imagine... - Season 12

At 15 years old, Henry Perkins is one of the most promising young ballet dancers in Britain. Last year he gave up life with his family in Hampshire to begin four years training at the The Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow, widely regarded as the best ballet school in the world. Only the second ever British boy to win a place at the academy in its illustrious 230 year history, Alan Yentob presents a gritty and challenging portrait of Henry's life during his first gruelling year at the school, 1500 miles from home.

Alan Yentob presents a profile of Bollywood A-lister Amitabh Bachchan, the biggest actor India has ever produced and a man with global appeal, whose Hindi films reach huge audiences from Australia to the Middle East, from Africa to Britain. Now he's no longer just a successful actor, he's a demi-god and everyone wants a piece of him.

The world's most popular typeface celebrates its 50th birthday this year. Millions of people use and read Helvetica every day, on public transport, newspapers, shop fronts and computers. Through interviews with designers and type enthusiasts, the film tells the story of how a typeface drawn by a little-known Swiss designer in 1957 became one of the most popular ways to communicate. Though Helvetica has gone in and out of fashion it has never gone away - is this a symptom of globalisation or simply a reflection that it is the ultimate typeface?

Alan Yentob presents a profile of the provocative French-born American artist Louise Bourgeois, who was still producing cutting edge work at the age of 95.

Memories of a disturbed childhood have produced fantastic and disturbing sculptures of giant spiders and poured-plastic body parts. As a girl she restored old tapestries, worked with Leger and knew surrealists like Breton and Duchamp. In New York she emerged as an artist in her own right, bringing dread, desire, sex and the psyche into her work.

Yentob goes to a Sunday salon at her New York home where young artists queue up to get her often fiery reactions to their work. He talks with Tracey Emin, Antony Gormley, Stella Vine and others who have been inspired by this strange and mischievous artist.

Armed with 5,000 pounds of his own money to spend on art, Alan Yentob immerses himself in the frenzied fun of Frieze Art Fair week in London's Regent Park. He meets artists, dealers and collectors toinvestigate what is driving the current creative and sales boom in contemporary art, and also to find out what hot tips they can offer a novice collector.

Alan Yentob asks why self-help books are so popular. Setting out to learn from the big hitters, he speaks to Susan Jeffers, author of Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway, and Anthony Robbins, motivator to the stars. Yentob discovers self-help is not quite as shallow as he thought. One of the most acclaimed self-help books of all time, Man's Search for Meaning, came out of a concentration camp.

Alan Yentob traces the career of Richard Rogers, uncovering the influences that have produced some of the greatest landmarks in modern architecture. Tracking Rogers' life, from his birth in Florence, we re-visit some of his most famous buildings from the Pompidou Centre in Paris and Lloyds of London to the earlier and more personal work that defined his style.

Alan Yentob meets the man who has designed everything from cutlery to cars and chaise longues to space ships.