The muse in history, Andrew Miller, Vanity Fair, Neil Simon remembered

Andrew Miller, who won the Costa Book of the Year Award for his novel Pure, discusses his new book Now We Shall Be Entirely Free, an adventure story set during the Napoleonic wars.

We consider how the idea of the artist's muse has changed over time, and ask what makes a modern muse? With art critic Louisa Buck, novelist and critic Matt Thorne and Andrew Miller.

As the latest TV adaptation of William Thackeray's Vanity Fair hits our screens this weekend, Emma Bullimore reports from the set, where she speaks to Olivia Cooke, who stars as Becky Sharp, the consummate and shameless social climber, as well as screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes and Michael Palin, who plays the narrator Thackeray.

Neil Simon, the pioneering playwright who set a new tone in theatrical comedy with such shows as The Odd Couple and captured the spirit of the middle-class American family with plays like Lost in Yonkers, has died. Critic Michael Carlson pays tribute.

Presenter : Samira Ahmed Producer : Dymphna Flynn.