The director Paulette Randall brings to the stage the ultimate tale of sacrifice in the pursuit of power: Doctor Faustus. She tells Andrew Marr how, in coveting fame, power and knowledge, he sells his soul to the devil. This bargain with the devil is one of the most iconic cultural motifs in the Western tradition.

The poet and writer Ann Wroe looks to another founding story of Christianity, that of St Francis of Assisi. Born into luxury he forsakes it all after hearing the voice of God commanding him to rebuild the Church and live in poverty. Wroe writes his life story in verse and see echoes of it all around her today.

The philosopher Julian Baggini sees such ancient stories as helping to explore and explain how people think in the West. But in his new book, How the World Thinks, he admits his own failures to learn about the stories and early philosophies which have come out of the East. Without them, he argues, you cannot understand the development of distinct cultures around the world.

The novelist and essayist Amit Chaudhuri has looked far and wide for his influences, from Nobel laureate Tagore and filmmaker Satyajit Ray to Cervantes’s Don Quixote. In The Origins of Dislike he explores the way writers understand their work both in antithesis to, and affinity with, past writers and movements from around the world.

Producer: Katy Hickman