This Cultural Life

The soprano Dame Felicity Lott talks to John Wilson about her distinguished career and cultural influences. One of Britain's best-loved sopranos, her breakthrough role was as a last minute stand-in for Pamina in The Magic Flute in 1975. Over the next four decades, she built an international career, performing at opera houses and concert halls around the world, singing works by composers including Richard Strauss, Schubert and Mozart. At home, she was seen frequently on television, sang regularly at the BBC Proms and was made a Dame in 1996. She was also the recipient of the Légion d'Honneur, France's highest cultural award. Dame Felicity sadly died on 15 May 2026, shortly after this programme was first broadcast.Producer: Edwina PitmanMusic and archive used:Ruhe sanft from Zaide, W A Mozart, sung by Felicity Lott Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer, courtesy of Felicity Lott The Last Night of the Proms, 1996, Ah! que j'aime les militaires from La grande-duchesse de Gérolstein, J Offenbach, sung by Felicity Lott Overture to The Magic Flute, W A Mozart An Die Musik, F Schubert, piano: Graham Johnston, sung by Felicity Lott Licht und Liebe, F Schubert, piano: Graham Johnson, sung by Anthony Rolfe Johnson and Felicity Lott Vier letzte Lieder: Im Abendrot, R Strauss, sung by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Closing scene from Capriccio, R Strauss Act 1 from Der Rosenkavalier, sung by Anne Sofie von Otter and Felicity Lott Act III from Der Rosenkavalier, sung by Anne Sofie von Otter, Barbara Bonney and Felicity Lott Vier letzte Lieder: Beim Schlafengehen, R Strauss, sung by Felicity Lott

Over a seven-decade career, Michael Frayn has been acclaimed as a novelist, playwright, journalist, translator & memoirist. From his comedies – including the stage farce Noises Off, and a screenplay for Clockwise starring John Cleese, and the novels Headlong and Skios – to the complex political, historical and scientific themes of his stage plays Democracy and Copenhagen, he has been prolific in a diverse array of genres and subjects. He is also renowned for his stage adaptations of the works of Russian writers including Anton Chekhov. At 92, Michael Frayn advised on a recent revival of Copenhagen for the Hampstead Theatre. Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used:Extract from To A Skylark, Percy Bysshe Shelley, read by Timothy West, BBC Radio 4, 27 April 1998 Extract from Spies, Michael Frayn, read by Martin Jarvis, BBC Radio 4, 29 April 2002 Clip from Wild Honey, Michael Frayn/Anton Chekov, BBC Radio 4, 20 January 1989 Extract from Scoop, Evelyn Waugh, read by Robert Hardy, BBC Radio 4, 3 April 1998 Clip from Noises Off, Peter Bogdanovich, 1992 Clip from Clockwise, Christopher Morahan, 1986 Clip from Copenhagen, Howard Davies, 2002

Turner Prize-winning Artist Lubaina Himid talks to John Wilson about her formative influences. She made her name in the mid-1980s as a pioneering member of the British black arts movement, organising exhibitions to champion the work of fellow women artists. Having trained as a theatre designer, her paintings and installation pieces often have a strong narrative aspect, telling stories of race, history and identity. In 2017, at the age of 63, she became the oldest artist to win the Turner Prize, as well as the first black woman to do so. The following year, she was made a CBE for services to art. In 2026, Lubaina Himid will represent Britain at the international arts festival, the Venice Biennale.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Theatre director and writer Robert Icke talks to John Wilson about his formative creative influences. Described by Variety magazine as ‘the great hope of British theatre' and with his radical new versions of classic plays, Icke has built a reputation for revelatory productions. Born in Stockton on Tees in 1986, he made his name in 2015 with an epic new version of the Greek tragedy Oresteia, which he had adapted himself. It won several awards and, at 29, Icke became the youngest ever recipient of the Best Director award at the Olivier Awards. More acclaim followed for his 2017 production of Hamlet, starring Andrew Scott, his adaptation of the Arthur Schnitzler play The Doctor, and his new version of Oedipus which transferred to Broadway in 2025. His latest West End production is Romeo and Juliet, starring Sadie Sink of Stranger Things fame. Producer: Edwina Pitman

Booker Prize-winning author David Szalay talks to John Wilson about his creative influences. His 2009 debut novel London and The South East, based on his experience of working in telesales, won the Betty Trask Award. The author of six books, his work often defies easy classification: his 2016 novel All That Man Is comprises nine standalone short stories which share the overarching theme of masculinity. His 2018 novel Turbulence follows 12 loosely-linked characters on a dozen flights around the world. In 2025 he won the Booker with Flesh, a rags to riches story told across several decades.Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used: Extract from T S Eliot, Preludes 1, read by Jeremy Irons, BBC Radio 4, 25 December 2021 Extract from T S Eliot, The Waste Land, read by Jeremy Irons, BBC Radio 4, 2 January 2022 Clip from trailer of Downhill Racer, Michael Ritchie, 1969 Clip from trailer of Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese, 1976 Extract from David Szalay, Flesh, read by David Szalay Clip from Barry Lyndon, Stanley Kubrick, 1975 Clip from 2025 Booker Prize ceremony

