Podcasts by Start the Week

Small states: global impact and survival from 2023-12-11T10:12

With the fall of the Soviet Union, the theoretical physicist Armen Sarkissian returned home and became first the Prime Minister and then the President of the newly reformed state of Armenia. In ...

Playing games from 2023-12-04T09:56

It’s play time on Start the Week. The mathematician Marcus Du Sautoy looks at the numbers behind the games we play, from Monopoly to rock paper scissors. In Around The World in 80 Games he shows...

Space – the human story from 2023-11-27T09:56

Tim Peake was the first British astronaut to visit the International Space Station, and is one of only 628 people in human history to have left the Earth’s atmosphere. In Space he tells the huma...

Monet and machine vision from 2023-11-20T09:55

The Impressionist painter Claude Monet wrote that he was driven ‘wild with the need to put down what I experience’. In his long career he revolutionised painting and made some of the most iconic...

Music – from page to performance from 2023-11-13T10:09

The award-winning composer Errollyn Wallen offers an insight into what it’s like to write a piece of music. In her memoir, Becoming a Composer, she also looks back on how a girl born in Belize a...

China – its poetry and economy from 2023-11-06T10:01

In the winter of 770 the Chinese poet Du Fu wrote his final words, ‘Excitement gone, now nothing troubles me…/ Rushing madly at last where do I go?’ Looking back at his life and work, the histor...

Soundtrack to life from 2023-10-30T11:30

The American singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant often uses fictional or mythological characters in her songs, to capture contemporary and political concerns. Her latest album, Keep Your Courage,...

Infected blood - from scandal to inquiry from 2023-10-23T09:02

The plasma product Factor VIII was heralded in the 1960s as a miracle treatment that helped those with haemophilia to live fuller lives. By the 1980s it was killing them in their thousands, as t...

Unruly bodies from 2023-10-16T09:12

The writer and academic Emma Dabiri encourages unruliness in her latest book, Disobedient Bodies. She puts the origins of western beauty ideals under the spotlight and explores ways to rebel aga...

Israel from 2023-10-09T09:13

This programme was set up before the violence broke out in Israel. Tom Sutcliffe will also be joined by the BBC's Diplomatic Correspondent James Landale.

The Israeli novelist and psycholog...

The Iliad and the right to rule from 2023-10-02T09:03

After her translation of Homer’s The Odyssey the classicist Emily Wilson tackles his epic, The Iliad. She brings to life the battle cries between the Greeks and the Trojans, the bellicose leader...

Contains Strong Language Festival in Leeds from 2023-09-25T08:45

In front of an audience at the Contains Strong Language Festival in Leeds the poets, Lemn Sissay and Lebogang Mashile, and the curator Clare O’Dowd explore the transformative power of language, ...

Homo Sapiens +/- from 2023-09-18T09:04

The French archaeologist Ludovic Slimak has spent three decades uncovering evidence of ancient human life. In The Naked Neanderthal (translated by David Watson) he explores the last great extinc...

The NHS at 75 from 2023-07-03T08:59

To mark the 75th anniversary of the NHS Kirsty Wark looks back at its formation, its current health and future prognosis with the medic and broadcaster Kevin Fong, historian Andrew Seaton, polit...

Materials that shape our world from 2023-06-26T09:01

Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil and lithium are the stars of Ed Conway’s book, Material World. He tells Tom Sutcliffe how they built our world, from the Dark Ages to the present day. And how much ...

Sums, stories and musical scores from 2023-06-19T08:58

Kirsty Wark celebrates the artistry of numbers with three mathematicians Eugenia Cheng, Sarah Hart and Emily Howard.

Eugenia Cheng asks Is Maths Real? in her new book, which offers a new w...

Hacking and cybercrime from 2023-06-12T10:31

Just how safe is the online world? Yale Professor of Law and Philosophy Scott Shapiro delves into cybersecurity in his book, Fancy Bear Goes Phishing. The book’s title derives from the exploits ...

Allergies and the Microbiome from 2023-06-05T09:06

Billions of people worldwide suffer from some kind of allergy and this is the focus of Theresa MacPhail’s book, Allergic. As a medical anthropologist and allergy sufferer herself she looks back...

Hay Festival - Dickens in the 21st century from 2023-05-29T09:51

In front of an audience at the Hay Festival Tom Sutcliffe asks what Dickens would say about the world today. The prize-winning Barbara Kingsolver discusses her retelling of David Copperfield, in...

Birds and moths from 2023-05-22T08:55

The exhibition Animals: Art, Science and Sound at the British Library (until 28 August 2023) reveals how animals have been documented across the world through history. Cheryl Tipp, Curator of Wi...

Virtuous bankers? from 2023-05-15T09:01

The economic historian and former trader Anne Murphy looks back at the Bank of England in the 18th century. In Virtuous Bankers she shows how a private institution became ‘a great engine of stat...

Monster artist/monstrous art? from 2023-05-08T08:45

What to do with the art of monstrous men? That’s the question Claire Dederer grapples with in Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma. She wonders whether she can or should continue to love the work of Roman ...

Life behind the iron curtain from 2023-05-01T08:45

Adam Rutherford asks what ordinary life was like in the Soviet Union and how far its collapse helps to explain Russia today. Karl Schlögel is one of the world’s leading historians of the Soviet...

Ancient trees from 2023-04-24T08:59

Trees have the remarkable ability to pass knowledge down to succeeding generations and to survive the ravages of climate change, if only we’d let them alone, according to the German forester Pet...

A place called home from 2023-04-17T09:00

Why is it so difficult to find a place to call home? By the age of twenty five the journalist Kieran Yates had lived in twenty different houses, from council estates in London to a car showroom ...

Ai Weiwei and design values from 2023-04-10T08:45

The artist Ai Weiwei has always enjoyed ignoring the boundaries between disciplines, fusing art, architecture, design, collecting and social activism. He’s now taken over the Design Museum in Lo...

Mastering a new skill from 2023-04-03T09:25

How do people learn new skills and become real experts? These were the questions the author Adam Gopnik wanted to answer in his new book, The Real Work – a term magicians use for their accumulat...

Climate - past, present and future from 2023-03-27T09:10

The world is now warming faster than at any point in recorded history. Kirsty Wark talks to an historian, scientist and novelist about how to convey the story and impact of climate change.

Humanism - what is it good for? from 2023-03-20T10:06

The writer Sarah Bakewell explores the long tradition of humanist thought in her latest book, Humanly Possible. She celebrates the writers, thinkers, artists and scientists over the last 700 yea...

George Eliot and married life from 2023-03-13T10:02

George Eliot was a leading novelist who scandalised Victorian society by eloping to Germany with a married man and living in unlawful conjugal bliss. She dedicated her books to ‘her husband’ and...

The Iraq War – 20 years on from 2023-03-06T10:08

It’s twenty years since the US and UK invaded Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Kirsty Wark discusses the lead up to the war, the impact on the lives of Iraqis and the legacy.

Ghaith Abdul...

Democratic capitalism – marriage on the rocks from 2023-02-27T09:58

It’s Ok To Be Angry About Capitalism is the title of the new book by the US politician Bernie Sanders. In it he castigates a system that he argues is fuelled by uncontrolled greed and rigged aga...

Ancient knowledge from 2023-02-20T10:01

The theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli celebrates the life of an ancient Greek philosopher, in Anaximander And The Nature Of Science (translated by Marion Lignana Rosenberg). He tells Adam Ruth...

The food we eat from 2023-02-13T10:04

The psychologist Kimberley Wilson lays bear the truism ‘we are what we eat’. In Unprocessed: How the Food We Eat is Fuelling our Mental Health Crisis she bring into sharp focus the known links b...

Power, violence and witches from 2023-02-06T09:53

Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth is ruthless in her pursuit of power and then driven into madness and despair. But the writer and director Zinnie Harris has re-imagined a new story for Lady Macbeth in...

The Victims of War from 2023-01-30T10:01

Tom Sutcliffe talks to three historians about the crimes of WWII and the shifting geopolitics, and the lasting reverberations today with the war in Ukraine. Dan Stone’s new book, The Holoca...

Videogames – from fantasy to reality from 2023-01-23T11:36

The architect Sandra Youkhana takes readers on a tour of the structures of modern digital worlds in Videogame Atlas (co-authored with Luke Caspar Pearson). From Minecraft to Assassin’s Creed Uni...

The view from Latin America from 2023-01-16T10:09

From Europe’s perspective Christopher Columbus ‘discovered’ America in 1492. But the historian Caroline Dodds Pennock shifts the focus in her new book, On Savage Shores, to explore what the grea...

Where are you from? from 2023-01-09T10:04

In Not So Black and White: A History of Race from White Supremacy to Identity Politics Kenan Malik questions what he sees as lazy assumptions about race and culture. He retells the forgotten his...

Awesome from 2022-12-26T09:45

The award-winning social psychologist Dacher Keltner believes he’s found the answer to happiness: finding awe. In his new book, Awe: The Transformative Power of Everyday Wonder, he shows how thi...

Dance Pioneers from 2022-12-19T09:56

George Balanchine is one of the most revered and influential choreographers of the twentieth century. In this first major biography about his life Jennifer Homans offers an intimate portrait of...

Listening in the dark from 2022-12-12T10:09

Johan Eklöf is a Swedish bat scientist on a mission. In The Darkness Manifesto (translated by Elizabeth DeNoma) he warns how light pollution is threatening the ancient rhythms of life. Many crea...

Returning to the moon from 2022-12-05T10:13

It is fifty years since the last manned-flight to the moon. While the Apollo missions have long been superseded by explorations further afield, the science journalist Oliver Morton insists the m...

Faith: lost in translation? from 2022-11-28T10:05

Real faith ‘passes first through the body/ like an arrow’ so writes the American-Iranian poet Kaveh Akbar. In his collection Pilgrim Bell he plays with the physical and divine, the human capacit...

Taking a stand from 2022-11-21T10:00

The Nobel peace prize-winner Maria Ressa is a journalist who has spent decades speaking truth to power in the country of her birth, the Philippines. She looks back at her life, and her ongoing b...

Perfect skin from 2022-11-14T10:06

In art the Greek and Roman body is often portrayed as one of perfection – flawlessly cast in bronze and white marble. But the classicist Caroline Vout tells Adam Rutherford that the reality was ...

The authentic taste of Britain from 2022-11-07T10:10

The award-winning writer Jonathan Coe presents a portrait of Britain told through four generations of one family, in his latest novel Bournville. Set in middle England, in a suburb of Birmingham...

Building the Body, Opening the Heart from 2022-10-31T10:11

The Pulitzer-winning oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee recalls the thrill of seeing for the first time the extraordinary ‘luminosity’ of a living cell. In his latest work, The Song of the Cell, he...

Zombies, exiles and monsters from 2022-10-24T08:59

The Man Booker prize winning novelist George Saunders turns to short-stories for his latest book, Liberation Day. From workers dressed as ‘ghouls’ in an underground amusement park to brainwashed...

Black Britain and beyond from 2022-10-17T09:04

The first event marking Black History Month UK took place thirty five years ago, and the re-claiming and documenting of Black British and International History has since evolved into a national ...

Power plays and family dynamics from 2022-10-10T09:08

In her latest novel, The Unfolding, the prize-winning AM Homes has created a compelling central character: a larger than life American patriot and family man. Undone by Obama’s victory in the 20...

Political leadership and oversight from 2022-10-03T09:16

During the pandemic our laws were radically remade by a government which exercised almost unlimited power, according to the human rights barrister, Adam Wagner. In Emergency State: How We Lost O...

