In the second programme celebrating the arts highlights from 2014, John Wilson hears from Benedict Cumberbatch, Timothy Spall, Keira Knightley and Eddie Redmayne as they discuss the challenges of playing real life figures in film. Dolly Parton, Joan Baez, Iggy Pop and Emma Thompson talk about the impact of age on their chosen careers as Daria Klimentova explains why she decided to retire from the world of ballet. Michael Sheen discusses his passion for Dylan Thomas in this anniversary year,...

John Wilson talks to the people who have had exceptional years in the worlds of the arts, culture and entertainment in 2014, in the first of two special programmes. Carey Mulligan discusses making her west end debut in Skylight, and the thrill of taking to the stage after her many film roles. Gillian Anderson, lauded for her performances on television in The Fall and on stage in A Streetcar Named Desire, talks about playing two very different women. Two of the biggest selling musicians of...

Kirsty Lang investigates the flourishing phenomenon of so-called event cinema. Plays, musicals and operas in major cities have become available throughout the country on the big - and sometimes small - screen in local cinemas. Eric Felner, the producer of Billy Elliot the Musical tells of his delight at the performance in September that topped the cinema box office, beating Denzel Washington's The Equalizer into second place. David Sabel, the Head of Digital at the National Theatre...

John Wilson explores the art of book cover design and meets artist Suzanne Dean, who has been responsible for more Booker-winning covers than any other designer. Writers Ian McEwan, Tom McCarthy and Audrey Niffenegger discuss the art that represents their words and Telegraph books editor Gaby Wood provides a reader's perspective on what makes a book stand out in a bookshop. As more of us than ever read books on e-readers, is beautiful design the key to the survival of the physical book?

In conversation with Kirsty Lang, Sir Alan Ayckbourn discusses his long and prolific career that has seen him, at the age of 75, premiere his 78th play - Roundelay. Sir Alan is one of this country's most celebrated playwrights. His ability to write and stage his tales of British middle-class domestic disharmony in ever more inventive ways has endeared him to a national audience. However, with his plays performed worldwide, he has a devoted international audience as well. He talks to Kirsty...

Kirsty Lang talks to John Kander, composer of Cabaret, New York New York and Chicago and one half of Broadway partnership Kander and Ebb. 87 year old John Kander discusses The Scottsboro Boys, his final work with lyricist Fred Ebb, which is currently a hit in London's West End. How he and Ebb discovered Liza Minnelli, and why Judi Dench remains his favourite Sally Bowles (Cabaret) on stage.

Unbroken is Angelina Jolie's second film as director. Starring British actor Jack O'Connell it tells the story of US Olympian Louis Zamperini who was captured during WW2 and sent to a Japanese prisoner of war camp. Mark Eccleston reviews. Mercury Prize winners Young Fathers discuss the origins of the band and why they strive to avoid simple classification. Miranda Richardson discusses her role with Anna Chancellor in a new TV version of Mapp and Lucia. At an exhibition of his photographs...

Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones talk to John Wilson about their new film The Theory of Everything about the physicist Stephen Hawking; soprano Renée Fleming on her new album Christmas in New York; Billie Whitelaw remembered by former theatre critic Benedict Nightingale; and Adam Smith considers the dark side of Christmas films. Producer Jerome Weatherald.

Miranda Hart tells Razia Iqbal about the emotional filming of the final episodes of her sitcom Miranda. The latest instalment of the Night of the Museum franchise, starring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, is set in the British Museum. But how do you film riotous action sequences in one of the busiest museums in the world, full of priceless artefacts? Razia tours the museum with the film's location manager, Michael Harm. Before his death last August Seamus Heaney was working on a selection of...

Two well-loved children's books have been adapted for television - Roald Dahl's Esio Trot and The Boy in the Dress by comedian and author David Walliams. Children's book editor Julia Eccleshare discusses whether the characters in the novels come to life on the small screen. Razia Iqbal talks to Pulitzer prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler who has turned his hand from literary fiction to writing espionage thrillers. He discusses The Hot Country, his new historical novel about an American...

Double Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz on working with Tim Burton in Big Eyes, and responds to rumours surrounding his role in the new James Bond film. Kirsty goes backstage at the National Theatre on the set that really is the star of Treasure Island - it's a ship, a pub, a cave and a strange, pulsating island. And a pirate's corpse. Radio 3's Petroc Trelawney reviews Mozart in the Jungle, a new 'webseries' about a wild young conductor who tries to rejuvenate the New York Symphony. And,...

Ridley Scott's Moses epic Exodus: Gods and Kings is reviewed by Adam Smith; investigative journalist John Sweeney and Baltimore-based crime novelist Laura Lippman discuss the phenomenon of the 'Serial' podcasts; The Shoemaker's Holiday director Phillip Breen tells Samira Ahmed about his RSC production of Thomas Dekker's Elizabethan comedy of class, conflict and cobblers in love; and Quvenzhané Wallis and director Will Gluck on their new film adaptation of Annie. Producer Jerome Weatherald.

