2025

Kirsty Wark looks back at the extraordinary lives of some of the legendary actors, celebrated singers and political giants who died in 2025.

This year saw the passing of Hollywood stars who changed cinema - Robert Redford, Diane Keaton and Gene Hackman. There are insights into their acting and directing from Reese Witherspoon, Ralph Fiennes and Elizabeth McGovern, and Watergate journalist Bob Woodward talks about Redford’s portrayal of him in the hit film All the President’s Men.

Sir James Galway and Dame Sheila Hancock pay tribute to their friend, the jazz singer Dame Cleo Laine, and Conservative peer Lord Dobbs and former Labour minister Lord Blunkett discuss their memories of Norman Tebbit, who played a central role in the political change under Margaret Thatcher.

Actor Dominic Monaghan, who starred alongside Dame Patricia Routledge on television, remembers both her dramatic and comic performances, while the film star John Cusack, singer Sting and fellow Beach Boy Al Jardine describe how Brian Wilson reinvented pop music in the 1960s.