Bradford - Brave New World from 2022-09-26T08:45

In a special edition of the show, in front of an audience at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, Adam Rutherford and guests focus on scientific curiosity – its thrills and its dan...

Birmingham from 2022-09-12T08:45

Forget the north south divide, what about the ‘squeezed middle’? Tom Sutcliffe and guests discuss the cultural and political status of the country’s ‘second city’ Birmingham.

The writer K...

Health, sickness and exploitation from 2022-06-27T09:17

When people feel ill they go to the doctor for a diagnosis and what they hope will be the first step on the road to recovery. But former consultant neurologist Jules Montague argues that getting...

Justice, war crimes and targeted killings from 2022-06-20T09:05

Linda Kinstler’s Latvian grandfather disappeared after WWII and the family never spoke about him. But as she delved into Boris Kinstler’s life she found he had been a member of a killing brigade...

Social inequality - up close from 2022-06-13T09:16

The failure of British politics and public institutions to tackle social inequality is down to proximity, so says the writer, performer and activist Darren McGarvey. In The Social Distance Betwe...

A revolution in food and farming from 2022-06-06T09:08

The environmentalist George Monbiot argues that farming is the world’s greatest cause of environmental destruction, but few people want to talk about it. In Regenesis: Feeding the World Without ...

Family drama at Hay Festival from 2022-05-30T08:45

In front of an audience at this year’s Hay Festival Helen Lewis talks to three prize winning authors about their work.

Damon Galgut’s Booker-winning The Promise tells the story of a famil...

Learning from apes, fish and wasps from 2022-05-23T08:57

Adam Rutherford explores how other species can help us understand our own. The world-renowned primatologist Frans de Waal has spent decades observing the behaviours of chimps and bonobos. In Dif...

The body clock and sleep from 2022-05-16T08:57

Every moment of the day tiny biological clocks are ticking throughout the body, but Russell Foster, world-renowned expert in circadian neuroscience, warns that modern life is playing havoc with ...

Marwa Al-Sabouni - Rebuilding with hope from 2022-05-09T09:07

The Syrian architect Marwa al-Sabouni is the Guest Co-Director of this year’s Brighton Festival and her flagship project The Riwaq on Hove seafront provides a space for social and artistic excha...

Curiosity, ingenuity and experimentation from 2022-05-02T08:45

Wonder at the natural world has inspired people and fuelled curiosity for millennia. The ancient Greek Theophrastus had interests that spread far and wide, from biology and physics to ethics and...

The age of the strongman leader from 2022-04-25T08:59

In The Age of the Strongman, the journalist Gideon Rachman explores how populist and authoritarian leaders have become a central feature of global politics. Since Vladimir Putin took power in Ru...

NoViolet Bulawayo on Glory from 2022-04-18T08:45

The new novel, Glory, by prize winning writing NoViolet Bulawayo is a postcolonial tale of power and tyranny – an African Animal Farm. It’s set in the fictional Jidada, that resembles Zimbabwe d...

Love poetry; love books from 2022-04-11T08:45

"Stand still, and I will read to thee / A lecture, love, in love's philosophy." John Donne is one of the greatest love poets in the history of the English language. In a new biography, Super-Inf...

Resistance from 2022-04-04T09:06

The picture of a lone figure, plastic bags in hand, standing in front of a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square in China in 1989 has become an iconic image of resistance to overpowering might. As...

Liberalism in crisis from 2022-03-28T08:45

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine images of war in Europe dominate the news, and questions rage about the political failure to both prevent and end the atrocities. Amol Rajan discusses the po...

Welsh identities from 2022-03-21T09:59

In May Wales will hold local elections to elect members of all twenty-two local authorities. Richard Wyn Jones, professor of Welsh politics, examines the issues facing the country. He tells Hele...

Feathered friends from 2022-03-14T09:58

Humans have been fascinated with birdlife since the first cave drawings 12,000 years ago. In Birds and Us, Tim Birkhead explores how birds have captured our imaginations and inspired both art an...

Creating art; reflecting life from 2022-03-07T10:12

New York, 1984: the iconic artist Andy Warhol meets the rising star Jean-Michel Basquiat. Their relationship as they work together on a landmark exhibition is at the heart of the world premiere ...

Post-war/post-Covid from 2022-02-28T10:01

The historian Peter Hennessy asks whether post-Covid Britain needs to set out a new social contract, comparable to the Beveridge report after WWII. In A Duty of Care, he looks back to the founda...

Wealth, influence and the global elite from 2022-02-21T10:08

The Sassoons were one of the great commercial dynasties of the 19th century: ‘the Rothschilds of the East’. In Global Merchants the historian Joseph Sassoon charts how his ancestors – Jewish ref...

Stonehenge, and conserving the future from 2022-02-14T10:14

Stonehenge is one of Britain’s most iconic monuments: an ancient stone circle still shrouded in layers of speculation and folklore. A new exhibition at the British Museum looks at the human stor...

The Georgians from 2022-02-07T10:33

Forget the Victorians, the Georgian era is having its moment. Regencycore, a fashion style inspired by the Netflix period drama Bridgerton was shortlisted for Word of the Year 2021, and there wi...

Bullish masculinity from 2022-01-31T10:07

The award-winning poet Fiona Benson retells the Greek myth of the Minotaur, upending the legend of the dashing male hero slaying the monster in the labyrinth. In a series of poems in her new col...

Modernism from 2022-01-24T10:06

Modernism is a cultural and philosophical movement that emerged in the West during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It’s a complex hydra-headed beast that was pervasive in the arts, but a...

Old battles, new warfare from 2022-01-17T10:15

Are we heading into an era of unending low-level conflict, of foreign interference and buying of influence? In The Weaponisation of Everything, the security expert Mark Galeotti argues that trad...

Finding consolation and community in reading from 2022-01-10T10:43

The historian, writer and former politician Michael Ignatieff talks to Tom Sutcliffe about how consolation offers a way to survive the anguish and uncertainties of the 21st century. In his new b...

Vaccinate, ventilate and breathe from 2021-12-27T09:45

Andrew Marr talks to two of the leading scientists who were at the forefront of research into fighting the spread of Covid-19. Professor Teresa Lambe was one of the Principal Investigators overs...

A musical journey – from the mountains to the multi-storey from 2021-12-20T10:27

The internationally renowned cellist Steven Isserlis talks to Andrew Marr about his companion guide to The Bach Cello Suites. Isserlis explores why Bach’s Six Suites have become some of the most...

Living in the Matrix from 2021-12-13T09:45

What if virtual worlds become indistinguishable from the real one? In 1999 the science fiction film, The Matrix, depicted a dystopian future in which people are unknowingly trapped inside a simu...

Witches from 2021-12-06T10:14

The acclaimed actor Kathryn Hunter plays all three witches in the forthcoming Hollywood adaptation of The Tragedy of Macbeth. The film is directed by Joel Coen and starring Denzel Washington and...

Levelling up; halting decline from 2021-11-29T09:45

Is it possible to ‘level up’ the economy and help struggling places halt decline and become more prosperous? Paul Swinney is Director of Policy and Research at the think tank Centre for Cities a...

Christianity: Changing Fortunes from 2021-11-22T10:02

Pentecostalism is global sensation: a Christian movement, founded at the turn of the 20th century by the son of freed slaves, that has become the fastest-growing religion in the world. Elle Hard...

Ancient lives and legacies in Latin America from 2021-11-15T09:45

The Nobel prize-winning author Mario Vargas Llosa’s latest novel revolves around the lies, schemes and vested interests that infected the development of Latin America. In Harsh Times (translated...

Internet influencers and generation gaps from 2021-11-08T10:03

At times it can feel as though we’re in the middle of a generational war, with the baby boomers battling the much maligned post-millennials. But in Generations the Director of The Policy Instit...

Ai Weiwei on creative freedom from 2021-11-01T09:45

The internationally-renowned artist Ai Weiwei explores the origins of his creativity and political beliefs through his own life story and that of his father. In 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows, t...

Working the land - Orwell and HG Wells from 2021-10-25T08:45

‘Outside my work the thing I care most about is gardening’, wrote George Orwell in 1940. In Orwell’s Roses Rebecca Solnit explores how the writer’s love for growing things, especially flowers, s...

Rationality in an Irrational Age from 2021-10-18T09:35

In his new book, Rationality, the experimental psychologist Steven Pinker argues that human beings have the power to think, act and behave rationally, if given the right tools to do so. He asks ...

Views from across the water from 2021-10-11T09:21

‘Devil-Land’ – that was how foreign observers viewed England in the 17th century: a ‘failed state’ torn apart by seditious rebellion, religious extremism and royal collapse. The historian Clare ...

Images of power from 2021-10-04T08:59

What does the face of power look like? It’s a question the academic Mary Beard explores in her latest book, Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from the Ancient World to the Modern. She tells Kirsty...

Colm Tóibín on Thomas Mann from 2021-09-27T09:10

The prize-winning author Colm Tóibín recreates the life and work of one of Germany’s most famous and acclaimed writers Thomas Mann. The Magician is a deeply intimate portrait of a private man, r...

Climate activism: the next generation from 2021-09-20T08:45

Richard Powers’s prize-winning Overstory was an impassioned evocation of the natural world and a call to arms to save it. In his latest novel, Bewilderment, a father and son navigate a world see...

Life in the first person from 2021-09-13T09:57

The neuroscientist Anil Seth is a leading researcher into consciousness. In his book, Being You, he explores why we experience life in the first person. He tells Tom Sutcliffe how our perceptual...

Ali Smith from 2021-06-28T08:45

Ali Smith talks to Andrew Marr about Summer, the finale to her ambitious, ground-breaking Seasonal quartet of novels. Since 2016, the prize-winning writer has been working on a cycle of novels t...

Jackie Kay on Bessie Smith from 2021-06-21T08:45

Scotland’s former National Poet Jackie Kay celebrates the tempestuous life of the great blues singer, Bessie Smith. Born in Tennessee in 1894 Bessie was a street singer before she made it big at...

London - villain and victim? from 2021-06-14T08:45

Love it or hate it, London dominates the UK politically, economically and culturally. It’s nearly 200 years since one critic famously described the capital as ‘the Great Wen’ a monstrous cyst su...

Lionel Shriver on life and death decisions from 2021-06-07T08:45

In a year when Covid-19 has had a devastating effect on families, with loved ones dying sometimes alone in hospital or without the usual funeral rites, Tom Sutcliffe and guests discuss mortality...

DH Lawrence: life and work from 2021-05-31T08:45

DH Lawrence was once a towering figure in literature in the 20th century but his reputation has taken a battering, with accusations of nostalgia, self-indulgence and misogyny. But Frances Wilson...

On Thin Ice: Glaciers, Geopolitics, and Nature's Goods from 2021-05-24T08:45

Once-indomitable glaciers – from high up in the Himalayas to the polar regions – are today in grave peril, as our climate warms at an accelerating rate. The glaciologist Jemma Wadham says that m...

Daniel Kahneman on 'noisy' human judgement from 2021-05-17T08:45

The Nobel prize-winning economist and Professor of Psychology Daniel Kahneman focuses his latest research on the high cost of inconsistent decision making. In Noise, co-authored with Oliver Sibo...

The opioid crisis and erosion of trust from 2021-05-10T08:45

The Sackler name is more often associated with philanthropy and lavish donations in the arts and sciences. But the investigative reporter Patrick Radden Keefe tells another story in Empire of Pa...

