Artsnight

Writer and broadcaster Andrew Marr wants to champion some great renaissance dramatists whose stories have been neglected because they worked at the same time as William Shakespeare.

Model, actress and digital entrepreneur Lily Cole takes over editorial control. She is eight months pregnant and wants to explore the question of whether children can be a spur to creativity, or rather inhibit an artistic life.

Lynn Barber chats to Mark Ronson, the most intriguing pop star of the modern age, as well as looking at the boom of ingenious, inventive magazines bought by and made for young people.

Broadcaster and journalist Samira Ahmed takes over editorial control of this new arts series. Samira is fascinated by photography - her episode of Artsnight will consider the impact a single photographic image can have, even in a modern age when nearly every person has a camera on them at all tim...

Entrepreneur and digital champion Martha Lane Fox discusses her passionate belief that science and the arts can work together. She talks to Charles Jencks, meets experimental novelist David Mitchell and tracks down her hero, Dame Stephanie Shirley.

Actor Richard Wilson - star not only of `One Foot in the Grave' but also `Waiting for Godot' - shares his love for a playwright recently described as `probably the most influential artistic figure of our time': Samuel Beckett.

One year on from the referendum that split the Scottish nation Irvine Welsh returns home to Edinburgh to survey what effect it had on the arts in Scotland. Now living in America, Irvine has a very different perspective on Scotland to his halcyon days of Trainspotting.

Choreographer Hofesh Shechter explores how embarrassment can be rich territory for artistic exploration. He meets performance artist Bryony Kimmings who reveals the most embarrassing details of her private life in her work.

Former prize winner Ben Okri explores the transformative effect of the prize on the career of its recipients. When he won the Booker almost twenty-five years ago, his life changed completely and in this programme, he tells the story of his remarkable journey.

BBC Arts Editor Will Gompertz investigates the thriving art market. He meets collectors, philanthropists and multi-millionaires pursuing their passion for art, and asks whether record breaking sales are a good thing or damaging creativity.

`Fleet Street' legend Lynn Barber is considering the idea of taking risks in Art. The Turner Contemporary Gallery in Margate is hosting an exhibition on that very theme, including works by Ai Wei Wei and Yoko Ono.

`Artsnight' is curated by spoken word artist George The Poet - he explores black culture with world renowned academic Paul Gilroy, the heritage of the culture with Linton Kwesi Johnson and reggae legend Dennis Bovell and its future with performers Akala and Racheal Ofori.

Josie Rourke, artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse, curates this week's celebrity-packed edition of `Artsnight', looking at the changing idea of the `hero' in contemporary culture.

Clara Amfo is one of BBC Radio 1's rising stars. She meets extremely famous people as part of her day-job - and for her edition of `Artsnight', she wants to look at how the `fame industry' works. She talks to 50 Cent about living life under a microscope.

The acclaimed artist Edmund de Waal takes over the controls of this week's `Artsnight'. Edmund wants to look at the theme of memory and art. He profiles the Aurora Orchestra, who are famous for performing classical works from memory, and looks at a Tate Liverpool exhibition which encourages peopl...

The author of the book 'Ghosts of Empire', Conservative MP Kwasi Kwarteng, looks at how the British Empire impacted on art, architecture and literature.

Ana Matronic explores how robots are taking over mainstream arts and culture - co-presenting the episode with a real robot. She'll be finding out how robots are flexing their creative muscles.

The director of Tate Modern Chris Dercon talks to the world-famous photographer Juergen Teller. Teller's CV could not be more star-studded, as he has photographed the likes of Charlotte Rampling, Vivienne Westwood, and Victoria Beckham.

Masks have been part of our global culture for centuries. For her episode of Artsnight, ventriloquist, comedian and documentary film-maker Nina Conti explores how masks allow us to step out of our psychological skins and be someone else - with a little help from her cheeky alter ego, Monkey.

Maria Balshaw asks why, over a century since the Suffragette movement, are women still not equal. To help her answer the question she talks to artist Sarah Lucas, who emerged onto the British art scene in the late 1980s as one of the YBAs, who gives an extremely rare TV interview to `Artsnight'.

Andrew Graham-Dixon has been a professional art critic for nearly three decades. But for his edition of `Artsnight', he wants to explore what people outside the `art bubble' make of the kinds of sculptures and paintings he writes about.

Lynn Barber meets two American comedians who have both found huge success in the UK - Rob Delaney (most famous for `Catastrophe' on Channel 4) and Ruby Wax. Both performers have been open about the demons in their personal lives. Rob talks to Lynn about his successful battle against alcoholism, a...

Karl Ove Knausgaard is one of the most important authors writing today. His obsessively autobiographical books have been compared to Proust and James Joyce, but he has also attracted controversy as he made his private life into public property. Henry Marsh is a leading neurosurgeon whose best-sel...

This year, punk rock celebrates its 40th anniversary with a series of events across some of Britain's major cultural institutions. Thurston Moore, former guitarist with Sonic Youth, was in New York in 1976 - but he had a passionate interest in British punk. Now a London resident himself, Moore ex...

Artist Ryan Gander believes that there is too much of a `fear factor' around the idea of art. For his edition of `Artsnight' (the final episode in this series), Ryan proposes that everyday life can be a deeply creative act.