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Taking her late husband John Thaw’s advice to ‘keep popping out of a different hole,’ the actor, director and author Sheila Hancock has defied typecasting in a career spanning six decades.ÌýHer work has taken her from rep to the RSC, The Cherry Orchard to Cabaret, The Rag Trade to Buster, and now, at the age of 80, she is back on the West End stage. She joins Jenni to talk about her latest theatre role - as the matriarch of a criminal family in Barking in Essex.

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is at Wyndham’s Theatre inÌýLondon

A Staffordshire academy, which specialises in engineering and business, allocated 60 places specifically for female students, in order to address the gender imbalance in the school and to encourage more girls into engineering. But the ruled the policy was indirectly sexually discriminatory and so breached the Equality Act 2010. has now been forced to change its admissions policy. Paula Gwinnett tells Jenni why the school feels so strongly that more girls should become engineers, and Young Woman Engineer Of The Year 2012, Yewande Akinola, talks about the excitement and opportunities the career offers.

Dangerous Women: The Guide to Modern Life is a lexicon of bon mots and advice for 21st century women. With over 600 entries, from recommendations on how to wear animal prints, to a definition of the word ‘allure’, a eulogy to ‘hope’, and a checklist of ‘dos and don’ts’ when having an affair, it is a book that attempts to describe and solve the dilemmas facing the modern woman. Two of the authors – Liz Hoggard and Clare Conville – join Jenni to discuss the book.

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The new version of Dangerous Women: The Guide to Modern Life by Liz Hoggard, Clare Conville and Sarah Jane Lovett is published on 3 October 2013

Fashion House Bellville Sassoon bears the names of its founder Belinda Bellville and designer David Sassoon and it’s a name that’s been synonymous with high fashion since it became one of Britain’s foremost couture labels from the 1960s onwards. A new exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum features aÌýglorious selection ofÌýfrocks and sketches, patterns and swatches of material tracing the influence of this fashion house over the decades.ÌýBellville SassoonÌýcounted many of the world’s most stylish women among its clientele, including Diana Princess of Wales. Judi Herman met barrister and philanthropist Lady Jill Ritblat in front of her from the 1960s, and the man who designed it, David Sassoon.

The exhibition is at the Fashion and Textile Museum from 20 September 2013 – 11 January 2014

This week we are looking at different aspects of student life. Denise Jackson is the author of a blog called Autistic Kids Grow Up. She writes about the experience of helping her son and family prepare for the moment he leaves home to start college and live on his own for the first time. Clare McCarthy’s son has a learning disability, is in his fourth year of college, and lives away from home.