The economist Sir Paul Collier has spent much of his career thinking about some of the biggest challenges we face around the world – and then trying to find solutions for them. He’s focused on low-income countries, particularly in Africa, looking at why they haven’t benefitted from the forces of globalisation. He’s examined the causes and the consequences of civil war, and the role of foreign aid. He received a knighthood in 2014 for his work on Africa. His most recent book is called Left Behind and it offers a vision for how neglected places – from South Yorkshire to South America – can start to catch up. His music choices include Bach, William Lawes, Schubert and medieval composer Martin Codax.

Miranda Hart burst into our living rooms in 2009 with her semi-autobiographical, multi-award winning TV sit-com Miranda. Her irrepressible physical comedy and willingness to make fun of herself quickly endeared her to audiences, as she battled through socially awkward situations - particularly dating. She also had to deal with her overbearing mother, while popularising phrases like “Such Fun”, “Keep calm and Gallop on” and “Bear with”. She then took a leading role in the BBC drama series Call the Midwife as Chummy - Camilla Fortescue-Cholmondeley-Browne – and appeared in films including Emma, playing Jane Austen’s chatterbox Miss Bates. Her recent memoir I Haven’t been Entirely Honest With You describes how she lived for years with undiagnosed Lyme disease and the lessons she has learnt – she calls them “treasures” on her journey from illness to recovery. Miranda's musical choices include Grieg, Bach, Bizet and Mozart.

In the hot, dry summer of 1976, Mary Joy Langdon made a very bold decision: she joined the fire service. She was the first woman in the UK to work as a professional operational fire-fighter. Then, after eight years, she changed course - and became a nun.

In 1989, as Sister Mary Joy Langdon, she founded the Wormwood Scrubs Pony Centre, introducing inner-city children and young people with disabilities to horse riding. Recently it helped children traumatised by the Grenfell Tower fire. The Centre also attracted one of Britain’s most acclaimed painters – Lucian Freud - who came to draw the horses.

Mary Joy's music selections include Mozart, Strauss, Bach and Grieg.

Presenter Michael Berkeley Producer Clare Walker

Michael Berkeley shares festive music choices from Private Passions over the years. We’ll hear how Handel can evoke memories of roast potatoes in the oven on Christmas day; we’ll spend time by the fire in a remote Irish castle, take a seasonal trip to the ballet, and share heart-warming singing from a variety of traditions. His guests include Chris Addison, Nina Stibbe, Brian Moore, David Mitchell, Shirley Collins and Sue Black.

The actor, comedian and writer Nick Mohammed hasn’t followed an obvious career path. His youthful obsessions included performing magic and playing the violin, followed by a first-class degree in geophysics. He even began a PhD in seismology – before his love of comedy took him in a very different direction.

He’s ended up on the red carpet at the Emmys, thanks to his role as Nate the football coach in the much-acclaimed TV series Ted Lasso. He’s starred with David Schwimmer in the sitcom Intelligence, which he wrote and co-produced.

For his live shows he created the much-loved Mr Swallow, a peevish and pedantic magician – who has also attracted millions of views on social media.

Nick's musical choices include Copland, Beethoven, Dvorak and Prokofiev.

Lola Young, Baroness Young of Hornsey, grew up in care, and when she left school, she worked first for the gas board, then as a social worker and as an actor on stage and television. The idea that she would one day sit in the House of Lords never crossed her mind.

When she was in her early 30s she decided to study for a degree. That led to a PhD, academic posts and eventually a Professorship in Cultural Studies at Middlesex University. She entered the House of Lords as a crossbench peer 20 years ago, where she has campaigned for change in areas such as modern slavery and fast fashion. She recently wrote a memoir called Eight Weeks, in which she pieces together her upbringing, drawing on care records and her own reflections on her childhood.

Her music choices include works by Ravel, Errolyn Wallen, Philip Glass and Puccini.

Presenter Michael Berkeley Producer Clare Walker

Rupert Everett left school at 16 to train as an actor and first shot to wider fame in 1984 as a dashing public schoolboy in the film Another Country.

