Front Row

Critic and columnist Dr Kate Maltby and author Michael Donkor join Tom Sutcliffe to review Robota, the inaugural large-scale production at the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities in Oxford. The production explores what happens to humanity when the line between human and machine blurs.
They also discuss Country People by Pulitzer Prize nominated author Daniel Mason. The novel explores a year in the life of a family as they strike out into the unknown.
And talk about Foreign Tongues the 25th studio album by the Rolling Stones.
Plus, as the 2016 global hit Moana is turned into a live action film, critic Larushka Ivan- Zadeh assesses why Disney remakes films and whether they are any good.
Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Claire Bartleet

Lynval Golding of two-tone and ska legends The Specials , on the band’s final album, Live from the Cathedral, which was recorded in Coventry Cathedral. and which pays tribute to the band's late frontman Terry Hall.
Photographers Tish Murtha and Sandra George, whose work represented disadvantaged and marginalised communities in Newcastle and Edinburgh respectively, were not given the recognition they deserved in their lifetimes. Now with major exhibitions at Baltic Gateshead and City Art Centre in Edinburgh, we discuss the significance of their work.
David Thomson is renowned as the doyen of film criticism, but his latest book - A Sudden Flicker of Light - is billed as a revisionist history of the movies and asks us whether the film industry has given us false expectations of life. He speaks to us from California.
And we're joined live in the studio by the artist who's won an international competition to create a permanent memorial to author Dame Muriel Spark in Edinburgh, the city of her birth.
Presenter : Kirsty Wark
Producer : Mark Crossan

Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei has just created his largest site-specific exhibition - Ai Weiwei: Button Up! - which has now opened at Aviva Studios in Manchester. Xiaowen Zhu, Director of esea contemporary art gallery, has been to see the monumental works on show and shares her thoughts on whether in this case bigger is truly better.

Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour on his ground-breaking play, White Rabbit Red Rabbit. He's joined by the actor Lucian Msamati who has taken on one of the performances in the latest run of the play in which neither the actor or the audience know what the play is about until the actor opens an envelope on stage.
Journalist Stephen Armstrong reflects on the Jackass phenomenon as Jackass: Best and Last, the final film in the franchise, is released.
As Discofoot, a fusion of dance and football, premieres in the US as part of the country's World Cup celebrations, visual artist Alina Akbar, winner of this year's Football Art Prize with her video piece - Footwork - discusses why football and dance make great partners.
Presenter: Nick Ahad
Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Confessions II is Madonna's first album in 7 years. Novelist Matt Cain and journalist and broadcaster Miranda Sawyer discuss going back to the dancefloor.
Sky TV has offered £1.6 bn pounds for ITV's free to air channel and its streaming platform ITVX. Jake Kanter, journalist for the screen industry website Deadline, considers what it will mean for British television.
With a new play about Daphne du Maurier - Daphne, The Secret Lives of Daphne Du Maurier - at the Northcott Theatre in Exeter, the playwright Rosie Race joins Samira Ahmed, along with Helen Taylor, author of a detailed biographical guide to her work, The Daphne du Maurier Companion to discuss her life and work.
And with last weekend’s 4th of July celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of US independence from Britain, actor and filmmaker Tara Gadomski looks at the impact of the cultural events taking place across the country.
Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Andrea Kidd

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by critics Bidisha and David Benedict to review:
The Invite, a new film directed by Olivia Wilde about two couples who join each other for dinner, starring Seth Rogan and Olivia Wilde as hosts and Edward Norton and Penélope Cruz as their guests.
Pride the Musical, created by the same team as the hit 2014 film, which tells the true story of a group of LGBT activists who support a Welsh mining community during the 1980's miners' strikes.
And the novel Trouble Was by Charlotte Edwardes which is told from the perspective of young schoolboy Frank whose family leaves their home to move in with their aunt in her farmhouse, during the 1976 heatwave.
Tom also talks to journalist William Lee Adams about the news that Canada is joining Eurovision.
Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Lucy Collingwood