Art - plunder, power and prestige from 2021-05-03T08:45

The looting of art in war time is nothing new, but Napoleon took it to new heights: demanding of his defeated enemies across Italy their most valuable statues and paintings. Cynthia Saltzman’s N...

Personal faith and the Church from 2021-04-26T08:45

What it means to be a black Christian woman in the UK is at the heart of Chine McDonald’s new book, God Is Not a White Man. Part memoir and part theological and historical study, McDonald looks ...

What if the Incas had colonised Europe? from 2021-04-19T08:45

The French writer Laurent Binet’s new book Civilisations is a flight of fancy re-imagining the modern world. He tells Andrew Marr that his counter-factual novel looks at what could have happened...

Nuclear destruction from 2021-04-12T08:45

In 1962 the world teetered on the edge of nuclear destruction as the Presidents of the USA and the Soviet Union fought over Soviet warheads installed on the islands of Cuba. In Nuclear Folly: A ...

Defining mental illness from 2021-04-05T08:45

Reports of a mental health epidemic among young people both leading up to and during the pandemic are now widespread. Sally Holland is the Children’s Commissioner for Wales and a former social w...

Trade deals and human rights – in Africa and China from 2021-03-29T08:45

Tom Tugendhat MP is the Conservative chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. He tells Andrew Marr that he’s very much focused on British foreign policy priorities after Brexit. But the governmen...

Newton: science and worldly riches from 2021-03-22T09:45

Edward St Aubyn is the award-winning author of the Patrick Melrose series. His new novel, Double Blind, also revolves around transformation and the headlong pursuit of knowledge. He tells Tom Su...

Rights and responsibilities from 2021-03-15T09:45

The journalist Matthew d’Ancona attacks the torpor and complacency which has come to dominate the political landscape. In Identity, Ignorance, Innovation he analyses what’s gone wrong in Britain...

Understanding Melancholy from 2021-03-08T09:45

400 years ago Robert Burton produced his labyrinthine masterpiece, The Anatomy of Melancholy – a work which was celebrated in the Renaissance for its understanding of the huge variety of causes,...

Monsters of the deep from 2021-03-01T09:45

The deep sea is the last, vast wilderness on Earth. In The Brilliant Abyss the marine biologist Helen Scales dives below the surface to tell the story of our relationship with the ocean floor. W...

Family struggles - from Greek tragedy to The Troubles from 2021-02-22T09:45

Kerri ní Dochartaigh was born in Derry-Londonderry at the height of the Troubles, to a Catholic mother and Protestant father. In Thin Places she traces a life affected by poverty, loss and viole...

Living online and IRL from 2021-02-15T09:45

What happens when real life collides with your digital existence – the writer and ‘Poet Laureate of Twitter’ Patricia Lockwood talks to Andrew Marr. In her highly original novel, No One is Talki...

Empire and class, shaping Britain from 2021-02-08T09:45

Britain is a direct product of its imperial past. So argues the writer Sathnam Sanghera in his latest book, Empireland. He tells Tom Sutcliffe how we need to move beyond simplistic feelings of s...

The fall of Maxwell – the end of an era. from 2021-02-01T09:45

He was born into abject poverty in Czechoslovakia, fought for the British and was decorated for his heroism in WWII, and became a successful businessman and press baron courted by political lead...

Mariana Mazzucato on moonshot economics from 2021-01-25T09:45

Mariana Mazzucato, Professor of Economics at University College London, tells Amol Rajan it’s time western governments took a braver approach to the biggest problems of our time – inequality, di...

Francis Bacon revealed from 2021-01-18T09:45

Francis Bacon is one of Britain’s greatest twentieth century artists – a painter who captured and exposed the darker, stranger sides of life. He is the subject of a new biography, Revelations, b...

Scotland and the Union from 2021-01-11T09:45

The Acts of Union 1707 brought together England and Scotland, ‘United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain’. But the historian Karin Bowie tells Andrew Marr that in the years preceding ...

Nicholas Hytner from 2020-12-28T09:45

2020 has been disastrous for the arts in Britain and many people have lost their jobs as Covid-19 has swept through the country. Sir Nicholas Hytner has been working in the theatre for nearly fo...

Thomas Becket and the rift between church and state from 2020-12-21T09:45

As the 850th anniversary of the murder of Thomas Becket approaches Andrew Marr explores the dynamic between church and state and what happens when the most powerful political friendships turn so...

Inspiring awe – from the heavens to the oceans from 2020-12-14T09:45

Look into the night sky in the coming days and Jupiter and Saturn will appear closer than they’ve been since the early 17th century, according to the astronomer Stuart Clark. He tells Tom Sutcli...

Laughter from 2020-12-07T09:45

Why do we laugh? This is the question the evolutionary ecologist Jonathan Silvertown sets out to answer in his latest book, The Comedy of Error. He looks back at laughter’s evolutionary origins,...

Human ingenuity and shared inheritance from 2020-11-30T15:01

Amol Rajan explores different ways of thinking, and how far humans can be seen as unique for their ability to invent.

In The Pattern Seekers, Simon Baron-Cohen shows how humans have evolv...

Derrida, Woolf, and the pleasure of reading from 2020-11-23T09:45

‘A text is not a text unless it hides from the first comer, from the first glance, the law of its composition and the rules of its game. A text remains, moreover, forever imperceptible’. So wrot...

Landscapes real and imagined from 2020-11-16T10:20

Ireland itself is a main character in Kevin Barry's new short story collection, That Old Country Music. He brings the western regions to life in stories set firmly in Ireland's present day but w...

Physics in all its glory from 2020-11-09T09:45

Sir Roger Penrose was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in physics this year for his ground-breaking work on black holes and their relationship with the general theory of relativity. He looks back...

Great women of the classics from 2020-11-02T09:45

The Latin scholar Shadi Bartsch has written a new translation of Virgil’s The Aeneid. She tells Kirsty Wark how this timeless epic about the legendary ancestor of a Roman emperor has been consta...

China and the global order from 2020-10-26T11:49

The pandemic has exposed serious weaknesses in Western governments, according to John Micklethwait, editor-in-chief of Bloomberg and former editor of The Economist. In The Wake-Up Call he argues...

Fake news and data lies: how to win an election from 2020-10-19T08:52

Fake news, conspiracy theories, and weaponising data to influence elections are all aspects of contemporary politics. But Amol Rajan explores their historical roots with two eminent historians, ...

Care and compassion from 2020-10-12T09:26

We are facing a crisis in care that could prove disastrous, according to the journalist Madeleine Bunting. Over five years she travelled the country to explore the value of care, talking to unde...

Contested histories from 2020-10-05T10:37

Europeans and Africans have been encountering one another since as early as the 3rd century, according to the historian Olivette Otele. In her new book, African Europeans: An Untold History, she...

Faith in the modern world from 2020-09-28T08:45

The prize-winning writer Marilynne Robinson and the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams discuss belief, community and self-knowledge with Andrew Marr. The life and family of a Presb...

Claudia Rankine and Margaret Atwood from 2020-09-21T08:02

Claudia Rankine, one of America’s leading literary figures, and the double-Booker Prize winner Margaret Atwood look at the world afresh, challenging conventions – with Kirsty Wark.

In her ...

The Radical Agenda from 2020-09-14T08:45

Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour movement promised radical change but ended disastrously with the 2019 general election. Labour insider and activist Owen Jones looks back over the last decade and tells An...

Meritocracy and inequality from 2020-09-07T08:45

As inequality continues to rise and political and social divisions become more entrenched, Amol Rajan discusses what can be done to restore social values and a sense of community - with the poli...

Nature notes, from farming to fungi from 2020-08-31T10:49

The first episode of the new season. Andrew Marr and guests stop to consider the natural world and the changing seasons.

When James Rebanks first learnt to work the land, at his grandfath...

Brit Bennett on race, identity and protest from 2020-06-29T08:30

Tom Sutcliffe discusses racism, the traps of history and the Black Lives Matter movement with the American author Brit Bennett and the British academic Gary Younge.

Racial identity, bigot...

James Joyce from 2020-06-15T08:30

James Joyce’s Ulysses is considered one of the most important works of modernist literature. It is both celebrated and commemorated annually on the 16th June – Bloomsday – the day on which the n...

Our coercive politics from 2020-06-08T08:02

The Coronavirus pandemic and ongoing protests in America have shone a spotlight on the power of the modern State. In Britain we find ourselves locked in our homes, following government instructi...

The Future from 2020-06-01T08:30

‘The future is a foreign country; they do things differently there’ – to misquote LP Hartley. Andrew Marr talks to Riel Miller, an economist at UNESCO, about the difficulties of understanding an...

Classics and class from 2020-05-25T08:35

The classics have never been solely the preserve of the British intellectual elite, according to the classicist Edith Hall. In A People’s History of Classics, Hall and her co-writer Henry Stead ...

Richard Ford, writing from the edges from 2020-05-18T08:30

The prize winning writer Richard Ford talks to Andrew Marr about his latest collection of short stories, Sorry for Your Trouble. Irish America is Ford’s landscape, and his characters contemplate...

Art in an emergency from 2020-05-11T08:30

The writer Olivia Laing has long used art to make sense of the world. Over the last five years she has written a series of essays using art and artists to understand different political crises a...

Globalisation from 2020-05-04T08:30

Andrew Marr discusses the origins and growth of globalisation, and the impact of the coronavirus on the global world order with Valerie Hansen and Gideon Rachman.

In her latest book, The ...

Changing behaviour, from bystander to actor from 2020-04-27T08:30

Why do some people get involved while others stand by looking on? What makes people act for the sake of others? Kirsty Wark discusses the psychology of behaviour with Catherine Sanderson and Dav...

Crisis in Europe from Notre-Dame to coronavirus from 2020-04-20T08:45

A year ago French people looked on with horror as the great Notre-Dame went up in flames. The journalist Agnès Poirier tells Andrew Marr that the cathedral with its 800 year history represents t...

Nature worship from 2020-04-13T08:45

On Easter Monday, Andrew Marr talks to the psychiatrist and keen gardener Sue Stuart-Smith on our love for nature. In The Well-Gardened Mind: Rediscovering Nature in the Modern World, she blends...

The genetic gender gap from 2020-04-06T09:30

Women are faring better than men in the coronavirus pandemic because of their genetic superiority, according to the physician Sharon Moalem. He tells Kirsty Wark that women live longer than men ...

Rebuilding conservatism in changing times from 2020-03-30T08:31

Nick Timothy was once described as the ‘toxic’ power behind Theresa May’s early leadership. He talks to Amol Rajan about his experience in frontline government. In his new book, Remaking One Nat...

Famous and Infamous from 2020-03-23T10:31

We think of our era as the age of celebrity. Billions of people follow the daily antics of the Kardashian family or the latest pop superstar. But celebrity obsession is centuries old, argues Hor...

Cultural icons from Shakespeare to Superman from 2020-03-16T10:10

Shakespeare has always been central to the American experience, argues the leading scholar James Shapiro. He tells Tom Sutcliffe how Shakespeare has been invoked – and at times weaponised – at p...

Morality, money and power from 2020-03-09T10:40

Morality has been outsourced to the markets and the state, argues the former Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks. He tells Andrew Marr that society has become deeply divided, and that today’s challenges...

Hilary Mantel from 2020-03-02T09:02

Hilary Mantel is the two-time winner of the Man Booker prize. In a special edition of Start the Week with Andrew Marr, she discusses the final book in her Cromwell trilogy. The Mirror and The Li...

