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Cultures come together at the Birmingham Festival

Highlights of the Birmingham Festival in the UK

• 28 mins

Simon Gray's hero returns – after 25 years

Simon Gray explains why he has brought Simon Hinch back to life, 25 years on

• 28 mins

What are Museums for?

What is the purpose of museums now – and how should we remember the painful past?

• 28 mins

Surely Sherlock wasn't French –Ìýor was he?

Why French fans are claiming Sherlock Holmes as one of their own

• 28 mins

The trial of Shakespeare's Daughter

Peter Whelan's play about Shakespeare's daughter Susanna Hall who was accused of adultery

• 28 mins

The Railway Man's path to Forgiveness

The Railway Man is Eric Lomax's prize-winning memoir of being a PoW on the Burma railway

• 28 mins

Blood on the Floor – from painting to music

Composer Mark-Anthony Turnage talks about writing Blood on the Floor, premiered this week

• 28 mins

God Bless John Wayne, says Kinky Friedman

Cult crime writer Kinky Friedman talks about his new novel, God Bless John Wayne

• 28 mins

Tolstoy's War and Peace

Discussing Leo Tolstoy's novel on a grand scale, War and Peace

• 27 mins

Dramas at the Tony Awards

The 50th Annual Tony Awards in New York create as many dramas as prizes

• 28 mins

The World of Federico Fellini

Life and works of Italian film-maker Federico Fellini

• 27 mins

Leon Kossoff – a Life in Paint

Leon Kossoff exhibition in London is this post-war British painter's first retrospective

• 28 mins

Gaader's new Philosophical Adventure

Norwegian Jostein Gaarder talks about his latest philosophical novel with a teenage hero

• 28 mins

Encounter between Skating and Dance

Classical ballet meets skating in Encounters, choreographed by ice dancer Christopher Dean

• 28 mins

Claes Oldenburg –ÌýLarger than Life

Sculptor Claes Oldenburg talks about his life, work and his exhibition in London

• 27 mins

Francis Bacon is the toast of Paris

The Francis Bacon exhibition at the Pompidou is the hottest ticket in Paris

• 31 mins

Mario Vargas Llosa – Death in the Andes

Mario Vargas Llosa's latest novel is a thrilling mix of modern politics and ancient myth

• 28 mins

Four helpings of Sam Shepard

Season of four plays by debunker of American dreams, Sam Shepard

• 28 mins

How things came together for Chinua Achebe

Why Chinua Achebe's first novel, Things Fall Apart, made such a big impact in 1958

• 28 mins

Paul Theroux's novel double act

Where does the real Paul Theroux begin and end in his new novel, My Other Life?

• 28 mins

John Gabriel Borkman opens with a stellar Cast

Stellar cast for Ibsen's play John Gabriel Borkman at London's Royal National Theatre

• 28 mins

Philip Pullman's Northern Lights has the winning 'tingle factor'

Northern Lights by Philip Pullman has won the Carnegie Medal

• 28 mins

Lulu joins Glyndborne's 'naughty girls'

Alban Berg's opera Lulu is staged for Glyndbourne by Graham Vick

• 28 mins

Fast Greens – Games of Golf and Life

Turk Pipkin's self-published golfing novel, Fast Greens, became an instant bestseller

• 28 mins

Who were Puccini's Bohemians?

Why is Puccini's Bohemia located in Paris – and who were these Bohemians really?

• 28 mins

Benedict Arnold – Hero or Villain?

RSC's premiere of The General from America by Richard Nelson

• 30 mins

View from the Eye of Desert Storm

Maj Gen Patrick Cordingley talks about his Gulf War diaries

• 28 mins

Lolita at 40

The story of how Lolita, the controversial novel by Vladimir Nabokov, came to be published

• 28 mins

Dancing Hamlet in Denmark

Hamlet, a new ballet by Peter Schaufuss, receives its world premiere at Elsinore, Denmark

• 28 mins

Writing about Writing about Sex

Why Must a Black Writer Write about Sex? – by Haitian-born writer Danny Laferriere

• 28 mins