Forty years after his breakthrough play - John, Paul, George, Ringo...and Bert, the celebrated playwright, musician, and novelist Willy Russell reveals the word he has chosen for the new Front Row neon artwork. He joins Kirsty Lang on the roof of the BBC's Salford home to turn it on. A review of Kon-Tiki, a new film about Thor Heyerdahl's famous journey across the Pacific ocean. Tomorrow the West Yorkshire Playhouse will be the setting for the UK's first ever 'dementia friendly' theatre...

Sir Paul McCartney tells John Wilson about creating a song for the video game Destiny and missing the days of vinyl. Peter Schade, Head of Framing at the National Gallery, talks about the gallery's first ever campaign to raise money to buy a frame. It's one he's found for Titian's An Allegory of Prudence. Ian McDiarmid stars as Shylock in the Almeida Theatre's new production of The Merchant of Venice. He and director Rupert Goold talk about setting the play in the bright lights of Las...

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Trevor Nunn discuss bringing their musical Cats back to London's West End. Jessie Burton, award-winning author of The Miniaturist, and curator Alice Sage discuss the appeal of dolls' houses as a new exhibition Small Stories: At Home in a Dolls' House opens at The Museum of Childhood. As the late Mary Soames' collection of personal objects is auctioned, Giles Waterfield reviews rarely-seen paintings by her father Winston Churchill. Jeff Kinney, author of the Diary of...

Historian Tom Holland delivers his verdict on a new TV drama series charting the life of adventurer Marco Polo. As English National Ballet prepares to stage its Christmas stalwart, Nutcracker at the London Coliseum, Samira Ahmed visits the company's warehouse in Kent to meet the team behind the scenes. With the approach of the centenary of the WWI Christmas truce on the Western Front, playwright Phil Porter, whose new play at the RSC dramatises the truce, and historian Emily Mayhew discuss...

With Kirsty Lang. Roger Michell talks about his new ITV drama, The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies, about the retired teacher attacked by the press after being falsely suspected of killing Joanna Yeates in 2010. As teenage 'vlogging' sensation, Zoella, becomes embroiled in a row over hiring a ghostwriter for her best-selling debut novel, Girl Online, we look at the rise of the scribes for hire. BBC diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall reviews new documentary film The Green Prince...

Author Sarah Waters has followed her gothic novel The Little Stranger with her first play which is also a ghost story that aims to spook audiences. She discusses working with experimental theatre-maker Christopher Green to devise a play in which all is not as it seems. Mike Scott of The Waterboys discusses the band's new album Modern Blues, and explains why it was important for the band to record it in Nashville. Dawn Walton, Director of Eclipse Theatre Company and Tom Morris, Artistic...

Jim Broadbent talks to Kirsty Lang about playing Father Christmas for the third time in his new film Get Santa; Matt Haig and Katherine Woodfine on Young Adult Fiction; Croatian playwright Tena Stivicic discusses her play 3 Winters at the National Theatre; Stephen Armstrong brings us his pick of the year's comedy DVDs; and following the news that the British Museum has loaned one of the Elgin Marbles to the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Peter Aspden considers the role museums and...

The composer Sir Harrison Birtwistle discusses his music as a season celebrating his 80th birthday begins at London's Southbank Centre. Iain Lee reviews The Grandmaster, the new film from Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai, which traces the life of the Wing Chun grandmaster Ip Man, who taught Bruce Lee. Boyd Hilton receommends the boxsets that should be making their way into stockings this Christmas. "Great Hera!" - Jill Lepore, author of The Secret History of Wonder Woman, discusses the...

Director Peter Jackson and co-writer Philippa Boyens talk to John Wilson about their final instalment of The Hobbit film franchise; the author Philip Pullman reflects on one of his heroes, William Blake, as a new exhibition at the Ashmolean in Oxford explores his formation as an engraver; and historian Kathryn Hughes makes her selection of biographies and memoirs of the year.

Suzy Klein, Kate Mossman and Greg James make their picks from pop, classical and alternative for a Christmas wishlist of albums. The artist Jeremy Deller discusses curating an exhibition of work by his artistic heroes - William Morris and Andy Warhol. David Benedict reviews the latest revival of Stephen Sondheim's Assassins; the darkly comic musical depicting the lives of the 13 people who have tried to assassinate a President of the United States. The Royal Photographic Society was...

Kirsty Lang reviews the film St Vincent, which stars Bill Murray as a reluctant babysitter. She talks to the winners at last night's Evening Standard Theatre Awards, including Tom Hiddleston and Gillian Anderson. Mark Thomas on his new stand-up show about Surveillance. And Jeff Park chooses his favourite crime books of the year.

Annie Lennox talks to Kirsty Lang about her new album Nostalgia, on which she covers songs from The Great American Songbook. Hollywood actor and director James Franco shows Kirsty round his latest art venture Fat Squirrel. The international human rights lawyer Philippe Sands discusses A Song of Good and Evil, a show he developed when he realised that both a Nuremberg prosecutor and defendant shared a passion for Bach. And with the New York Film Critics Circle Awards kicking off the awards...