Leila Slimani on Sexual Politics from 2020-02-24T10:45

Leila Slimani is the first Moroccan woman to win France’s most prestigious literary prize, the Prix Goncourt. From stories of poverty, exploitation and sexual addiction she now turns her attenti...

Love of home from 2020-02-17T11:29

Dan Jackson celebrates the distinctiveness of north-east England. He tells Andrew Marr how centuries of border warfare and dangerous industry has forged a unique people in Northumberland. With r...

Dresden - 75 years on from 2020-02-10T10:11

As the 75th anniversary of the Allied bombing of Dresden approaches, the historian Sinclair McKay looks back at the obliteration of a city and its aftermath. He tells Tom Sutcliffe about the ter...

Artistic influence: Beethoven, Rembrandt and MeToo from 2020-02-03T10:25

This year is Beethoven's 250th anniversary, and Sir Antonio Pappano is marking the occasion with a new production of Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio. He tells Andrew Marr how this work combined ...

Grayson Perry - the early years from 2020-01-27T10:51

The artist Grayson Perry turns to his formative years in a new exhibition of early works, The Pre-Therapy Years. He tells Amol Rajan about the ideas and influences that helped lay the foundation...

Puritans and God-given government from 2020-01-20T11:24

Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate in the mid-seventeenth century lasted a mere six years and was England’s sole experiment in republican government. The historian Paul Lay tells Andrew Marr how Cro...

No work, rest and play from 2020-01-13T11:02

The economist Daniel Susskind tells Tom Sutcliffe that the threat of technological unemployment is real and imminent. In A World Without Work he considers the economic, political and social impa...

A house and a home from 2020-01-06T10:58

Andrew Marr discusses the state of housing in Britain and what makes a house a home.

Common wisdom states that owning a house makes you a Tory, but is this true? Political scientist Ben A...

Westminster Abbey from 2019-12-23T09:02

Westminster Abbey has been a place of worship for more than a thousand years, and holds a unique place in British – and world – history. In a special edition of Start the Week, recorded in the A...

Numbers, nightmares and nanotech from 2019-12-16T10:36

The mathematician Hannah Fry reveals the hidden numbers, rules and patterns that secretly control our daily lives, in this year’s Royal Institution Christmas lectures. She tells Kirsty Wark how ...

Living near water from 2019-12-09T10:20

Flooding remains a risk in many parts of the country this winter. Andrew Marr explores the impact of water on communities. The engineer David Lerner argues for the extension of the policy of day...

India past and present from 2019-12-02T10:31

Corporate rapacity and government collusion are at the centre of William Dalrymple’s history of the East India Company. He tells Amol Rajan how the company moved relentlessly from trade to conqu...

Love and unreason from 2019-11-25T10:45

Classicist Bettany Hughes has traced the history of the goddess known as Venus or Aphrodite. Originally depicted with a phallus on her head, Venus was later drawn and sculpted as a beautiful nak...

Life, death and taxes from 2019-11-18T10:48

Nothing is certain in this world except death and taxes. If this is true, then the comedian-cum-finance writer Dominic Frisby says it’s time we better understand the latter! He tells Tom Sutclif...

Animals and us from 2019-11-11T10:49

How cultured are animals? It’s a question the marine biologist Karsten Brensing explores as he studies dolphins calling one another by name, ducklings scoring well in abstract reasoning, and the...

Nobel Prize winner Esther Duflo from 2019-11-04T10:31

Esther Duflo was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics this autumn for her work in the developing world. In her latest book, Good Economics for Hard Times, the French economist turns her attenti...

The artist - warts and all from 2019-10-28T10:05

“The painter must give a completely free rein to any feeling or sensations he may have.” So said the celebrated artist Lucian Freud. His biographer William Feaver tells Andrew Marr how Freud’s w...

Breaking bread together from 2019-10-21T09:23

Hospitality and hostility come from a common root, according to the writer Priya Basil. In her latest book, Be My Guest, she explores the diverse meaning of the Indo-European word ‘ghos-ti’ whic...

Global culture from 2019-10-14T10:20

The writer Fatima Bhutto celebrates the new global popular culture emerging from the East. She tells Andrew Marr that the West’s soft power dominance is on the wane as K-Pop, Dizi and Bollywood ...

Lenny Henry from 2019-10-07T09:13

Lenny Henry was 16 when he first appeared on television making people laugh in the 1970s. He tells Kirsty Wark about coming of age in the spotlight at a time of casual chauvinism and blatant rac...

Where is power now? from 2019-09-30T09:18

Against a backdrop of fierce political battles in Parliament and in court, Andrew Marr explores political power and examines those who wield it - from absolutism to anarchism.

The politica...

Antony Gormley: challenging conventions from 2019-09-23T10:11

Antony Gormley talks to Tom Sutcliffe about his forthcoming major show at the Royal Academy. The sculptor returns to his enduring interest in the inner dark space of the body and the body’s rela...

Escaping the past from 2019-09-16T09:37

Andrew Marr discusses how far nations have managed to confront the past. In Learning from the Germans, the philosopher Susan Neiman contrasts the way in which Germany continues to come to terms ...

Epic quests and Greek myths from 2019-07-01T09:23

The playwright David Hare is adapting Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, an epic story of vanity and egotism. He tells Tom Sutcliffe his radical new working keeps the mountain of trolls but becomes a contempora...

The power of poetry from 2019-06-24T09:50

Rowan Williams celebrates The Book of Taliesin – legendary Welsh poems of enchantment and warfare. The former Archbishop of Canterbury tells Andrew Marr how the collection of poems speak of a lo...

Money - in your pocket and in the bank from 2019-06-17T09:17

Andrew Marr discusses money, from central banks to personal finances. The historian John Guy looks back to the emergence of London as the financial centre of the world. His latest biography focu...

Beyond the headlines from 2019-06-10T09:40

Diego Maradona was a footballer of unrivalled talent, but off the pitch his story is one of despair and betrayal. Chris King, the editor of a feature documentary on the player, tells Kirsty Wark...

Jared Diamond on national crisis from 2019-06-03T10:18

Jared Diamond explores how countries survive national crises. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author and polymath talks to Andrew Marr about the process seven countries went through at moments of hug...

Medical controversies from 2019-05-20T09:09

Dr Joshua Mezrich is a leading transplant surgeon. He tells Andrew Marr how death and life are intimately connected in his field of expertise. And he explains the extraordinary breakthroughs that h...

Billy Bragg on anger and hope from 2019-05-13T09:25

Kerry Hudson grew up in all-encompassing and grinding poverty. She is now an acclaimed author, but tells Tom Sutcliffe why she returned home to explore the impact and trap of being lowborn. Howard...

Icons of English literature from 2019-05-06T09:21

Chaucer is renowned as the father of English literature. But in a new biography Marion Turner argues he is a far more cosmopolitan writer and thinker than we might assume. She tells Andrew Marr how...

Freedom: From Kierkegaard to Black Lives Matter from 2019-04-29T09:23

'Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced', wrote the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. His new biographer, Clare Carlisle, explores the life experiences that moulded Kierke...

Life in the wilderness from 2019-04-22T08:00

We underestimate how difficult it is to live in remote areas, says travel writer Dan Richards. He tells Kirsty Wark how he trekked to high mountain huts and distant snowy cabins for his new book, O...

Ian McEwan from 2019-04-15T08:02

Ian McEwan talks to Andrew Marr about his new novel, Machines Like Us, and reflects, at the age of 70, on a career which began more than four decades ago. Machines Like Us is set in an alternativ...

Ageing visibly from 2019-04-08T11:50

850,000 people in the UK are thought to be living with dementia. The writer Nicci Gerrard tells Andrew Marr about her father’s slow death from the illness. She explores issues around memory, langua...

Free Thinking Festival from 2019-04-01T09:17

At the Free Thinking Festival at Sage, Gateshead Tom Sutcliffe presents a special edition exploring the art and science of communication. The American diplomat William J Burns played a central role...

Art for all from 2019-03-25T09:45

The prize-winning author Karl Ove Knausgaard explores the life and work of a fellow Norwegian artist, Expressionist Edvard Munch. He tells Tom Sutcliffe that Munch’s work extends far beyond his ico...

Understanding China from 2019-03-18T10:18

The Chinese journalist and activist Xinran tells the story of China since the start of the 20th century through four generations of one family. She tells Andrew Marr how the family lived through en...

The battle against so-called Islamic State from 2019-03-11T10:22

David Nott's holiday plans are not like most. For 25 years the surgeon has used unpaid leave to volunteer as a war doctor. His work has taken him from Sarajevo under siege to rebel-held Aleppo, and...

Language and Culture from 2019-03-04T14:57

Andrew Marr discusses the complex interplay between language and culture. The prize-winning American author Jhumpa Lahiri has spent many years living in Italy immersing herself in the language. Sh...

Populations and contested lands from 2019-02-25T10:16

Amol Rajan explores how geology and demography have shaped the modern world. Paul Morland argues that we have underestimated the crucial impact of population changes on global events. He looks at h...

The Eye of the Beholder from 2019-02-18T10:51

We have been obsessed with the ideal body since Renaissance artists rediscovered nudity, says art historian Jill Burke. She tells Andrew Marr how artists including Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Mi...

The mind unravelling from 2019-02-11T10:07

How far does evolution explain mental health? The psychiatrist Randolph Nesse tells Kirsty Wark that negative emotions make sense in certain situations but can become excessive. He argues that posi...

Who is watching you? from 2019-02-04T10:33

Society is at a turning point, warns Professor Shoshana Zuboff. Democracy and liberty are under threat as capitalism and the digital revolution combine forces. She tells Andrew Marr how new technol...

The health of science from 2019-01-28T10:37

There is nothing new for chemistry to discover, says Bernie Bulkin. In Solving Chemistry: A Scientist's Journey, the former Head of Science at BP argues that an unprecedented event has happened: a ...

Art, truth and power from 2019-01-21T10:52

Andrew Marr on beauty and politics in art. Our idea of beauty was shaped by the great Victorian art critic John Ruskin. He thought all people deserved to see beauty every day, and compared, and fou...

Violence and Conflict from 2019-01-14T11:08

The prize-winning writer John Lanchester considers the political endgame of a fractious world in his new novel, The Wall. He tells Amol Rajan why he has written a dystopian fable in which the young...

Searching for happiness from 2019-01-07T10:33

Andrew Marr starts the year in search of happiness with the behavioural scientist and happiness professor Paul Dolan. Dolan has advised the government on how to measure wellbeing, and in his latest...

Ice and Snow from 2018-12-24T10:00

On Christmas Eve, Andrew Marr explores the mysteries of snow and ice. Michelle Paver's novels dwell in the darkest places: an Arctic hut in midwinter haunted by ghosts, an isolated mountain peak, a...

National myths with Neil MacGregor from 2018-12-17T10:19

Kirsty Wark explores national stories and myths – from both inside and outside a country’s borders. Neil MacGregor discusses how Dickens, Monty Python and the Suez Crisis have influenced the way B...

Trees: a wood wide web from 2018-12-10T10:08

Trees may have vibrant inner lives and certainly appear to have individual personalities, claims the forester-cum-writer Peter Wollheben. In his bestselling book, The Hidden Life of Trees, he uncov...

Power in Politics from 2018-12-03T10:37

Today's battle for political power began with Thomas Cromwell, argues Diarmaid MacCulloch. In a landmark new biography he tells Tom Sutcliffe how Henry VIII's chief reformer claimed power from Euro...

