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Andrew Marr talks to the conductor Semyon Bychkov about Tannhauser, Wagner's tortured artist, out of place in conventional society. While the scientist Mark Miodownik takes a measure of the world, and asks 'Does size matter?' in this year's Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. Author Susan Hill ponders kindness, grief and miracles and the television screenwriter Tony Jordan forsakes EastEnders to take on 'the greatest story ever told', the Nativity. Producer: Katy Hickman.

Andrew Marr talks to the choreographer Matthew Bourne about his vision for Cinderella, while the dance critic, Jennifer Homans sounds the death knell for ballet in her history of the art form. David Aaronovitch also asks whether Freud has had his heyday, in his examination of the continuing significance of the father of psycho-analysis, while the psychotherapist, Jane Haynes, celebrates the enduring appeal and relevance of Proust. Producer: Katy Hickman.

Andrew Marr travels back to Egypt in the 1950s to a time of religious pluralism and openness with the writer Tarek Osman. As Egypt votes in parliamentary elections, Tarek, asks what has happened in the intervening years. Francis Spufford imagines a very different world with his account of the Soviet Union under Kruschchev, and what could have happened if the dream of plenty had come true. Turkey's best-selling female novelist, Elif Shafak, argues against the constraints of identity politics and the pigeon-holing of multi-cultural writers. While Vicky Kaspi believes that we should be looking to outer space to stimulate curiosity and creativity: the astrophysicist and cosmologist researches some of the universe's most mysterious objects. Producer: Katy Hickman.