John Wilson talks to the Australian born opera singer Danielle de Niese. A soprano renowned for her vibrant stage presence, she made her professional operatic debut with the Los Angeles Opera at the age of 15 and, and four years later she became one of the youngest singers to perform at Metropolitan Opera in New York. Her international breakthrough came in 2005 at the Glyndebourne Festival, where her performance as Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare established her as a major operatic star. Since then she has sung leading roles at opera houses around the world, specialising particularly in Baroque repertoire, and has recorded six studio albums of music by composers including Handel and Mozart. She is the recipient of the 2026 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Award-winning photographer Sir Don McCullin talks to John Wilson about his cultural influences and formative experiences. He started out in the late 1950s documenting the working-class lives in the north London neighbourhood in which he had grown up. Employed by the Observer newspaper, and later the Sunday Times, McCullin photographs captured scenes of struggle, despair and violence. Travelling to the front lines of conflict zones in Cyprus, Beirut, Vietnam, Cambodia, Biafra, Northern Ireland and elsewhere, McCullin earned a hard-won reputation as one of the greatest war photographers of all time. In recent years he has focused his lens on the beauty of the natural world, particularly the landscape around his home in Somerset. His work is held in permanent collections around the world including the Tate, the National Portrait Gallery and the V&A. He was knighted in 2017 for services to photography. Producer: Edwina Pitman

The novelist, essayist and critic Julian Barnes talks to John Wilson about his career and formative cultural influences. One of the most acclaimed and distinctive British writers of his generation, his early novels, including Metroland, A History Of The World In 10 and a Half Chapters, and Flaubert's Parrot, established his reputation for blending fiction, factual biography and philosophical reflection. Julian Barnes won the Booker Prize in 2011 for The Sense Of An Ending, and the same year won the prestigious David Cohen Prize for Literature, awarded for a body of work. A famous Francophile, he was given the title of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, one of France's highest cultural honours in 2004. He has said that his latest book, Departure(s) will be his final novel.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Dame Imogen Cooper is one of Britain's most esteemed concert pianists. Having played since the age of five, she was mentored by the great Austrian born pianist Alfred Brendel before making her name internationally with interpretations of works by Schumann, Schubert and Mozart. She is renowned as a reflective, poetic sensitive performer in the concert hall and recording studio. She was made a CBE in 2007, became the first pianist to be awarded the Queen's Medal for Music in 2020 and, the following year, became Dame Imogen. She recently announced that, at the end of the year long international tour, she would be retiring from live performance in early 2027.Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used: Face The Music, BBC2, 12 November 1975 Schubert, Allegretto in C minor D915 played by Imogen Cooper at the Wigmore Hall on 18 January 2026

Award-winning actor Sir Jonathan Pryce talks to John Wilson about his cultural influences and career. He made his name with the 1975 Trevor Griffiths play Comedians, his role as a stand-up comic winning him a Tony Award after it moved to Broadway. He won an Olivier Award for a landmark production of Hamlet in 1980, and another Tony for his role as The Engineer in Miss Saigon. His huge and diverse list of film credits include Terry Gilliam's 1985 dystopian drama Brazil, the musical Evita alongside Madonna and, an Oscar nominated performance as Pope Francis in The Two Popes. And he's been increasingly prolific in the age of television streaming with acclaim for his roles in Game Of Thrones, The Crown, Taboo, Slow Horses and Wolf Hall. He was knighted for services to drama in 2021.Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used: Listen With Mother, BBC Home Service, 7 February, 1950 Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary?, Whitehall Theatre, BBC1, 1940s Protests on Broadway, 6 April 1991 Comedians by Trevor Griffiths, 2nd House, BBC2, 15 March 1975 Jonathan Pryce in Hamlet, The Southbank Show, ITV, 1988 Brazil, Terry Gilliam, 1985

Theatre and opera director Katie Mitchell talks to John Wilson about her career and formative influences. She is renowned for her experimental storytelling on stage, her feminist perspective, and for contemporary reframing of classic plays, she has directed more than 100 productions over more than 30 years. She has worked at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal Opera House and the National Theatre, where - as associate director - she staged bold new versions of work by a wide range of writers including Aeschylus, Virginia Woolf, Chekhov and Sarah Kane. For many theatre goers, she is one of Britain's most important and innovative living directors.Producer: Edwina Pitman

American photographer Annie Leibovitz talks to John Wilson about her career and cultural influences.

Oscar-winning Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro talks to John Wilson about his cultural influences. From his 1992 debut Cronos to his recent big budget spectacular retelling of Frankenstein, del Toro's 12 feature films mix fantasy, horror and Gothic romance to create modern fairy tales about innocence, brutality and redemption. His movies have won eight Academy Awards including three for Pan's Labyrinth in 2006, and four Oscars for The Shape Of Water in 2017, plus seven BAFTAs and three Golden Globes.Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used: Clip from Pan's Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro, 2006 Clip from Frankenstein, Guillermo del Toro, 2025 Clip from Frankenstein, James Whale, 1931 Clip from I Confess, Alfred Hitchcock, 1953

