Private Passions

The Right Honourable Sir Keir Starmer is the seventh Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.Prior to his political career, he was a barrister and served as Director of Public Prosecutions. He was elected as a Member of Parliament in 2015 and became Labour leader in 2020.A former Guildhall School of Music scholar, Sir Keir Starmer is a flautist but also played piano, recorder, and violin in his youth.He shares his love of music including works by Beethoven, Mozart, Shostakovich and Brahms.Presenter: Michael Berkeley Producer: Clare Walker

Hollie McNish has been writing poems about – as she puts it – ‘anything and everything’ since she was seven years old. Her work now reaches audiences of millions, through her books, performances and short videos, making her one of the UK’s most widely shared poets. In 2017 she won the Ted Hughes Award for her book Nobody Told Me, a collection of poetry and diary entries that she kept from the moment she discovered she was pregnant until her daughter was three. She has published six other collections, including her most recent, Virgin, which explores how one six letter word holds such power. Her choices include music by Telemann, Joseph Bologne Chevalier de Saint-George, Nina Simone and Tchaikovsky. Presenter Michael Berkeley Producer Clare Walker

The pioneering choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh has produced more than 60 original works, many of them created for outdoor or unusual settings.She was born in India and came to England in her late teens to study English literature at Sussex University. She had learned classical Indian dance as a child and in her early twenties, she drew on that passion, touring first as a dancer and then founding her own dance company in 1989 to develop her own work.Since then, she has collaborated with scientists, film-makers and numerous composers including Errollyn Wallen, Kevin Volans and Michael Nyman.Her most recent work is inspired by The Tempest, and views Shakespeare’s story through the eyes of Caliban, the so-called ‘monstrous’ slave.Shobana's music includes Mozart, Messiaen, Arvo Part and Purcell.

The actor Richard Armitage refuses to be pigeon-holed. He first made a national impact as the mill-owner John Thornton in the BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South. Audiences around the world know him as Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit trilogy, directed by Peter Jackson. He’s played a serial killer in Hannibal, a spy in Spooks, and has starred in four Harlan Coben thrillers on Netflix. He’s also written thrillers: the most recent is The Cut, which examines childhood trauma and the dangers of buried secrets - and also draws on his own musical experiences, because the main character, like Richard, plays the cello. His choices include works by Arvo Part, Mahler, Rameau, and Gluck. Presenter Michael Berkeley Producer Clare Walker

Deborah Prentice became the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge in 2023.She’s the first American to take on the role, and she’s leading the university at a challenging time for higher education in the UK, with questions about funding, freedom of expression, student protest, striking academics and even vice-chancellors’ pay never far from the headlines.Before Cambridge, she was Provost at Princeton University, and a professor of psychology, where she focused on the social norms that govern human behaviour and the impact of unwritten rules and conventions. And before that, her first degree at Stanford was in Biology and Music.Deborah's music choices include Beethoven, Bach, Mussorgsky and Ravel.

Mark Kermode began reviewing films 40 years ago, and has established himself as one of our most foremost critics, both in print and on air. He co-presents Screenshot on Radio 4 and the podcast Kermode and Mayo’s Take, with his long-term collaborator Simon Mayo. He’s said he goes to every screening hoping it will be the next Citizen Kane – but he’s also renowned for his energetic rants against the films he finds most disappointing. Music is another lifelong love – and for nearly 30 years he’s played double bass in The Dodge Brothers, a skiffle band who have also performed live soundtracks for silent movies. And film music is the subject of his most recent book, Mark Kermode’s Surround Sound, examining the complex relationship between what we hear and what we see. Mark's music includes Mica Levi, Strauss and Jelly Roll Morton.

The American director and choreographer Kathleen Marshall has been nominated for nine Tony awards, winning three times for Broadway productions of Wonderful Town, The Pajama Game and Anything Goes. She was the first woman to complete a trio of achievements - directing a play, directing a musical and choreographing a musical on Broadway.She also won an Olivier Award for her 2021 production of Anything Goes in London. It was the first big musical to open after numerous Covid lockdowns, and received an ecstatic welcome from audiences and critics alike, hungry to get back into a theatre and enjoy a hugely uplifting show. More recently she has directed Irving Berlin’s Top Hat in Chichester. Her musical choices include Mozart, Chopin, Tchaikovsky and Duke Ellington.

Dame Rachel de Souza is the Children’s Commissioner for England. She’s the fourth person to take on this role, which was established in 2004 to promote and protect the rights of all children. Before becoming the Commissioner in 2021, she worked as a teacher and headteacher, and was credited with improving failing schools in less than privileged areas. In her current post, she’s said that her priority is to listen to children, to hear about their lives and champion their voices – and she’s focused on big and difficult questions, including mental health, online safety and the strip-searching of children by the police. Rachel's music includes Handel, Tippett, Messiaen and Beethoven.

