Arts and Ideas

Philip Dodd discusses the announcement of the winner of this year's Man Booker Prize with Sarah Churchwell. Susannah Clapp is in the studio discussing Rufus Norris, the director revealed today as the new Artistic Director of the National Theatre. Philip is joined by the Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland and historian of US politics Prof Philip Davis to discuss the current US shutdown. James Malpas and Karen Leeder review the new Paul Klee exhibtion at the Tate Modern. And Philip takes a trip into the heart and history of the Kremlin and asks the historian Catherine Merridale about it's secrets.

Tom Hanks stars as Captain Phillips in the new film from Paul Greengrass; writer Writer Kevin Jackson and Anja Shortland join Matthew Sweet to discuss the film and its portrayal of Somali Piracy. Film historian David Thomson discusses the most memorable moments in films. As David Greig’s play The Events opens, inspired by the Norwegian massacre by Anders Breivik, the director Ramin Gray, forensic psychiatrist Cleo Van Velsen and priest Giles Fraser discuss the possibility of forgiveness in the face of atrocity.

In the last of Matthew Sweet's visits to ZSL London Zoo we consider our relations with our closest animal relatives - apes. Daniel Simmonds, Keeper at ZSL London Zoo's Gorilla Kingdom, discusses the problems that come with looking after creatures so similar to, but different from us. Is any kind of mutual understanding possible at all? Matthew picks up the theme with anatomist and anthropologist Alice Roberts, physician and philosopher Raymond Tallis and novelist James Lever. So what happens when you stare into the eyes of an ape?

Social media, as old as Cicero and as revolutionary as Christianity? Tom Standage and William Dutton join Philip Dodd to explore our networked world and to question whether social media alters historic mappings of power and authority. Photographer Dayanita Singh discusses her new retrospective at London’s Hayward gallery and her approach to the camera. As part of Verdi 200, Radio 3’s season celebrating the composer’s bicentenary, music historian Sarah Lenton and scholar René Weis explore Verdi’s passion for Shakespeare.

Catholic theologian Hans Küng in his new work asks 'Can We Save The Catholic Church?'. He discusses this and more with Anne McElvoy. Anna Raeburn and Adam Mars-Jones review the first episode of Masters of Sex and discuss the work of Masters and Johnson. In a theatre critique, Susannah Clapp comes straight from the Donmar Warehouse to the studio for a first night review of Arnold Wesker's 'Roots'. And the author Wendy Lower has written a new book 'Hitler's Furies - German women in the Nazi Killing Fields' and Anne asks her what she found there.

Jonathan Derbyshire, the Managing Editor of Prospect magazine, and Observer columnist Nick Cohen discuss the genealogy of left wing politics in Britain. The thinker and psychoanalyst Slavoj Zizek takes on the ideology machine of Hollywood in his new film, The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology. Directors Richard Eyre and Stephen Unwin discuss their two respective productions of Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts, which have both just opened. Melissa Benn asks what messages we are conveying to young women and what advice we should be giving our daughters to empower them for the future.

In Night Waves’ second outing to London Zoo, Matthew Sweet and guests discuss Angus Wilson's 1961 novel 'The Old Men at the Zoo'. Matthew is joined by Wilson's friend and biographer Margaret Drabble, by the poet and novelist Iain Sinclair, and by Jonathan Powell and Margot Hayhoe who brought the story to TV screens in the 1983 BBC series.

With Rana Mitter. Bestselling author of Wild Swans, Jung Chang discusses her new biography of the most important woman in Chinese history; Empress Dowager Cixi. Alastair Sooke survey's a new show by The critics' favourite Young British artist, Sarah Lucas. US historian Tim Stanley joins Rana to discuss former Chilean President Salvador Allende along with the author of a new book on the subject, Oscar Guardiola-Rivera. And our latest contribution to the Sound of Cinema season: Simon Fisher Turner discusses his new soundtrack to The Epic of Everest.

Samuel Huntington’s essay ‘The Clash of Civilisations?’ was published twenty years ago; Philip Dodd and guests Douglas Murray, Maria Misra and Gideon Rose discuss the importance and relevance of the essay today. Karen Leeder reviews a new exhibition of the work of George Grosz which focuses on his satirical depictions of bourgeois life in Weimar Berlin. Simon Heffer on his new book High Minds, which explores 1840s-1880s as a period which laid the foundations for modern Britain.

Actress Cate Blanchett joins Samira Ahmed to discuss her role in Woody Allen's latest film, Blue Jasmine. Renaissance scholar Alexander Lee, Sarah Dunant and Radio 3 New Generation Thinker John Gallagher reassess the Renaissance and consider whether our view of the period is seen through rose-tinted glasses. Maxim Leo on his new memoir, Red Love, and the compromises involved in living in the DDR. Art critic Joanne Harwood reviews Tate Modern's retrospective of the late Brazilian artist Mira Schendel.

Architect Zaha Hadid joins Rana Mitter to reflect on her designs for the Serpentine's new Sackler Gallery. Critics Ian Christie and Muriel Zagha discuss the sounds and music of French Cinema. Philosopher Julian Baggini and Classicist Richard Seaford consider the pros and cons of cynicism towards the public sphere.

Australian director Baz Luhrmann shot to fame in 1992 with Strictly Ballroom and was nominated in 2003 for seven Tony awards for his Broadway production of La Boheme. He's best known however for his bright and brash films Romeo and Juliet, Moulin Rouge, and The Great Gatsby which was released earlier this year. On all three he has worked with Glasgow based composer Craig Armstrong who studied with Cornelius Cardew and began his career as in-house composer at the city's Tron Theatre. Baz and Craig explain to Tom Service how their creative relationship works and reflect on the role of music in Baz's films.

Carter Burwell is famed for scoring the films of the iconic Coen Brothers, from 1984's Blood Simple to Raising Arizona, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, and No Country for Old Men; they have one of the longest standing collaborations in the industry. Burwell was born in New York City where in the 1980s he played in a number of punk bands and worked at the New York Institute of Technology where he was first approached by the Coens. He talks to Tom Service about how he goes about approaching each score, for the Coen Brothers as well as other regular collaborators Bill Condon (The Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn, Gods and Monsters), Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation), and Martin McDonagh (In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths).

As part of the BBC's Sound of Cinema season, Tom Service talks to ten-time Academy Award nominee James Horner. Horner was born in Los Angeles but spent his early years in London and studied at the Royal College of Music before returning to California to pursue a doctorate in composition. Having initially intended composing concert music he fell into the film industry more or less by accident. His award winning collaboration with James Cameron has spanned three decades, from Aliens in 1986 to the biggest selling soundtrack of all time Titanic, and most recently 2009's Avatar, and he has also regularly worked with Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13), and Mel Gibson (Braveheart, Apocalypto).

Acclaimed director Ken Loach and composer George Fenton have collaborated on fourteen films together in the last two decades. Beginning in 1994 with Ladybird Ladybird, they have worked together on titles including Sweet Sixteen, My Name is Joe, Looking for Eric, and the Palme d'Or-winning The Wind that Shakes the Barley. Currently working on a new release for 2014 being filmed in Ireland, they take time out to talk to Tom Service about the role of music in Ken's films - how it can make the specific universal and bring to the fore real emotions rather than false ones.