The Magnificent Seven, Suzan-Lori Parks, Paul Muldoon, BBC National Short Story Award

Front Row

The first African-American woman playwright to win the Pulitzer Prize, Suzan-Lori Parks, discusses Father Comes Home From The Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3). The play tells the story of Hero, a slave who is promised his freedom in exchange for joining the confederate army during the American Civil War.

As a remake of the 1960 Western The Magnificent Seven hits cinemas, film critic Catherine Bray discusses how its basic plot - a ragtag group of heroes coming together to fight evil - has been reimagined again and again in movie history, from the film which started it all, Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai to The Avengers via A Bug's Life.

Today's shortlisted author for the BBC National Short Story Award is the poet and novelist Lavinia Greenlaw. She discusses her entry entitled The Darkest Place in England, and reveals why it took her six years to complete.

With the publication of his latest selection of poems, the celebrated Northern Ireland born poet Paul Muldoon discusses being influenced by The Troubles, and why being a poet may be subject to the law of diminishing returns.

Presenter Samira Ahmed Producer Marilyn Rust.