How the World Thinks from 2018-11-26T10:23

The director Paulette Randall brings to the stage the ultimate tale of sacrifice in the pursuit of power: Doctor Faustus. She tells Andrew Marr how, in coveting fame, power and knowledge, he sells ...

Safe spaces and snowflakes from 2018-11-19T11:10

A stifling culture of safety is now spreading throughout Western academic institutions leading to a crisis in mental health, according to the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He tells Amol Rajan...

Poland: A hundred years of history from 2018-11-12T10:11

Poland turns 100 this November. The country had existed for a thousand years but it was only in 1918 with the Treaty of Versailles that an independent Poland was created. Amol Rajan explores its tu...

Reporting from the Front Line from 2018-11-05T10:32

Andrew Marr talks to the journalist Lindsey Hilsum about the extraordinary life of the war correspondent Marie Colvin. Throughout her career she travelled to the most dangerous places in the world,...

That's not fair from 2018-11-05T09:20

On Budget day, Andrew Marr discusses what is broken in our economic and social system, and how it could be mended - if only those in charge were bold enough. Oxford’s Paul Collier is an economist ...

Pirates from 2018-10-22T09:55

Pirates come in many forms – from swashbuckling Captain Hook to today's poverty-stricken pirates off the coast of Somalia. It’s 400 years since one of the most charismatic and controversial figur...

Identity Politics from 2018-10-15T09:41

Francis Fukuyama once famously announced ‘the end of history’. He now turns his attention to what he sees as the great challenge to liberal democracy: identity politics. He tells Andrew Marr that t...

What's Your Type? from 2018-10-08T09:49

It’s nearly a century since the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator was first conceived. It has gone on to become a multi-million pound industry categorising people from thinking introverts to feeling extr...

Yuval Noah Harari from 2018-10-01T08:50

Yuval Noah Harari offers his 21 lessons for the 21st century. In a wide ranging discussion with Andrew Marr, Harari looks back to his best-selling history of the world, Sapiens, and forward to a po...

From Ubermensch to Superman from 2018-09-24T09:04

The prize-winning novelist William Boyd has set his latest novel, Love Is Blind, at the turn of the 20th century. He tells Amol Rajan how his young Scottish protagonist travels across Europe in a t...

David Attenborough: Life on Earth and Beyond from 2018-09-17T09:20

It is 40 years since Sir David Attenborough told the story of Life on Earth, from its very first spark 4 billion years ago to the abundance of plants and animals today. He tells Andrew Marr how mor...

The Reality of War from 2018-09-10T09:31

The Vietnam War was a 30-year conflict in which three million people died and the reputations of successive US presidents were wrecked. Max Hastings tells Andrew Marr about the extraordinary politi...

Storytelling at the Edinburgh Festivals from 2018-08-27T09:00

Andrew Marr presents a special edition of Start the Week at the Edinburgh Festivals, weaving together ancient stories and contemporary fiction - from Scotland to Iceland via ancient Greece. He spe...

British culture and European influence from 2018-07-02T09:00

Britain has imported its culture from Europe for generations. Andrew Marr presents a special edition from Hatchlands Park in Surrey, home to the Cobbe Collection of musical instruments including pi...

Shame, Status and Self-invention from 2018-06-25T09:31

Tina Brown was an Englishwoman barely out of her twenties when she arrived in New York. She transformed herself into a star magazine editor, at the helm of Vanity Fair and later the New Yorker. She...

Deserts and the Nuclear Age from 2018-06-18T09:09

One-third of the earth's surface is classified as desert. The writer William Atkins has travelled to eight of the world's hottest, driest places. He tells Andrew Marr about these forbidding, inhuma...

Altered Minds from 2018-06-11T09:19

Psychedelic drugs are once again being trialled to treat a range of psychological conditions. The writer Mike Pollan tells Kirsty Wark about the science of LSD and magic mushrooms: from the 1940s t...

Arundhati Roy on castes and outcasts from 2018-06-04T09:24

Booker Prize-winning novelist Arundhati Roy's latest book weaves together the lives of the misfits and outcasts from India's bustling streets. Roy is famous as an advocate for the most vulnerable a...

Survival and Destruction from 2018-05-28T08:45

In a special edition at Hay Festival, Tom Sutcliffe explores success and failure, from Homer's epic poetry to global pandemics. The historian David Christian looks at the birth and development of...

Dark Satanic Mills from 2018-05-21T09:28

Giant factories are at the centre of Joshua Freeman's history of mass production. From the textile mills in England that powered the Industrial Revolution to the car plants of 20th century America ...

Jordan Peterson: Rules for Life from 2018-05-14T09:47

Jordan Peterson, clinical psychologist and YouTube sensation, professes to bring order to chaos in his 12 Rules for Life. He tells Tom Sutcliffe about the importance of individual responsibility, u...

The Death of Democracy from 2018-05-07T09:00

Will we recognise the signs that democracy has ended? Cambridge professor David Runciman worries that we spend far too much time comparing today's politics with the 1930s, and that this blinds us t...

Mysteries of the Universe from 2018-04-30T09:24

The Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli delves into the meaning of time. He tells Andrew Marr how we live in a timeless world but have evolved to perceive time's flow. The astrophysicist Carole Mundel...

Life Is a Dream from 2018-04-23T09:53

Tom Sutcliffe discusses free will and fate; dreams and reality. Jesmyn Ward's prize-winning novel Sing, Unburied, Sing, set in the American South, is haunted by the ghosts of the past. Ward writes ...

1968: Radicals and Riots from 2018-04-16T09:16

Fifty years after radicals took to the streets of Paris and stormed campuses across the Western World, Andrew Marr unpicks the legacy of 1968. Historian Richard Vinen finds waves of protest across...

The Good Samaritan from 2018-04-09T09:20

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes makes a case for cash handouts to the poor. He tells Andrew Marr that having become exceptionally wealthy he is looking for the most efficient way to give something...

Faith and Doubt from 2018-04-02T09:00

Amol Rajan discusses faith and doubt. Religion is a recurrent theme in Naomi Alderman's novels. Her first book, Disobedience, explored a Jewish girl's split with orthodox religion, while in Liar's ...

Love and Loss from 2018-03-26T09:31

Sue Black spends much of her time with dead bodies. As one of the world's leading forensic anthropologists she has encountered death in many forms, leading British expeditions to Kosovo and to Thai...

In Praise of Passion from 2018-03-19T10:50

We are drawn to wildness and disorder, argues historian Bettany Hughes. She tells Andrew Marr about the attraction of Bacchus, the god of wine and fertility, and the subject of a new BBC Four docum...

Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead from 2018-03-12T11:28

At the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead Lionel Shriver discusses her new collection of short stories Property with presenter Kirsty Wark. While Lionel Shriver explores our relationship wit...

Art and Civilisations from 2018-03-05T10:23

What is art - and why do we need it? Fifty years ago the landmark BBC Two series Civilisation set out to answer this question. Now historians Mary Beard, Simon Schama and David Olusoga take on th...

Who Am I? The Brain and Personality from 2018-02-26T10:05

Brain damage can radically change a person's character - but does that mean they are no longer themselves? Consultant neurologist Jules Montague works with people suffering dementia and brain inj...

Fascism and the Enlightenment with Steven Pinker from 2018-02-19T10:42

Humanity is flourishing and the Enlightenment has worked, declares Steven Pinker. The Harvard psychologist has looked across health, prosperity, safety, peace and happiness, and sees signs that all...

Rise and Fall of the City from 2018-02-12T11:47

What would the perfect city look like? Today more people live in cities than ever before and that shapes the way we think, says sociologist Richard Sennett. He lays out a vision for a city of the...

Money Makes the World Go Around from 2018-02-05T10:36

Andrew Marr discusses money, transformation and the obsession with growth with two leading economists: Diane Coyle and Dharshini David. Professor Coyle argues it's time to rethink the way we measur...

Mohsin Hamid on leaving home from 2018-01-29T10:03

With millions of people on the move around the world, the novelist Mohsin Hamid has set his latest novel against the backdrop of the refugee crisis. He tells Kirsty Wark how he imagined those fleei...

The Power of Art from 2018-01-22T10:39

Art was power for Britain's kings and queens. In a new BBC TV series, Andrew Graham-Dixon visits the paintings amassed by King Charles I, the first great royal collector in British history. He tell...

Peter Carey on legacies of the past from 2018-01-15T11:40

The prize-winning novelist Peter Carey tackles head on for the first time the legacies of colonialism in his native Australia in his latest book, A Long Way From Home. He talks to Tom Sutcliffe abo...

Votes for Women from 2018-01-08T10:24

British women first got the vote a century ago this year. The social historian Jane Robinson tells Andrew Marr the suffrage movement is known for the actions of its militant wing and their call for...

Who governs Britain? from 2017-12-18T10:20

The former President of the Supreme Court, Lord Neuberger, questions how senior judges became cast as 'enemies of the people' last year. He tells Andrew Marr how the judiciary has grown more powerf...

The power and beauty of objects. from 2017-12-11T10:24

A mysterious doll's house is at the centre of Jessie Burton's novel The Miniaturist, now dramatised for television. Burton tells Tom Sutcliffe about the claustrophobic world she created amidst the ...

Russia, religion and the Middle East from 2017-12-04T10:17

Totalitarianism has reclaimed Russia. So journalist Masha Gessen tells Andrew Marr. Her book 'The Future is History' follows four figures born as the Soviet Union crumbled and whose new-found freed...

Finland at 100 from 2017-11-27T10:28

It is a hundred years since Finland declared independence following the Russian Revolution. Amol Rajan asks what is unique about Europe's most sparsely populated country. The conductor Sakari Oramo...

Blood, guts and swearing robots from 2017-11-20T10:20

Victorian hospitals were known as 'houses of death' and their surgeons, who never washed their hands, were praised for their brute strength and speed. Lindsey Fitzharris tells Andrew Marr about the...

Anger and deprivation from 2017-11-13T10:03

'I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore'. These are the words of the news anchor-man in the film Network, now adapted for the stage. The director Ivo van Hove tells Francine Stock ho...

Heart of Darkness: Conrad and Orwell from 2017-11-06T10:32

Andrew Marr discusses the work of Joseph Conrad with his biographer Maya Jasanoff. Conrad wrote about the underbelly of colonialism, terrorism, immigration and isolation and Jasanoff looks at the t...

Animals: tamed, exploited and resurrected from 2017-10-30T11:08

Amol Rajan discusses the uneasy interaction between the animal kingdom and humans. The anthropologist Alice Roberts looks back to the moment hunter-gatherers changed their relationship with other s...

Living with the Gods from 2017-10-23T09:26

Are humans distinguished not just by a capacity to think, but by our need to believe - where the search is not so much for my place in the world, but for our place in the cosmos? Neil MacGregor, th...

The End of War? from 2017-10-16T09:21

War became illegal in 1928 with the Paris Peace Pact that created a new world order, according to the lawyer and academic Oona Hathaway. She tells Andrew Marr how this pivotal moment launched a new...

Russian Revolution a hundred years on from 2017-10-09T09:45

The Russian Revolution a hundred years on. To mark the centenary Tom Sutcliffe is in Moscow to discuss the forces that led to the Revolution, and to find out how far Russians today embrace or rejec...

Power, the People and the Party from 2017-10-02T09:28

Live from Salford, during the Conservative Party conference in neighbouring Manchester, Sir David Cannadine argues that Victorian Britain was never far from revolution. He tells Andrew Marr how a c...

