Shirley Collins, folk singer

Emily Watson is an award-winning actor, widely regarded as one of the finest character actors of her generation.She began her career on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company before rising to prominence in 1996, when she was cast as Bess McNeill in Lars von Trier’s Breaking the ...  Show more

Sara Pascoe is a comedian and writer who has appeared on programmes including QI, Taskmaster and the Great British Sewing Bee. She is also a screenwriter and the author of three books including her debut novel Weirdo which won the inaugural Jilly Cooper Prize for fiction last yea ...  Show more

John Wilson returns with another edition of Mastertapes, the series in which he talks to leading performers and songwriters about the album that made them or changed them. Recorded in front of a live audience at the BBC's iconic Maida Vale Studios. "Love, Death and the Lady" with ...  Show more

The castaway in Desert Island Discs this week is an entertainer who has managed to captivate a generation. Petula Clark will be talking to Sue Lawley about how the British still perceive her as 'our pet' since her early singing days when she was chosen to sing in Trafalgar Square ...  Show more

In 1942, Benjamin Britten boarded the M.S. Axel Johnson, a Swedish cargo vessel, to make the journey home to England after three years in America. During the voyage, the ship stopped at Halifax, Nova Scotia, where Britten came across a poetry anthology in a bookshop - The English ...  Show more

Dolly Alderton's love of Doris Day began when she watched Calamity Jane as a young child.

And for Dolly, the incandescent film star was as much of a poster girl as The Spice Girls. But Dolly's view of the legendary actress and singer has changed as she's matured.