Goya

Poly Styrene was born Marie Joan Elliot-Said in 1957 and went on to become front woman of X-Ray Spex. When Pauline Black first saw her on Top of the Pops, Poly was wearing a red military jacket and ca...

15 Aug 27min

Laurence Olivier, Baron Olivier of Brighton, was born in Dorking in 1907. He's best known these days for roles in films ranging from Wuthering Heights to Spartacus to the ageing Nazi hunter Ezra Liebe...

14 Aug 27min

Naji al-Ali was one of the best known cartoonists in the Arab world. His creation, a little boy called Handala, always stands with his back to the viewer, hands behind his back, watching whatever Naji...

2 Juni 27min

"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety." She's the most famous character in antiquity, made more famous by Shakespeare and Hollywood films. But this Cleopatra is not the one Kat...

1 Juni 27min

Ade Edmondson - star of The Young Ones, The Comic Strip Presents, Bottom and much more besides - chooses the singer Sandy Denny. "I think a large part of my Englishness comes from Sandy Denny," he say...

19 Maj 27min

Tony Garnett was born in Birmingham and, after a brief career as an actor, found a new role behind the scenes of The Wednesday Play. These rapidly gained a reputation in the sixties for social realism...

19 Maj 27min

Peter Cook was at the centre of the satire boom of the early sixties, both on stage with Beyond the Fringe and with his Soho club, The Establishment. Later he became a famous double act with Dudley Mo...

19 Maj 27min

Writer and podcaster Coco Khan nominates the little-known but formidable Edith Garrud, a woman who turned Edwardian expectations on their head. A pioneer of ‘Suffrajitsu’, she taught women Japanese ma...

19 Maj 27min