Hard work and sweet slumber from 2017-09-25T09:27

Francine Stock talks to the sleep scientist Matthew Walker whose latest book is a clarion call to get more sleep, as the latest research confirms that sleeping less than six or seven hours has a de...

Orhan Pamuk on competing myths from 2017-09-18T09:42

Andrew Marr talks to the Nobel Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk about his latest novel, The Red-Haired Woman. Set in Istanbul in the 20th century, it's a family drama which weaves together competin...

Les Misérables: novel of the century? from 2017-08-22T13:27

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to David Bellos about Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. Bellos argues that this 19th century masterpiece is the novel of the century, which demonstrates the drive to...

From Darwin to Big Data with Richard Dawkins from 2017-07-03T09:17

On Start the Week Andrew Marr asks whether scientists have failed in their task to communicate their work to the wider public. The 'passionate rationalist' Richard Dawkins has spent his career tryi...

Power: Fleet Street and Whitehall from 2017-06-26T10:31

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe talks to the former Conservative MP and last Governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to Chi...

Health Inequality: TB, Trauma and Technology from 2017-06-19T09:41

On Start the Week Andrew Marr explores killer diseases and the health of the world. Kathryn Lougheed focuses on one of the smartest killers humanity has ever faced - TB. It's been around since the ...

Crossing the Boundaries of Gender, Race and Class from 2017-06-12T09:15

On Start the Week Kirsty Wark asks what it is to be a man, and to belong to a tribe. Thomas Page McBee has sought answers as he's transitioned from female to male, and explored how far the violent ...

Inventing the Self: Fact and Fiction from 2017-06-05T09:43

On Start the Week, Andrew Marr explores where truth ends and invention begins in the story of the self. The theatre director Robert Lepage has spent decades creating other worlds on stage; now his ...

Live from the Hay Festival from 2017-05-29T09:02

Tom Sutcliffe presents Start the Week live from the Hay Festival. He is joined by award winning authors Colm Tóibín, Sebastian Barry and Meg Rosoff to discuss how they breathe new life into stori...

India's Rise? from 2017-05-22T09:31

On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses India. The Indian MP Shashi Tharoor looks back at the history of the Raj in Inglorious Empire, a searing indictment of the British and the impact on his coun...

Post-Truth and Revolution from 2017-05-15T09:36

On Start the Week Amol Rajan seeks the truth in a post-truth world. The political columnist Matthew D'Ancona paints a dystopian picture in which trust has evaporated, conspiracy theories thrive, an...

Kate Tempest: Everyday Epic from 2017-05-08T09:12

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to the writer and performer Kate Tempest about her desire to bring out the epic in everyday lives, and to show the poetry in lived experience. Tracy Chevalier ha...

Wendell Berry: The Natural World from 2017-05-02T07:24

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to the American writer, poet and farmer Wendell Berry. In his latest collection of essays, The World-Ending Fire, Berry speaks out against the degradation of the...

Eliza Carthy and Nicholas Hytner: Art for All from 2017-04-24T09:33

On Start the Week Kirsty Wark asks whether it's possible to produce art for all. She's joined by the former Director of the National Theatre Nicholas Hytner who looks at the balancing act between...

The Age of Spectacle? from 2017-04-17T08:45

On Start the Week Andrew Marr explores the fashions and fads in architecture and food over the last fifty years. In 'The Age of Spectacle' the design critic Tom Dyckhoff explores how consumer cultu...

Christianity: Luther's Legacy from 2017-04-10T09:31

On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks back 500 years to the moment Martin Luther challenged the power and authority of the Catholic Church. Peter Stanford brings to light the character of this lowl...

Dissecting Death from 2017-04-03T09:19

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe delves into the world of transhumanism, a movement whose aim is to use technology to transform the human condition. The writer Mark O'Connell has explored this world...

Sayeeda Warsi: Muslims in Britain from 2017-03-27T09:29

On Start the Week Amol Rajan talks to Sayeeda Warsi about how far Britain's Muslim community is viewed as 'the enemy within'. As the child of Pakistani immigrants who became Britain's first Muslim ...

The Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead from 2017-03-20T11:53

Start the Week is at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage, Gateshead where Tom Sutcliffe explores the pace and rhythm of life - from the heart-stopping moments to the sleep of the innocent. His gue...

Britain Divided: 1642-2016 from 2017-03-13T10:15

On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses the future of politics with David Goodhart and Oliver Letwin MP. In his latest book Goodhart looks at the fractious state of the west and the rise of populis...

Paul Auster and the American Dream from 2017-03-06T10:36

Andrew Marr talks to Paul Auster about his latest work, 4 3 2 1, which weaves together four versions of his hero's life alongside the monumental events of mid-twentieth century America. The turbu...

'Build That Wall': Barriers and Crossings from 2017-02-27T10:52

On Start the Week Kirsty Wark explores what it means to live either side of a wall, and whether barriers are built to repel or protect. Supporters of the US President urge him to 'build a great wal...

Sidney Nolan: Life and Work from 2017-02-20T11:28

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to the poet Elaine Feinstein about her work from over half a century of writing, from her early poems of feminist rebellion to reflections on middle age and marr...

Play and Creativity from 2017-02-13T12:11

On Start the Week, Tom Sutcliffe considers the relationship between play and creativity. Steven Johnson examines how the human appetite for amusement has driven innovation throughout history. Write...

Paul Abbott: finding comedy in the tragic from 2017-02-06T10:37

On Start the Week Andrew Marr explores how childhood experiences affect later life. The screenwriter Paul Abbott famously put his early life into the television series Shameless. Although his lat...

Turkey: Past and Present from 2017-01-30T11:34

Amol Rajan discusses Turkey past and present with the authors Elif Shafak and Kaya Genç, Chatham House's Fadi Hakura and the historian Bettany Hughes. Shafak's new novel, The Three Daughters of E...

Sara Khan: The Battle within Islam from 2017-01-16T10:23

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe discusses what Islam means in the modern world. Graeme Wood has spent his career getting to know Islamist fundamentalists to try to understand the apocalyptic ideolo...

Chibundu Onuzo and Martin Sixsmith on corruption and family drama from 2017-01-09T11:21

Andrew Marr talks to the best-selling author Martin Sixsmith about his latest book which tells the story of a daughter's search for the truth about her beloved father. Secrets, corruption and polit...

Maps, Music and Medieval Manuscripts from 2016-12-26T10:00

Andrew Marr visits the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge to meet the oldest non-archaeological artefact in England, which is the oldest surviving illustrated Latin Gospel in the...

Scientific Discoveries: from the mind to the cosmos from 2016-12-19T12:26

On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks back at lost heroes of science, and forward to cutting-edge experiments. Saiful Islam, Professor of Materials Chemistry, recreates Michael Faraday's famous 19th ...

The Bolshoi and Culture Wars from 2016-12-12T09:44

Tom Sutcliffe talks to the academic Simon Morrison about the remarkable story of the Bolshoi ballet: a 250 year history that encompasses being the pride of Tsarist Russia to state control by Stalin...

Popular Protest and Patriotism from 2016-12-05T15:25

On Start the Week Kirsty Wark explores the history of protest. The Levellers were revolutionaries who brought 17th century England to the edge of radical republicanism. In his biography, John Ree...

AIDS Activism and Surviving a Plague from 2016-11-28T10:28

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe looks at what happens during a health epidemic and its aftermath. The US activist Peter Staley was instrumental in forcing scientists and pharmaceutical companies ...

Rewriting the Past: from Empire to ivory from 2016-11-21T10:39

On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks back to the end of Empire when government officials systematically destroyed the records of imperial rule, and he explores the impact of outside organisations on...

Island Mentality from 2016-11-14T16:54

On Start the Week Amol Rajan considers the making of the British landscape and an island mentality. The President of the Royal Geographical Society Nicholas Crane looks back over the last 12 millen...

Virtue and Vice from 2016-11-07T10:33

On Start the Week Andrew Marr hears stories of virtue and vice. Lucy Bailey is directing Milton's Comus, a masque in honour of chastity, in which a Lady, lost in the woods, is tempted by pleasure. ...

Alan Bennett from 2016-10-31T10:00

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to the writer Alan Bennett about his life and work. As he publishes his third and, he says, final selection of his diaries, Keeping On Keeping On, Bennett reflec...

Microbes, Genes and Human Endeavour from 2016-10-24T09:26

On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks at winners and losers - from microbes and genes, to athletes and adventurers. Ed Yong seeks to expand our understanding of microscopic microbes which inhabit eve...

Soldiering on: the British Army, Lenin and Putin from 2016-10-04T09:21

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe talks to the former Chief of the General Staff Richard Dannatt about the history of the British Army, its role in present conflicts and relations with NATO. The writ...

Radical Liverpool from 2016-09-26T12:09

In a special edition of Start the Week Andrew Marr is at the Bluecoat Gallery in Liverpool. He's joined by the writer Phil Redmond, historian John Belchem and journalists Gary Younge and Kajsa Norm...

Political Drama: Robert Harris and Margaret Hodge from 2016-09-19T09:45

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to the MP Margaret Hodge who challenged multinational companies to explain their tax affairs and shone a light on the billions wasted by government every year. T...

Love, Loss and Scandal from 2016-07-04T09:52

On Start the Week Andrew discusses love, loss and scandal. Carrie Cracknell is directing Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea, the story of an overpowering, self-destructive love affair set in post-war Bri...

Food: From Bread Riots to Obesity from 2016-06-27T09:44

On Start the Week Andrew Marr explores food and politics. Churchill charged Lord Woolton with the daunting task of feeding Britain during WW2. The food writer William Sitwell looks at the black mar...

A Theory of Everything? from 2016-06-20T10:05

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe asks if one day we might know everything. The mathematician Marcus du Sautoy and the physicist Roger Penrose explore the far reaches of knowledge, questioning whethe...

New Artistic Director of the ENO, Daniel Kramer from 2016-06-13T09:38

On Start the Week Andrew Marr explores the state of the arts. The English National Opera has lost £5 million of funding and its chorus recently went on strike, but the newly appointed Artistic Dire...

Genes: Our medical inheritance from 2016-06-06T10:13

On Start the Week Andrew Marr traces the quest to decipher the human genome. The idea of a 'unit of heredity' first emerged at the end of the 19th century: cancer physician Siddhartha Mukherjee rec...

Hay Festival: Spooks, war and genocide from 2016-05-30T08:45

Start the Week is at Hay Literary Festival this week discussing war and intelligence. Michael Hayden is a former Air Force four-star general who became director of the US National Security Agency a...

Lost and Found: Ancient Egypt to Modern Art from 2016-05-23T15:13

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to the artist Cornelia Parker about the secrets revealed in found objects. Parker's latest exhibition at the Foundling Museum is inspired by the 18th Century tok...

World on the Move from 2016-05-16T10:12

World on the Move: on Start the Week Andrew Marr explores how the mass movement of people has changed societies, in a special edition broadcast in front of an audience as part of a day of programme...

Technology in Education from 2016-05-09T09:29

On Start the Week Andrew Marr explores the use of technology in education. Professor Sugata Mitra has installed an internet-connected PC in a slum in India and watched how curiosity leads children ...

Cross-dressing and masculinity with Grayson Perry from 2016-05-02T08:45

On Start the Week Grayson Perry discusses the concept of masculinity in modern Britain with Mary Ann Sieghart. The new artistic director at the Globe Theatre, Emma Rice, explains how she is playing...

