Midweek: Diverse Conversation

Libby Purves meets sailor Matt Rutherford; Matthew Du Aime, son of the late author William Wharton; Charlie & Louise Mortimer, on letters from their father Roger; and cartoonist Bill Stott.

Libby Purves meets writer Richard Mabey who has written a book entitled Turned Out Nice Again; Sugar Girls Gladys Hudgell and Eva Rodwell who worked at the Tate and Lyle factory in the early fifties; Ellen Ullman who worked as a soft ware engineer but is now a novelist and Mexican artist Pedro Reyes who is having his first UK solo show entitled Disarm. In this exhibition he turns guns into fully workable musical instruments.

Libby Purves meets amateur scientist and snail expert Ruth Brooks; interior designer Nicky Haslam; tax adviser Kieran Holmes; and composer and producer Nitin Sawhney.

Libby Purves meets Dr Kevin Fong an anaesthetist with an interest in how the body responds to extremes; Lin Jammett, son of the artist Elisabeth Frink; chef Wolfgang Puck; and actor and raconteur Leslie Jordan.

Libby Purves meets escapologist Jonathan Goodwin, artist Simone Sandelson, singer/songwriter Curtis Stigers and gardener Christine Walkden.

Libby Purves meets Will Moult, a Romanian orphan, adopted by a British couple, actor Diana Quick, director of physical theatre Cal McCrystal and sculptor Nic Fiddian-Green.

Libby Purves meets poet Owen Sheers; Stephen Grady who spent his boyhood in the French Resistance and Michael Wright who helped him write his memoir Gardens of Stone. Also on the programme was singer Michael Ball who has a new cd out called Both Sides now and Ffion Jones who has just been appointed the first female brewer at SA Brain brewery in Cardiff.

Libby Purves meets tenor Toby Spence, photographer Sonia Audhali, journalist and academic Andrew Solomon and nature writer Esther Woolfson.

Libby Purves meets psychologist Dr Bertolt Meyer who is presenter of Channel 4 documentary How to Build a Bionic Man; actor Trader Faulkner who worked with Sir John Gielgud and was mentored by Peter Finch and has just pubished his memoir Inside Trader; Scott Albrecht who along with his wife has taken into his house the homeless and asylum seekers and film maker Jessica Fox who has written a book called Three Things You Need to know About Rockets about moving from California to Scotland and finding love.

Libby Purves meets Rob Forkhan who lost his parents in the Boxing Day tsunami and has now set up a footwear business which is helping their charity Orphans for Orphans in India; Sir Michael Parker who is behind over 300 public events including the Queen's Silver Jubilee celebrations; poet Hannah Lowe who recites two poems from her debut collection Chick which is about her late father and the youngest Osmond -Jimmy.

Ten years on, Libby Purves meets writer and broadcaster Peter Snow, theatre director Sir Trevor Nunn, adventurer Debra Searle and paralympian Mike Brace.

Libby Purves meets Maddy Prior and Andy Watts of the Carnival Band, actor Simon Callow, former publican Eddie Johnson and marine investigator John Lang.

Libby Purves meets 'showman' turned Oxford undergraduate Shelby Holmes, actor John Lithgow, climber Nick Bullock and businessman David Green.

Libby Purves meets silversmith Jocelyn Burton, biographer Michael Holroyd, Strictly judge Bruno Tonioli and memory champion Jonathan Hancock.

Libby Purves is joined by singer Joe Brown, theatre producer Bill Kenwright, artist and taxidermist Katrina van Grouw and writer Liam Carson.