With Mark Lawson

Billie Piper stars in The Effect, a new play by Lucy Prebble about drugs trials and mental health. It's Prebble's first major new work since her success with ENRON, her play about the American financial scandal. Senior consultant neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reviews.

The Heresy of Dr Dee is the latest in a series of novels about the Tudor astrologer and magician Dr John Dee by writer Phil Rickman. The novel explores the mysterious death of Amy Dudley, wife of Elizabeth I's favourite Lord Robert Dudley. Phil Rickman explains his fascination with Dee and why self-publishing is a temptation he's keen to resist.

Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart star in Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part 2, the final instalment in the globally successful vampire film franchise. Larushka Ivan-Zadeh gives her verdict.

Death: A Self Portrait is a new exhibition with more than 300 works - from images by Rembrandt and Goya to a chandelier made from 3000 plaster-cast bones - which confront our mortality. Dr Sarah Jarvis considers how attitudes have changed over the centuries.

And we mark 90 years of BBC radio by remembering the moment when playwright Joe Orton was discovered by a young drama producer.


Producer Penny Murphy.