Page last updated at 17:00 GMT, Friday, 13 March 2009
Harriett Gilbert and Mark Coles welcome you to the weekday arts show, The Strand.
On Today's Show
Afghan Star
We talk to Havana Marking, director of the prize-winning documentary Afghan Star about the singing contest in Afghanistan that is the country's most popular television programme.
Kuniyoshi
We look at the origins of the Japanese comic work Manga at a new exhibition of incredible woodblock prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi one of the greatest print artists of the 19th Century. Paul Gravett shows us around the 150 artefacts at London's Royal Academy of Arts
Samuel Kassow
American historian Samuel Kassow talks to Harriett about his book Who Will Write Our History - a detailed study into the hidden Onyeg Shabes archives which were buried in the Warsaw Ghetto.