With Mark Lawson

Irving Berlin's three daughters reflect on their father's career as one of America's most successful songwriters. They also discuss their inherited responsibilities for his music and the continuing appeal of songs such as Cheek to Cheek and Puttin' On the Ritz, the light of a new UK stage version of the film Top Hat.

The National Gallery's new exhibition Turner Inspired: In the Light of Claude, features the two paintings Turner donated to the gallery on the strict condition that they be hung alongside two specific paintings by the 17th century Old Master, Claude. The exhibition's curator Susan Foister and art critic William Feaver discuss the conditions and stipulations artists have made about how their work is displayed during their lifetime and beyond.

Dramatist Helen Edmundson discusses her new play Mary Shelley, based on the life of the author of Frankenstein. The play centres on the scandalous relationship between Mary Shelley and her husband, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and the impact it had on their families.


Producer Claire Bartleet.