Profile

Italy's famous couture couple Dolce & Gabbana have fallen out with Elton John over off-colour comments they made about IVF babies and gay families. But they have no shortage of fans. Becky Milligan profiles the characters behind one of the world's greatest - and most valuable - fashion empires. Producer: Chloe Hadjimatheou.

Mark Coles profiles the DUP's leader at Westminster, Nigel Dodds, one of a number of possible post-election kingmakers. Dodds, furious to find his party excluded from the leaders' debates, is now being watched carefully to see which - if any - other parties he might support in coalition. Nigel Dodds is conservative and religious. He is opposed to gay marriage and abortion and believes Britain woul...

Iraqi army and militia forces are fighting to take back Tikrit from the so-called Islamic State. Pulling the strings on the Iraqi side is an Iranian: Major-General Qassem Suleimani, the 'shadow commander' who has been described as the single most powerful operative in the Middle East. As the leader of the foreign branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guards - the Quds Force - Suleimani has emerged as Ira...

After a rocky campaign launch, the Green leader Natalie Bennett has been in the headlines this week. Mark Coles hears how she moved from journalism in provincial Australia to British politics, and has combined a love of cricket with feminist campaigning. How is she likely to fare amid the intense scrutiny of the coming election? Producer: Chris Bowlby.

The casually-dressed Greek finance minster Yanis Varoufakis has, in challenging the eurozone, become - almost overnight - one of the most important politicians in Europe. In this edition of Profile Mark Coles hears how Varoufakis grew up under the Greek colonels but was shaped by life in Thatcherite Britain before embarking on his unusually restless international career in economics. Producer: Chr...

Mark Coles profiles the former HSBC boss and trade minister Lord Green after an uncomfortable week in which revelations about HSBC's Swiss arm aiding tax evasion dominated the headlines. Once lauded as Britain's ethical banker, the ordained Church of England minister now finds himself under fire from the press and politicians. Producers: Keith Moore and James Melley.

Chris Bowlby profiles the veteran Labour MP and co-author of this week's report on hunger, Frank Field, who is one of the most unusual politicians in Britain. Variously described as "independent-minded" and a "free thinker" Field has been in Parliament for more than 30 years, representing Birkenhead, which contains some of the most deprived wards in the country. He had to fight off a hard left cha...

The presidential election in Afghanistan was drawn-out and controversial. The man who emerged as the winner is a United States-trained anthropologist who is described by friends as one of the world's leading intellectuals. Ashraf Ghani was born in Afghanistan, studied in Lebanon and the United States, and worked for years for the World Bank. As finance minister of Afghanistan he fell out with Pres...

One of the less likely political partnerships of recent years has been that of the Conservative Foreign Secretary William Hague and the Hollywood actor and director Angelina Jolie. They joined forces three years ago to campaign against rape as a weapon of war, and jointly hosted an international conference in London last summer. This week Mark Coles profiles the woman who brought them together; a...

Grace Mugabe has been an almost silent figure at her husband, Robert Mugabe's side for almost two decades. Now she is starting to flex her own political muscles, which some are interpreting as a bid for the Presidency. But does she have the skill and the support to secure the top job and a Mugabe dynasty? In December she will head Zanu-PF's Women's League which will make her one of the most powerf...

An insight into man of the moment, Benedict Cumberbatch. Code-breaker, physicist, Victorian sleuth. Overnight he became an object of obsession with a Cumber-cult following of adoring fans, spawning internet memes and slash fiction fantasies. What is it about Benedict Cumberbatch that makes the world go weak at the knees?

This week, with Republicans celebrating mid term election victories, Rand Paul - a Tea Party supporting ophthalmologist from Kentucky with only three years' experience in the Senate is fast emerging as one of the frontrunners to try to wrest the US Presidency back from the Democrats in 2016. Rand is part of a political dynasty although hardly from the Republican Party establishment. His father Ron...

Film director Christopher Nolan's latest $160m blockbuster Interstellar opens next week. Mark Coles examines the more humble beginnings of his film making career at University College London and asks how he has achieved the enviable knack of delivering huge box office takings and keeping the critics happy. Producer: Ben Carter.

