Tom Stoppard is perhaps the world’s leading, funniest and cleverest playwright. Ever since he hit the ground running in the 1960s with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, there has always been a streak of melancholy beneath the sparkling surface of his work. Now with his latest play, Leopoldstadt, he comes full circle and faces up to the pain and loss in his past. In this programme, he tells Alan Yentob his extraordinary story.

David Hockney undertakes a commission to design and install a stained-glass window in Westminster Abbey to commemorate the sixty-fifth year of Queen Elizabeth II's reign.

One of the most provocative and elusive figures in contemporary art finds himself the subject of Maura Axelrod's film. Catapulted to worldwide notoriety in 1999 by The Ninth Hour, a sculpture of Pope John Paul II toppled by a meteorite, Maurizio Cattelan's work has bordered on criminal activity (breaking into a gallery and stealing another artist's work) and regularly defies good taste - Him features Hitler in prayer and sold earlier this year for a whopping £12,000,000. Building his career on evasion, trickery and subversion, Cattelan is perhaps not the most reliable of interviewees, but ex-girlfriends, family members, collectors and dealers build a compelling and intimate portrait of an enigmatic figure. Bold, witty and playful as a Cattelan work itself, is this film really all it seems?

Alan Yentob joins South African artist William Kentridge as he prepares an epic frieze along the banks of the river Tiber in Rome. Alan visits him in his hometown of Johannesburg, the inspiration for the magical hand-drawn animated films he calls 'drawings for projection'. Brought up under apartheid, Kentridge has witnessed the fragile transition to a multi-racial democracy, and his art continues to reflect South Africa's turbulent times.

Alan Yentob profiles the most successful female architect there has ever been, the late Zaha Hadid, who designed buildings around the globe from Austria to Azerbaijan.

Alan Yentob meets sculptor Antony Gormley, creator of the iconic Angel of the North, and uncovers the influences that have shaped his life and work. Across a career spanning more than 40 years, Gormley has used sculpture as a means to examine the human condition. He explains how his strict Catholic childhood and his subsequent search for enlightenment in India influenced his decision to become a sculptor. 'If you are brought up a Catholic you may lose your Catholicism but the fact is it has marked you for life. And the need to replace its belief system with something else becomes your life's work.' Imagine shows rare archive footage of the creation of Gormley's key works, including the sculptor being fully encased in plaster to create casts of his own body, as well as footage of the installation of the Angel of the North. We also follow exhibitions this year in Paris, Florence and on Lundy Island.

For decades, Margaret Atwood has been universally acclaimed as Canada's greatest living writer. Fearlessly outspoken in life and in her work, Atwood has always been an unrelenting provocateur. Now at the age of 77, her star shines brighter and bolder than ever with an explosive television adaptation of her best-known work The Handmaid's Tale, which was first published in 1985. It is a dystopian work of speculative fiction set in the future, which has drawn comparison with aspects of Donald Trump's leadership, in particular the charges of misogyny which have inflamed anti-Trump campaigners across America. Alan Yentob meets Margaret Atwood in Toronto and discovers how a childhood spent between the Canadian wilderness and the city helped shape her vision of herself and the world, set alight her imagination and set her forth on a path to literary success.

Mel Brooks appears on stage with Alan Yentob, the creative director for the BBC, at the Geffen Theatre in California to review his extensive career as a writer, director, actor, producer, composer comedian, as well as his failed ballet dancing career. This special examines the early life of Mel Brooks, his show-business influences, early career and his showcases his ascension as one of Hollywood's most successful writers and directors.

Miriam Margolyes is one of Britain’s best loved and most provocative actresses. Across her eclectic career, she has played scene-stealing turns in Blackadder, voiced some of our most well-known adverts and found fame internationally as Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter films.

Twenty-something virtuoso multi-instrumentalist, singer and arranger Jacob Collier has managed to outdo The Beatles by winning Grammy Awards for each of his first four albums. Alan Yentob meets Jacob and musicians he has collaborated with, including Stormzy, Chris Martin and film composer Hans Zimmer. He also talks to music legends Quincy Jones and Herbie Hancock, who believe Jacob Collier is one of the most talented musicians on the planet today.