In the first of our special programmes from the Edinburgh Festivals, actress Stockard Channing - star of Grease, Six Degrees of Separation and Practical Magic - joins us alongside her friend, actor David Westhead, to discuss their production of Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, in which a cynical and disillusioned older man reflects on his early life as an ambitious and idealistic writer.

Jeff Whitty, Tony Award winning creator of the hit musical Avenue Q, which is currently running until 2027 in London's West End, tells us about Midsummer!, his new production inspired by Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's dream, set in the Gilded Age and performed in a contemporary verse translation.

We have a live performance from siblings Maddie and Marcus Rice from their show with songs Goodbye Dandelion, an exploration of an unlikely friendship between an 87 year old and their much younger friend, which is the recipient of the inaugural Underbelly Futures Fund Award.

And we hear how deaf actors and artists are taking centre stage at this year's Festival, with Stijn Van Opstal, the director of the acclaimed production [seagull], performed in Flemish sign language by Belgian company Olympique Dramatique - and with director Cora Bissett and deaf performer Jamie Rea, whose gig theatre production The Singer, centres on Joe, a deaf artist who 'sings' with his hands, and Andy, a washed-up musician seeking a comeback, and features music by KT Tunstall.

Presenter: Kirsty Wark

Samira is joined by two magicians live in the studio, from the stage show "Now You See Me Live". And then she takes part in a trick and is bamboozled!

This programme has been edited since broadcast

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

John Hannah plays a washed-up former detective who has moved to Spain to run a pub in the new Channel 5 comedy drama Benidorm is Murder. He discusses the appeal of television crime series, and why working-class settings are underrepresented on the small screen.

Hull Maritime Museum reopens after a £20 million refurbishment. Director Gillian Osgerby on why this museum is such an important feature of Hull's cultural landscape.

Critic Benji Wilson, author of Rate This Book: How Star Ratings Took Over The World, and journalist, Helen Nugent, editor of online magazine Northern Soul, on the power of star ratings.

Stephen Ellery on his new appointment as chief conductor of the Dnipro Philharmonic in Ukraine.

Presenter: Nick Ahad

Rhianna Dhillon and Sarfraz Manzoor join Tom Sutcliffe to review:

Childhood in War, an exhibition at the Imperial War Musuem exploring how children have experienced conflict from 1914 to the present day.

Ish, the debut feature film from multimedia artist Imran Perretta which follows two boys in Luton as they navigate childhood against a backdrop of political tension and personal loss.

And Children of Wolves, the new novel from Lawrence Osborne (Ballad of a Small Player), about a private investigator sent to Turkey to find a 27-year-old woman who has disappeared.

Plus Laura Barton discusses this year's Mercury Prize shortlist.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

Composer Missy Mazzoli discusses her opera The Galloping Cure, which fuses a live orchestra with electronic beats and features a charismatic antihero and talking dogs. An allegory for a crisis which has become a worldwide epidemic, the production by Opera Ventures Productions and Scottish Opera receives its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival and is a reimagining of a story by Franz Kafka.

Artist Joyce W Cairns is one of Scotland's most renowned painters, and in 2018 she was elected the first President of the Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture. She talks to us about making the move from mythological to autobiographical painting and about how she was inspired to create her impressive War Tourist series of paintings - drawn from research in Normandy and Tunisia - after inheriting a suitcase of her father's World War II memorabilia.

And as the heatwave continues across parts of the UK and Europe, we ask how cultural institutions are responding. Is the closure of galleries due to uncomfortable temperatures going to become the norm?

Presenter: Kirsty Wark

Professor Dame Mary Beard reveals the 2026 Booker longlist and how she has found the process of being Chair of the judges.

British contemporary pop artist Philip Colbert’s latest installation has just been unveiled amidst the historic ruins of Pompeii. Philip talks to Samira Ahmed about being inspired by an ancient mosaic featuring a lobster, a symbol he frequently includes in his work, and how he adapted his process for the UNESCO heritage site.

Hollywood actor Bill Pullman, known as the fictional US President Whitmore in Independence Day, Meg Ryan’s spurned beau in Sleepless in Seattle and many more roles, is currently appearing at the RSC in Stratford in a production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. He talks with Samira about his work on stage in the UK and the US, his favourite film roles and why he feels uniquely qualified to be playing Gayev in this production.

As reports say that around half of all new music uploaded to streamers is made with A.I., music economist Will Page discusses what this means for the music industry and for listeners who may not know that they're listening to something that wasn’t made by a real person.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Graeme Garden remembers his friend and Goodies colleague, Bill Oddie.

Frank Miller reimagined Batman as a tougher, grittier sort of comic book hero: The Dark Knight. He has written a memoir and a guide for fans.

The new Children's Laureate, writer Patrice Lawrence tells us about taking on such a prestigious role.

And 850 years of the Eisteddfod - Archdruid Mererid Hopwood and Marc Rees discuss the importance of this centuries-old Welsh celebration of music, poetry, art literature.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Hanna Flint and Chris Power join Tom Sutcliffe to review:

The new stage musical adaptation of Irvine Welsh's novel Trainspotting, featuring famous songs from the 1996 Danny Boyle film as well as new compositions to bring Renton, Begbie, Sick Boy and Spud to life.

On the Sea, a film by novelist and director Helen Walsh about a mussel fisherman in northern Wales and the romance that he kindles with a new itinerant worker called Daniel.

Cool Machine, the final part of Colson Whitehead's Harlem trilogy, which began with Harlem Shuffle and was followed by Crook Manifesto, and continues the adventures of Ray Carney, furniture store owner who lives a double life as a part-time criminal fence.

Tom also talks to novelist Kate Mosse about the news that Anthropic has created a $1.5 billion fund to settle a class action lawsuit brought by authors whose copyrighted works were scraped in order to train the company's AI chatbot Claude.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

In 1985, Wham were the first Western pop group to perform in communist China, and the tour changed people's lives. As a new documentary about this landmark moment in pop lands in cinemas - and screens on BBC Two next month - Andrew Ridgeley tells the story.

From Merchant Ivory period dramas to Peaky Blinders, the art of costume making is celebrated in a new exhibition - Costume Couture - at Edinburgh's Dovecot Studios. We're joined by John Bright, the founder of Cosprop, the pre-eminent costume making company in the UK and by historian Jade Halbert, whose new book about 250 years of costume making is Britain is soon published, to hear about how costume helps actors inhabit roles, and to hear about the history of this often neglected craft.

Fleabag premiered ten years ago this week on BBC 3. In the highly acclaimed dark comedy, writer and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge frequently spoke directly to the audience and created an unapologetically flawed protagonist. BBC New Generation Thinker, and Salford University lecturer, Dr Laura Minor, and journalist and broadcaster Julia Raeside talk about the impact Fleabag has had on TV since.

Plus, 8 years since the second devastating fire struck architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh's masterpiece, Glasgow School of Art, an update on its future has just been announced, but is a full restoration now looking less likely? We discuss.

Presenter: Kirsty Wark

Actor Ruth Madeley on starring in new TV drama The Rapture - a psychological thriller where the competing interests of an oil company, a religious cult, a protest group and a disturbed young woman convicted of murdering her mother, are set against a backdrop of climate change.

Singer Nadine Shah on her homecoming BBC Prom in Gateshead.

After a three year standoff, Northern Ballet reaches an agreement with the Musicians' Union. Naomi Pohl, General Secretary of the Musicians' Union on the significance of the new deal.

Abandoned in 1929, the film Queen Kelly became the most infamous unfinished film in cinema history. Film historian Pamela Hutchinson on its torrid scenes on and off the screen.

Presenter: Nick Ahad