Since then his career has been defiantly unpredictable: he’s starred in Hollywood films, taken leading roles on stage in the West End and on Broadway, and directed, written and played the lead in a passion project about Oscar Wilde’s final years.

He’s made documentaries and written three candid and acclaimed memoirs. Most recently he’s turned to short stories with a collection called The American No, drawing on ideas he had pitched to film producers, all of which were rejected.

His musical passions include works by Handel, Purcell, Wagner and Mahler.

Presenter Michael Berkeley Producer Clare Walker

Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock readily admits that her childhood television viewing played a vital role in her eventual choice of career: she loved Star Trek and The Clangers - the animated children’s show featuring little whistling mice living on a moon-like planet. Along with coverage of the Apollo missions, they helped to inspire a journey which led her to become one of the UK’s leading space experts. She’s also a passionate science communicator, and a familiar face on our screens, as co-presenter of The Sky at Night.

Maggie is an authority on telescopes and space imaging, and was part of the James Webb Space Telescope team, launched by NASA in 2021. This telescope used ground-breaking technology to produce strikingly clear pictures of stars we’ve never seen before, changing how we understand the universe.

Her musical passions include works by Bach, Dvorak and Purcell, as well as music inspired by the moon and by distant planets.

Presenter Michael Berkeley Producer Clare Walker

Bryan Ferry has been a very familiar voice for more than 50 years, as the co-founder of Roxy Music and as a solo artist and songwriter.

When Roxy Music first appeared on Top of the Pops in 1972, millions of viewers suddenly saw something new: an extravagantly dressed band, featuring an early synthesizer, an oboe, and Bryan leading from an upright piano, wearing a sparkling black and green jacket. 'This one definitely arrived from Planet Mars', according to one critic. It was a performance which helped to propel Bryan to stardom, and a career which has produced two dozen studio albums, and numerous international hits, as well as explorations of jazz and the songs of Bob Dylan: his most recent release, Retrospective, includes a new version of Dylan’s 1965 song She Belongs to Me.

In conversation with Michael Berkeley, Bryan reflects on his early days in County Durham, the role of his art school education and his approach to song writing. His musical choices include works by Prokofiev, Elgar, Mahler and Charlie Parker.

Presenter Michael Berkeley Producer Clare Walker

Brian Cox has enjoyed a prolific career in theatre, film and television over the last 60 years.

Born in Dundee, he was obsessed by film from an early age and when he left school he worked behind the scenes at Dundee Rep theatre. He soon fell in love with the life he saw there and moved to London to train as an actor. Over the years he’s never been afraid to take on difficult, unlikeable characters, including Hannibal Lecter in Manhunter, Hermann Goering in Nuremberg and most recently the terrifying media tycoon and patriarch Logan Roy in the TV series Succession, for which he won a Golden Globe.

On stage Brian has played King Lear at the National Theatre and won Olivier awards for his performances in Titus Andronicus and Rat in the Skull. In 2023 he portrayed the composer J S Bach in a play called The Score at the Theatre Royal, Bath.

His musical choices include Bach, Mahler, Verdi and Joni Mitchell.

Presenter Michael Berkeley Producer Clare Walker

(This is an extended version of a programme first broadcast in 2023.)

The American writer Garth Greenwell won widespread acclaim for his first novel, What Belongs to You, including the British Book Award for the Debut of the Year in 2016. This success would have surprised his high-school teachers in Kentucky. As a teenager, he failed English and decided to follow a very different path: he turned to singing and eventually trained as an opera singer.

Studying music led him back to literature – writing poems, novels and working as a teacher in Bulgaria. His most recent novel, Small Rain, focuses on a severe medical emergency which leads to deep meditations on our vulnerability, life and love.

Garth's musical passions include works by Mahler, Britten, Richard Strauss and the 16th century English composer John Taverner.

Presenter Michael Berkeley Producer Clare Walker