Start the Week

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 wealthy merchant traders of 17th century Holland. The economist Jonathan Haskel points to the quiet revolution that has taken place since then, as developed countries now invest more in intangible assets like design and software, than in tangible goods like machinery and computers. He asks what impact this has had on economic inequality and low productivity. And then two objects that tell stories far beyond themselves: the umbrella and the Ferrari. Marion Rankine looks at the humble brolly, now a simple object to protect you from the rain, but once a powerful symbol of class and power. And 70 year after Enzo Ferrari brought out his first car, the guest curator at the Design Museum Andrew Nahum looks back at the creation of an iconic brand. Producer: Katy HickmanPicture courtesy of Ferrari.

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 freedom is being slowly eradicated. The Soviet Union banned religion but ranked citizens by "nationality" - with Jews near the bottom and ethnic Russians at the top. Dominic Rubin explores the country's relationship with religion in 'Russia's Muslim Heartlands', while Oxford professor Roy Allison unpicks Russian involvement in the Arab world. Putin is influential as far away as Libya and Egypt, and is a key ally to the Assad regime in Syria. And just as Putin has mastered the art of propaganda at home, Moscow-born Liwaa Yazji looks at the role of propaganda in the Syrian civil war through her new play 'Goats'.

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 celebrates Finland's greatest composer Sibelius, while the curator Sointu Fritze looks at the work of Tove Jansson, famed for her cartoon creatures the Moomins as well as her daring political cartoons and images of the sea. The writer Horatio Clare travels around the frozen seas of Finland on board a government icebreaker, discovering stories of its history and character, while the economist Martin Sandbu evaluates a region seen as a capitalist utopia. Producer: Katy Hickman.

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 pioneering British surgeon Joseph Lister who transformed his profession. Anaesthesia was discovered in the 1840s but Professor Lesley Colvin says we're still learning about the complex relationship between the brain and the perception of pain, as well as understanding the potential harm of the increased use of strong opiates. Pain is common to all humans, but could - and should - robots feel pain? This is the question Dr Beth Singler poses in a new film exploring the limits of Artificial Intelligence. And if they are programmed to feel pain, should they also be taught to swear? Dr Emma Byrne looks at the science of bad language and why it can also be harnessed to reduce pain. Producer: Katy Hickman.

'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 how this satire on global capitalism and chasing ratings with populist rants has such relevance today. Composer Nico Muhly also looks to Hollywood, adapting Hitchock's film Marnie - and the novel that inspired it - for the English National Opera. Born into poverty, Marnie becomes trapped in a web of lies and angrily claws her way out. Anger pervades Darren McGarvey's book, Poverty Safari, as he takes the reader on a journey into Britain's deprived communities to give voice to people who feel misunderstood and unheard. He explores how stress pervades the streets where he was brought up, while the scientist Caroline Relton studies how stress and other environmental factors can be passed down through generations, affecting our genetic make-up. Producer: Katy Hickman.

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 turn of the twentieth century through the lens of his life and work. While Conrad's Nostromo reflected the changing world order with the emerging dominance of the US and global capitalism, the FT columnist Gideon Rachman looks at the decline of the West amidst the growing power of the East, as well as reflecting on Britain's imperial amnesia. A young George Orwell was also part of the British colonial system in its slow death throes in Burma and the academic Robert Colls explores how these experiences shaped his later work. Ishion Hutchinson has been called a post-colonial poet and his latest collection is haunted by Jamaica's fractured past. Producer: Katy Hickman.

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 species and began to tame them, paving the way for our civilisation. Gaia Vince visits the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica where local people have found a way to both exploit and protect a natural resource, the olive ridley sea turtle. Re-introducing native species can be fraught with difficulties: John Ewen was part of the team who successfully re-introduced the hihi bird to New Zealand, but can lessons learnt with songbirds help with schemes to bring back wolves, lynx and beavers? And resurrection science may be the stuff of films like Jurassic Park, but it is also an exciting - and potentially dangerous - new field of study. Britt Wray offers a warning about the risks of de-extinction.Producer: Katy Hickman.