Anish Kapoor on Light and Dark from 2016-04-25T09:48

On Start the Week the sculptor Anish Kapoor talks to Andrew Marr about his fascination with voids and black holes, and his excitement at the latest technological advances in deepest black: vantabla...

Reporting War and Conflict from 2016-04-18T09:31

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe discusses the writing of war and conflict. The journalist Patrick Cockburn looks back at his years covering crises in the Middle East, especially the rise of the so-...

Loneliness and Inner Voices from 2016-04-11T14:42

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to the psychologist Charles Fernyhough about the inner speech in our heads. But what if it's a lone voice? The writer Olivia Laing explores what it's like to be ...

Greece and the Eurozone with Yanis Varoufakis from 2016-04-04T09:38

On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses the state of the Eurozone and the politics of austerity with the economist and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, the Director of the Institute ...

Existentialism and Ways of Seeing from 2016-03-28T09:00

On Start the Week Kirsty Wark asks how we make choices about freedom and authenticity - questions that preoccupied Paris intellectuals in the 1930s. Sarah Bakewell looks back at one of the twentiet...

Is Faster Better? from 2016-03-21T10:43

On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks at the pace of life with the writer Robert Colvile who celebrates today's accelerating flow of change and argues that we are hard-wired to crave novelty, speed a...

The Easter Rising: 100 Years On from 2016-03-14T11:14

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe looks back a hundred years to Easter Rising of 1916. Ruth Dudley Edwards explores the lives of Ireland's founding fathers and questions how they should be remembered...

Scotland from 2016-03-07T13:47

Start the Week comes from Glasgow this week. As the debate over the EU Referendum continues Kirsty Wark looks back at the Scottish Referendum with the historians Tom Devine and Chris Whatley. How m...

Nature or Nurture? from 2016-02-29T10:56

On Start the Week Mary-Ann Sieghart asks why some people succeed while others fail. She talks to the journalist Helen Pearson about the Life Project, a study of the health, wellbeing and life chanc...

Future Economies from 2016-02-22T10:30

On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks ahead to a future dominated by automation, cyber security, the 'sharing economy' and advanced life sciences with the innovation expert Alec Ross, computer scient...

Who Owns Culture? from 2016-02-15T11:36

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe discusses who owns culture. The writer Tiffany Jenkins tells the story of how western museums have come to acquire treasures from around the world, but dismisses the...

Mind and Body from 2016-02-08T10:30

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to Jane McGonigal, a designer of alternate reality games, about her latest innovation SuperBetter. Designed to aid her recovery from a brain injury and subsequen...

Language and Reinvention from 2016-02-01T10:26

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe talks to the violinist Edward Dusinberre about interpreting Beethoven's string quartets. The sixteen quartets are challenging to play and appreciate alike, and have ...

Migration and Citizenship from 2016-01-25T15:56

On Start the Week Andrew Marr explores the question of citizenship. While immigration issues dominate political debate, little attention is paid to the big increase in the number of people becoming...

Alaa Al Aswany on Egypt from 2016-01-18T10:24

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe talks to the Egyptian writer Alaa Al Aswany about his latest novel which charts the country's social upheaval through the prism of Cairo's elite Automobile Club of E...

Russia: Tsars to Putin from 2016-01-11T10:55

On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks at Russia from the heyday of the Soviet Empire to its transformation under Putin. The historian Simon Sebag Montefiore writes about the Romanovs, the most succes...

Shakespeare's Late Plays - recorded at the Globe's Playhouse from 2015-12-28T10:00

Andrew Marr presents a special edition of Start the Week, celebrating the later life and works of William Shakespeare. Recorded at the Globe's candle-lit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, the actor Simon Ru...

Space Survival and Exploration from 2015-12-21T11:12

On Start the Week, as the first Briton heads into space for two decades, Andrew Marr explores the future of space travel. Kevin Fong is an expert in space medicine and in this year's Royal Institut...

Cultural Lifespans from 2015-12-14T10:46

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe picks through the remains of vanished buildings with the writer James Crawford. In his book, Fallen Glory, Crawford looks at the life and death of some of the world'...

Reforming Saudi Arabia from 2015-12-07T11:06

On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks at the fortunes of Saudi Arabia. The academic Madawi Al-Rasheed challenges pre-conceived ideas about divine politics and uncovers the religious leaders, intellec...

Augustine, Desire, Doing good from 2015-11-30T15:37

On Start the Week Andrew Marr explores goodness and its uneasy relationship with pleasure. The historian Robin Lane Fox looks to the work of Augustine and what is thought to be the first autobiogra...

Jonathan Coe on Satire from 2015-11-23T15:08

On Start the Week Mary Ann Sieghart takes a satirical look at the world with the novelist Jonathan Coe. His latest book is a state-of-the-nation satire which takes aim at politics, social media and...

France Special from 2015-11-16T11:39

Andrew Marr was in Paris on Friday to record a special edition of Start the Week about France. Hours later the Paris attacks happened. This programme is not about these attacks or Islamic State or ...

Claudia Rankine at the Free Thinking Festival from 2015-11-09T17:26

Anne McElvoy presents a special edition of Start the Week at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage, Gateshead, exploring injustice, myth and the role of the poet 'to name the unnameable, to point at f...

Embracing Failure and Uncertainty from 2015-11-02T10:24

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe discusses the importance of uncertainty and failure. The former head of the European Research Council Helga Nowotny argues research is fed by uncertainty and that an...

Social Class and Cultural Capital from 2015-10-26T13:40

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to the playwright Ben Power whose latest work interweaves three of DH Lawrence's dramas to evoke a lost world of manual labour and working class pride. The socio...

Power and Corruption with Stephen Frears and Mary Beard from 2015-10-19T12:01

On Start the Week the classicist Mary Beard tells Tom Sutcliffe that Ancient Rome matters: its debates about citizenship, security and the rights of the individual still influence our own debates o...

Kissinger from 2015-10-12T10:02

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to historian Niall Ferguson about his biography of Henry Kissinger. Reviled and revered in equal measure Kissinger was the statesman at the heart of American for...

Jonathan Franzen from 2015-10-05T12:49

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe talks to the American writer Jonathan Franzen about his latest novel, Purity. One of Franzen's characters compares the internet with the East German Republic and he ...

Celts and Romans from 2015-09-28T12:35

On Start the Week Mary Ann Sieghart explores how far leaders and governments have shaped our world. Matt Ridley dismisses the assumption that history has been made by those on high, whether in gove...

Edmund de Waal on Porcelain from 2015-09-21T10:25

Start the Week returns for a new series with a discussion about cultural exchange. Andrew Marr talks to the potter Edmund de Waal about his fascination with porcelain. De Waal's journey to understa...

Harmony and Balance from 2015-07-06T15:27

Mary Ann Sieghart discusses harmony and balance, in the universe and on a smaller scale. She is joined by Nobel Prize winning physicist Frank Wilczek, whose new book examines whether beauty is one ...

Alan Watts and the Way of Translation from 2015-06-29T09:43

On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses the legacy of the philosopher Alan Watts with the writer Tim Lott and psychotherapist Mark Vernon. Watts popularised Buddhism and Eastern philosophy in the W...

Architecture and power - from Stalinist structures to model villages from 2015-06-22T10:41

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe looks at the landscapes of communism with the writer Owen Hatherley whose new book reflects how power transformed the cities of the twentieth century. Jacqueline Yal...

The Value of Art with Grayson Perry and Hannah Rothschild from 2015-06-15T14:41

On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses the value and authenticity of art. In her novel The Improbability of Love, Hannah Rothschild satirises the art world from the Russian oligarchs and sheiks re...

Illness: Psychosomatic and Physical from 2015-06-08T09:48

Tom Sutcliffe explores health and well-being from the musings of a 17th century doctor to the latest research into psychosomatic illness. The GP, Gavin Francis celebrates the marvels of the human b...

Saul Bellow and Finding a Voice from 2015-06-01T12:10

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to Zachary Leader about the life and work of Saul Bellow, one of America's most famous novelists. Bellow's vivid prose and mix of high and low culture brought 20...

Hay Festival from 2015-05-27T09:56

Start the Week is at the Hay Festival for a discussion about what has made homo sapiens so successful. The historian Yuval Noah Harari looks back a hundred thousand years ago when at least six huma...

Joseph Stiglitz and Steve Hilton on Inequality from 2015-05-18T14:50

On Start the Week Andrew Marr finds out if it's possible to create a world less impersonal and more equal. David Cameron's former senior adviser, Steve Hilton, believes our governments and institut...

Values from Ancient Greece to Contemporary Harlem from 2015-05-11T14:00

On Start the Week Mariella Frostrup talks to the academic Hamid Dabashi about his critique of European intellectual heritage and identity. In his polemic Can Non-Europeans Think? Dabashi argues tha...

Vikram Seth from 2015-05-04T09:00

Tom Sutcliffe talks to the Indian writer Vikram Seth about his latest collection of poetry, Summer Requiem, which traces the dying days of summer and is haunted by loss and decay. The cuckoo's song...

Violence from 2015-04-27T14:06

On Start the Week Anne McElvoy discusses our obsession with violence. The historian Richard Bessel explores its past ubiquity, but argues that our modern attitudes towards it have changed. There's ...

Life Underwater from 2015-04-21T12:42

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe explores life in the oceans. The biologist Luke Rendell studies the evolution of social learning in whales and dolphins, and seeks to define their culture beneath th...

David Sloan Wilson on Altruism from 2015-04-13T13:22

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe asks whether altruism is best explained through evolutionary science or moral philosophy. David Sloan Wilson argues for the former and believes altruism is part of g...

The Amazons from 2015-04-06T09:00

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe talks to Adrienne Mayor about the Amazons, the legendary warrior women who glorified in fighting, hunting and sexual freedom. The Greeks described these wild barbari...

Lewis Carroll and the Story of Alice. from 2015-03-30T12:17

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to Robert Douglas-Fairhurst about the life of Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has become an influential part of our cultural heritage but beneath...

Susan Pinker on the benefits of face-to-face contact from 2015-03-23T14:47

On Start the Week Susan Pinker argues that face-to-face contact increases longevity and reduces the risks of illness. She tells Anne McElvoy that although new technology connects more people, it ca...

Shame, with Jon Ronson from 2015-03-16T13:50

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe discusses shame and betrayal. Jennifer Jacquet argues that modern-day shaming of corporations is a powerful tool to bring about change. However Jon Ronson believes t...

The Mathematical Mind with Cedric Villani from 2015-03-09T10:22

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe finds out what goes on inside the mind of a mathematician. Cédric Villani explains the obsession and inspiration which led him to being awarded the Fields Medal, 'th...

From Fringe to Frontline? from 2015-03-02T11:19

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe explores the fracturing political landscape and the rise of anti-establishment parties. The politics lecturer Robert Ford explains the increasing support for the SNP...

Joseph Nye on Soft Power from 2015-02-16T09:17

Andrew Marr looks at what happens when political power fractures and how 'soft power' retains its influence. Peter Pomerantsev spent a decade working in Russia's fast-growing television industry an...

Life in Suburbia from 2015-02-09T12:01

Anne McElvoy talks to the novelist Adam Thirlwell about his latest book, described as 'suburban noir'; its setting "a kind of absence, without a focus or centre". The academic Nick Hubble takes iss...

The Rise of Islamic State from 2015-02-02T15:40

Tom Sutcliffe talks to the journalist Patrick Cockburn about the rise of the Islamic State and the failure of the West's foreign policy in the Middle East. The academic Katherine Brown looks at the...

