Start the Week

In a specially recorded edition of Start the Week Andrew Marr is at the Charleston Festival with Grayson Perry, Virginia Nicholson, Faramerz Dabhoiwala and Janice Galloway. As the home of Vanessa Bell, Virginia Nicholson's grandmother, Charleston was a by-word for sexual freedom and the Bohemian lifestyle. But Dabhoiwala insists that far from the 1920s being the time of real sexual revolution, tha...

On Start the Week Andrew Marr goes in search of ancient landscapes with the writer Robert Macfarlane. With a mix of geology, cartography and natural history, Macfarlane journeys on foot to explore ideas of pilgrimage, trespass and ancient pathways. Jonathan Meades is equally preoccupied with a sense of place, but turns his attention to its architecture and the futility of landmark buildings. Anna...

On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses the relationship between markets and morals with the political philosopher Michael Sandel. In his latest book, What Money Can't Buy, Sandel questions the dominance of the financial markets in our daily lives, in which everything has a price. But the economist Diane Coyle stands up for her much maligned profession, and points to the many benefits of a market...

On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses Spain's economic crisis, and the legacy of Franco. In the last decade Spain has begun to unearth some of the mass graves of the hundreds of thousands of people who were killed in the 1930s by both sides in the civil war. Paul Preston discusses what he calls the Spanish Holocaust and its impact on Spain today. Maria Delgado argues that the significance of Fra...

On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks into the digital future. Nick Harkaway dismisses fears of a digital dystopia in which distracted people, caught between the real world and the screen world, are under constant surveillance. He believes we need to engage with the computers we have created, and shape our own destiny. Simon Ings is the editor of a new digital magazine, Arc, which uses science ficti...

On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses creativity with the writer Jonah Lehrer. In his latest book, Imagine, Lehrer unpicks the creative process in both science and art, to ask where inventiveness and imagination spring from, and how they can be harnessed. Experimental sound artist, Scanner, talks about creating unique musical compositions and his latest collaboration with the Heritage Orchestra...

On St George's Day Andrew Marr discusses national identity and belonging. The playwright David Hare has written a companion piece to a Terrence Rattigan play, set in an English public school. George Benjamin is celebrated as one of England's leading composers, but how far is his work shaped by the French musical tradition? The Scottish writer Iain Banks discusses his novel, Stonemouth, set in a to...

Andrew Marr discusses the state of China with the authors Jonathan Fenby and Martin Jacques. Fenby attempts to draw together the whole of the China story to explore its global significance, but also its inner complexity and complexes. Martin Jacques has updated his bestseller, When China Rules the World, to argue that the country's impact will be as much political and cultural, as economic. But wh...

Andrew Marr talks to the prize-winning novelist, Peter Carey about his latest work, The Chemistry of Tears. At its heart is a small clockwork puzzle and Carey muses on how the industrial revolution has changed what it means to be human. The science writer Philip Ball goes back another century to the world of Galileo and Newton, to study the changes in thinking and knowledge embodied by the scienti...

On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks back at the political and cultural landscape of the last 20 years with the author Alwyn Turner. In 1992 Margaret Thatcher proclaimed 'the death of socialism' after the Conservative election victory, and Turner argues this moment led to a generation turning away from politics, putting their energy into culture. But Janet Daley believes that it wasn't John Major's...

On Start the Week Anne McElvoy talks to the filmmaker Werner Herzog about his latest documentary which gazes "into the abyss of the human soul", in its exploration of death row. Liz Mermin delves into the world of particle physics for her latest film venture, spending a year at CERN. While work there continues to try and understand the fundamental laws of nature, Mermin attempts to understand the...

Andrew Marr talks to the Nobel Prize winning author Nadine Gordimer. In her latest book she explores the tensions at the heart of a nation struggling to define itself post-apartheid, through the lives of an interracial couple in suburban South Africa. The past and present also collide in the poet Jack Mapanje's attempt to understand why he was arrested by the Malawian secret police, and imprisoned...