Comedian and writer Ricky Gervais talks to John Wilson about his formative creative influences and inspirations. Ricky Gervais made his name as the co-creator and star of The Office, the mock documentary series which became a landmark in British television comedy, and was shown all round the world. Further success followed with the comedy drama series Extras, Life's Too Short and Afterlife, and awards including two Emmys, four Golden Globes and seven BAFTAs. Ricky Gervais has written and performed numerous solo stand-up shows around the world, the latest of which, Mortality, was filmed for Netflix and has just earned him a tenth Golden Globe nomination.Gervais tells John Wilson about his early comic influences including Laurel and Hardy, Fawlty Towers and Derek and Clive, the foul-mouthed drunken alter egos created by comedy duo Peter Cook and Dudley Moore on three, largely improvised, spoken-word albums recorded in the 1970s. He also talks about his own approach to writing comedy and the huge inspiration that the 1984 mock rock documentary This Is Spinal Tap was on the creation of The Office.Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used: Laurel and Hardy theme, Dance of the Cuckoos The Office, Series 1, Downsize, BBC2, 2001 Fawlty Towers, Series 1, A Touch of Class, BBC2, 1975 Golden Globes, opening monologue, 2020 This Is Spinal Tap, Rob Reiner, 1984

Jennifer Lawrence's breakthrough role in the 2010 drama Winter's Bone secured her first Academy Award nomination when she was just 20, and she won the Best Actress category two years later for Silver Linings Playbook. Since then, she has become one of the most prolific, critically acclaimed and highest paid actors in Hollywood as the star of The Hunger Games series and three X-Men movies. Other leading roles include American Hustle, Joy and, most recently, the psychological drama Die My Love.Jennifer talks to John Wilson about her childhood on her parents' farm in Kentucky. After being scouted by a modelling agency, she left school as a teenager and moved to New York to start working as a model and actor. She recalls how the film Taxi Driver, starring a young Jodie Foster, made a big impression on her as an aspiring actress and how Jodie Foster later became a role model when she directed Jennifer on the set of The Beaver. She also counts Gena Rowlands' performance in A Woman Under The Influence, written and directed by John Cassavetes, as an important inspiration, as well as working with directors David O Russell and Lynne Ramsay. Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive and film clips used:Uncle Buck, John Hughes, 1989 No Hard Feelings, Gene Stupnitsky, 2023 Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese, 1976 Winter's Bone, Debra Granik, 2010 The Hunger Games, Gary Ross, 2012 American Hustle, David O Russell, 2013 Veep, Armando Iannucci, 2012 A Woman Under The Influence, John Cassavetes, 1974 Die My Love, Lynne Ramsay, 2025

Rufus Wainwright is a singer-songwriter and composer renowned for his distinctive voice and the theatricality of his performances. Born into a family of folk musicians, his mother was Kate McGarrigle and his father is the songwriter Loudon Wainwright III. Since his debut in 1998, his 11 studio albums have been characterised by their candid autobiographical themes, with songs about addiction, sexuality and fraught family dynamics. He has also worked as a classical composer, with his operas Prima Donna and Hadrian, and a choral piece called Dream Requiem. As a performer he has created musical tributes to Judy Garland, Shakespeare's Sonnets, the songs of Kurt Weill, and most recently has staged symphonic versions of his much-loved Want albums.Rufus Wainwright tells John Wilson about his earliest musical experiences, singing with his mother and aunties in Montreal, Canada where he spent his early years. He chooses The Wizard Of Oz as one of his formative creative influences and explains why the film's star, Judy Garland, became such an important musical role model for him. Rufus reveals how hearing Verdi's Requiem at the age of 13 led to a lifelong love of opera and an aspiration to write classical compositions. He also recalls the impact that seeing La Dolce Vita, director Federico Fellini's masterpiece about wealth and decadence in 1960s Rome, had on him as a teenager. Producer: Edwina Pitman

Having spent his early years in London, Mark Ronson grew up in Manhattan, began working as a DJ as a teenager and quickly made a name for himself on the New York club scene of the 1990s. He moved into music production and, in 2006, co-wrote and co-produced the Amy Winehouse album Back To Black. The record won five Grammys and Mark Ronson himself scooped the Producer of the Year Award.  Since then, he has released five solo albums and worked with some of the most successful names in pop including Lady Gaga, Dua Lipa, Queens Of The Stone Age and Paul McCartney. The winner of ten Grammys and two Brits, he added an Academy Award to his list of accolades in 2018 as co-writer of the song Shallow from the film A Star Is Born. He was also Oscar nominated for his work as executive producer, composer and songwriter for the soundtrack to the Barbie movie. More recently he has written a book called Night People, a memoir about his time as a DJ in 90s New York.  Mark Ronson tells John Wilson about the influence of his music-loving parents, who often threw parties at their north London home when he was a child. He talks about the influence of his stepfather Mick Jones, songwriter, guitarist and producer of the 80s rock band Foreigner, who allowed Mark to experiment with equipment in his home studio in New York and encouraged his early interest in production. He remembers how hearing the 1992 track They Reminisce Over You by Pete Rock and CL Smooth led him to pursue a career as a club DJ and become renowned for the diverse range of music he played in clubs - from soul and hip-hop to classic rock - an eclectic approach which later informed his work as a producer. Mark Ronson also recalls first meeting Amy Winehouse and how they wrote and recorded the songs for her Back To Black album.  Producer: Edwina Pitman