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, the former Director of the British Museum, discusses Living with the Gods, his Radio 4 series, in which he focuses on the expression of shared beliefs, across thousands of years, and around the globe, through objects from the Museum's collections and beyond. The curator Jennifer Sliwka looks at a world in black and white, in a celebration of the monochrome in art across the centuries, from medieval sacred works, where the elimination of colour was thought to focus the mind, to contemporary paintings. The historian Dan Jones tells the story of the ultimate holy warriors, the Knights Templar, a story of power, politics and fanaticism. The writer Caspar Henderson takes a step back to consider the awe-inspiring - from divine visions to transcendent moments - and to ask whether we are in danger of losing our sense of wonder in the modern world. Presenter Andrew Marr Producer Katy Hickman Photograph: (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.

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 international system in which sanctions replaced gunboat diplomacy. Although inter-state wars have fallen since World War Two, intra-state conflicts have risen: Elisabeth Kendall explains the dire situation of one of the Arab's poorest countries, Yemen. The Norwegian ambassador to the UK Mona Juul talks about the art of international diplomacy. She played a key role in the secret talks which led to the Oslo Accords in the 1990s - the first ever agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation. And Phillip Collins looks at the speeches that have shaped the world and inspired generations, especially at moments of war and conflict. Producer: Katy Hickman.

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 reject such a pivotal moment in their country's history. He talks to a senior member of President Putin's political party, Konstantin Kosachev. And he is joined by the journalists Mikhail Zygar and Arkady Ostrovsky and the Director of the Tretyakov Gallery, Zelfira Tregulova. Producer: Katy Hickman.

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 century seen as conservative was actually troubled by political upheaval. Britain may have been the world's greatest empire but it was riven by self-doubt. Novelist Anthony Powell depicted the turbulence of the 20th century in his series A Dance to the Music of Time. Powell is seen as the arch-conservative, but biographer Hilary Spurling argues that he was fascinated by power and people at every level of society. Jane Green tracked the 2017 General Election as co-director of the British Election Study. She explains how the public judges those in power, and why political reputations are hard to shake. And Phillip Blond, director of the think tank ResPublica, helped shape recent Conservative ideas including the "big society" and the "northern powerhouse". He fears the Conservative Party could become irrelevant unless power is shared out.Producer: Hannah Sander.

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 devastating impact on physical and mental health. Armed with proof that shift work is detrimental for workers, political strategist and chief executive of the RSA Matthew Taylor considers what responsibility companies have to their staff in making sure they get enough sleep and whether since industrialisation modern working practices militate against this. Concerns about lack of sleep and remedies for improving it are nothing new: the historian Sasha Handley looks back to early modern sleep patterns and advice, and wonders why so many of our forebears slept in two distinct phases with an hour in the early hours set aside for sex, housework or reading. The latest exhibition at the National Gallery, Reflections, co-curated by Susan Foister, shows how the medieval painter van Eyck had a huge influence on the Pre-Raphaelite painters, whose work stood in opposition to creeping industrialisation and harked back to a by-gone era of knights and sweet slumber.Producer: Hannah Sander.

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 competing foundation myths of patricide and filicide and pits tradition against modernity; east and west. There are more competing ideologies in Jon Sopel's 'Notes from Trump's America' which paints a picture of a country riven by divisions between black and white, rich and poor, the urban and the rural. Reality and fantasy play a part in the choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh's critique of the orientalist ballet La Bayadere. She looks back to the moment in the 19th century when genuine Indian dancers were rejected in favour of the idealised exotic version of the temple dancer in the Western imagination. 'What Shadows' is a play that tells the story of Enoch Powell's famous 'rivers of blood' speech from 1968, and its impact on the country decades later. The play's director Roxana Silbert says the play shows how prejudice can be found across the political spectrum. Producer: Katy Hickman.

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 improve human life both morally and materially. Dinah Birch compares what was happening in literature on the other side of the channel, reflecting the breadth of society in Britain. Simon Callow makes the case for the composer of the century, Richard Wagner, while the singer Barbara Hannigan explains how a 12th century legend has been given a contemporary twist in the opera Written On Skin. Producer: Katy Hickman.

