With Kirsty Lang. Shakespeare scholar Eric Rasmussen has spent the last decade tracking down every extant copy of one of the world's most sought-after books: Shakespeare's First Folio. With fewer than 750 printed in 1623, the first edition of Shakespeare's collected works has proved a magnet for thieves, forgers and eccentric collectors ever since. Eric Rasmussen discusses what his quest revealed. Essex, Chelsea and Newcastle have all been settings for so-called scripted reality TV shows...

With Kirsty Lang. Film-maker Terence Davies has adapted and directed The Deep Blue Sea, based on the play by Terence Rattigan. It stars Rachel Weisz as a woman who walks out on her husband and her comfortable life, to move in with a young former RAF pilot. Peter Kemp give his verdict. As piano duo Katia and Marielle Labèque embark on a three day festival celebrating minimalist music, they discuss whether sisterhood is useful when sharing a piano, and why minimalism has a lot in common with...

With John Wilson As he releases an album of his favourite songs, Sir Bruce Forsyth reflects on seven decades in show business, from duetting with Nat King Cole at the Palladium to his pre-show nerves at last weekend's Wembley Arena edition of Strictly Come Dancing. Brad Pitt stars in Moneyball, a new film written by West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin. Pitt plays the manager of a low-budget baseball team who uses computer data to identify the best players. Eleanor Oldroyd reviews. The Ashmolean...

With John Wilson. Kate Bush talks about 50 Words for Snow, her first album of brand new material for six years. She discusses her fears about the demise of the album as a format, and reveals that she is already working on new songs. The film My Week With Marilyn stars Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe and Kenneth Branagh as Laurence Olivier. It tells the story of Colin Clark's experiences working in a lowly position on the set of The Prince And The Showgirl, which disastrously paired...

With Kirsty Lang The Riots, a new play by Gillian Slovo, draws on 55 hours of interviews with people who were involved in the disturbances earlier this year, ranging from policemen to the rioters themselves. She reflects on whether theatre can help to uncover the truth behind the unrest. A sound designer won the prize for Best Design at last night's Evening Standard Theatre Awards, winning against three set designers. Adam Cork discusses the soundscapes he created for productions including...

With Kirsty Lang. Tim Minchin describes himself as an Australian musician, composer, songwriter, actor, comedian and writer. He wrote the songs for Matilda: The Musical, the RSC's acclaimed adaptation of Roald Dahl's book about a girl with special powers. He discusses how he writes, and reveals how he fell into comedy by chance. Rihanna is releasing her sixth album in six years next week, while continuing her world tour. Her manager argues that her fans demand new material, amidst reports...

With Kirsty Lang. The first series of The Killing, the 20 part Danish crime drama, was widely acclaimed as a TV highlight of the year. Now Detective Inspector Sarah Lund returns with a new investigation. With a double-bill of the first two episodes of the second series being screened this weekend, writer John Harvey reflects on the appeal of this crime marathon. Perrier Award-winner Sean Hughes reveals why he decided to discuss his father's death in his new stand-up show. The comedian,...

With Mark Lawson. Joanna Lumley and Robert Lindsay star in Trevor Nunn's new production of The Lion in Winter, taking the roles made famous by Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole in the 1968 film, the tale of a dysfunctional family Christmas with the Plantaganets. Kathryn Hughes reviews. America Ferrera, the star of TV show Ugly Betty, discusses making her British stage debut as the alluring publicity-seeker Roxy Hart in the musical Chicago. She also reflects on her famous TV role, and how...

With Mark Lawson. Sir Terence Conran, designer, restaurateur and founder of the Habitat chain, celebrated his 80th birthday last month, and tomorrow sees the opening of a major retrospective at the Design Museum in London. The Way We Live Now explores Conran's impact, legacy and approach to design. He discusses his career from post-war austerity through to the present day, and the moment he first realised British design needed an urgent overhaul. Front Row announces the shortlists for the...

With Mark Lawson. Playwright and film director Neil LaBute discusses his new play Reasons to be Pretty, starring Billie Piper, which asks if conventional beauty can be a curse. Writer Ian Rankin reviews two new TV shows which focus on undercover operators: Confessions of an Undercover Cop, and Double Agent: The Eddie Chapman Story. In his new film Justice, Nicolas Cage plays a man who enlists the services of a vigilante group to settle the score after his wife is assaulted. Dreda Say...

With Kirsty Lang. Pan Am, a new American TV drama, lands on BBC Two next week. The series follows the lives and loves of a group of air hostesses in the early 1960s, who are apparently empowered by their new profession. Janet Street Porter reviews. Songs of War is a new disc by award-winning British baritone Simon Keenlyside, featuring his personal selection of music by composers including Ralph Vaughan Williams, George Butterworth and Kurt Weill. He explains why some of his choices may...

With Mark Lawson. Michael Sheen stars in the Young Vic's new production of Hamlet. Director Ian Rickson sets the play in the Elsinore Mental Asylum, an institution the audience must also check in to. Hermione Lee reviews. Kelvin Mackenzie, former editor of The Sun, gives the critical verdict on Tabloid: a new documentary charting the way British newspapers covered the extraordinary tale of Joyce McKinney, a US beauty queen accused of imprisoning a young Mormon missionary in 1977. Jeffrey...