Dame Rose Tremain is one of Britain's most prolific and popular writers, having written 17 novels and five collections of short stories over the last 50 years. She was one of only six women on Granta magazine's inaugural 1982 list of the best young British novelists, alongside Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie and others. Her fifth novel Restoration was nominated for the Booker Prize in 1989, she won the Whitbread Prize for Music And Silence in 1999, and was awarded the 2008 Orange Prize - the precursor to the Women's Prize for Fiction - for her novel The Road Home. Having already been made a CBE in 2007, she became Dame Rose Tremain in 2020 for services to writing. Her most recent work is a short story called The Toy Car.Rose Tremain tells John Wilson how her father, a largely unsuccessful playwright called Keith Thomson, inspired her childhood interest in storytelling, although he never encouraged her to write. She recalls how she first started writing fiction to help her cope with loneliness in a household where there was little parental affection. Rose recalls how it was a teacher at her boarding school who first recognised her ability and encouraged her to apply for an Oxbridge university place, only to be dissuaded by her mother, who sent her to a finishing school in France instead. She credits the novelist Angus Wilson, one of her English Literature tutors at the University Of East Anglia, for giving her the confidence to write her first novel. She also chooses The Diary Of Samuel Pepys as a major inspiration on her 1989 Booker-shortlisted novel Restoration, which was later turned into a Hollywood film starring Robert Downey Jnr. and Meg Ryan.Producer: Edwina Pitman

One of the most revered and prolific British classical musicians, Thomas Adès made his name with his 1995 opera Powder Her Face, written when he was just 24 years old. His orchestral composition Asyla was nominated for the Mercury Prize for album of the year in 1999. Recordings of his opera The Tempest and, more recently, his score for the ballet The Dante Project have both won Grammy Awards. His ten symphonic works, three operas and numerous chamber pieces are performed all round the world. In 2024 Adès was presented with the Royal Philharmonic Society's prestigious Gold Medal, previous recipients of which include Stravinsky, Brahms and Elgar.Thomas Adès talks to John Wilson about the influence of his family, including his art historian mother who is an expert in surrealism. Through her he was introduced to the surrealist artists, the films of Luis Buñuel and met the painter Francis Bacon. His grandmother introduced him to the work of T.S. Eliot as read by Sir Alec Guinness on a cassette recording, and it was some of these poems that he was to eventually set to music for his first ever composition. Adès also recalls getting to the semi-finals of the BBC's Young Musician of the Year in 1990, a watershed moment for him as it prompted him to pursue music as a composer rather than a pianist. He also cites going regularly to the English National Opera as a formative influence and talks about writing his own operas including Powder Her Face about the Duchess of Argyll, and The Exterminating Angel, based on the film by Luis Buñuel.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Jonathan Anderson was appointed as creative director of the French fashion house Dior in March 2025, becoming one of the world's most influential designers. As creative director of the luxury label Loewe for 11 years from 2013, he led a rebranding of the Spanish company, and was hailed a critical and commercial success. He's also run his own label JW Anderson since 2008, and launched collaborative lines with high street brands including Top Shop and Uniqlo. The recipient of many accolades since winning the Emerging Talent prize at the British Fashion Awards in 2012, he was named Designer Of The Year in 2023 and 2024. Jonathan Anderson tells John Wilson about his rural upbringing in Northern Ireland at the height of The Troubles, and the influence of his father, the former Ireland rugby team captain Willie Anderson. He recalls a childhood visit to a textiles factory run by his maternal grandfather that sparked a fascination for printed fabrics. Working as a shop window designer for the luxury label Prada led him to pursue ambitions to become a fashion designer, encouraged by Prada stylist Manuela Pavesi. Jonathan Anderson also reflects on the importance of creative freedom in his industry, claiming that the radical era of fashion, epitomised by designers such as Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, has been replaced by a fear of pushing boundaries due to the risk of social media backlash.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Jackie Kay is one of the best known and most popular Scottish literary figures. A poet and novelist, she served as Makar - the name for Scotland's poet laureate - for five years from 2016. Since her debut poetry collection The Adoption Papers in 1991, she has published 20 works of fiction and verse for adults and children, and a memoir about meeting her biological parents called Red Dust Road. Jackie Kay was made a CBE for services to literature in 2020.Jackie talks to John Wilson about her childhood in Glasgow as the mixed-race, adopted daughter of a loving couple. From a young age, Jackie was entranced by the parties her parents hosted in their house to raise money for the Communist Party and where they would debate and sing songs. It was her first introduction to performance and theatre. As a teenager, hearing poets such as Tom Leonard and Liz Lochhead recite their own work also had a big impact on her literary aspirations.Growing up in the Glasgow of the 60s and 70s, Jackie had very few black role models and took inspiration from the work of the African American poet Audre Lorde and the American political activist Angela Davis. Jackie also recalls finding her birth parents and how a visit to her birth father's ancestral village in Nigeria finally gave her a sense of dual identity.Producer: Edwina PitmanOther poets who have appeared on This Cultural Life include Michael Rosen, Linton Kwesi Johnson and George The Poet, along with children's authors including Katherine Rundell and Michael Morpurgo. You can find them in the This Cultural Life archive, which contains over 130 previous episodes.

American artist Kerry James Marshall is one of the world's most important living painters. Marshall has been making his large-scale, vividly colourful evocations of African-American life for over 40 years. His figurative paintings are rich with symbolism, metaphor and visual references to both social history and his favourite artists from the past. A 1997 painting called Past Times, which evokes works by Seurat and Manet, sold at auction in 2018 for $21m, setting a world record for a work by a living African-American artist. In the autumn of 2025 a retrospective of his paintings opened at London's Royal Academy, his largest exhibition outside of the US.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Swedish-born Alicia Vikander won global acclaim in 2015 for playing Vera Britten in Testament Of Youth, and a humanoid robot in the thriller Ex-Machina. The following year she won an Academy Award for her supporting role with Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl, along with a Screen Actors Guild Award and BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations. Since then her diverse range of screen roles have included playing a spy boss in the film Jason Bourne, computer game heroine Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, and Gloria Steinem in the biopic The Glorias. The daughter of acclaimed stage actor Maria Fahl, she tells John Wilson how she first performed on stage at the age of seven in a musical written by Benny and Bjorn of ABBA. She also appeared in Swedish television dramas and films as a child actor. In 2025 Alicia Vikander makes her return to the stage in a new version of Ibsen's The Lady From The Sea at The Bridge in London, her first theatre role since she was a child. Producer: Edwina Pitman

