4/4. Olaf Stapledon may have dreamed of mankind's far-flung future, Arthur C Clarke was sure of it, but the stars have often seemed an unlikely British destination. So why have a new generation of British science-fiction writers, the likes of lain M Banks, Justina Robson, Ken Macleod and Peter Hamilton, all seized on the once despised form of space opera, and gone where Albion has rarely gone before? Introduced by Francis Spufford. Producer Mark Burman Repeated on Sunday at 12.15am