20 Questions With

Ruby Wax is on tour - except right now she's in bed. Which is appropriate as she once interviewed very famous people in bed. Here she remembers interviewing Donald Trump, discusses her fascination with neuroscience, speaks candidly about her mental health, reveals that she's never been invited on the Graham Norton show, talks about her difficult upbringing as the daughter of Jewish immigrants from...

Number One bestselling author Victoria Hislop on success, Ian Hislop, celebrity dancing, her love of Greece, the British Museum, her new novel, 'The Figurine', the criminal trade in figurines, cooking, dinner parties, skipping, boxing and tennis.

Known as the Silver Fox, Chase Utley won the World Series with the Phillies in 2008, cementing his place his baseball history. He is a six-time All Star, a four-time Silver Slugger Award-winner and is regarded as one of the greatest baseball players of his generation. Here, during a spell living in London, he explains some of the basics of the game, describes the thrill and the pressure of perform...

Maggie Alphonsi is one of the leading figures in women's sport. A Women's Rugby World Cup winner with England in 2014, she won 74 caps for her country, scored 28 tries and became known as 'Maggie The Machine' for the relentlessness of her tough tackling. Born with a club foot, she was brought up by a single mother of Nigerian heritage on a north London estate, and used to fight other children, inc...

Concussion in rugby has forced the sport into an existential crisis. With household names, including England World Cup winner Steve Thompson, suffering from early onset dementia, one of the great global games is having to face up to searching questions about the way it is - and has been - played. Sam Peters is the journalist who has led an often lonely campaign to bring the risk of brain injuries...

As a white boy, Mike Procter grew up in South Africa, a beneficiary of the unfair advantages of Apartheid. When he saw white people doing road works on the way to his hotel from Heathrow during a school cricket trip to England, his eyes were opened to the injustices back home. One of the great fast bowling all-rounders (with a Test bowling average of just 15 and 48 first class centuries), Procter...

As Chair of the Commons Committee on Standards, Labour MP Sir Chris Bryant has been close to the heart of some of the biggest stories in British politics in recent years. In this candid interview, he discusses his role as one of the guardians of Parliamentary standards, the rights and wrongs of lying, his own imperfections, his life as a gay man, being groped on the Parliamentary estate, his forme...

Ian McEwan, newly appointed a Companion of Honour in the King's Birthday Honours List, is one of Britain's leading literary novelists. He won the Booker Prize for Amsterdam in 1998 and became internationally famous for Atonement. Black Dogs, On Chesil Beach, Saturday, The Children Act, Solar, Nutshell, Machines Like Me and his latest book, Lessons, punctuate the publishing landscape of the last 30...

Neil Jordan is an Oscar and double BAFTA-winning director who has achieved success both with his arthouse work and in Hollywood. He won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for The Crying Game and his films have been nominated for multiple Oscars and BAFTAs. His movies include Mona Lisa, Interview with the Vampire, Michael Collins and The End of the Affair, and he has directed the TV ser...

Knighted in the King's Birthday Honours, Sir Ben Okri is one of Britain's most significant writers. Influenced by his experiences of both his adopted home and his native Nigeria, his novels span contrasting cultures and traditions. Awarded the Booker Prize in 1991 for The Famished Road, Okri has gone on to establish himself as an author of international repute. Here he discusses his childhood, the...

David Davis has led a remarkable career in politics. A Conservative MP for more than a quarter of a century, he was Brexit Secretary under Theresa May before resigning in 2018. Before that he resigned as Shadow Home Secretary and resigned his seat in order to fight a by-election in 2008 to draw attention to his concerns about the erosion of civil liberties under the New Labour government. He ran t...

Kate Mosse - not that Kate Moss - is a leading figure in women's literature. She co-founded the Women's Prize for Fiction in 1996 and has gone on to become a bestselling author herself. Her books have sold millions of copies, been translated into 38 languages and been published in more than 40 countries. Labyrinth is her best known work and she has just released The Ghost Ship, the third in a four...

The British Empire and its legacy have increasingly been close to the heart of public discourse, capturing the academic and popular imagination. What are the enduring impacts of Empire on Britain? How has decolonisation changed demographics? What is the relationship between British imperialism and racism? How have British attitudes to Empire changed? What do statues and their tearing down represen...