Classical trumpeter Alison Balsom talks to John Wilson about the most significant influences and experiences that have inspired her career. Having recorded 17 studio albums since 2002, she has been named Gramophone Artist of the Year, won three Classical Brit Awards, along with an OBE for services to music. She has performed with leading conductors and orchestras around the world, including at the Last Night of the Proms.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Comedian, writer, musician and actor Eric Idle talks to John Wilson about his creative influences. A founding member of the Monty Python comedy troupe, he wrote and performed across their four television series and films, including The Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life. As a songwriter, he was responsible for much of the Python's musical comedy, including Always Look on the Bright Side of Life and The Galaxy Song.He created the comedy series Rutland Weekend Television and the Beatles parody band The Rutles, which toured and released albums. In 2005, Eric Idle created the Tony Award-winning musical Spamalot, based on the film Monty Python and The Holy Grail which, for over 20 years, has run twice in London's West End and on Broadway and has been staged in 14 countries around the world. Producer: Edwina Pitman

Anselm Kiefer is one of the world's greatest living artists. Born in Germany at the end of the Second World War, much of his work in paintings, sculptures and vast installation pieces, has addressed his country's history and culture, asking difficult questions about the legacy of fascism and conflict. His paintings, thickly layered and sometimes embellished with straw or molten lead, often depict dark rutted fields or dense forests. Kiefer is renowned for the size of his work, and for his industrial-scale studio complexes in France, where he has lived for over thirty years. Kiefer's works are included in numerous public collections including the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Tate Modern, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery of Australia. His most recent show at the Royal Academy in London has paired his works with those of one his artistic heroes for an exhibition called Kiefer/Van Gogh. Producer: Edwina Pitman

Children's writer and academic Katherine Rundell is the multi-million selling author of adventure stories including Rooftoppers, The Wolf Wilder and The Explorer which won the Costa Children's Book of the Year. Impossible Creatures, the first of a five book series, was named Waterstones Book Of the Year in 2023. Her biography of the 17th century poet John Donne was a non-fiction bestseller and she became the youngest ever winner of the £50,000 Bailey Gifford Prize. At the age of 36, Katherine Rundell was named author of the year at the 2024 British Book Awards. Talking to John Wilson, Katherine Rundell recalls Saturday morning bus journeys from her home in south London to Covent Garden where her father would take part in amateur dance classes. Along the route of the 176 bus he would point out cultural landmarks and helped instil in Katherine a lifelong love for the city. She also explains how her father's job as a civil servant took her family to live in Zimbabwe when she was a child, an experience that fuelled her imagination and fascination with the natural world. She also remembers the profound loss she felt at the death of her foster sister, and reveals that much of her writing for children has been driven by this tragedy. She chooses the Chronicles Of Narnia series of books, especially The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, by CS Lewis as a huge influence on her own fantasy writing and the poetry of John Donne which she describes as her "greatest literary passion". Katherine also reflects on the importance of encouraging children to read and the current state of children's publishing. Producer: Edwina Pitman

Composer Steve Reich is one of the most influential musicians of modern times. In the 1960s he helped rewrite the rules of composition, using analogue tape machines to experiment with rhythm, repetition and syncopation. As the godfather of musical minimalism, his influence on Philip Glass, David Bowie, Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead, and many other composers, has been enormous. Countless dance music producers also owe a debt to pieces including It's Gonna Rain, Drumming, Different Trains and Music for 18 Musicians. His music has been performed in concert halls all around the world, and his many awards include three Grammys, a Pulitzer Prize, the Polar Prize for Music and the Premium Imperiale. Steve Reich tells John Wilson how, at the age of 14, three very different recordings awoke his interest in music: Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, Bach's 5th Brandenburg Concerto, and a piece of bebop jazz featuring saxophonist Charlie Parker, trumpeter Miles Davis and drummer Kenny Clarke. Inspired to start a jazz quintet of his own, Reich began to study percussion before enrolling in a music history course at Cornell University. It was here he discovered the music of Pérotin, the 12th century French composer associated with the Notre Dame school of polyphony in Paris. His beautiful sustained harmonies had a profound influence on Reich's own compositions, including Four Organs (1970) and Music for 18 Musicians (1976).Steve Reich also explains the significance of two books on his music; Studies in African Music by A.M.Jones and Music in Bali by Colin McPhee, both of which led to a greater understanding of music from parts of the world where music is passed down aurally rather than through notation.Producer: Edwina Pitman Additional recording: Laura Pellicer

