A.N. Wilson

AN Wilson explores the life and work of TS Eliot. From The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock to The Waste Land and from Ash Wednesday to Four Quartets, Wilson traces Eliot's life story as it informs his greatest works.He explores how Eliot's realisation that he and Vivien were fundamentally incompatible influenced The Waste Land and examines how Eliot's subsequent conversion to Anglicanism coloured his later works. Wilson concludes his journey by visiting some of the key locations around which the poet structured his final masterpiece, Four Quartets. Eliot's poetry is widely regarded as complex and difficult; it takes on weighty ideas of time, memory, faith and belief, themes which Wilson argues have as much relevance today as during the poet's lifetime. And whilst hailing his genius, Wilson does not shy away from confronting the discomforting and dark side of his work - the poems now widely regarded as anti-Semitic.

Patricia Routledge, as patron of the Beatrix Potter Society, presents a documentary on the author's life and work.

Historian and author AN Wilson explores the life of Josiah Wedgwood. Wilson reveals the achievements of the self-made, self-educated creative giant famous for his pottery.

C.S. Lewis's biographer A.N. Wilson goes in search of the man behind Narnia, a highly secretive man whose personal life was marked by the loss of the three women he most loved.

An examination of the life of great Russian author Leo Tolstoy, who penned the 1877 novel Anna Karenina.

Professor Saul David examines Prince Albert's role in shaping British culture, governmental policy and international relations in Victorian Britain.

This is the story of Queen Victoria as never heard before; a psychological insight of the woman told through her own words, her experiences recounted solely through her personal diaries and letters.

In 1977, after a fourteen year dry spell, the novelist Barbara Pym was nominated for a Booker Award for her novel, Quartet in Autumn. This drama documentary biopic sees Patricia Routledge as Pym and follows the day of the prize presentation, as she observes people and reminisces about life and love.

No profession, no say, no freedom of expression. Life as a prince consort is not exactly pleasure taxing. No constitution ascribes any function to the husband of a queen. Nowhere does it say what he must or must not do. A life in the shadow of the crown. Can that go well?

AN Wilson travels back to a landscape of beautiful houses and churches, beaches and seaside piers, where he reveals the life and work of poet and broadcaster Sir John Betjeman.

An alternative history of the British Isles, told through art. Looking at 1,500 years and eight dramatic turning points, acclaimed artists and thinkers encounter key historic art works from across the UK that have shaped the history of the British Isles and inspired their own work.

With Nicholas Rowe, Helen Rappaport, Lucinda Hawksley, Matthew Sweet.

This topical debate series based on Any Questions? typically features politicians from at least the three major political parties as well as other public figures who answer pre-selected questions put to them by a carefully selected audience.

Four kings from the House of Stuart sat on the English throne from 1603 to 1688. It was a time of great religious struggle and political instability. The Gunpowder Plot nearly wiped out King James I. The Thirty Years War broke out on the continent. A civil war erupted which led to the public beheading of King Charles I and the birth of a commonwealth headed by Oliver Cromwell. London was ravaged by the plague and the Great Fire of London. Throughout this series we look at the reign of the Stuarts through the powerful Wynn family at Gwydir Castle in North Wales, one of the best time capsules from that era. The story of the Wynn family reflects the turbulent history of this Stuart era. They had close connections with this new royal house and their status would rise and fall with the successes and failures of Stuart rule.