Private Passions

The botanist Dr Sandra Knapp is a senior researcher at the Natural History Museum - but that title doesn’t convey the sheer adventure of her work. She’s a kind of Indiana Jones of the plant world, travelling to remote regions of Central and Southern America and beyond. Her speciality is the Solanum genus, which includes potatoes, tomatoes and aubergines – and she has found and named more than a hundred new varieties.
The rainforests, where she has worked for more than 40 years, are a long way from the dry rural deserts of New Mexico, where she was born.
Her music choices include works by Mozart, Brahms, Hindemith and Holst, as well as music inspired by the biodata of some of her beloved plants.
Presenter Michael Berkeley
Producer Katy Hickman

Paul Chahidi is an actor whose versatility shines through in prize-winning performances from Shakespeare to satire. He delighted West End and Broadway audiences as Maria in Twelfth Night and won acclaim from filmgoers as the hapless Nikolai Bulganin in The Death of Stalin. On TV, he’s played a well-meaning vicar in the BAFTA-winning This Country, an archangel in Good Omens, and he’s currently a spook in the BBC thriller The Night Manager.
Such shape-shifting came early: Paul was born Ghiv Khatib-Chahidi in Iran before moving as a child to the Oxford countryside. He studied Arabic and Persian at university with an eye to becoming a foreign correspondent, before the lure of Shakespeare and Sondheim won him over.
His choices include music from Iran, as well as Vaughan Williams, Chopin, Beethoven and Palestrina.
Presenter Michael Berkeley
Producer Katy Hickman

Michael Berkeley's guest is actor and TV presenter Peter Purves. Purves has been involved in two of TV’s longest-running and best-loved institutions - he was one of the earliest companions to travel in the TARDIS with Doctor Who (1965-66), and for ten and a half years from 1967 to 1978, alongside John Noakes, Valerie Singleton and Leslie Judd, he presented Blue Peter – entertaining the nation’s children with demonstrations in everything from competitive swimming to scaling the Fourth Road Bridge. A dog lover, he has also presented TV coverage of dog show Crufts for many years. Purves's musical passions include Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Elgar and Sondheim, alongside tracks by Louis Armstrong and Count Basie - both of whom he remembers seeing perform live in concert.
Presenter: Michael Berkeley
Producer: Graham Rogers

Vanessa Williams is musical theatre royalty. She’s worked with Stephen Sondheim on Broadway and is currently commanding the London stage as the fearsome fashion editor Miranda Priestly in the musical The Devil Wears Prada. She’s also topped the American pop charts, starred in Hollywood movies with the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and played key roles in prize winning TV series including Ugly Betty.
And before all that she was crowned Miss America 1984 - the first Black American to take the title – although she was later forced to relinquish it in controversial circumstances.
Her choices include music from her homeland by Samuel Barber, Jennifer Higdon, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, as well as works by Bach and Delius.
Presenter Michael Berkeley
Producer Katy Hickman

The best-selling writer Alison Weir knows precisely what sparked her interest in history: at the age of 14 she read what she calls a ‘really trashy novel’ about Katherine of Aragon – and a lifelong passion began.
Since then she has written 38 books, selling more than three million copies around the world. Her non-fiction titles include biographies of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth of York. She has also written many historical novels – including a book about each of Henry VIII’s six wives.
In her most recent novel, The Cardinal, she focuses on the rise and fall of Thomas Wolsey, who enjoyed a prominent and powerful role in the court of Henry VIII.
Alison's music choices include Bach, Beethoven, Ravel and Purcell.