The Interview

Stephen Sackur talks to one of Britain's leading brain surgeons, Henry Marsh. Imagine you are a patient, about to undergo brain surgery. If it goes well it will save your life; if it goes wrong you could end up paralysed or dead. Of course you want to believe your surgeon is infallible, a superhero - but he is not; he is all too human just like you. That simple truth emerges from the extraordinarily honest writing of Dr Henry Marsh. He has given us rare insight into the mind of the doctor - is it reassuring or troubling?(Photo: Dr Henry Marsh in the Hardtalk studio)

31 Aug 201623min

HARDtalk’s Shaun Ley speaks to former UK Labour politician Derek Hatton. In the blue corner, a formidable woman Prime Minister with an enviable opinion poll lead; in the red corner, a left-wing leader of the opposition seen by many on his own side as unelectable. It's how things look today as they did in the mid-1980s when Derek Hatton was the poster boy of Britain's far left. Confronting Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher over funding for his home city of Liverpool, he gambled by threatening 30,000 council workers with redundancy and lost. He was expelled by the Labour Party. Now Jeremy Corbyn is leader, Derek Hatton wants to come back. Is British politics returning to the ideological clashes of the 1980s?

29 Aug 201623min

HARDtalk’s Shaun Ley speaks to Majak D’Agoôt, former deputy Defence Minister of South Sudan. It took half a century of civil war to give South Sudan its independence. Just five years later, leading figures from the independence struggle are calling for the UN to take charge. Majak D’Agoôt fought in the war of independence, became deputy minister of defence, but was sacked by the President and is now in exile. Have South Sudan's politicians failed their starving, displaced people or was the South never viable as a separate country in the first place?

26 Aug 201623min

Stephen Sackur talks to the British surgeon David Nott who has spent decades working in conflict zones, including Syria. Amid the appalling toll of civilian death in Syria the loss of hundreds of doctors and medical staff stands out as an especially grievous loss. Many have been bombed in their clinics and hospitals. Now he is focused on training doctors to work in conflict conditions; but does Syria tell us medical personnel can no longer expect any protection in war?(Photo: British surgeon David Nott in the Hardtalk studio)

24 Aug 201623min

In the public mind, Dame Diana Rigg will forever be linked with performances which were almost a sideshow in her long career. Her roles as Mrs Peel in The Avengers and as Bond girl Tracy di Vicenzo in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service attracted huge attention, but it’s in the theatre that she's won critical acclaim and a host of awards. Now she has an iconic role in the hit series Game of Thrones - what's the secret to a great acting performance?Picture: Diana Rigg, Credit: Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images

22 Aug 201623min

Stephen Sackur talks to the influential contrarian economist, Steve Keen. It's a good time to be an economist who swims against the tide of conventional wisdom. After all the last decade has seen classical economics take a beating: the great financial crash wasn't supposed to happen, nor was the prolonged eurozone stagnation. Now the liberal economic consensus tells us that Brexit will be a disaster, but should we believe it? Amid all the argument do any economists deserve our trust?Picture: a pile of coins, Credit: Thinkstock

19 Aug 201623min

HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur talks to Al Sharpton, the veteran, often controversial, civil rights campaigner. One of the bleaker themes of Barack Obama's presidency has been the crisis in relations between black America and the criminal justice system. We've seen unarmed black men shot dead by the police and officers gunned down in what appear to be acts of vengeance. A new movement Black Lives Matter has given voice to anger on the streets. Who speaks most effectively for black America today ?

17 Aug 201623min

HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur talks to veteran US diplomat and now foreign policy adviser to the Clinton campaign, Nicholas Burns. To put it mildly the Washington foreign policy making establishment doesn't like Donald Trump. But are there reasons to worry about Hillary Clinton's foreign policy vision ? Is she an unreconstructed military interventionist ? Is the Clinton world view out of step with America's mood ?

15 Aug 201623min