Front Row Folgen

Kate Muir explains the unexpected appeal and popularity of Love Island. Is it just another television reality show or has it got something extra?The first season of Top of the Lake was garlanded with praise and won an Emmy for its cinematography and a Golden Globe for Elisabeth Moss; season 2 is about to begin on BBC2. The action moves away from New Zealand to the brothels and backstreets of Sydney, Australia. Celebrated director Jane Campion is the co-writer and co-director and she's joined by her daughter, Alice Englert, who stars along with Nicole Kidman. They talk to Kirsty about creating the unique atmosphere of the series and how to ensure more opportunities for women directors. For our Queer Icons series, E.M. Forster's novel Maurice is championed by Chris Smith, the former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, who in 1984 became the first MP to come out publicly. Lucy Kirkwood discusses her new play Mosquitoes which focuses on two sisters played by Olivia Colman and Olivia Williams. One sister works for CERN on the Large Hadron Collider and the other in a call centre. Kirsty asks the playwright about the appeal of physicists as characters, increasing scepticism about expert opinion and whether scientists are really trying to play god.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Harry Parker.

It's 50 years this summer since the artist Richard Long took steps across a Wiltshire field to create A Line Made By Walking, now regarded as a classic piece of conceptual art. John meets him in a rare interview in his studio near Bristol.Theatre director Marcus Romer and former arts funder and marketing consultant Roger Tomlinson discuss the holy grail of arts funding bodies: how to measure the quality of art that the public is paying for. For our Queer Icons series, Stella Duffy champions the novel Carol, Patricia Highsmith's love story set in fifties New York. And Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra, comes in to tell us about the poetry of Chinese dissident and Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, who died earlier this month.Presenter: John Wilson Producer: Sarah Johnson.

Mark Rylance discusses his role in Christopher Nolan's new film Dunkirk, in which he plays the civilian captain of a small vessel commandeered for the rescue of some of the hundreds of thousands of British and Allied troops stranded on the French beach in 1940 as the enemy closes in.Critic Alex Clark and broadcaster and literary programmer Rosie Goldsmith give their recommended reads for this summer, including a selection of best books in translation from France, Italy and Russia. The seventh season of Game of Thrones began this week, and the television series has now overtaken the George RR Martin book series the show is based on. We ask TV critic Sarah Hughes, who has written The Guardian's Game of Thrones Blog since the first season, how she thinks the show will fare without the influence of the books.Presenter Kirsty Lang Producer Jerome Weatherald.