Painter Jenny Saville, renowned for her large-scale portraits of fleshy, naked women, made her name soon after leaving art school when her graduation exhibition work was bought by collector Charles Saatchi. In 1997, her work was also part of the landmark Royal Academy show Sensation, alongside now iconic pieces by Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and others. Since then, the main focus of her work - which has been shown in museums and galleries all around the world - has remained the female form. In 2018, a Jenny Saville painting called Propped sold at auction for £9.5m, at the time a world record for a work by a living female artist. A retrospective exhibition of over 50 of her paintings and drawings is being held at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Jenny Saville tells John Wilson how her childhood interest in painting was nurtured by her uncle, an art teacher, who took her to museums to understand the work of great artists. She says she was hugely inspired by seeing a Lucien Freud exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London in 1987, and that his large-scale nude portraits influenced her early style. Jenny recalls how a year spent at the University of Cincinnati, as part of her Glasgow School of Art degree course, also had an impact on her understanding of art history from a feminist perspective and refocused the theme of her painting. She describes how she made the monumental paintings of female nude figures, some with liposuction surgery markings on the bodies, which were shown at the Saatchi Gallery and at the Royal Academy Sensation exhibition. Jenny Saville also reflects on the later influence on her work of the Dutch-American abstract painter Willem de Kooning, and of her children with whom she paints at home. Producer: Edwina Pitman

Composer Alan Menken is the winner of more Academy Awards in competitive categories than any other living person. He's best known for his scores for the animated Disney films including The Little Mermaid, Pocahontas, Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. His first big hit was the musical Little Shop Of Horrors - one of several he created with lyricist Howard Ashman, his longtime writing partner. Other stage musicals include Sister Act, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, and Hercules, which recently opened in London's West End. Alan Menken also wrote the scores for Disney films Mirror Mirror, Enchanted and Tangled. As well as eight Academy Awards, he has also won eleven Grammys, seven Golden Globes, two Emmys and a Tony Award.Alan talks to John Wilson about his childhood in New York and the expectations of his parents that he would follow family tradition and become a dentist like his father. A musical talent from a young age, he recalls how seeing Walt Disney's Fantasia was the start of thinking about the marriage of music with story and images. Despite initial ambitions to be a singer-songwriter, enrolling in a workshop in New York for musical theatre composers, lyricists, and librettists led by composer Lehmann Engel taught him how to write for the stage. It is also through Engel that he met lyricist and director Howard Ashman with whom he went on to write many of the hit scores credited as the driving force behind the Disney Renaissance of the 1980s and 1990s. Tragically, Howard Ashman was diagnosed with HIV in 1988 and died at the age of 40 in 1991.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Gillian Anderson's breakthrough television role in the sci-fi series The X Files made her a global star in 1993, and she played cool-headed Agent Dana Scully for nearly a decade. She also starred in period dramas, including an acclaimed film adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel The House Of Mirth and, on television, in Bleak House, Great Expectations and War and Peace. Her theatre credits include A Doll's House, A Streetcar Named Desire and All About Eve, all of which saw her nominated for Olivier Awards. Gillian Anderson has won Golden Globe and Emmy Awards for the X Files, and also for The Crown in which she played Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. More recently, she found a new generation of fans for role as a sex therapist in the series Sex Education. Her latest film is The Salt Path, adapted from the bestselling memoir by Raynor Wynn.Gillian Anderson tells John Wilson how, after being born in Chicago, she moved with her parents to Crouch End, London, when she was five, and then to Michigan at the age of 11. After what she describes as ‘rebellious' teenage years, she studied at Chicago's DePaul University with drama teacher Ric Murphy, whom she cites as a major influence on her early acting ambitions. After a series of minor stage roles in New York, she auditioned for The X Files and the role of Agent Scully changed her life. She also chooses the actor Meryl Streep as a major inspiration after seeing her with Robert Redford in the 1985 romantic drama film Out Of Africa. Gillian also reveals how the work of the Serbian-born conceptual performance artist Marina Abramović has also been an influential cultural figure for her.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Pete Townshend is the songwriter, guitarist and co-founder of The Who. The band first stormed the pop charts sixty years ago, with teenage anthems including I Can't Explain, Substitute and My Generation. Broader songwriting ambitions led him to create the rock opera Tommy in 1969, and the concept album Quadrophenia four years later. Both projects were adapted as films, and Quadrophenia has now been staged as a ballet by Sadlers Wells. Throughout the seventies, The Who were regarded as the biggest and loudest live act in the world. They played at Woodstock, at Live Aid, Live 8 and the 2012 Olympic closing ceremony. Despite the deaths of drummer Keith Moon and bassist John Entwhistle, Townshend and singer Roger Daltrey continue to perform as The Who. Pete Townshend talks to John Wilson about the influence of his parents, who were both musicians. His father, the saxophonist Cliff Townshend, played in the popular dance band The Squadronaires, but it was his mother Betty, a singer, who was most supportive of Pete's early musical talent. Seeing Bill Haley and The Comets at Edgware Road Odeon in 1956 was another formative moment that introduced the teenage Townshend to the possibilities of a rock 'n' roll performance. Pete also reveals how his art school tutor Roy Ascot, who was head of the Ground Course at Ealing Art School, shaped his his approach to his band that was to become The Who. He also recounts how reading Labyrinths, a book of short stories by Jorge Luis Borges on the first US Who tour in 1967 opened his imagination and helped him expand his musical storytelling. Producer: Edwina Pitman

