To mark the 80th anniversary this week, we explore British culture around VE Day in 1945, reflecting on the music, books, films and theatre that defined the moment and the complex emotional landscape that followed the war’s end. Songwriter and pianist Kate Garner joins us at the piano.

Guests: Michael Billington, theatre critic; Ian Christie, film historian; Kevin Le Gendre, music journalist and broadcaster; Lara Feigel, Professor of Modern Literature, King's College London; Kate Garner, singer and songwriter

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

US director Ryan Coogler on his supernatural horror film, Sinners. Anne Sebba discusses her new book, The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz, about the orchestra formed in 1943 among the female prisoners at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. And as a new report looking at so-called book banning in the United States is published, we talked to author Ellen Hopkins, American Libraries Association President Cindy Hohl and Neal McCluskey Director of libertarian thinktank, The Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

Critic Kate Maltby and Beatles author Ian Leslie join Tom Sutcliffe to discuss two documentaries about John Lennon remaking his life in New York - Borrowed Time: Lennon's Last Decade and One to One: John & Yoko. They also discuss Tina Fey’s new series The Four Seasons, based on the 1981 film of the same name, which explores the relationships of three longstanding couples who holiday together. And we'll be reviewing a new musical version of The Great Gatsby, fresh in from Broadway. Plus writer Louise Dean, the founder of The Novelry, a creative writing school, talks about her organisation's new literary writing competition.

Producer: Claire Bartleet

Jeff Pope on his new series Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, the innocent man who was killed by police on a London tube in 2005, which launches tonight on Disney+.

James VI of Scotland & I of England is the subject of a major exhibition at the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh. We’re joined by the historical writers Lucy Hughes Hallett and Steven Veerapen.

And performance art in a new film The Extraordinary Miss Flower, a musical portrait of a mysterious woman, who left behind a suitcase of letters, from lovers and friends, starring the Icelandic artist, Emiliana Torrini . We’ll be speaking to the directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard

Presenter: Kirsty Wark

In 1975, at the height of their fame, British band Slade made a feature film, Slade in Flame. The film was a critical and commercial failure at the time, but has built up a cult following over the years. Now it's being re-released in cinemas and on DVD. Frontman Noddy Holder and film director Richard Loncraine spoke to Samira Ahmed in studio.

With a new English translation of Simone de Beauvoir's novel The Image of Her and a stage adaptation of her semi-autobiographical The Inseperables, Lauren Elkin and Grace Joy Howarth discuss the enduring legacy of the French feminist icon.

Plus Irish actor Stephen Rae talks about his career working with Samuel Beckett, his hit film The Crying Game, and his current production of Krapp’s Last Tape

Mark Rosenblatt on Giant, his Olivier award-winning play starring John Lithgow as Roald Dahl.

As Universal Studios announce plans for a major new theme park in Bedfordshire, what does this mean for the UK entertainment industry? Samira is joined by entertainment journalist Ella Baskerville and Gareth Smy from Framestore to discuss its signficance and the kinds of rides it's likely to contain.

German director Natja Brunckhorst on her comedy film Two to One, about an East German heist set in the days leading up to German Reunification, starring Sandra Huller.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed

Journalist Siân Pattenden & critic Stephanie Merritt join Tom to discuss Self Esteem's third album A Complicated Woman, which features collaborations with Nadine Shah and Moonchild Sanelly. Ahead of the release, Self Esteem AKA Rebecca Lucy Taylor showcased the album by staging a five-night theatrical presentation at London's Duke of York theatre. Tom and guests also talk about the Belgian film Julie Keeps Quiet, where a star player at a top tennis school deals with the aftermath of her coach being suspended. And they review the RSC's Stratford-upon-Avon contemporary production of Much Ado about Nothing which is set in the world of elite football.

Plus, presenter Tom Service talks about the line up for the 2025 BBC Proms.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe

As the journals of the American writer Joan Didion (based on conversations with her psychiatrist) are published, writer and journalist Rachel Cooke and Alan Taylor, editor of actor Alan Rickman's diaries, discuss the challenges, responsibilities and ethics of posthumously publishing the diaries of great writers, artists and actors.

Acclaimed German pianist Pianist Igor Levit talks about his own challenge - that of performing Erik Satie's pioneering piece Vexations, in a performance at the Multitudes arts festival at London's Southbank Centre. The performance is directed by leading performance artist Marina Abramovic and is expected to last approximately 15 hours, as Levit repeats Satie's one-page score 840 times.

And how should great women be memorialised? Cultural critic Stephen Bayley and author and activist Sara Sheridan discuss what a memorial to Queen Elizabeth II might look like, and why, in comparison to their male counterparts, so few women have grand memorials in our towns and cities.

Presenter: Kirsty Wark

Jamaica's former poet laureate, Lorna Goodison, on setting Dante's Inferno on the island of her birth; Journalist Joanna Moorhead on Pope Francis' relationship with the arts; Poet and librettist Michael Symmons Roberts on writing a form-breaking book to re-examine French composer Olivier Messiaen's form-breaking masterwork - Quartet for the End of Time; and going in search of an important piece of theatre history with Daniel Swift, author of The Dream Factory: London's First Playhouse and the Making of William Shakespeare.

Presenter: Nick Ahad

Mr. Turner director Mike Leigh, art historian Charlotte Mullins and senior curator at Tate Amy Concannon join Tom Sutcliffe to celebrate the life and work of JMW Turner, as we approach the 250th anniversary of his birth.

Also in this edition, David Hockney on Turner's skill as an artist, Alvaro Barrington talks about his continuing influence on artists today, and Tom goes to the conservation studio at Tate Britain to see what’s being done to protect Turner's bequest and look after his fragile and damaged works.

Producer: Claire Bartleet