How do great, creative artists respond to old age?
Joan Bakewell learns that it doesn't have to be downhill all the way.

1/7. Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson star in the 1987 Second World War series.
This dramatisation of Olivia Manning's novel was by Alan Plater, and begins an evening of Plater's work on BBC4. The series continues on Friday at 7pm. First shown on BBC1

Writers Alan Bleasdale and Lee 'Billy Elliot' Hall discuss the work of the writer for Time Shift. With critics Chris Dunkley and Dave Gelly, and director John Glenister.

Musical drama with Judi Dench and Ian Holm. Widow Elizabeth realises she was happiest when playing in an (almost) all-girl swing band during the war. When she meets the drummer again, the two try to reunite the band. First shown on BBC1

Gwen Taylor, latterly of Heartbeat, and John Flanagan star as a couple in Hull, in an Alan Plater story originally shown as part of Play for Today in 1973.
First shown on BBC1

4/6. Talk show satire with Marcus Brigstocke

Planning to be "human shields" to deter the US and UK from bombing, a group of people left London, bound for Iraq. Their story is told here