The Culture Show

The Culture Show
The Culture Show logo
Created by	BBC Productions
Directed by	Various
Presented by	Various, including:
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
Production
Editor(s)	Janet Lee
Running time	30 minutes
Release
Original network	BBC Two
Original release	1 November 2004 (2004-11-01) – present

The Culture Show is a weekly BBC Two Arts magazine programme. It is broadcast in the UK on Wednesday nights at 10:00pm, focusing on the best of the week's arts and culture news, covering books, art, film, architecture, music, visual fashion and the performing arts. The show is now in its ninth year, having weathered early criticism to establish itself as one of the longest-running Arts magazine shows in the history of BBC television.

Launched in November 2004, the show initially transmitted on Thursday nights in a 7pm slot, lasting 60 minutes. The first main presenter was Verity Sharp, though she shared presenting duties in the show's first run with Kwame Kwei-Armah and Andrew Graham-Dixon. The first series included strong articles on film director Martin Scorsese, the conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim, the then little-known indie rock group Kaiser Chiefs and the contemporary visual artist Anselm Kiefer, among others. The launch editor, George Entwistle, was previously editor of BBC Two's flagship current affairs programme Newsnight.

Entwistle was succeeded as editor by Edward Morgan in summer 2005. In May 2006, the show was moved to Saturday nights, shortened to 50 minutes, and began to be regularly presented by Lauren Laverne. The programme then also started to make occasional spin-off specials, which have so far included an hour-long interview with Steven Spielberg on the occasion of his 60th birthday; a programme exploring the work of Michael Palin; and interviews with Lou Reed and Arcade Fire. In January 2010, the team produced a successful one-hour special to cover the launch of BBC Radio 4's A History of the World in 100 Objects.