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 trying to illuminate the wonders of nature and challenge what he calls faulty logic. But he wonders whether Darwin would consider his legacy now with 'a mixture of exhilaration and exasperation'. The child psychologist Deborah Kelemen has been working with young children to find out what they make of adaptation and evolution with the storybook, How the Piloses Evolved Skinny Noses, and is encouraged by the sophistication of their understanding. The mathematician Cathy O'Neil says it's time people became more aware of the mathematical models and algorithms that dominate everything we do online and in finance, and yet are increasingly opaque, unregulated and left unchallenged. While Alex Bellos looks to improve numeracy with puzzles and brainteasers which have been entertaining and frustrating people for centuries. Producer: Katy Hickman.

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 China. In a candid memoir Patten looks back at his political life. He lost his seat in the 1992 election, despite the Sun newspaper claiming the Tory landslide with the headline, "It's The Sun Wot Won It". James Graham's new play goes back to the birth of this ruthless 'red top' tabloid, when a young and rebellious Rupert Murdoch burst on to Fleet Street, to launch a newspaper devoted to giving the people what they want. Fleet Street is no more and following this month's general election some critics have questioned the continuing influence of the mainstream media. Kerry-Anne Mendoza is the Editor-in-chief of the left-wing political blog, The Canary, and believes new forms of media online are disrupting the status quo in the UK. Baroness Tessa Blackstone was regarded as a kaftaned radical in the 1970s by the Whitehall establishment when she was part of a review of Central Policy which challenged the very workings of Britain's powerful diplomatic corps. Producer: Katy HickmanImage: The Sun daily newspaper on June 14, 2016, with a headline urging readers to vote 'Leave' in the June 23 EU referendum. Credit: DANIEL SORABJI /AFP/ Getty Images.

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 start of civilisation and has learnt how to adapt to different environments, so today more than one million people still die of the disease every year. As with many diseases it's the poor who are most at risk. But Sir Michael Marmot explains how it's not just those at the bottom who are adversely affected, as health and life expectancy are directly related to where you are on the socio-economic ladder. The psychiatrist Lynne Jones also explores how far mental well-being is connected to human rights and the social and political worlds in which we live. She trained in one of Britain's last asylums and has travelled the world treating traumatised soldiers and civilians. Professor John Powell is interested in how far the digital world can help improve health and access to health care - from interventions for heart attacks to the treatment of depression. There are more than two hundred thousand health apps on the internet, but just how effective are they?Producer: Katy Hickman.

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 men of his youth are models of masculinity. Fatherhood and aggression take centre stage in Gary Owen's play, Killology, in which he's created a video game that allows players to live out their darkest fantasies. The poet Kayo Chingonyi moved to Britain when he was a child and in his debut collection he translates the rites of passage of his native Zambia to his new home. In the TV drama Ackley Bridge, filmmaker Penny Woolcock imagines a new school that throws together two communities, segregated along ethnic lines, in a fictional Yorkshire mill town. Producer: Katy Hickman Image: Missy (Poppy Lee Friar) and Nasreen (Amy Leigh Hickman) in Ackley Bridge on Channel 4 Photographer: Matt Squire.

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 one-man show recreates his childhood home in 1960s Quebec, with truth at the mercy of memory. Rebecca Stott has written the story of her family that her father left unfinished, including the Christian cult that inspired their devotion, until doubt led them astray. Miranda Doyle casts doubt on the veracity of memoir itself, by writing a series of lies to get at the truth of her family story. Andrew O'Hagan has examined three lives existing more fully online than offline: the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange; the fabled inventor of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto and 'Ronald Pinn'- an experiment in identity theft that disrupts the very notion of the self. Producer: Katy HickmanImage: Robert Lepage on stage in 887 by Ex Machina/ Robert Lepage Photographer: Eric Labbé.

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 stories from the past, from Greek tragedy to civil war, while the psychologist Jan Kizilhan explains how a history of trauma and genocide has been woven into the story of his Yazidi community.Producer: Katy Hickman.

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 country. The journalist Adam Roberts travels from Kerala to the Himalayas to find out whether a resurgent, vibrant India is about to realise its potential, and whether the belief in future prosperity will cover over the cracks which have divided the nation in the past. The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, is at the centre of India's reinvention, and has galvanised Hindu nationalists, but the academic Kate Sullivan de Estrada argues that he's a controversial figure both at home and abroad. And the writer Preti Taneja retells Shakespeare's great tragedy, King Lear, set in Delhi and Kashmir, in her exploration of contemporary Indian society. Producer: Katy HickmanImage: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi participates in a mass yoga session to mark the International Day of Yoga on 21st June, 2016 in Chandigarh, India. Credit: Getty Images.

