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Prague's Svandovo Theatre aims to be a cultural centre for contemporary literature, music, theatre and visual arts. It is trying to keep the price of its tickets low to attract predominantly but by no means exclusively young people. The theatre's most recent enterprise is to draw also English speaking audiences to come and watch some of the plays they are putting on, ranging from Shakespeare to the contemporaries such as Martin McDonagh and Tracy Letts.

Every Czech knows the tune. "Ta nase pisnicka ceska" or "That Czech Song of Ours" was voted one of the ten greatest hits of the 20th century in a poll conducted by Czech Radio in 2000.

Josef Skvorecky, author of many internationally acclaimed novels such as The Bass Saxophone, The Engineer of Human Souls and The Miracle Game, is one of the country's most renowned twentieth century writers. In this week's Arts, we'll hear about his love for jazz, his experiences in Communist Czechoslovakia, and why he thinks foreign readers can identify with his work.

Two research centres in the Czech Republic are taking part in a pioneering international project - putting together a digital archive of the testimonies of Holocaust survivors, videotaped by the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation established by the American film director Steven Spielberg.

Veronika Drahotova is a challenging multimedia artist. Her latest work analyzes the process of alienation from society. Mark Fernandes caught up with her in Prague to discuss her art and life.

"Rodinna Pouta" ("Family Bonds") is the first serial made by commercial station Prima and is already a big success, winning one third of the TV audience in the summer months. What's more, it's part of a new trend: while drama series have traditionally been made by state broadcaster Czech Television, Prima and the other commercial channel Nova are - for the first time - also investing heavily in home produced drama.

Shadowplays, Fotoline, Cut - Out Colours: Coloured Paper Collages, Black and White: Prints, Line and Colour: Drawings and Paintings..... All of that and much more is represented in the 'Avant-Garde Across Media' exhibition which is under way at the Prague Municipal House.

Michal Viewegh is one of the most popular and most translated Czech authors today. In his best known novel Bajecna leta pod psa " - The Wonderful Years of Lousy Living - the author satirically describes the grey times of the 1970's and 80's in communist Czechoslovakia when he was young. One of the reasons why his books are so popular is that the readers find there a piece of their own destiny. I met Michal Viewegh in a café of one of the biggest Prague bookstores and asked him whether he believes his books are equally appealing to readers

In this week's edition of the Arts, we mark the publication of a book entitled Famous Prague Villas with a visit to some particularily interesting villas in the company of one of the book's authors, architect Zdenek Lukes.

What you're hearing is the sound of water from the Vltava River, as it flooded through the rooms of the old castle in Roztoky near Prague exactly two years ago. Roztoky was one of many Bohemian towns with a precious architectural heritage that suffered in the floods.