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This week the Grenfell Inquiry’s final report set out how a chain of failures across government and the private sector led to Grenfell Tower becoming a death trap—official confirmation of the facts that many people already believed. The 72 deaths could have been avoided, and the causes of the tragedy included not only incompetence but also outright dishonesty. Edward Stourton speaks to two faith leaders who played significant roles during the fire and its aftermath: Mike Long, whose Methodist church was just around the corner from the tower, and Abdurrahman Sayed of the Al Manar Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre in West London.

Rochester Cathedral’s mini-golf programme, which started in 2019, and subsequent community outreach initiatives have led to an 84% increase in visitors compared to the previous year, followed by a 16% rise in attendance at Advent and Christmas services. Events like those at Rochester Cathedral and the silent discos at Canterbury Cathedral have drawn considerable criticism and raised questions about why the Church is resorting to entertainment rather than focusing on the gospel message. Edward explores the ‘appropriate’ use of sacred spaces with evangelism author Tim Dieppe, the Very Reverend Philip Hesketh, Dean of Rochester, and Simon Jenkins, former newspaper editor and former chair of the National Trust, who has written extensively about churches and cathedrals.

In the 1980s, Peter Brook's adaptation of the ancient Indian epic, The Mahabharata, revered in Hinduism, captivated audiences both on stage, with a world tour, and on screen in a six-hour TV adaptation. Brook's son, Simon, has now taken more than 2,000 reels of film and reshaped it into a three-hour cinema version that premiered at the Venice Film Festival this week. The journey to that premiere was itself something of an epic; Simon Brook tells us why the subject is so captivating.

Presenter: Edward Stourton
Producers: Bara'atu Ibrahim & Katy Davis
Studio Managers: Kelly Young & John Benton
Editor: Rajeev Gupta