Pianist James Rhodes was a relative latecomer to a professional music, and was 30 when he performed his first concert. In 2010 he became the first core classical pianist to be signed to the world's biggest rock music label, Warner Brothers. He has recorded nine albums, including his most recent one, Mania, which features work by Bach, Chopin Brahms and other composers. He has also presented television documentaries about classical music and written five books, including his international bestselling memoir, Instrumental. But James Rhodes' adult life story is also one involving mental illness, addiction and suicidal despair in the wake of violent sexual abuse over several years as a small child.Talking to John Wilson, James remembers how hearing a recording of Bach's Chaconne from his Partita no. 2 transcribed for piano, was a life-changing experience, offering a sense of hope and wonder at a time when he was suffering terrible abuse. He also chooses his secondary school piano teacher Colin Stone as a major inspiration, although his early musical ambitions were thwarted at the age of 18. After some years working in the City, then suffering breakdowns and periods in psychiatric institutions, he returned to music after a decade away from he piano. He also credits a chance meeting with his future manager as a moment that led to him becoming an internationally acclaimed concert pianist.Producer: Edwina PitmanDetails of organisations offering information and support with mental health and self-harm, and for victims of child sexual abuse, are available at: www.bbc.co.uk/actionline

Since the late 1980s, Colombian artist Doris Salcedo has made work in response to conflict and political violence, drawing on the testimonies of victims to create metaphorical sculptures and installations about trauma, loss and survival. She is now recognised as one of the most important living artists, with work shown in museums and galleries around the world, including in the turbine hall of Tate Modern in 2007. Doris Salcedo is the 2025 recipient of the Whitechapel Gallery's prestigious Art Icon award, in recognition of her ‘profound contribution to the artistic landscape'. She talks to John Wilson about the first time she saw Goya's painting The Third of May 1808, also known as The Executions of the Third of May. The painting depicts the brutal aftermath of the Dos de Mayo Uprising in Madrid, during the Peninsular War, in which Spanish civilians were executed by French soldiers. Salcedo recalls how this painting showed her what a work of art could accomplish. It was seeing this painting that inspired her artistic purpose of trying to reveal the true cost of war in her work. Salcedo also explains how the poetry of Paul Celan, the French-Romanian poet and Holocaust survivor has been a significant influence on her and her art , and how the testimonies of the Colombian victims of violence have defined her work.Producer: Edwina PitmanArchive used: Paul Celan, Psalm, read by Robert Rietty

Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason was born in Nottingham in 1999 into a big musical family. He and his six siblings all grew up learning classical instruments, and appeared on Britain's Got Talent in 2015. Sheku first made his mark as a solo performer the following year when he won the BBC Young Musician Of The Year competition. In 2018 a global audience of over a billion watched him perform live at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Since then he has received two classical Brit awards, An MBE for services to music, and performed at the Proms every year since 2017. His book The Power Of Music charts his creative journey, whilst his new album - his fifth release - includes recording of works by Shostakovich and Britten. Sheku talks to John Wilson about the early influence of his paternal grandfather, a classical music lover who encouraged an appreciation of chamber music, including Schubert's Trout Quintet. Sheku also discusses his cellist heroes Jacqueline du Pré and Mstislav Rostropovich and explains how the music of reggae superstar Bob Marley has been an inspiration throughout his life.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Choreographer Sir Wayne McGregor is one of the most acclaimed, innovative and influential figures in contemporary dance. His works are often the result of creative collaborations with artists, musicians, filmmakers, or with scientists to explore technological issues. In 2006 he was appointed as Resident Choreographer at the Royal Ballet. He has created more than 20 new works at Covent Garden in that time, including Chroma, set to music by Joby Talbot and The White Stripes, and Woolf Works, a full-length ballet based on the life and writings of Virginia Woolf. More recently, McGregor brought the post-apocalyptic vision of Margaret Atwood to the stage in his ballet MaddAddam, based on the writer's acclaimed trilogy of novels. He has worked as a movement director on films including Harry Potter Goblet Of Fire and Mary Queen Of Scots, collaborated with bands including Radiohead and Chemical Brothers, and choreographed the virtual concert, ABBA Voyage. In October 2025, Somerset House in London will mount a landmark exhibition dedicated to McGregor's trailblazing collaborations that have radically defined how we think about performance, movement, and the body. Having won numerous awards, including two Oliviers, Sir Wayne McGregor was knighted in 2024.Wayne McGregor talks to John Wilson about his childhood in Stockport, where he took dance classes and was inspired by John Travolta's moves in Saturday Night Fever. He recalls the house and techno music of the late 80s when he was a student, and how the freedom of expression he felt on nightclub dance-floors informed his style of choreography. Whilst living in New York after leaving university, Wayne came across an open-air performance by the legendary American choreographer Merce Cunningham, whose company was dancing to live music conducted by the avant-garde composer John Cage. It was a chance encounter that had a profound impact on McGregor. He also discusses how science and technology has been a major thematic influence on much of his work in recent years, and how AI has been used to create new works through analysis of physical movement and artistic expression.Producer Edwina Pitman

