Arts & Ideas
1,985 episodes - English - Latest episode: 2 months ago - ★★★★ - 268 ratingsLeading thinkers discuss the ideas shaping our lives – looking back at the news and making links between past and present. Broadcast as Free Thinking, Fridays at 9pm on BBC Radio 4. Presented by Matthew Sweet, Shahidha Bari and Anne McElvoy.
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Episodes
Free Thinking - Latin America: Juan Gabriel Vasquez, Claudia Pineiro, Eric Hobsbawm.
May 25, 2016 21:15 - 44 minutes - 40.5 MBPrize winning Colombian author Juan Gabriel Vasquez, Argentinian playwright, journalist and leading crime writer Claudia Pineiro join Philip Dodd for a programme exploring fiction and fact in Latin America. There's also journalist Alex Cuadros who chronicles his years covering the rise and fall of Brazil's plutocrats. And a consideration of Eric Hobsbawm's Viva La Revolucion from Dr Oscar Guardiola-Rivera from Birkbeck College in London. Claudia Pineiro's most recent thriller is called Bet...
Free Thinking - Photographers Dorothy Bohm, Wolfgang Suschitzky, Neil Libbert. Carry On Films.
May 24, 2016 22:02 - 44 minutes - 41 MBMatthew Sweet joins curator Katy Barron and three photographers, Wolfgang Suschitzky, Dorothy Bohm and Neil Libbert, all now over 75, to explore a show that offers an account of the twentieth century seen through their eyes. Still image then gives way to the moving image as Matthew considers what the much heralded new Carry On film may have to offer and what the original films tell us about the historical and social context from which they emerged. To ponder both the old and the new in Carry...
Free Thinking - Beauty: Dame Fiona Reynolds. The Bowes Museum. David Willetts on The State.
May 19, 2016 21:15 - 44 minutes - 40.5 MBAnne McElvoy talks to Dame Fiona Reynolds about a career spent defending the beauty of the British landscape, and considers an exhibition of English beauties at the Bowes Museum. She is also joined by former minister The Rt Hon David Willetts, media executive Charles Brand and Marc Stears head of the New Economics Foundation to discuss the role of the state in the 21st century, and ahead of Sunday's Drama on 3 she explores literary depictions of the city of Venice with David Barnes. Dame F...
Free Thinking - Landmark: In Parenthesis, by David Jones
May 19, 2016 10:56 - 45 minutes - 41.9 MBRecorded before an audience at the Welsh National Opera in Cardiff before the premiere of Iain Bell's opera inspired by the poem Philip Dodd presents a Landmark edition of Free Thinking devoted to David Jones' epic In Parenthesis. The discussion hears from the composer Iain Bell, the writer, Iain Sinclair, one of the librettists Emma Jenkins and Paul Hills, curator of a touring exhibition of Jones' pictures and the co-author with Ariane Bankes of the most recent book about the artist. Iain ...
Free Thinking - Transformations: Becoming a Goat, Neil Bartlett
May 17, 2016 22:06 - 44 minutes - 41.1 MBNeil Bartlett discusses Victorian cross-dressing performer Ernest Boulton with Matthew Sweet. Thomas Thwaites explains why he decided to try to live as a goat to explore the difference between humans and animals. Colin Gale from the Bethlem Museum of the Mind and historian Sarah Wise talk about perceptions of mental illness in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Poet Fiona Sampson on the relationship between poetry and health. The world premiere of Neil Bartlett's play Stella is at the Bright...
Free Thinking - Germany: Neil MacGregor. A.T. Williams & Philippe Sands. Threepenny Opera. Volker Kutscher.
May 12, 2016 22:10 - 45 minutes - 41.6 MBCrime writer and former newspaper editor Volker Kutscher's Babylon Berlin is being made into a TV series by Tom Tykwer. Neil MacGregor has now left the British Museum to work with the Humboldt Forum to create a new German cultural centre in Berlin. Simon Stephens has written a new translation of Brecht's Threepenny Opera for the National Theatre. The production will star Haydn Gwynne. Philippe Sands has written about the Nuremberg Trials - as has A.T. Williams. They join Anne McElvoy for a p...
