What's So Great About ...?

In this episode, he questions the greatness of Bob Dylan.

Lenny - a great fan of Soul music and Rhythm & Blues - gets to grips one recording artist he never really 'got'. From the time he was a teenager in Dudley in the early 70s he had to listen to his schoolmate Greg Stokes tell him what a 'classic' the Dylan album 'Blonde On Blonde' was; and ever since friends have been trying to convince him that 'His Bobness', as Lenny describes him, is the one recording artist to whom he should really devote his energies.

It's now make or break time and Lenny assembles a band of musicians and fans to see if they can, once and for all, change his mind.

'Dear oh dear', says Lenny. 'That whine! That grating music!'

Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, Kris Kristofferson, Bryan Ferry, Jools Holland and Al Kooper, who played with Dylan on some of his most famous albums in the 1960s, are among the defence team.

It seems they have their work cut out.

Producer: Patrick Gregory

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2008.

Adele, Jools Holland and Kris Kristofferson to try to prove that Bob Dylan is great.

Lenny Henry explores the iconic status of people or things held dear by many

In New York, on still only part-gentrified West 44th Street, stands an old converted redbrick chapel. Just a small plaque indicates that this is the inner sanctum, the private home of The Method. It's the legendary Actors' Studio, the space created in 1947 by Lee Strasberg and others to provide a safe place for some of the world's greatest actors - often the biggest Hollywood stars of their generation - to come and practise their art. Here came Marlon Brando, James Dean, Dustin Hoffman, Lee J Cobb, Jane Fonda, Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Rod Steiger, Cissy Spacek, Robert de Niro, Shelley Winters and dozens of others and here they listened and rehearsed and criticised and supported their fellow actors and directors. They were all devotees of The Method, a training discipline evolved by Strasberg from the teachings of the great Russian actor and teacher Stanislavski. For many, though, The Method has come to signify 'mumbling and scratching', a sort of slightly inarticulate style of performance that in seeking to be internalised and 'real' ends up just being dull. British actors reputedly despised it and Laurence Olivier is famously said to have told Dustin Hoffman to stop trying to find an interior motivation in his character 'and just ACT, dear boy!

Seeking enlightenment from stars like Ellen Burstyn and experts and aficionados, Lenny tests his reservations about The Method and finds that when he actually has a go it's not quite so unconvincing as he at first thought...

PRODUCER: SIMON ELMES

(repeat).

Can Lenny Henry be convinced to go Method?

Lenny Henry explores the iconic status of people or things held dear by many

Are they personal trainers or mind gurus? Do they help you double your salary or just sort out your wardrobe? They proliferate on the internet, with legions of testimonials and personal messages of endorsement downloadable from YouTube. But are they any good? Are they about to take you for an expensive financial ride while filling your mind with guff? Are they psychologists or shrinks, moneymen or designer divas? Plenty of big firms seem to think they are the bees' knees as they spend small fortunes offering 'executive coaching' to their senior managers. But Lenny doesn't get it, and in this programme he sets out to get to the bottom of what they do, how they do it, and - not least - how much they are going to charge you for the privilege.

Will Lenny Henry find out the secrets of the people who say they can change your life?

Lenny Henry explores the iconic status of people or things held dear by many

Lenny, like so many in the UK, has always found maths tough going, but was he simply badly taught or has he got some sort of number blindness? Defending the art of arithmetical analysis and the joys of number-crunching are Countdown maths maestro Carol Vorderman and former government 'Maths Tsar' Celia Hoyles.

At a national conference on how to make maths more fun and engaging for children, Lenny teams up with a group of primary maths teachers to play number games and fold paper into right-angled triangles, squares, parallelograms and other usefully geometrical shapes - and enjoys it.

On the scientific front, down in his testing room at London's University College neurology department, Professor Brian Butterworth puts Lenny's number ability on trial. Brian has done field-leading work on the way the brain handles arithmetical concepts, so how will Lenny cope with tests that he admits feel like his worst nightmare from schooldays?

Carol Vorderman and former 'Maths Tsar' Celia Hoyles defend the art of number-crunching.

Lenny Henry explores the iconic status of people or things held dear by many

Despite having seen Waiting for Godot half a dozen times and studying the work of the modernist Irish writer as part of his degree, Lenny has never really completely tuned in to the work of Samuel Beckett. He sets out to rectify this by talking to a glorious cast of Beckettophiles, who are determined to make the great playwright and poet come alive for him. He talks to actor and director Simon McBurney, actress Fiona Shaw, Beckett's long-term friend and publisher John Calder, and the man who was authorised to write his biography, James Knowlson. Lenny also joins a rehearsal by the Godot Theatre players, some of whom knew the playwright well, and hears their thoughts on tuning in to the Beckett idiom.

Lenny Henry sets out to rectify his lack of appreciation of Samuel Beckett's work.

Lenny Henry explores the iconic status of people or things held dear by many

Pollock's art, characterised by an intricate web of lines and layers of paint, has always polarised critics. His detractors dismiss his 'drip painting' technique as little more than random splashes on the canvas. His supporters tap into a nervous energy inside his paintings which expands under strict control. Either way, Pollock's work still stirs strong emotions about the meaning of modern art and, although he died in 1956, he is arguably still the most important artist to have come out of the United States.

Lenny puts Jack the Dripper's work to the test by talking to jazz musicians, critics, mathematicians and artists who all value the importance and uniqueness of the art of Jackson Pollock.

Lenny Henry questions the art of American abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock.

Lenny Henry explores the iconic status of people or things held dear by many

Stephen Hendry gives Lenny a quick masterclass in the mystique of cue action and John Virgo unpicks some of the sport's arcane and sometimes incomprehensible language ('that thick kiss on the pink has got him needing snookers...') So can this glittering line-up manage to convince Lenny out of his lifelong aversion to the game of coloured balls...?

Producer: Simon Elmes.

Lenny Henry pockets his prejudice and tries to understand the lure of the cue.

Lenny Henry explores the iconic status of people or things held dear by many

Producer Neil McCarthy.

Never a fan, Lenny Henry tries to find out what's so great about the band The Pogues.

Lenny Henry explores the iconic status of people or things held dear by many

But is it really that good? Despite his recent embracing of Shakespeare, iconoclast Lenny Henry has never been able quite to swallow the acclaim accorded to Chaucer. Challenging his scepticism today are Chaucer biographer and eminent scholar Ardis Butterfield, playwright Mike Poulton who adapted the Canterbury Tales for the Royal Shakespeare Company and ex-Python and ardent Chaucerian and medievalist Terry Jones.

Producer: Simon Elmes.

Lenny Henry pockets his prejudice and tries to understand the medieval writer.

Lenny Henry explores the iconic status of people or things held dear by many