Daniel Katz is a renowned art dealer, collector and gallery owner who has very much beaten his own path through the tangled forests of the art world. Although he left school at the age of 14, his energetic curiosity brought him early success, making a profit of £15 on the first bronze he bought, and discovering something quite unexpected inside a grandfather clock. Danny is an expert on European sculpture, but has also branched out into new fields, including antiquities, Old Masters, Impressionist paintings and Modern British Art. He’s worked closely with museums, exhibitions and libraries around the world. Danny's choices include Schubert, Debussy, Sibelius and Bernstein.

Jay Griffiths first wanted to be a writer – an entity she believed to be a “god-like” creature - when she was just four years old and already captivated by words. And she’s fulfilled that early ambition. Her books include Wild, the product of seven years’ work, travelling to wildernesses including the Amazon rainforest, the Canadian Arctic and the Australian outback. She has also written very honestly about her experience of bipolar disorder in her book Tristimania: a Diary of Manic Depression. More recently, she’s reflected on the deep connections we have to animals and their ability to alleviate fear and trauma, under the title How Animals Heal Us. Jay's music selections include Sibelius, Rodrigo, Vivaldi and Debussy.

Gabriel Zuchtriegel is the director of Pompeii, one of the world’s most important ancient historical sites. It sits at the base of Mount Vesuvius, the still active volcano which erupted in 79AD and buried the city under volcanic ash and pumice, preserving a unique snapshot of life there nearly 2000 years ago.Gabriel grew up in Germany, where ruins and ancient myths first sparked his interest in our ancient past, and led him to study archaeology. Prior to Pompeii he oversaw Paestum, a site about 60 miles south of Vesuvius, celebrated for its three ancient Greek temples, dating back to about 500 BC. More recently, he has written a book called The Buried City: Unearthing the Real Pompeii - and new finds continue to be unearthed, as around a third of the site is still buried.Gabriel's music choices include Schubert, Mozart, Vivaldi and Bach.

The American singer songwriter Suzanne Vega released her first studio album almost exactly 40 years ago – and it soon found an audience, particularly here in the UK where it sold more than 300, 000 copies. Listeners responded to her understated, acoustic sound and thoughtful lyrics, in songs such as Marlene on the Wall and Luka. Another of her songs, Tom’s Diner, took on a life of its own. It’s been sampled by dozens of artists and one remix became a global hit.Suzanne recently released her tenth studio album, Flying with Angels, and will be embarking on a major tour with dates in England and Scotland later this year. Her mix of music includes Bartok, Rachmaninov, Philip Glass and Debussy. Producer: Clare Walker

Hilary Cottam is a writer, innovator and social entrepreneur who wants to find solutions for some of the most intractable problems of our time - from the design of prisons to how we provide care for the elderly and might end long-term unemployment. In her book Radical Help, she argued that we need to re-invent the Welfare State to match the challenges of the 21st century. In her most recent book, The Work We Need, she focuses on how we could re-imagine work in a way that benefits everyone, in a world facing immense technological change and ecological crisis. Hilary's choices include Pergolesi, Chopin, Schubert and Satie.

The comedian, writer and podcaster Adam Buxton first burst onto our TV screens 30 years ago. He and his friend Joe Cornish created The Adam and Joe Show, which featured pranks, songs and re-enactments of famous films like Titanic and Trainspotting using their childhood stuffed toys. Along with work on radio and film, an eye for the weird and wonderful quirks of music videos, and a multi-award winning interview podcast, he has also written two memoirs. The first, Ramble Book, included a very poignant account of his father’s final months, when he lived with Adam and his family until his death at the age of 91. More recently, his book I Love You Byeee! includes reflections on losing his mother – as he says, ‘to death – we didn’t get separated in a shop.’ And both books include plenty of musings on growing up and his many personal obsessions. Adam's musical choices include Ravel, Grieg and Thelonious Monk.

Philip Hoare is an award-winning writer whose books often describe the lure of the sea, the strange and beautiful creatures that live in it and the inspiration artists have found in its murky depths. His book Leviathan won the Samuel Johnson Prize: it drew on his lifelong obsession with whales, which began with the gigantic skeletons in the Natural History Museum and continued with his own encounters with them at sea. His most recent book, William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love, traces Blake’s enduring influence on numerous poets, writers, film-makers and musicians. He’s also written about Noel Coward, the British socialite Stephen Tennant and the Netley Military Hospital on Spike Island, near Southampton. His musical choices including Prokofiev, Britten and Copland. Producer Clare Walker