Russell Watson, Jackie Kay, Deborah McAndrew and Adam Kay join Nihal with music from The Lemon Twigs

Loose Ends

The tenor Russell Watson's remarkable career took him from playing from working mens clubs in Salford to performing at the Vatican. But his life hasn't been completely charmed - he discusses the brain tumour that threatened his life as well as his voice and how he found his way back to centre stage.

Jackie Kay is one of the UK's most lauded poets who turned to writing as a child as a sanctuary from the difficulties of life as an adopted, if much loved, half-Nigerian child in Scotland. A new BBC One documentary tells her story "In Her Own Words"; we'll be asking why she wanted to do that.

Doctor-turned-comedian-turned-author Adam Kay’s first book This Is Going To Hurt sold over 3 million copies and was adapted into a multi award-winning TV series. Now he's taken another career turn into children's fiction with a new character – Dexter Procter, the ten year old doctor.

As an actress Deborah McAndrew played Angie Freeman on Coronation Street in the 1990s. She left the Rovers Return behind long ago for a career as a writer and her latest play tells the story of the night an Unidentified Flying Object landed near Stoke-on-Trent's Bentilee housing estate. The show draws on multiple eyewitness accounts from the time to create a warm and funny depiction of an extraordinary event happening to very ordinary people.

Plus music from The Lemon Twigs's latest album A Dream Is All We Know.

Presented by Nihal Arthanayake Produced by Olive Clancy