Episodes

The American playwright’s Death of a Salesman and The Crucible were hailed as classics. But his arraignment during the 1950s communist witch-hunts and his marriage to Marilyn Monroe also made headline news. The arts series returns with Miller, now 89, talking to Alan Yentob about his life and career, and also about his latest play, which documents the making of Monroe's last film.

In 1966 Brian Wilson, the creative hub of the Beach Boys, embarked on an ambitious project - an attempt to record the greatest pop album ever. Instead, Wilson descended into a breakdown that lasted for over 30 years. Now, with the record Smile finally on release, the troubled genius talks about the origins of the madness and majesty in his music.

A profile of the US contemporary artist whose sound installation is currently transforming the vast space of Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. The normally publicity-shy Nauman talks in detail about his oeuvre, while fellow artists Damien Hirst, Douglas Gordon and Tony Oursler offer their opinions of his work.

The brooding, raw and groundbreaking performances Marlon Brando gave in such films as A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront and The Godfather gave the actor an iconic status, despite his lifelong disdain for acting. Alan Yentob talks to Martin Scorsese , Francis Ford Coppola and Bernardo Bertolucci - as well as the Adler family of New York, with whom he was long associated - to piece together a portrait of a highly complex man.

Will the staging of Wagner’s Ring Cycle provide a fitting climax to Antonio Pappano’s critically acclaimed first year as music director of the Royal Opera House? Alan Yentob follows the Italian conductor as he works on the opera and his many other projects, and charts Pappano’s distinguished musical career.

It begins with the extraordinary story of the technology that made it all possible: steel cage construction and the lift. Elisha Otis’s demonstration of his safety lift was the star turn at the New York Worlds Fair in 1854, run by the great American showman, PT Barnum. This streak of showmanship and element of popular entertainment runs through the New York skyscraper’s golden age.

The skyscraper goes global, as Alan Yentob continues to chart the history of tall buildings, examining the cultural legacy of the tower and the rise of a new super class of sky-high buildings.

There are now more tall buildings in the Far East than in North America – the traditional home of the skyscraper – while China, the world’s largest country and fastest-growing economy, is building cities at a rate unprecedented in the history of mankind.