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, and feelings trump fact. He argues that the very foundations of democracy are under threat. Claire Wardle is hoping her organisation First Draft will equip users to verify the sources of stories and tackle misinformation online. But what happens when the peddlers of misinformation are state-sponsored? The Chinese writer Lijia Zhang spent a decade working in a rocket factory and her memoir, Socialism is Great!, reflects the great social transformation in China since the 1980s, and the shifts in trust and truth which mirrored such changes. The writer China Miéville, who is best known for his stories of urban surrealism, turns his attention to the story of the Russian Revolution. Producer: Kirsty McQuire.

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 has taken the themes of Shakespeare's Othello and transported them to a US elementary school, while Hanif Kureishi mines the dark world of jealousy and revenge in his latest novel. Lewis Hyde looks back to mythical mischief makers from Hermes to Loki to celebrate modern day rule breakers as the shapers of culture. Producer: Katy HickmanImage: Kate Tempest Photographer: Hayley Louisa Brown.

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 earth and the violence and greed of unbridled consumerism, while evoking the awe he feels as he walks the land in his native Kentucky. His challenge to the false call of progress and the American Dream is echoed in the writing of Paul Kingsnorth, whose book Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist eschews the grand narrative of a global green movement to focus on what matters - the small plot of land beneath his feet. Kate Raworth calls herself a renegade economist and, like Berry and Kingsnorth, challenges orthodox thinking, as she points to new ways to understand the global economy which take into consideration human prosperity and ecological sustainability.Producer: Katy HickmanImage: Wendell Berry Photographer: James Baker Hall.

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 art and show business but argues for the power of a national theatre to become part of the cultural bloodstream. The designer Lucienne Day made the link between mass production and fine art, and the curator of an exhibition of her fabrics, Jennifer Harris, says her abstract designs could be seen in households across the country. Singer-songwriter Eliza Carthy is a member of one of British folk's great dynasties, and has helped popularise folk music for new generations, combining tradition with innovation. Nietzsche suggested that 'art raises its head where religions decline' and the philosopher Jules Evans who studies human ecstasy, asks whether art galleries and theatres can really help us come together, lose control and connect with something beyond ourselves.Producer: Katy HickmanImage: Eliza Carthy and The Wayward Band Photographer: Steve Gullick.

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 culture has impacted on the building of our cities, from iconic architecture on a grand scale to soulless shopping centres and designer homes. The average life span of a family home in Japan is just 25 years: although the architect Takeshi Hayatsu regrets the destruction of so much of Japan's architectural heritage, he reflects that it's created a boon in innovate designs on a small scale. Innovations also abound in food technology and the experimental psychologist Charles Spence reveals how chefs can use science to influence diners and their taste buds, but the food writer Anissa Helou asks for a return to simplicity, away from the latest trends of 'molecular' techniques and foraged ingredients.Producer: Katy HickmanImage: Kiko Mozuna's model of 'Anti-Dwelling Box', late 1970s. Photo by Keizo Kioku. Collection of Norihito Nakatani.

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 lowly born German monk in a new biography. Prior to Luther, for a thousand years the Catholic Church had been one of the greatest powers on earth, but in her study of the Italian Renaissance the writer Sarah Dunant reveals how bloated, corrupt and complacent it had become. Dunant also explores the role of the Church in the home, in a new exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Madonnas and Miracles, before the Reformation swept away such iconography. The historian Alec Ryrie charts the rise of the Protestant faith from its rebellious beginnings to the present day, while the sociologist Linda Woodhead asks whether the defining characteristics of Protestant Britain, such as the freedom of the individual, national pride and a strong work ethic are still relevant today.Producer: Katy HickmanImage: Boy falling from a window, 1592 (c) Museo degli ex voto del santuario di Madonna dell'Arco.

