The Culture Show : Episode List

Alastair Sooke presents a moving and intimate portrait of Henri Matisse, one of the 20th century's most celebrated artists, who famously moved from paint to collage late in life.

Talking about art matters a lot, according to Alastair Sooke - and follows little-known, but fast-growing speaking competitions, in which teenagers compete to talk eloquently and passionately about art.

The fragments of art that survive from the Viking age portray a far more mysterious side to a culture usually associated with raiding and pillaging, from the Oseberg wood carvings to the abstract animal ornamentation adorning jewellery. In this programme, Andrew Graham-Dixon explores the Vikings: Life and Legend exhibition at the British Museum, learning how the Norsemen created a network connecting their culture over four continents, and revealing the splendours of the art works they crafted

Author Tony Parsons is a boxing enthusiast and spars every week. He takes a journey through the cultural landscape of the 20th and 21st centuries, finding literary and artistic heavyweights including Ernest Hemingway,TS Eliot, Joyce Carol Oates, Picasso, Braque and Manet who shared his passion for the sport. He also reveals how a new generation is discovering that boxing has little to do with violence and everything to do with the search for self-knowledge

Writer and broadcaster Morgan Quaintance visits American tap dancer and choreographer Savion Glover in his home town of Newark, New Jersey, to discover more about his life, work and art. Morgan delves deeper into the history of the African-American tap dance style of which Glover is the leading contemporary exponent and examines the dancer's journey from Broadway prodigy to global star.