Actor Sir Simon Russell Beale is widely acclaimed as one of the greatest actors of his generation. He has played many leading roles at National Theatre and RSC, including Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear. He is currently starring in Titus Andronicus at the RSC. His awards include three Olivier Awards, two BAFTAs, and a Tony Award in 2022 for his leading role in The Lehman Trilogy, which had transferred from London. Simon Russell Beale was knighted in 2019 for services to drama. Simon tells John Wilson about his childhood and his visits to his family in the boarding school holidays at their home in Penang and Singapore. Trained as a chorister from an early age, he reveals how J.S. Bach's St Matthew Passion evokes the thrill of singing at his choir school. Simon very nearly embarked on a career in music before switching to drama and tells John about the significance of the Macbeth soliloquy that began a lifetime love of Shakespeare. He also reveals the central role that pubs play in the learning of his lines.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Maggie O'Farrell is the author of nine novels. Her debut, After You'd Gone, was published 25 years ago this year and won the Betty Trask Prize in 2001. Her 2010 book The Hand That First Held Mine won the Costa Novel Award; and Hamnet, her hugely acclaimed and bestselling story of the death of Shakespeare's son, won the 2020 Women's Prize for fiction. Maggie O'Farrell has also written a memoir; I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death. Maggie tells John Wilson about some of her creative influences including the Finnish writer Tove Jansson, whose book Moominland Midwinter she first read at the age of eight when she was ill in bed, suffering from encephalitis. The poet Michael Donaghy gave Maggie valuable writing advice when she attended his poetry workshops at City University and inspired her with his recitations of poetry from memory. Maggie also reveals how seeing a David Hockney photomontages called The Scrabble Game hugely influenced the way she constructs narrative and time-frame in her novels.Producer: Edwina Pitman

Screenwriter and playwright Abi Morgan has worked across a diverse array of themes and genres for more than 25 years. She wrote the television series The Split, a domestic drama involving divorce lawyers, and created the psychological Netflix series Eric. Her other television credits include Sex Traffic, for which she won a BAFTA for Best Drama serial in 2005, and The Hour, the television news drama which earned her an Emmy award in 2012. Her film credits include The Iron Lady, which starred Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher; historical drama Suffragette; and Shame, co-written with the director Steve McQueen. Her recent book This Is Not A Pity Memoir recounts her husband's recovery after serious illness, and her own treatment for cancer. Abi Morgan tells John Wilson about her childhood in a theatrical family; her father was the director Gareth Morgan and her mother is the actor Pat England. She chooses the author, screenwriter and director Nora Ephron as an important influence, and particularly the film Heartburn which Ephron adapted from her semi-autobiographical divorce novel Heartburn. Abi Morgan also recalls the work of television screenwriter Kay Mellor, whose series Band Of Gold and Playing The Field also influenced her own writing. She describes how seeing an exhibition of the work of artist Cornelia Parker, including her installation Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View, inspired some of Abi's early theatre work including her plays Splendour and The Mistress Contract. Producer Edwina Pitman

The internationally acclaimed and hugely influential artist Theaster Gates was born, raised and works in Chicago. He trained as a ceramicist, and still makes pottery, but it's just one part of a diverse artistic output that also includes painting, sculpture and vast installations, in works which often explore the black experience in contemporary America. He is best known for redeveloping derelict buildings for community projects, using art to transform run-down neighbourhoods of his city. A recipient of the prestigious Artes Mundi Prize, Gates is a professor at the University of Chicago and received the French government's prestigious Légion d'Honneur. Theaster Gates is part of the creative team behind the Barack Obama Presidential Centre currently under construction in Chicago. In 2022 he created the annual Serpentine Pavilion in London, a piece called Black Chapel which was conceived as a monument to his father. His most recent exhibition is 1965: Malcolm in Winter: A Translation Exercise at White Cube gallery.Theaster Gates tells John Wilson about the influence of his family upbringing. The youngest of nine siblings, and the only boy, he recalls assisting his father as he worked as a roofer. Later, when he was an established artist, and having inherited his father's tools and tar kettle, Theaster began to make paintings using hot bitumen in tribute to his father's labour. He also explains how, as a high achieving pupil, he was 'bussed' to a predominantly white school far from his home neighbourhood, and benefited from cultural opportunities that he may not have received otherwise. He also chooses the experience of spending a year in Japan learning ancient pottery techniques, and beginning his practise as a ceramicist. Producer Edwina Pitman

Doherty became famous in the 2000s with The Libertines, the band he formed and fronted alongside fellow singer and guitarist Carl Barât. He became notorious as his own drug addictions led to break ups with the band and numerous arrests. He reflects on a childhood spent moving around the world following his father's postings in the British Army, the beginnings of The Libertines, the lows of addiction, and the family life he now lives in France. Here's a short clip from the episode.

The premiere of David Hare's play Plenty at the National Theatre in 1978 marked him out as one of the UK's most skilled and socially conscious playwrights. Plenty transferred to Broadway, Hare adapted it into a film starring Meryl Streep, and in the following years he became known as a writer for whom the political and the personal are deeply entwined. Often referred to as Britain's pre-eminent ‘state of the nation playwright', his plays in the 1980s examined a wide range of social and political issues, including the Church of England in Racing Demon, the judiciary in Murmuring Judges and party politics in The Absence of War. He tackled international geopolitics in Via Dolorosa - about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - and the invasion of Iraq with Stuff Happens and the Vertical Hour. Equally skilled as a screenwriter, his film screenplays for The Hours and The Reader saw him twice nominated for Academy Awards. David Hare was knighted in 1998 for ‘services to theatre'. He talks to John Wilson about how his lower-middle class background and family life in Bexhill-on-Sea stimulated his imagination. He pays tribute to some of the most formative people in his life: his Cambridge university tutor, the Welsh writer and academic Raymond Williams, whose maxim that ‘culture is ordinary' had a profound effect on his life as a writer; the actress Kate Nelligan, who starred in several of Hare's plays, including Plenty; and his wife Nicole Farhi who, he says, transformed his idea of himself and who inadvertently helped inspire one of his best loved plays, Skylight. Producer: Edwina Pitman