With John Wilson. Johnny Depp's latest cinematic tribute to Hunter S Thompson, The Rum Diary, is based on the late journalist's novel of the same name. The semi-autobiographical story follows the boozy and increasingly unhinged exploits of a young American reporter in Puerto Rico in the late 1950s. Iain Sinclair reviews. Musician, songwriter and producer Nile Rodgers first found fame with his band Chic, before working with Diana Ross, David Bowie, Madonna and many more. He reflects on his...

With Mark Lawson. As queues form for the largest-ever show of Leonardo da Vinci's paintings at the National Gallery, artist Tom Phillips reviews and considers whether the exhibition justifies the hype. At just 33, Maltese singer Joseph Calleja is tipped as one of the most promising tenors of the 21st century. He talks about his new album and his singing ambitions. Linguistics specialist David Crystal has selected 100 words which he feels best illustrate the huge variety of sources and...

With Mark Lawson. Andrea Arnold's latest film is a re-telling of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. The director of Red Road and Fish Tank cast mainly non-professional actors in the film, which aims to escape the conventions of a costume drama. Sarah Crompton reviews. Oscar-nominated screenwriter Peter Morgan returns to TV with a second series of the legal drama The Jury, nine years after the original series was aired. Morgan, whose credits include The Queen and Frost/Nixon, discusses why...

With Kirsty Lang. Singer Michael Stipe and bassist Mike Mills from the band REM discuss what it feels like to 'call it a day as a band' after 30 years, 15 studio albums and 85 million albums sold. They reflect on their career in the light of a new retrospective double album called REM, Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage, 1982-2011. Artists including Tracey Emin, Rachel Whiteread, Howard Hodgkin and Martin Creed have created posters for the London 2012 Olympics and...

With Mark Lawson. Anthony Horowitz, author of the Alex Ryder spy series, has written a new Sherlock Holmes novel. He discusses how he has approached the distinctive narrative voice, and reflects on the potential pitfalls in taking on such well-loved characters. Alice in Wonderland, an exhibition at Tate Liverpool, examines how Lewis Carroll's classic books have inspired a wide range of art, from Victorian paintings to videos. Children's author and illustrator Chris Mould...

With Mark Lawson. At the age of 91, P D James has published a new crime novel, which is a sequel to Pride and Prejudice. Death Comes To Pemberley is set in Mr Darcy's ancestral home, where he and Elizabeth Bennet are living in marital bliss, which is suddenly ruptured by a brutal murder on the estate. P D James discusses her passion for Jane Austen and the challenge of living up to the great writer. Collaborators is a new play by John Hodge, whose film scripts include Trainspotting and...

With John Wilson. Justin Timberlake stars in the sci-fi thriller In Time, set in a world where you die after your 25th birthday unless you can afford to buy more time. Timberlake teams up with a young heiress, played by Amanda Seyfried, to try to destroy the system. Natalie Haynes reviews. David Bowie's influence in the 1970s, his most productive decade, is the focus of a new book by Peter Doggett. He charts how the music developed through the decade, and reflects on why Bowie's difficult...

With John Wilson, including an interview with novelist and screenwriter Ronan Bennett, whose new TV drama series Top Boy focuses on young drug dealers in Hackney, London. Andrew Lloyd Webber reveals the winners of the first English Heritage Angel Awards, which he founded earlier this year to celebrate the efforts of people attempting to rescue historic buildings or places. He discusses the future funding of restoration projects with Simon Thurley, Chief Executive of English Heritage. Jack...

With Kirsty Lang. Emma Donoghue is the bestselling author of Room, the Booker-nominated novel inspired by the real life Josef Fritzl case. Her latest book is The Sealed Letter, a historical romp that deals with a scandalous 19th Century divorce case. She talks to Kirsty about why she always avoids taking sides among her characters. Music critic Caspar Llewellyn Smith reviews a selection of new albums - including Coldplay's recent Mylo Xyloto; Tom Waits' long-awaited Bad As Me; and...

With Kirsty Lang. The enduring fascination with Wallis Simpson continues in The Last of the Duchess, a new play by Nicholas Wright. Juliet Gardiner reviews Richard Eyre's production, and considers Simpson's recent popularity in film, television and literature. Gerard Butler discusses his role in the film Machine Gun Preacher, based on the true story of a drug dealer who becomes a crusader for children caught up in conflict in Africa. Kate Prince is the founder and creative director of...

With Mark Lawson. George Clooney directs and stars in The Ides of March, a political drama set on the US primary campaign trail. Ryan Gosling plays an up and coming political strategist, whose idealism is threatened by the discovery of a dirty secret. Baroness Shirley Williams reviews. Jeanette Winterson made her literary debut with Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, a novel with strong autobiographical references to her troubled childhood. She talks about her new memoir, Why Be Happy When You...

Kirsty Lang meets Italian intellectual and novelist Umberto Eco, now nearly 80, at his home in Milan. The writer looks back at the surprise success of his first novel The Name of the Rose, published when he was 48, which has sold 50 million copies. Following successes with subsequent novels including Foucault's Pendulum and Baudolino, Umberto Eco's sixth novel is published in the UK next week. The Prague Cemetery is a controversial novel set in 19th Century Europe, which focuses on the...

With Mark Lawson. Anonymous, directed by Roland Emmerich, claims Shakespeare didn't write any plays or sonnets: the real author was the Earl of Oxford - played by Rhys Ifans - who wrote them all in secret. Ryan Gilbey reviews. Stephan Solzhenitsyn, son of the Nobel Prize-winning writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, reflects on his father's life and legacy, as a new collection of his short stories is published in English for the first time. Oscar-nominated actress Viola Davis talks to Mark about...