Coming from the 60th anniversary celebrations for the Festival of Britain where Nancy Durrant talks to Tracey Emin about her new show at the Hayward. Also, Andrew Graham-Dixon travels north to the new Hepworth Wakefield exhibition space designed by David Chipperfield, while Tom Dyckhoff explores the militarisation of urban architecture. Mark Kermode tries the new video game LA Noire, which draws its inspiration from film noir, while record producer Danger Mouse talks about his new album Rome, spawned from the spaghetti western soundtrack. Alastair Sooke checks out the four shortlisted for the Art Fund Prize Museum of the Year and choreographer Wayne McGregor selects his own prize moments from the BBC archives.

Hugh Laurie was best known for playing bumbling British toffs until he reinvented his onscreen persona in the role of House MD, and became the highest paid actor in the world. One skill that features throughout his meteoric career is a facility for music, from Bertie Wooster bashing out Minnie the Moocher to House dueting with a patient. Now though, Laurie has finally put his music centre stage. As he releases an album of New Orleans blues titled Let Them Talk, he speaks with Alan Yentob about the role music has played in his life and career.

Fronted by Andrew Graham-Dixon, this week's Culture Show comes from the recently revamped Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, and ranges from sci-fi to psychopaths, with Shakespeare, singing, art, hip-hop, design and new media packed in too.

Alan Yentob talks to his hero Sir Terence Conran, perhaps one of Britain’s greatest designers, about the revolutionary transformation he made to British life and style. A designer, retailer and restaurateur, Conran pioneered a new way of life that he wanted to be available to all with his vision of ‘easy living’. They discuss the work he contributed to the Festival of Britain in the 1950s, and his vision of a new way of living which he cemented with the opening of the high street shop Habitat in 1964, giving us stylish design for the everyday, from kitchen utensils to furniture.

Harry Potter is one of the most successful publishing phenomena of our time, selling 450 million copies. Its success has transformed author JK Rowling from an impoverished single mother into one of Britain's richest women. Since The Deathly Hallows was published in 2007, Rowling's fans have been desperate to know what she was going to do next. The answer is The Casual Vacancy, a novel for adults with some very grown-up themes. The expectation and pressure are enormous. Although most details are shrouded in secrecy, it is known to be set in the idyllic fictional English town of Pagford, where tensions gather around a local election which follows the death of a parish councillor. James Runcie meets the notoriously private writer in her hometown of Edinburgh, where she finally reveals the exact nature of the novel, with exclusive readings and in-depth discussion about its ideas, characters and inspiration. Rowling also discusses the pressure and pitfalls of following up the biggest literary phenomenon of a generation, describing how she finally moved on from Potter and the challenges of making the leap to writing fiction for adults.