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The Painter Rembrandt van Rijn has a mystery at the centre of his life. Prosperous and successful, he suddenly ran into a financial difficulty that threatened to ruin him, the origin of which has never been satisfactorily explained. Film director Peter Greenaway has come up with his own explanation in a new film 'Nightwatching' which sees in Rembrandt's masterpiece the Night Watch a set of clues to the change in painter's fortunes.

Matthew also hears from the novelist Vikram Seth on the theme of friendship and poetry. Seth is the author of the voluminous bestseller A Suitable Boy, that won the Commonwealth writer's prize, but he is also an accomplished poet with five collections to his name and the novel in verse, The Golden Gate. He joins Matthew ahead of a talk he's giving at the London School of economics on Thursday.

Matthew also hears from historian Lynn Nead about the new exhibition at the Queens Gallery, Buckingham Palace. Called Art and Love it brings together the hundreds of presents that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert gave to each other during their marriage. Recently, Victoria and Albert have loomed large in our understanding of the Victorian age and Matthew and Lynn try to rediscover the characters of the givers, whether their gifts tell us about Victorian taste and Victorian Romance and why Buckingham Palace might be keen to channel the energy of this very loving royal relationship.

The Liberal Democrat conference has just finished and has been dominated by one word 'coalition'. With the possibility of a hung Parliament in the offing Nick Clegg is fielding questions about what he might do if his party carried the balance of power. Coalition government is not something the British do often or, arguably, very well so Night Waves brings together political scientists Kenneth Minogue and Paul Mitchell to cast an expert eye over the various examples on the continent and discuss the pros and cons of coalition government.