In a special edition of Front Row, Mark Lawson talks in a rare extended interview to writer John le Carré. As his latest book Absolute Friends is published, le Carré looks back at his childhood and his relationship with his father. He explains how his work for the British foreign service has influenced his writing and reflects on the current international political situation.

Mark Lawson talks to Barnes in his London home about his writing career, why his Who's Who entry is so enigmatically brief, and why he shrugs off the label of Francophile despite an enduring attraction to all things French.

Mark Lawson talks to Minette Walters on winning the 2003 Gold Dagger Award for the best crime novel.

Dame Muriel Spark talks to Mark Lawson at her home in Tuscany about her disastrous teenage marriage, the boyfriend who tried to sell her back her own letters and her conversion to Catholicism.

Mark Lawson talks to comedian Ricky Gervais about the second series of the award winning BBC TWO comedy, The Office.

Robert Hughes, art critic and author of a new book Goya, explains to Mark Lawson how the artist changed art forever.

John Wilson speaks with crime novelist and activist Walter Mosley, famously Bill Clinton's favourite author, of The Devil In A Blue Dress.

In Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery hangs perhaps the most well-known picture of Russia's most well-known ruler. Dimitri Levitsky's 1780 'Portrait of Catherine the Great in the Justice Temple' depicts Catherine in the temple burning poppies at an altar, symbolising her sacrifice of self-interest for Russia. Law books and the scales of justice are at her feet, highlighting her respectful promotion of the rule of law. But menacingly, in the background an eagle crouches, suggesting the means to use brutal power where necessary. This was one of many images that Catherine commissioned that demonstrated her skill at manipulation and reinvention.

With Mark Buchanan, physicist and author of Ubiquity; Professor Frank Close, theoretical physicist and author of Lucifer’s Legacy: The Meaning of Asymmetry; Nancy Cartwright, Professor of Philosophy, LSE.

These are the three laws of motion with which Newton founded the discipline of classical mechanics and conjoined a series of concepts - inertia, acceleration, force, momentum and mass - by which we still describe the movement of things today. Newton’s laws have been refined over the years – most famously by Einstein - but they were still good enough, 282 years after they were published, to put Neil Armstrong on the Moon.

First of two programmes which go behind the elegant facades of legal London to meet the barristers, clerks and staff of Outer Temple Chambers, one of London's leading law chambers, as they prepare for the biggest upheaval in their history: the full implementation of the 2007 Legal Services Act. Due to be fully implemented in 2012, the Act will produce greater competition in who can provide legal services. Many of the cosy arrangements of the past will be swept away, and barristers will need to show that they can provide the service and value for money that the public wants.

Second of two programmes which go behind the elegant facades of legal London to meet the barristers, clerks and staff of Outer Temple Chambers, one of London's leading law chambers.

This lecture examines how difficult it can be to tell friend from foe in a climate of fear. Organisations that are set up to overthrow dictatorships can themselves turn into tyrannical regimes. Liberation movements may be forced to seek help from dangerous quarters. And these days it is not just countries that control and direct the lives of their citizens. When the rule of law breaks down, shadowy forces set themselves up as "quasi-states" - and these, more than anything else, have produced today's climate of fear

Professor Amanda Vickery presents dramatised extracts from gripping Old Bailey court cases from the 18th century and discusses with fellow historians what they reveal about the period. In episode 1, Amanda Vickery listens to the voices of 18th-century highwaymen.

Professor Amanda Vickery presents dramatised extracts from gripping Old Bailey court cases from the 18th century and discusses with fellow historians what they reveal about the period. In episode 2, Amanda Vickery listens to the voices of criminal women in the Old Bailey.

Professor Amanda Vickery presents dramatised extracts from gripping Old Bailey court cases from the 18th century and discusses with fellow historians what they reveal about the period. In episode 3, Amanda Vickery listens to the voices of young children who found themselves in court.

Professor Amanda Vickery presents dramatised extracts from gripping Old Bailey court cases from the 18th century and discusses with fellow historians what they reveal about the period. In episode 4, Amanda Vickery listens to the voices of conmen and street fighters in the 18th century.

Set mainly in Berlin, this collection of short stories follows twenty-somethings as they try to add meaning into their lives. The backdrop is modern urban life, the characters see and experience the world of love, drugs, careers and family life we are all familiar with but they come to us with questioning wisdom, they show us their mistakes and flaws.

An innovative study of the relationship between Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini, two masters of the Italian Renaissance Andrea Mantegna (c. 1431-1506) and Giovanni Bellini (active c. 1459; died 1516) each produced groundbreaking paintings, marked by pictorial and technical innovations, that are among the masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance. Exploring the fruitful dynamic between Mantegna's inventive compositional approach and interest in classical antiquity and Bellini's passion for landscape painting, this fascinating volume examines how these two artists, who were also brothers-in-law, influenced and responded to each other's work. Full of new insights and captivating juxtapositions-including comparisons of each of the artist's depictions of the Agony in the Garden and the Presentation to the Temple-this study reveals that neither Mantegna's nor Bellini's achievements can be fully understood in isolation and that their continuous creative exchanges shaped the work of both.

Edgar Degas abandoned his law studies at the age of 18 to take up his career as an artist. He is best known for his charmingly evocative pictures of the ballet dancers at the Paris Opera. This book explores the life and works of this influential Parisian artist