Organising the Mind from 2015-01-26T16:31

Tom Sutcliffe is joined in the studio by Daniel Levitin, author of New York Times bestseller 'The Organized Mind'. Levitin dismisses the idea of multi-tasking and explores how we can counter inform...

Surveillance and Self-censorship from 2015-01-20T09:06

Tom Sutcliffe's joined in the studio by Pulitzer Prize winning poet Paul Muldoon, Oxford professor of Russian Catriona Kelly, Philip Schofield who is a professor at UCL and director of The Bentham ...

The Tudors from 2015-01-12T15:02

Tom Sutcliffe discusses the connection between the Tudors and modern times with author Lady Antonia Fraser, composer Claire van Kampen, director Peter Kosminsky and historian Dan Jones. Producer: ...

Sense of Place from 2014-12-29T10:00

Andrew Marr discusses why we react so strongly to some places, look for meaning in them and build up stories about them over time. Joining him in the studio are author and travel writer Philip Mars...

Hedonism from 2014-12-22T13:37

Tom Sutcliffe discusses hedonism, from the ultra-hedonists in ancient Greece to the seasonal impulse to indulge. Tom's joined by RSC artistic director Greg Doran who's looking at hedonism in Shakes...

Reinventing Inventions from 2014-12-15T17:22

Tom Sutcliffe discusses invention and reinvention in science. He is joined in the studio by Danielle George of the University of Manchester, where she is Professor in the Microwave and Communicatio...

Arabian Nights from 2014-12-08T15:26

Anne McElvoy's joined by Egyptian novelist Alaa Al Aswany, author of The Yacoubian Building, to discuss writing in the contemporary Arabic world and the continuing influence of stories from 1000 ye...

Evolution and Extinction from 2014-12-01T12:32

Tom Sutcliffe discusses evolution and extinction with Jules Pretty, who's been travelling to meet "enduring people in vanishing lands" and is concerned about their future; with Andreas Wagner on so...

Science Fiction from 2014-11-24T16:35

Tom Sutcliffe explores our relationship with computer technology and the interplay of alien and familiar in science fiction. Tom's joined in the studio by writer William Gibson, novelist Michel Fab...

Self-Portrayal from 2014-11-17T15:07

Self-portraits rarely fail to compel, but to what extent are they a true form of self-examination? James Hall maps the history of self-portraiture, from the earliest myths of Narcissus to the proli...

A Good Death from 2014-11-10T14:15

Do we value longevity more than quality of life, towards our final years? That's the discussion Andrew Marr's having with surgeon Atul Gawande, who's giving this year's Reith Lectures. Joining them...

The Language of Money from 2014-11-03T13:00

'Money talks' in a special edition of Start the Week recorded in front of an audience at Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead. Anne McElvoy explores the language and morality of money...

Revolution from 2014-10-27T14:29

Russell Brand's calling for revolution now, to overthrow the system that he says supports extreme inequality. David Babbs, executive director of 38 Degrees, wants popular campaigns to bring about c...

Napoleon from 2014-10-20T12:37

What was Napoleon's impact during his lifetime, in France and across Europe and how much of this can we see today? With Tom Sutcliffe, Andrew Roberts examines the man in his new biography, Jenny Ug...

Crime Stories and Ghost Stories from 2014-10-13T13:59

Why do we seek explanations for most mysterious events but prefer some when they're unresolved? That's the discussion with Anne McElvoy today, including Val McDermid who uncovers the secrets of for...

Naomi Klein on climate change and growth from 2014-10-06T16:17

Naomi Klein argues that the greatest contributor to global warming is not carbon and climate change, but capitalism. She tells Anne McElvoy that the market's addiction to growth and profit is killi...

Karen Armstrong on War and Religion from 2014-09-29T09:36

Karen Armstrong argues against the notion that religion is the major cause of war. The former nun tells Tom Sutcliffe that faith is as likely to produce pacifists and peace-builders as medieval cru...

Tom Sutcliffe discusses family secrets and Scottish royalty from 2014-07-07T13:45

Tom Sutcliffe talks to Michael Holroyd about why he put his own family in the spotlight in his late 50s novel A Dog's Life, only published in the UK after the death of his parents. Family secrets a...

The Science of the Mind from 2014-06-30T15:08

Andrew Marr discusses how far the brain can change and adapt with the neuroscientist Heidi Johansen-Berg. Decades ago it was thought that the adult brain was immutable but later research has shown ...

Joyce DiDonato and Julie Bindel on Women Behaving Badly from 2014-06-23T15:18

Tom Sutcliffe talks to the director Erica Whyman about a series of plays by the RSC which focus on the idea that 'well behaved women rarely make history'. The historian Helen Castor looks back at t...

Pain and Prejudice from 2014-06-16T15:37

Tom Sutcliffe discusses the history of pain with the historian Joanna Bourke, who explores how our attitude to suffering has changed through the centuries. The former Conservative MP, Norman Fowler...

What Is the State For? from 2014-06-09T14:46

Tom Sutcliffe discusses whether Western states have anything to learn from countries like China and Singapore. Adrian Wooldridge argues that many governments have become bloated and there's a globa...

Rod Liddle on the selfish generation from 2014-06-02T15:02

Tom Sutcliffe talks to the commentator Rod Liddle about his assertion that modern Western society has become politically and socially stagnant. In his polemic, Selfish Whining Monkeys, Liddle argue...

Charleston Festival from 2014-05-23T16:42

Picture taken by Axel Hesslenberg

Start the Week is at the Charleston literary Festival with the novelists Tim Winton, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Nicola Barker and the poet and publisher Michael...

Alien Invaders from 2014-05-19T10:35

Anne McElvoy talks to the biologist Ken Thompson who dismisses attempts to control invasive species and questions the veracity of dividing plants and animals into 'native' and 'alien'. However the ...

The Myth of the Strong Leader? from 2014-05-12T16:00

Tom Sutcliffe asks whether it's better to lead from the front, or advise from the side-line. The Deputy Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi, Richard Hytner celebrates the latter: those who wield influenc...

Simon Armitage on Greek Tragedy from 2014-05-02T15:06

Anne McElvoy talks to the poet Simon Armitage about his dramatisation of The Last Days of Troy. His play, based on Homer's epic, reveals how cycles of conflict and revenge, pride and self-deception...

The Future of Capitalism from 2014-04-28T16:03

Anne McElvoy talks to the social theorist Jeremy Rifkin who foresees the gradual decline of capitalism and the rise of a collaborative economy. As new technology enables greater sharing of goods an...

James Lovelock from 2014-04-21T09:00

Picture of James Lovelock provided by the Science Museum

Anne McElvoy looks back at the life of the maverick scientist James Lovelock who pioneered the theory of Gaia, of a self-regulating...

Lucy Worsley on the Georgians from 2014-04-14T14:33

Tom Sutcliffe looks back three hundred years to the Hanoverian succession to the British throne. The curator Lucy Worsley explains how the German Georges claimed the crown and how they kept it. The...

Police drama with playwright Roy Williams from 2014-04-07T15:35

Tom Sutcliffe looks at both the reality of police life and its portrayal. The playwright Roy Williams's latest drama is set in a police station in Kingston, Jamaica, revealing a world of corruption...

AL Kennedy and David Sedaris on matters of the heart from 2014-03-31T15:43

Tom Sutcliffe talks to AL Kennedy about her latest collection of short stories of love and hurt. The poet Lavinia Greenlaw retells the tragic love story of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. The philo...

Faisal I of Iraq and the making of the modern Middle East from 2014-03-24T15:36

Anne McElvoy explores the roads not taken with the historian Richard Evans. Counterfactual history began as an Enlightenment parlour game and has become a serious academic pursuit, but Evans argues...

Decision-making with Daniel Kahneman and Michael Ignatieff from 2014-03-17T16:06

Tom Sutcliffe discusses how we make decisions with the Nobel prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Moral choices in politics can be a complicated business, according to the academic and forme...

Andrew Hussey on the legacy of France's Arab Empire from 2014-03-10T16:43

Tom Sutcliffe talks to Andrew Hussey about the often fraught relationship between France and its Arab ex-colonies, and how that plays out in the banlieues of Paris. The psychotherapist Gabrielle Ri...

The Vikings and Seafaring from 2014-03-03T14:23

Tom Sutcliffe talks to the historian Michael Wood about the spirit and adventure of the Vikings who travelled all over Europe and as far east as Central Asia. The Vikings sailed close to the coast ...

Adair Turner on the Politics of Finance from 2014-02-24T10:30

Tom Sutcliffe discusses money with the American economist Charles Calomiris, who looks back at the history of financial disasters and argues that they're caused more by government failures, than in...

Vanessa Feltz and Susie Orbach on Confession from 2014-02-17T11:18

Andrew Marr discusses the history of confession with the writer John Cornwell, from its origins in the early church to the current day. The psychotherapist Susie Orbach explores whether the confess...

Irving Finkel on the Ark Tablet from 2014-02-10T11:41

Tom Sutcliffe looks at the role of the expert. The curator Irving Finkel decodes the symbols on a 4,000 year old clay tablet and discovers the instructions for the building of an ark. Harry Collins...

Spying and Surveillance: The Snowden Files from 2014-01-29T16:54

Last year The Guardian ran a series of scoops about the extent of mass surveillance by the security services here and in the USA. Anne McElvoy talks to the journalist Luke Harding about the inside ...

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies from 2014-01-24T11:09

Tom Sutcliffe talks to the celebrated composer, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies on the eve of the premier of his tenth symphony. His latest work creates a musical structure based on architectural proporti...

Neuroscience and Free Will from 2014-01-20T08:58

Tom Sutcliffe talks to the neuroscientist Dick Swaab who argues that everything we do and don't do is determined by our brain. He explains why 'we are our brains'. The philosopher Julian Baggini do...

Unity and Disunity from 2014-01-09T11:27

On Start the Week Anne McElvoy talks to Linda Colley about the history of the United Kingdom - what has brought it together, and what is driving it apart. David Pilling offers a contrasting island ...

Michael Gove on teaching history from 2013-12-30T11:30

Andrew Marr discusses the teaching of history with the Government's Education Secretary Michael Gove. The new history curriculum for schools has been hotly contested and the Minister explains his v...

Clive James from 2013-12-23T11:30

In a special programme Andrew Marr looks back over the long career of Clive James. Even at the height of his fame as the star of weekend television, Clive James was always writing: poetry, essays a...

Josie Rourke on strategy and Coriolanus from 2013-12-12T12:46

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe talks to Josie Rourke about her production of Coriolanus, the story of the war hero destroyed by his own pride and the forces of realpolitik. His battle strategy fai...

The Building Blocks of Life and Intelligence from 2013-12-09T09:08

On Start the Week Anne McElvoy talks to the geneticist Alison Woollard about the extraordinary developments in biological science in the last decade, and how switching on and off certain genes coul...

Landscape and Community from 2013-12-02T11:38

Bridget Kendall talks to Patrick Keiller about the relationship between film, cities and landscape. Victoria Henshaw is interested in what our cities smell like, and what we lose when we sterilise ...

Bianca Jagger on human rights from 2013-11-25T10:38

Tom Sutcliffe looks at the future of human rights with the campaigner Bianca Jagger and academic Stephen Hopgood. Jagger points to the failure of the global community to tackle violence against wom...

Gandhi's Early Years from 2013-11-18T09:11

Bridget Kendall looks back at the formative years of Gandhi with the historian Ramachandra Guha and opera director Phelim McDermott. At the turn of the twentieth century Gandhi spent more than twen...