Anselm Kiefer is one of the world’s greatest living artists. Born in Germany at the end of the Second World War, much of his work in paintings, sculptures and vast installation pieces, has addressed his country’s history and culture, asking difficult questions about the legacy of fascism and conflict. His paintings, thickly layered and sometimes embellished with straw or molten lead, often depict dark rutted fields or dense forests. Kiefer is renowned for the size of his work, and for his industrial-scale studio complexes in France, where he has lived for over thirty years. Kiefer's works are included in numerous public collections including the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Tate Modern, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery of Australia. His most recent show at the Royal Academy in London has paired his works with those of one his artistic heroes for an exhibition called Kiefer/Van Gogh.

Producer: Edwina Pitman

Children’s writer and academic Katherine Rundell is the multi-million selling author of adventure stories including Rooftoppers, The Wolf Wilder and The Explorer which won the Costa Children’s Book of the Year. Impossible Creatures, the first of a five book series, was named Waterstones Book Of the Year in 2023. Her biography of the 17th century poet John Donne was a non-fiction bestseller and she became the youngest ever winner of the £50,000 Bailey Gifford Prize. At the age of 36, Katherine Rundell was named author of the year at the 2024 British Book Awards.

Talking to John Wilson, Katherine Rundell recalls Saturday morning bus journeys from her home in south London to Covent Garden where her father would take part in amateur dance classes. Along the route of the 176 bus he would point out cultural landmarks and helped instil in Katherine a lifelong love for the city. She also explains how her father’s job as a civil servant took her family to live in Zimbabwe when she was a child, an experience that fuelled her imagination and fascination with the natural world. She also remembers the profound loss she felt at the death of her foster sister, and reveals that much of her writing for children has been driven by this tragedy. She chooses the Chronicles Of Narnia series of books, especially The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, by CS Lewis as a huge influence on her own fantasy writing and the poetry of John Donne which she describes as her "greatest literary passion". Katherine also reflects on the importance of encouraging children to read and the current state of children's publishing.

Composer Steve Reich is one of the most influential musicians of modern times. In the 1960s he helped rewrite the rules of composition, using analogue tape machines to experiment with rhythm, repetition and syncopation. As the godfather of musical minimalism, his influence on Philip Glass, David Bowie, Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead, and many other composers, has been enormous. Countless dance music producers also owe a debt to pieces including It’s Gonna Rain, Drumming, Different Trains and Music for 18 Musicians. His music has been performed in concert halls all around the world, and his many awards include three Grammys, a Pulitzer Prize, the Polar Prize for Music and the Premium Imperiale.

Producer: Edwina Pitman

Painter Jenny Saville, renowned for her large-scale portraits of fleshy, naked women, made her name soon after leaving art school when her graduation exhibition work was bought by collector Charles Saatchi. In 1997, her work was also part of the landmark Royal Academy show Sensation, alongside now iconic pieces by Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and others. Since then, the main focus of her work - which has been shown in museums and galleries all around the world - has remained the female form. In 2018, a Jenny Saville painting called Propped sold at auction for £9.5m, at the time a world record for a work by a living female artist. A retrospective exhibition of over 50 of her paintings and drawings is being held at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Producer: Edwina Pitman

Composer Alan Menken is the winner of more Academy Awards in competitive categories than any other living person. He’s best known for his scores for the animated Disney films including The Little Mermaid, Pocahontas, Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. His first big hit was the musical Little Shop Of Horrors - one of several he created with lyricist Howard Ashman, his longtime writing partner. Other stage musicals include Sister Act, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, and Hercules, which recently opened in London's West End. Alan Menken also wrote the scores for Disney films Mirror Mirror, Enchanted and Tangled. As well as eight Academy Awards, he has also won eleven Grammys, seven Golden Globes, two Emmys and a Tony Award.

Alan talks to John Wilson about his childhood in New York and the expectations of his parents that he would follow family tradition and become a dentist like his father. A musical talent from a young age, he recalls how seeing Walt Disney’s Fantasia was the start of thinking about the marriage of music with story and images.

Producer: Edwina Pitman

Gillian Anderson’s breakthrough television role in the sci-fi series The X Files made her a global star in 1993, and she played cool-headed Agent Dana Scully for nearly a decade. She also starred in period dramas, including an acclaimed film adaptation of Edith Wharton’s novel The House Of Mirth and, on television, in Bleak House, Great Expectations and War and Peace. Her theatre credits include A Doll’s House, A Streetcar Named Desire and All About Eve, all of which saw her nominated for Olivier Awards. Gillian Anderson has won Golden Globe and Emmy Awards for the X Files, and also for The Crown in which she played Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. More recently, she found a new generation of fans for role as a sex therapist in the series Sex Education. Her latest film is The Salt Path, adapted from the bestselling memoir by Raynor Wynn.