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 of cyborgs, utopians and the futurists looking to live forever. Raymond Tallis seeks to wrest the mysteries of time away from the scientists in his reflections on the nature of transience and mortality. Laura Tunbridge listens to the late works of Beethoven, Schumann and Mahler to ask whether intimations of mortality shape these pieces, while the mortician Carla Valentine uncovers what the dead reveal about their past life. Producer: Katy Hickman.

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 Cabinet Minister, Baroness Warsi is in a unique position to explore questions of cultural difference, terrorism, and 'British values', and to explore how society can become more integrated. The economist Paul Collier has spent his career looking for solutions to seemingly intractable problems: in his latest book he focuses on the Syrian refugee crisis and argues for the establishment of special economic zones where displaced Syrians could work and benefit their host countries. The philosopher Roger Scruton develops his ideas of human nature by concentrating on our relations with others, bound together in a shared world. Producer: Katy Hickman.

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 guests include Russell Foster whose work on circadian rhythms sheds light on the mechanisms of our body clocks and sleep. The crime writer Denise Mina is more interested in counting the bodies than counting sheep, as she revels in the psychological undercurrents in her latest thriller. The cardiac surgeon Stephen Westaby understands the delicate balance between life and death: he has saved hundreds of lives, holding each heart in his hand and feeling its beat. The mathematician Eugenia Cheng considers what it means when that beat goes on forever, with her study of the infinite.Producer: Katy Hickman.

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 populism, while Oliver Letwin asks what the government can do to reach those who feel marginalised. The playwright Richard Bean reaches back to another time of internal conflict, the beginning of the English Civil War, and finds humour in the desperate attempts of one man to retain power. Machiavelli is always associated with unscrupulous scheming, but his latest biographer Erica Benner argues that he was a man devoted to political and human freedom. Producer: Katy HickmanIMAGE: Rowan Polonski as Prince Rupert and Martin Barrass as Mayor Barnard in The Hypocrite by Richard Bean, a Hull Truck, Hull 2017 and RSC co-production. Photograph by Duncan Lomax (c) RSC.

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 turbulence of the last six decades in US history, from JFK's assassination to Vietnam, to the AIDS crisis, racism and gender politics, is also presented through artists' prints in a new exhibition at the British Museum, co-curated by Catherine Daunt. In the 1960s and 70s, Robert Evans became one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood only to fall spectacularly from grace a decade later. In The Kid Stays in the Picture, the theatre director Simon McBurney brings his rise and fall to the stage. Producer: Katy HickmanIMAGE: Jasper Johns (b. 1930), Flags I. Colour screenprint, 1973. Gift of Johanna and Leslie Garfield, on loan from the American Friends of the British Museum. (c) Jasper Johns/VAGA, New York/DACS, London 2016. (c) Tom Powel Imaging.

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 wall' along the Mexican border but the journalist Ed Vulliamy points out that there is already a wall and border guards, supported and funded by US Presidents for decades. And yet still drugs, guns, money and people continue to move north and south. Israel has been building its own separation barrier since the turn of the century, but Dorit Rabinyan is more interested in psychological barriers that drive Palestinians and Israelis apart. The map-maker Garrett Carr travels Ireland's border to explore the smugglers, kings, peacemakers and terrorists who've criss-crossed this frontier, and asks what it will become when the United Kingdom leaves the EU. The historian Tom Holland looks back at the successes and failures of wall-building from Offa's Dyke to Hadrian's Wall and asks whether they work more as statements of power than as insurmountable barriers between people. Producer: Katy Hickman.

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 marriage, to wry amusement on the fallibility of memory. The curator Rebecca Daniels looks back at the life and work of one of Australia's most celebrated modern painters, Sidney Nolan, and challenges the audience to look beyond his early depictions of the outback and the outlaw Ned Kelly, to see a world artist. The theatre director Trevor Nunn finds the comedy in pitting idealistic Hamlet-esque youth against a wealthy businessman in his production of Rattigan's Love in Idleness. The composer Ryan Wigglesworth has produced a new operatic interpretation of The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare's study of love, loss and reconciliation. Producer: Katy HickmanIMAGE: A section of 'Myself' by Sidney Nolan, 1988.

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. Writer and theatre maker Stella Duffy has revived Joan Littlewood's 1960s concept of The Fun Palace- a 'laboratory of fun' for all. The economist Tim Harford advocates embracing disorder in every area of our lives, from messy desks to messy dating. Journalist and former cricketer Ed Smith believes that creativity in sport is a combination of skill and luck.Producer: Kirsty McQuire.

