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Ian's guests this week are Gabrielle Drake, Keith Ridgway, Ben Marcus and Christopher Green

Nick Drake was a musician and song-writer, whose unique style led critics to wonder about his influences - he died when he was only twenty-seven. It now transpires that Nick's mother Molly was also a song-writer, and her music and poetry have just been released for the first time. Actress Gabrielle Drake, Nick's sister, discusses Molly's writing and the influence she had on their creativity. The album 'Molly Drake' is out now (Bryter Later).

Keith Ridgway's latest novel is the multi-layered and unpredictable 'Hawthorn and Child' (Granta). He's here with the first in our commissions on the idea of 'Fairy Tales for Mid-life', asking what happens to our lives if we stop trying to make stories out of them.

The novelist Ben Marcus's latest strange world is The Flame Alphabet (Granta), which imagines a place where words have a dangerous power, and language, particularly that spoken by children, can be deadly. Ben discusses the difficulties of communicating across the generations.

Christopher Green is a performance artist whose characters include the much loved Tina C and Ida Barr. Christopher presents a song from his latest incarnation, 'The Singing Hypnotist', he also discusses the language of hypnotism throughout history, which he researched as 'Artist in Residence' at the British Library. The Wellcome Trust are funding him to continue developing and researching the act.

Produced by Faith Lawrence.