imagine...
imagine... is a TV show on BBC1. Alan Yentob's acclaimed series delving into the heart of the cultural world - featuring candid conversations with the biggest names from art, film, music, literature and dance. The program has been available since 2025. A total of 25 episodes have been broadcast, most recently in January 2026.
Last episode
imagine...
Alan Yentob explores the colourful career of architect Frank Gehry, one of the world's most celebrated and famously provocative creative forces. First broadcast in 2015.
Catching up on imagine...?
Don't want to miss an episode anymore? Set up a free alarm and receive an email when new episodes are available. Handy!
Playwright Tom Stoppard tells Alan Yentob the extraordinary story of his life and his Leopoldstadt, in which he faces up to the pain and loss in his past.
Alan Yentob meets Lenny Henry as he publishes a first volume of autobiography, charting his early years in show business.
November 2025
Alan Yentob joins Bette Midler on a journey through the chorus lines of Broadway and the bathhouses and nightclubs of the 1970s to the very top of the film industry.
Alan Yentob follows sculptor Cornelia Parker's creative process in a film that sees her delve deep into America's history, cinema and art, as well as her own personal past.
October 2025
Alan Yentob examines the extraordinary story of one of Britain's most recognisable pop icons, Sir Tom Jones. In a frank and revealing interview, Sir Tom describes his rise to fame.
Alan Yentob spends time with Philip Pullman in Oxford, discovering how the ex-teacher became an acclaimed author of fantasy fiction and an outspoken critic of organised religion.
Performance artist Marina Abramovic invites Alan Yentob into her home, opens her archive, travels to her birthplace in Belgrade and talks about turning her life into art.
August 2025
The programme tracks the creation of celebrated composer Sir George Benjamin's opera Lessons in Love and Violence, which premiered at the Royal Opera House in 2018.
Alan Yentob joins Anselm Kiefer at his studios in France and Germany as he prepares for a retrospective at the Royal Academy.
July 2025
2014 Man Booker Prize-winner Richard Flanagan journeys with Alan Yentob through his native Tasmania, visiting the places that have inspired his novels.
June 2025
Remote cameras capture a lockdown concert performed by the Kanneh-Mason family from their home in Nottingham, with interviews with the seven musically gifted siblings.
Alan Yentob meets Diana Athill, who became a celebrity in her 90s thanks to her frank and entertaining memoirs which chart a life less ordinary.
To mark David Bowie's comeback album and a new exhibition, Alan Yentob looks back at his 1975 documentary, Cracked Actor. The film follows Bowie during the 1974 Diamond Dogs tour.
With the aid of the BBC archive, Alan Yentob and Mel Brooks embark on an unpredictable journey through the city of stars, meeting the legendary Carl Reiner along the way.
Alan Yentob explores the remarkable life and work of the trailblazing Anglo-Nigerian writer Bernardine Evaristo, author of the Booker Prize-winning novel Girl, Woman, Other.
May 2025
A profile of Barbara Hepworth, the world's first internationally celebrated woman sculptor.
Alan Yentob talks to Andrew Lloyd Webber about his autobiography, bohemian childhood and the memories he has chosen to reveal.
Alan Yentob talks to acclaimed and curiously divided Irish writer Colm Toibin. Loud and affable in person, Toibin writes sombre stories of grief and quiet heartbreak.
Documentary capturing the return from California of England's favourite living artist. As Hockney approaches the age of 70, he re-invents his painting from scratch.