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 later work, including his latest police drama No Offence, moves far beyond his own experiences, he excels at finding the comedy in the tragic. In France the writer Édouard Louis has caused a storm with his brutal autobiographical novel about class, violence and sexuality. The book is his attempt to bury his childhood. The psychiatrist Gwen Adshead spent years working at Broadmoor Hospital studying the nature of human violence and looks at the moral choices people make. The poet Paul Farley is interested not in the early life of poets but in their dying. From Shelley's drowning to Sylvia Plath's desperate suicide their deaths have become the stuff of myth casting a backward shadow on their work, creating a skewed image of the poet's life as doomed and self-destructive.

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 Eve, moves between Turkey and Britain, and is a tale of friendship, faith and betrayal. It portrays Turkey as a country riven by deep divisions in society, politics and religion. Kaya Genç reports from across Turkey, exploring the lives of the country's angry young people on both sides of the political divide, while Fadi Hakura from Chatham House considers Turkey's changing relations with the outside world amid increasing nationalist feeling and isolationism. Bettany Hughes's biography of Istanbul is the story of three cities - Byzantium, Constantinople and Istanbul - and reveals a city that's been at the heart of political life between the East and the West for the last eight thousand years.Producer: Katy Hickman.

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 ideology and theology at the heart of the so-called Islamic State. Sara Khan campaigns to reclaim her faith from extremism, while Ziauddin Sardar argues that Islam demands reason and critical inquiry from its believers. Loretta Napoleoni 'follows the money' to uncover the millions made by those exploiting the destabilisation of Syria and Iraq and the rise of ISIS. Producer: Katy HickmanPhoto: Sara Khan Credit: Joe McGorty.

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 political intrigue are uncovered as they travel from Britain to Pakistan. There's more political scandal and family drama from the Nigerian author Chibundu Onuzo in her latest novel, Welcome to Lagos, and the playwright Oladipo Agboluaje imagines a political revolution in 21st century Nigeria and the moral compromises made in the pursuit of power and political change. Laurence Cockcroft is the co-founder of Transparency International in the UK and in his latest work turns his attention to the flavour of corruption in the West.Producer: Katy Hickman.

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 world - the sixth century Gospel of Saint Augustine. The Librarian Christopher de Hamel tells the stories of rare and beautiful manuscripts which have crisscrossed Europe for hundreds of years at the whim of power politics, religion and social change, but even now have secrets that are yet to be discovered. The musician and broadcaster Lucie Skeaping has also turned detective in her study of the Elizabethan jig - a popular and bawdy play set to music - where only fragments of parchment and clues to the tunes remain. Edward Brooke-Hitching uncovers the myths, lies and blunders which have plagued the cartographers of old, with his book of early maps. Mythical sea monsters, fabled mountain ranges, even phantom islands have all been written into the atlas of the world.Producer Katy Hickman.

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 century experiments for the Royal Institution's Christmas lectures before exploring the latest materials being invented to boost clean energy. More Christmas fare as Brian Cox attempts to explain the birth of the entire universe with music, dance and comedy. Andrea Wulf celebrates the Victorian naturalist, geographer and explorer Alexander von Humboldt, whose name although mostly forgotten lives on through his research - from the Humboldt Current to Humboldt penguins. Michael Lewis has turned his attention from the financial crisis and his bestselling Liar's Poker and The Big Short to the birth of the Nobel-prize winning theory of behavioural economics, and the remarkable scientific partnership at its heart. Producer: Katy Hickman.

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 to the scandal of acid attacks in the 21st century. Ismene Brown explores the different styles which set apart the Russian corps de ballet from its British counterpart. Art and politics are also at the forefront of Nigel Cliff's story of the Texan pianist Van Cliburn, who for a short time bridged the divide between the two superpowers during the Cold War, and the curator Edith Devaney explains how the CIA used Abstract Expressionism to promote the US. Producer: Katy HickmanPhoto: The Bolshoi Ballet perform for Prince Charles & the Duchess of Cornwall on a royal tour of Bahrain on 11th November, 2016 Credit: Chris Jackson/ Getty Images.