Isabella Tree is an award-winning author and travel writer who, together with her conservationist husband Charlie Burrell, has pioneered a rewilding project in West Sussex and turned an old family farm back into an environment from another era. Among the Longhorn Cattle, Exmoor Ponies and Tamworth Pigs that roam the landscape are Beavers, dozens of pairs of Nightingales, Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers...

James Comey was the director of the FBI between 2013 and 2017, when he was fired by Donald Trump. He is perhaps most famous for his decision to go public with his re-opening of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails just days before the 2016 Presidential election. Here he reflects on that decision, says that Trump reminded him of a 'mob boss' and that the former President is a "really bad...

Mike Brearley is considered England's greatest ever cricket captain with 18 wins and just four defeats. He masterminded the almost unimaginable turnaround in what became known as Botham's Ashes in 1981, creating legend in the process. With a first class degree in classics at Cambridge, he went on to become a psychoanalyst and here he talks about the psychology of cricket, explains his understandin...

Niki Segnit, the multi award-winning author of The Flavour Thesaurus, which has sold 250,000 copies, has brought out the sequel, The Flavour Thesaurus, More Flavours. In this episode of 20 Questions, Niki takes us on a mesmerising tour of the myriad flavours she experiments with in her new book. She mixes up the mostly plant-based ingredients to create exciting and mouth-watering combinations. How...

Jonathan Agnew, known to cricket lovers around the world as Aggers, leads the BBC's Test Match Special coverage. As BBC Radio's cricket correspondent, he covers all the big stories involving the sport, and his voice is familiar to many millions. Here he talks about his own playing days, bowling to Sir Viv Richards, injuring people with his fast bowling, his move into journalism and commentary, and...

Monty Panesar played 50 Tests for England, he took 167 Test wickets, helped his country become the number one side in the world, became the first English spinner to take five wickets in an innings at the WACA ground in Perth, rescued an Ashes Test with the bat, hit Muttiah Muralitharan for six, got Sachin Tendulkar out for his first Test wicket and became a fans' favourite. Here he explains his ar...

Jon Culshaw is one of Britain's best loved impressionists. Here he explains his art and impersonates Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak, Sir Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner, Sir John Major, Sir Tony Blair, George Bush, George W Bush, Russell Crowe, Les Dawson, Frank Bruno, Chris Eubank, Sir Michael Caine, Ann Widdecombe, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jordan Peterson, actor Brian Cox and Professor Brian Cox.

Simon Sebag-Montefiore is a bestselling and prize-winning writer of history and fiction. The descendent of a famous Jewish family and friends with King Charles, he is married to Santa Montefiore, herself a bestselling author. Here Sebag-Montefiore discusses his new book, 'The World, A Family History', and offers his insights into the future of America, India, China and Britain, as well as looking...

Martin Wolf, whose parents both escaped the Nazis, is one of the most respected economists in the world. Having formerly worked at the World Bank, he is a multi award-winning journalist and the Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times. Here he gives his take on the rise of China and India, the challenge to the United States, the cost of living crisis in Britain, the economic effects of B...

Adam Gopnik is one of America's foremost writers. He's worked at The New Yorker for nearly four decades and won three National Magazine Awards as well as a George Polk Award. Here he discusses his 10th book, The Real Work, in which he investigates the art of mastery, and offers precious insights into his own craft of writing. 

Martin Rees - or Baron Rees of Ludlow - is one of the most distinguished scientists of his generation anywhere in the world. A former President of the Royal Society (2005-10) and Master of Trinity College Cambridge (2004-12), Martin is the 15th Astronomer Royal since the role was created in 1675.  If you ever wonder whether there might be life out there somewhere; how a black hole the size of an a...

Why did the Conservative MP give up a dream job as Sports Minister? Why is she a Tory? Would she ever switch to Labour? What are her reflections on the issue of loneliness, something that can affect us all? What are her views on the crisis of small boats crossing the Channel? How did her experience of having cancer affect her outlook? What are her passions? Does she listen to her husband's BBC rad...