Start the Week

On Start the Week Andrew Marr explores the question of citizenship. While immigration issues dominate political debate, little attention is paid to the big increase in the number of people becoming British. The academic Thom Brooks and the Eurosceptic MEP Daniel Hannan look at the relationship between the two and the challenges for modern UK citizenship. Ben Rawlence spent four years reporting the stories of those who are stateless, living in the largest refugee camp in the world, while Frances Stonor Saunders explores the increasing complexity of today's border regimes and the obsession with the verified self. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe talks to the Egyptian writer Alaa Al Aswany about his latest novel which charts the country's social upheaval through the prism of Cairo's elite Automobile Club of Egypt. The foreign correspondent Wendell Steavenson looks back at the Egyptian revolution as the crowds gathered in Tahrir Square in 2011. The political economist Tarek Osman explores how Islamism has spread through the Middle East, and what its future prospects mean for the region, while Professor Hugh Kennedy charts the rise of the Caliphate and how the so-called Islamic State uses the iconography of early Islam as propaganda.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks at Russia from the heyday of the Soviet Empire to its transformation under Putin. The historian Simon Sebag Montefiore writes about the Romanovs, the most successful dynasty of modern times, while Amanda Vickery highlights a moment of defiance and triumph during WW2's siege of Leningrad. The journalist Arkady Ostrovsky charts the huge changes that have taken place, from Perestroika to corporate state. And David Aaronovitch explores the emotional pull of communism in Britain through the story of his family and their ties to The Party. Producer: Katy Hickman.

Andrew Marr presents a special edition of Start the Week, celebrating the later life and works of William Shakespeare. Recorded at the Globe's candle-lit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, the actor Simon Russell Beale and Artistic Director Dominic Dromgoole discuss the late romances. The writer Jeanette Winterson explores her personal connection to The Winter's Tale, and the academic Katherine Duncan-Jones questions whether Shakespeare ever gave up on life in London to retire to Stratford-upon-Avon, and the relevance of his will that left his wife their 'second-best bed'. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week, as the first Briton heads into space for two decades, Andrew Marr explores the future of space travel. Kevin Fong is an expert in space medicine and in this year's Royal Institution Christmas Lectures looks at how to survive in outer space. The Astronomer Royal Martin Rees questions whether human space travel is worth the money or the risk, while the astrophysicist Carole Haswell searches distant galaxies for habitable exoplanets. Stephen Baxter is a writer of hard science fiction who, as a member of the British Interplanetary Society, investigates star ship design and extra-terrestrial liberty. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe picks through the remains of vanished buildings with the writer James Crawford. In his book, Fallen Glory, Crawford looks at the life and death of some of the world's most iconic structures. The conductor Semyon Bychkov explores why some music fades, and the enduring appeal of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. Julia Sallabank studies endangered languages and whether it's possible to revive indigenous languages on the verge of extinction. And it is origins which feature on Peter Randall-Page's latest sculpture: a naturally eroded glacial boulder carved with stories of creation myths from cuneiform to text speak. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks at the fortunes of Saudi Arabia. The academic Madawi Al-Rasheed challenges pre-conceived ideas about divine politics and uncovers the religious leaders, intellectuals and activists who are looking at modernising the country. William Patey is the former UK ambassador in the region and argues that although the House of Saud is resilient, strains are starting to appear. The American economist Deirdre McCloskey sees fault lines elsewhere in the country's failure to promote and encourage innovation; she believes that although Saudi Arabia has capital accumulation and oil, without creativity and ideas it will not flourish. The historian Ian Morris takes the long view as he studies 20,000 years of international relations and argues that each age and region gets the great powers it needs, and what that means for Saudi Arabia. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr explores goodness and its uneasy relationship with pleasure. The historian Robin Lane Fox looks to the work of Augustine and what is thought to be the first autobiography detailing the sinful excitement of youth before his anguished and hesitant conversion to Christianity. The philosopher Clare Carlisle explores Augustine's views on the link between desire and habit, while the psychoanalyst Adam Phillips asks why pleasure is more highly prized when it's perceived to be forbidden and guilty. Larissa MacFarquhar looks at the lives of those who have dedicated themselves to others and asks why do-gooders provoke deep suspicion in Western culture. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Mary Ann Sieghart takes a satirical look at the world with the novelist Jonathan Coe. His latest book is a state-of-the-nation satire which takes aim at politics, social media and inequality. It's the battle between ideals and pragmatism in the cynical world of the political elite of the 1920s which takes centre stage in the play Waste, famously banned when it was first written, now revived and directed by Roger Michell. The Times' political cartoonist, Peter Brookes, celebrates the power of the visual image to lampoon the country's leaders and the playwright Mia Chung explores whether satire can do justice to the questions raised by a regime like North Korea and talks about her latest play about two sisters fleeing the country. Producer: Katy Hickman.

Andrew Marr was in Paris on Friday to record a special edition of Start the Week about France. Hours later the Paris attacks happened. This programme is not about these attacks or Islamic State or the French role in the war in Syria, but it is a conversation about the political, cultural and religious fault lines in France from the 19th century to today. As BBC Radio 4 plans to broadcast a retelling of Emile Zola's 20 novel cycle, Les Rougon-Macquart, the journalist Anne-Elisabeth Moutet explores whether Zola is a 19th century gateway into understanding modern France. The novelist Agnès Desarthe has set her latest novel at the beginning of the 20th century and mixes the intimate with the great events of French history. The French Resistance is one of France's heroic myths and is central to the country's identity, but the historian Robert Gildea says the reality is far more complex. And contemporary France in all its complexity is represented in Karim Miské's thriller set among the radical Islamic preachers, Christian fundamentalists and corrupt police officers in one of the poorest suburbs of Paris. Producer: Katy Hickman.