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Victorian hospitals were known as 'houses of death' and their surgeons, who never washed their hands, were praised for their brute strength and speed. Lindsey Fitzharris tells Andrew Marr about the pioneering British surgeon Joseph Lister who transformed his profession. Anaesthesia was discovered in the 1840s but Professor Lesley Colvin says we're still learning about the complex relationship between the brain and the perception of pain, as well as understanding the potential harm of the increased use of strong opiates. Pain is common to all humans, but could - and should - robots feel pain? This is the question Dr Beth Singler poses in a new film exploring the limits of Artificial Intelligence. And if they are programmed to feel pain, should they also be taught to swear? Dr Emma Byrne looks at the science of bad language and why it can also be harnessed to reduce pain. Producer: Katy Hickman.

'I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore'. These are the words of the news anchor-man in the film Network, now adapted for the stage. The director Ivo van Hove tells Francine Stock how this satire on global capitalism and chasing ratings with populist rants has such relevance today. Composer Nico Muhly also looks to Hollywood, adapting Hitchock's film Marnie - and the novel that inspired it - for the English National Opera. Born into poverty, Marnie becomes trapped in a web of lies and angrily claws her way out. Anger pervades Darren McGarvey's book, Poverty Safari, as he takes the reader on a journey into Britain's deprived communities to give voice to people who feel misunderstood and unheard. He explores how stress pervades the streets where he was brought up, while the scientist Caroline Relton studies how stress and other environmental factors can be passed down through generations, affecting our genetic make-up. Producer: Katy Hickman.

Andrew Marr discusses the work of Joseph Conrad with his biographer Maya Jasanoff. Conrad wrote about the underbelly of colonialism, terrorism, immigration and isolation and Jasanoff looks at the turn of the twentieth century through the lens of his life and work. While Conrad's Nostromo reflected the changing world order with the emerging dominance of the US and global capitalism, the FT columnist Gideon Rachman looks at the decline of the West amidst the growing power of the East, as well as reflecting on Britain's imperial amnesia. A young George Orwell was also part of the British colonial system in its slow death throes in Burma and the academic Robert Colls explores how these experiences shaped his later work. Ishion Hutchinson has been called a post-colonial poet and his latest collection is haunted by Jamaica's fractured past. Producer: Katy Hickman.