Midweek - 21/12/2011

This week Libby Purves is joined by Alistair Sutcliffe, Martha Fiennes, Celia Imrie and Amanda Vickery.

Alistair Sutcliffe is a GP who became the first man to summit the highest mountain on each of the seven continents at the first attempt. He subsequently suffered a near fatal brain haemorrhage, and he describes his recovery as the most difficult climb of all in his book 'The Hardest Climb', published by Blue Moose.

Martha Fiennes is a filmmaker, whose films include Onegin and Chromophobia. She also directs television commercials. For her latest project she has created her first digital installation, Nativity, a completely self-generating technological art-work based on the Christmas Nativity scene, on display in a specially constructed chalet in London's Covent Garden piazza.

Celia Imrie plays Dotty Otley who plays Mrs Clackett, in Michael Frayn's 'Noises Off' at the Old Vic. She is perhaps best known for her regular characters in the award-winning TV series Acorn Antiques and Dinnerladies. Her many screen credits include Calendar Girls, Hilary and Jackie, and Aunt Una Alconbury in the Bridget Jones films and she will soon be seen on the big screen in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

Amanda Vickery is the historian, writer and broadcaster and Professor of Early Modern History at Queen Mary College, University of London. She presents a BBC Two documentary 'The Many Lovers of Miss Jane Austen' to mark the 200th anniversary of the publication of Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen's first novel. She explores her enduring popularity through her plots and characters.

Producer: Lucinda Montefiore.