As the Barbican’s much-anticipated ‘Basquiat: Boom For Real’ exhibition opens its doors we discuss the life and work of the prodigious artist. Plus: we attend a funeral for the ‘Cassini’ space probe and find out how to put cinema on the silver screen.

Matt Alagiah is joined by writer Mark Mason and online editor for 'The Bookseller' Sarah Shaffi to discuss this month's book releases. Plus: we head to Buenos Aires to learn about cumbia music and Go-Betweens band member Robert Forster tells us about his new book ‘Grant & I’.

In the studio this week are Will Hodgkinson, chief rock and pop critic for ‘The Times’, and Alice Vincent, arts and entertainment writer for ‘The Telegraph’. They talk music and television with Monocle’s Tom Edwards. Plus: South Korean music, Sarajevo’s art scene and the charts in China.

Ben Rylan is joined by film critics Karen Krizanovich and Anna Smith in the studio to see what’s on at the cinema this week. We also head to Amsterdam for Uitmarkt Festival, meet the artist Molly Parkin ahead of her new exhibition and for this week’s global countdown we jump into a German time machine.

Music writer Laura Snapes and curator Francesca Gavin join Robert Bound to discuss the album releases and art shows that should be on your radar over the next month. Plus, we get South American music picks from Cascabel Studio and we go down under for this week’s Global Countdown.

In the studio we talk books and podcasts with John Mitchinson, co-founder of Unbound, and Fiona Sturges, arts columnist for ‘The Guardian’ and ‘The Financial Times’. Plus we head to Moscow to learn how Soviet music lovers managed to smuggle music into the USSR on old hospital X-rays and we dial up Edinburgh to find out how the fringe festival is going so far.

This week we’re talking TV and books with Alice Vincent, arts and entertainment writer for ‘The Telegraph’, as well as writer and critic Mark Mason. The pair sit down with Monocle’s Matt Alagiah to discuss HBO’s latest shows and the non-fiction reads worth picking up this month. Plus: the new edition of ‘Somesuch Stories’, the journal that celebrates creative writing and interesting voices.

Tom Edwards is taken on a trip to the cinema by film critics Karen Krizanovich and Tim Robey as they discuss August’s movie releases, we learn about Maud Russell, a woman whose diary tells stories of high society during the Second World War and we meet Charlie Fink, the former frontman of indie-folk outfit Noah and the Whale, who has set his sights on the stage.

Ben Rylan is joined in the studio by Toby Earle, TV editor for ‘London Live’, and Matt Wolf, theatre critic for ‘The New York Times International Edition’, to find out what’s on the small screen and the stage this week. Plus: we head to Amsterdam to discover the city’s only Arabic bookshop and we meet a duo who have set out to demystify contemporary art.

Robert Bound is joined by broadcaster and DJ Georgie Rogers and country music aficionado Baylen Leonard for this week’s music review, we head to Calgary for the annual Stampede festival and Fernando Augusto Pacheco is back with another countdown from somewhere around the globe.