New Blood feature a raw Deep South bluesy soundtrack, a trick learned from some of the most talked-about series in recent years, from The Sopranos to Breaking Bad and True Detective. Ben Wardle considers the appeal of Americana music to today's TV directors. 

Presenter Kirsty Lang
Producer Jerome Weatherald. Published on June 1, 2016.

Versailles, Louisa Young, Museum of the Year contender, TV drama music

Briony Hanson reviews Secret in their Eyes, an adaptation of an Oscar-winning Argentine thriller starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Julia Roberts and Nicole Kidman.

Katie Mitchell discusses her National Theatre production of Sarah Kane's play Cleansed in which one character has his tongue cut out and his hands put in a shredder. But it is, Mitchell insists, really about love.

The short film Stutterer, about a man with a severe stammer, has been nominated for this weekend's Oscars. Ben Cleary, the writer, director and editor of the 12-minute film, discusses the challenges he faced as a first-time filmmaker.

AB Yehoshua is an outspoken author who's been called the Israeli Faulkner. His latest book, The Extra, steps into the head and heart of a woman in her 40s, a harpist, who has decided not to have children. What is the impact on her, her family - and perhaps even her country?

This edition of the programme was subject to an adjudication by the BBC Editorial Complaints Unit and has been edited since original broadcast. Further information is available here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/comp-reports/ecu/frontrow22022016 ."

Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Rebecca Armstrong. Published on February 22, 2016.

Secret in Their Eyes, Katie Mitchell, AB Yehoshua, Stutterer

Interviews with leading novelists, musicians, film directors, artists and more, from Radio 4's flagship arts show, presented by Mark Lawson, Kirsty Lang and John Wilson. Front Row is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 each weekday evening at 7.15 - 7.45pm. New editions will be available each night following the live broadcast.

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