Gillian Anderson tells John Wilson how, after being born in Chicago, she moved with her parents to Crouch End, London, when she was five, and then to Michigan at the age of 11. After what she describes as ‘rebellious' teenage years, she studied at Chicago’s DePaul University with drama teacher Ric Murphy, whom she cites as a major influence on her early acting ambitions. After a series of minor stage roles in New York, she auditioned for The X Files and the role of Agent Scully changed her life. She also chooses the actor Meryl Streep as a major inspiration after seeing her with Robert Redford in the 1985 romantic drama film Out Of Africa. Gillian also reveals how the work of the Serbian-born conceptual performance artist Marina Abramović has also been an influential cultural figure for her.

Producer: Edwina Pitman

Pete Townshend is the songwriter, guitarist and co-founder of The Who. The band first stormed the pop charts sixty years ago, with teenage anthems including I Can’t Explain, Substitute and My Generation. Broader songwriting ambitions led him to create the rock opera Tommy in 1969, and the concept album Quadrophenia four years later. Both projects were adapted as films, and Quadrophenia has now been staged as a ballet by Sadlers Wells. Throughout the seventies, The Who were regarded as the biggest and loudest live act in the world. They played at Woodstock, at Live Aid, Live 8 and the 2012 Olympic closing ceremony. Despite the deaths of drummer Keith Moon and bassist John Entwhistle, Townshend and singer Roger Daltrey continue to perform as The Who.

Pete Townshend talks to John Wilson about the influence of his parents, who were both musicians. His father, the saxophonist Cliff Townshend, played in the popular dance band The Squadronaires, but it was his mother Betty, a singer, who was most supportive of Pete's early musical talent. Seeing Bill Haley and The Comets at Edgware Road Odeon in 1956 was another formative moment that introduced the teenage Townshend to the possibilities of a rock 'n' roll performance.

Pete also reveals how his art school tutor Roy Ascot, who was head of the Ground Course at Ealing Art School, shaped his his approach to his band that was to become The Who. He also recounts how reading Labyrinths, a book of short stories by Jorge Luis Borges on the first US Who tour in 1967 opened his imagination and helped him expand his musical storytelling.

Producer: Edwina Pitman

Pianist James Rhodes was a relative latecomer to a professional music, and was 30 when he performed his first concert. In 2010 he became the first core classical pianist to be signed to the world’s biggest rock music label, Warner Brothers. He has recorded nine albums, including his most recent one, Mania, which features work by Bach, Chopin Brahms and other composers. He has also presented television documentaries about classical music and written five books, including his international bestselling memoir, Instrumental. But James Rhodes’ adult life story is also one involving mental illness, addiction and suicidal despair in the wake of violent sexual abuse over several years as a small child.

Talking to John Wilson, James remembers how hearing a recording of Bach’s Chaconne from his Partita no. 2 transcribed for piano, was a life-changing experience, offering a sense of hope and wonder at a time when he was suffering terrible abuse. He also chooses his secondary school piano teacher Colin Stone as a major inspiration, although his early musical ambitions were thwarted at the age of 18. After some years working in the City, then suffering breakdowns and periods in psychiatric institutions, he returned to music after a decade away from he piano. He also credits a chance meeting with his future manager as a moment that led to him becoming an internationally acclaimed concert pianist.

Producer: Edwina Pitman

Details of organisations offering information and support with mental health and self-harm, and for victims of child sexual abuse, are available at: www.bbc.co.uk/actionline

Since the late 1980s, Colombian artist Doris Salcedo has made work in response to conflict and political violence, drawing on the testimonies of victims to create metaphorical sculptures and installations about trauma, loss and survival. She is now recognised as one of the most important living artists, with work shown in museums and galleries around the world, including in the turbine hall of Tate Modern in 2007. Doris Salcedo is the 2025 recipient of the Whitechapel Gallery’s prestigious Art Icon award, in recognition of her ‘profound contribution to the artistic landscape’.

She talks to John Wilson about the first time she saw Goya's painting The Third of May 1808, also known as The Executions of the Third of May. The painting depicts the brutal aftermath of the Dos de Mayo Uprising in Madrid, during the Peninsular War, in which Spanish civilians were executed by French soldiers. Salcedo recalls how this painting showed her what a work of art could accomplish. It was seeing this painting that inspired her artistic purpose of trying to reveal the true cost of war in her work.

Producer: Edwina Pitman

Archive used:

Paul Celan, Psalm, read by Robert Rietty

Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason was born in Nottingham in 1999 into a big musical family. He and his six siblings all grew up learning classical instruments, and appeared on Britain’s Got Talent in 2015. Sheku first made his mark as a solo performer the following year when he won the BBC Young Musician Of The Year competition. In 2018 a global audience of over a billion watched him perform live at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Since then he has received two classical Brit awards, An MBE for services to music, and performed at the Proms every year since 2017. His book The Power Of Music charts his creative journey, whilst his new album - his fifth release - includes recording of works by Shostakovich and Britten.

Sheku talks to John Wilson about the early influence of his paternal grandfather, a classical music lover who encouraged an appreciation of chamber music, including Schubert's Trout Quintet. Sheku also discusses his cellist heroes Jacqueline du Pré and Mstislav Rostropovich and explains how the music of reggae superstar Bob Marley has been an inspiration throughout his life.

Producer: Edwina Pitman