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 Rees argues the Levellers are central figures in the country's history of democracy. The original soldier-turned-saint and nationalist protester Joan of Arc takes centre stage in Josie Rourke's revival of Bernard Shaw's play, Saint Joan. The Labour MP, Rachel Reeves, finds inspiration in her fellow parliamentarian Alice Bacon, who she says helped usher in a new era of social justice post-war, while the political commentator James Frayne looks at the era post-Brexit and considers whether provincial England is now in revolt.Producer: Katy HickmanPhoto: Alice Bacon elected as the first female MP for Leeds, in 1945 Credit: The Yorkshire Post.

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 to develop life-saving HIV/AIDs drugs. Thirty years later and with drugs now readily available, the concern is that the rate of new cases of HIV remains constant. Professor Anne Johnson was involved in the biggest-ever-official investigation of Britain's sexual habits, which was vetoed at the time by Margaret Thatcher. She says continuing to understand people's attitudes and behaviour is vital to the nation's health. More than eleven thousand people died during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. When the crisis hit its peak in 2014 there were no effective drugs and Professor Peter Horby was one of a team of scientists who conducted a drugs trial in the midst of the epidemic. He explains how what they discovered can be used for future health scares. The author Louise Welsh is completing a trilogy of novels in which a killer disease has devastated the world. She explains why plague literature has proved so popular and enduring.Producer: Katy HickmanPhoto: ACT UP activists at the International AIDS Conference in San Francisco, 1990 Credit: Rick Gerharter.

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 a nation's ability to govern. The journalist Ian Cobain has uncovered details of the mass bonfires of sensitive official papers across Africa, which subverted the legal obligation to preserve important historical records. Edna Adan Ismail first came to Britain in the 1950s to train as a nurse before championing women's rights and health at the WHO and in her native Somaliland. She explains how the self-declared independent state of Somaliland, once a British protectorate, has been fighting for international recognition for the last 15 years. Baroness Amos has worked in international affairs both for the government and the UN. Now as the head of SOAS University she says it's vital to think about the world differently, from the perspective of the countries themselves. Keith Somerville has investigated the illegal ivory trade in Africa and argues that regulation - not prohibition - is the best way to stop uncontrolled poaching and smuggling. Producer: Katy Hickman.

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 millennia to understand how we have shaped our habitat but also how the landscape has shaped our lives. Madeleine Bunting travels through the Hebrides to see what the furthest reaches of these isles can tell us about the country as a whole. David Olusoga re-tells the story of the relationship between Britain and the people of Africa, which reaches back to the Romans, to demonstrate how black history has shaped our world, and the poet Imtiaz Dharker reflects on displacement and belonging. Producer: Katy Hickman.

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. In Berg's opera Lulu the eponymous heroine appears to be the epitome of seductive pleasure, an amoral seductress, but William Kentridge's production questions how much she is the real victim. The academic Simon Goldhill charts the transition from the high Victorian period into modernity through one family's relationship with sex, psychoanalysis and religion, while the very modern preoccupation with therapy is laid bare, as Susie Orbach reveals what happens behind the therapist's door.Producer: Katy Hickman.

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 reflects on his reputation for tweeness, his radical politics and sexuality. He writes, "Nothing is ever quite so bad that one can't write it down or so shameful either, though this took me a long time to learn with my earliest diaries reticent and even prudish." Producer: Katy Hickman.

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 every corner of the earth, and influence our bodies more than we know. Each person's DNA is unique but Adam Rutherford reveals how collectively it tells the story of the history of our species - the successes and the failures. When one's own genetic make-up and hard work aren't enough, there's always chemical enhancement - Jonathan Maitland looks at doping in sport for his latest play, Deny, Deny, Deny. The polar scientist Felicity Aston was the world's first woman to ski alone across the Antarctic and knows what it's like to push your body to the limits. She's now off to Canada's frozen North in search of gold. Producer: Katy Hickman.

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 writer Ben Macintyre reveals the wartime antics of one of the most secret regiments, the SAS and the historian Catherine Merridale recreates Lenin's journey across Europe in the midst of the Great War. John Lough was NATO's first representative based in Moscow and explores the tensions on Russia's borders.Producer: Katy Hickman.