Migration Watch UK's founder Sir Andrew Green is to become a member of the House of Lords. Presenter Jo Fidgen talks to Sir Andrew's old friends and colleagues in an attempt to find out what motivated this former ambassador to Syria and Saudi Arabia become one of the UK's most influential voices on immigration. Producer: Laura Gray.

Writer Richard Flanagan is the 2014 winner of the Man Booker Prize. His novel "The Narrow Road to the Deep North" is a story set among prisoners of war, forced by the Japanese to work on the Thai-Burma "death" railway. Presenter Becky Milligan looks into Flanagan's life in his native Tasmania where he is a prominent environmental campaigner and a regular at the local pub. She talks to Flanagan's c...

Douglas Carswell has become UKIP's first elected MP in Westminster. A free-thinking Eurosceptic Conservative, Carswell was never shy to criticise "our supine, spineless Parliament". Nonetheless his surprise defection in the summer shocked his friends and supporters. Ed Stourton asks what made him leave now and whether there's more to Douglas Carswell than jam-making and politics.

In January 2014 Benefits Street aired for the first time on Channel 4. The reality TV series, which documented the lives of residents of James Turner Street in Birmingham, was controversial right from the start. Ofcom and Channel 4 received hundreds of complaints. One straight-talking resident - Deirdre Kelly, also known as 'White Dee' - became the standout star of the show. Many of the headlines...

Ricky Tomlinson is a top TV actor with starring roles including Brookside and The Royle Family. But he has a controversial trade union past, and was once imprisoned for picketing during a strike. A new play about him has just opened. Mary Ann Sieghart discovers a powerful mix of politics and personal drama in his life and career. Producer: Ben Crighton.

How did Shane Smith - a hard-partying, tattooed former Ottawa punk rocker - turn a community magazine into an international multi-media empire? Mark Coles looks at the life of one of the founders of Vice, a man whose motto is: "We like our stories to punch you in the face." His company is the fast-growing enfant terrible of digital media. Renowned for its often controversial reports aimed at a you...

How did Jack Ma, a teacher with no business training, become one of China's - indeed, the world's - most successful entrepreneurs? The BBC's business editor Kamal Ahmed looks at the man behind the online retail giant Alibaba Group - a company described as a mix between Amazon and Ebay - which is due to list on the New York Stock Exchange later this month, making Alibaba one of the most valuable in...

Edward Stourton profiles Rona Fairhead, the woman nominated to replace Lord Patten as chair of the BBC Trust. She's a high achiever who excelled at school and in the world of business, but her nomination caught many by surprise. So who is she, and how will she fare in one of the BBC's toughest jobs?

There is every sign this weekend that Russia's proxy war with Ukraine could become a full-blown conflict between states. The crisis now coming to a head has been in the making ever since Ukraine declared its independence from Moscow in the summer of 1990. Edward Stourton profiles the Ukrainian leader, Petro Poroshenko, who must now face the challenge of war - and who came of age and flourished dur...

Sir Nicholas Macpherson, largely unknown outside Whitehall, has become a key figure in the Scottish independence debate. And as head of the Treasury since 2005, he's been at the centre of Britain's response to the global financial crisis. Chris Bowlby explains why he's so influential, and how his involvement in the Scottish debate is informed by personal links as well as policy considerations.

As Iraq's divisive Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki steps down, hopes are now pinned on his likely successor, Haider al-Abadi to restore trust with the Kurdish and Sunni communities and fight off the advance of the self-styled Islamic State's jihadist fighters. But what do we know about him? Mary Ann Sieghart charts the rise of the doctor's son from Baghdad, who gained a doctorate in electrical engi...

Jo Fidgen explores the life and times of Karren Brady, successful in business, TV star in The Apprentice and now a rising political star in the Conservative party. How did she succeed in the male-dominated business of football, and where might her career now take her? Producer: Chris Bowlby Editor: Innes Bowen.