Andrew Marr talks to Colm Toibin about the ways writers write about families, and also the impact of their own often dysfunctional relationships - from Thomas Mann and WB Yeats, to the nightmares of John Cheever's journals. In her novel, The Children's Book, AS Byatt explored how far a writing mother can harm her children, and yet she argues that she'd prefer to know nothing about a writer's priva...

Andrew Marr celebrates middle age with the scientist David Bainbridge, who dismisses any suggestion of mid-life crisis, to argue that there's much more to middle age than just a period between youth and being old. The poet Simon Armitage asks in 'Knowing what we Know Now', whether we'd choose to live our life backwards once we got to the mid point, but the writer Deborah Moggach suggests there's a...

On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses faith and doubt. Richard Holloway started training for the priesthood from the age of 14, but as the former Bishop looks back on his life he reveals a restless spirit, always questioning his beliefs. Karen Armstrong has had similar crises of faith, and asks in a forthcoming talk, 'What is Religion?' For the 17th century Mexican nun, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz...

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe looks at how science has shaped our civilisation. Mark Miodownik explores how the discovery of new materials has transformed the way we live, from the Stone Age to the Silicon Age. While the mathematician Ian Stewart argues that calculations made centuries ago have led to untold innovations, and that mathematical equations really have changed our world. The natural...

On Start the Week Andrew Marr considers the 'great man' view of history, and how far an age can be represented by its leaders and innovators. Mary Beard looks back to ancient times when history and biography were considered two distinct genres. While John Guy returns to the reign of Elizabeth I, Max Hastings and Lola Young give an overview of the modern Elizabethan age. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks at the state of conservatism. Thomas Frank chronicles the rebirth of right-wing populism in the United States, with the resurgent Tea Party. It's a movement driven by ideology with a vision of utopian capitalism. At home right-wing commentators bemoan the lack of ideology at the heart of the government. Peter Hitchens argues for a political philosophy that stres...

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks revolution. Wael Ghonim explains how social networks played a vital role in the Arab Spring. His Facebook page,'We Are All Khaled Said', which featured the death of a young Egyptian, inspired a new generation to fight oppression. Mary King, Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies looks back to earlier struggles in eastern Europe, and the journalist Paul Mason ex...

Andrew Marr explores the idea of Justice on Start the Week. In a satire on the International Criminal Tribunal, the playwright Simon Stephens, asks how far such a court can deal with perpetrators of terrible crimes, when the accused neither recognises its authority, or shares its morality. Closer to home John Podmore looks back at 25 years as a prison governor and inspector, in a damning indictmen...

Andrew Marr looks for solutions to the current global crisis. Detlev Schlichter dismisses the practice of printing more money in times of recession, arguing that in the next decade our reliance on paper money will collapse, and he proposes a return to hard commodities, like gold. The historian Philip Coggan pits creditors against debtors, tax payers against public sector workers, and believes it's...

On Start the Week, Andrew Marr begins the new year with a look at austerity. Anna Coote argues that it's time to embrace a new set of values that are not dependent on high rolling consumerism and, as unemployment rises, to share out the working hours more evenly. The great chronicler of Austerity Britain of the fifties, David Kynaston, explores whether there are any lessons to be learnt from earli...

On Start the Week Andrew Marr visits the painter David Hockney to find out why he has swapped LA for East Yorkshire. Hockney takes him on a tour of the farm tracks and woods he has been painting near his home in Bridlington, and talks of his fascination at the changes of the season. In his vast studio hang pictures of increasing size and vibrant colour, many painted using his iPad. He might be in...

Andrew Marr discusses the idea of Christmas with Canon Giles Fraser who argues that the Christian Christmas was invented by the Emperor Constantine for political, not religious, reasons, 300 years after the birth of Christ. Canon Fraser will be discussing the idea that the legacy of Constantine's December feast distorts the message of Christ and casts a long shadow on modern believers. Clare Tomal...

On Start the Week Andrew Marr asks if sport still embodies a notion of fair play and Corinthian spirit, or whether it has become mired in corruption, money and celebrity. Mihir Bose argues that sport is no longer just a game, but has become one of the most powerful political tools in the world. The social historian Janie Hampton looks back to a time when amateur wasn't a dirty word, while Brian Mo...