Free Thinking - The Cultural Revolution
May 11, 2016 21:20 - 44 minutes - 41 MBRana Mitter is joined by the historians Frank Dikötter, Patricia Thornton and Kerry Brown, and by the writers Xinran and Xiaolu Guo, to revisit the Cultural Revolution 50 years on. On 16th May 1966, Mao Zedong initiated a mass movement aimed at purging all "capitalist" and "traditional elements" from the Chinese Communist Party, and from Chinese society as a whole. This initiated the 10 years of social and political turmoil known as the Cultural Revolution. There are no plans to publicly ...
Free Thinking - Revolutionary thinking: Paul Mason, Bryan and Mary Talbot, Dacher Keltner.
May 11, 2016 11:14 - 44 minutes - 40.7 MBJournalist Paul Mason and graphic novelists Mary and Bryan Talbot discuss Louise Michel, the revolutionary feminist anarchist dubbed 'The Red Virgin of Montmartre', who fought on the barricades defending the Paris Commune in 1871. UC Berkeley psychologist Dr Dacher Keltner explores what he calls the power paradox. The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia by Bryan and Mary Talbot is out now. The Power Paradox by Dacher Keltner is out now. Producer: Jacqueline Smith
Free Thinking - Writers Writing about Love
May 05, 2016 21:15 - 44 minutes - 40.3 MBAnne McElvoy invites three novelists into the studio to discuss Love - the theme of each of their new novels. A L Kennedy's Serious Sweet examines love in later life, Tahmima Anam explores different aspects of young love in The Bones of Grace and Alain de Botton says no-one lives happy ever after, we should talk a lot more about what comes next - hence the title of his book The Course of Love. Aside from whether Romanticism is plague or blessing, the writers also discuss whether writers them...
Free Thinking - Writers Writing about Love
May 05, 2016 21:15 - 44 minutes - 40.3 MBAnne McElvoy invites three novelists into the studio to discuss Love - the theme of each of their new novels. A L Kennedy's Serious Sweet examines love in later life, Tahmima Anam explores different aspects of young love in The Bones of Grace and Alain de Botton says no-one lives happy ever after, we should talk a lot more about what comes next - hence the title of his book The Course of Love. Aside from whether Romanticism is plague or blessing, the writers also discuss whether writers them...
Free Thinking - Olafur Eliasson. Andrey Kurkov. Mary Dejevsky and Zinovy Zinik on Soviet Culture.
May 04, 2016 21:15 - 44 minutes - 40.5 MBPhilip Dodd talks to the artist Olafur Eliasson who famously created artificial sunlight in the Weather Project at Tate Modern. He's also been responsible for engineering four man-made waterfalls in New York, founded a company producing solar powered LED lights, and has just published a cook book. The Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov discusses his latest, The Bickford Fuse, an allegorical study of the Soviet soul set between the end of World War 2 and the fall of communism. And to consider...
Free Thinking - Concrete: Marina Lewycka, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Lynsey Hanley
May 03, 2016 21:15 - 44 minutes - 40.6 MBAuthor Marina Lewycka discusses Lubetkin's social housing with Matthew Sweet in a programme which considers concrete homes past and present. Curator Helen Pheby describes transporting a former council house which has been turned into a kind of blue grotto by artist Roger Hiorns as the Yorkshire Sculpture Park hosts an exhibition on the theme of Home. Lynsey Hanley talks about the experience of growing up on a Birmingham council estate and the powerful connections between concrete and class. ...
Free Thinking - TE Lawrence on stage. Jeremy Thorpe. Privacy.
April 28, 2016 21:15 - 44 minutes - 40.9 MBPlaywright Howard Brenton and director Adrian Noble discuss stage plays drawing on the life of TE Lawrence. Journalist John Preston has explored MP Jeremy Thorpe's downfall. And Philip Dodd is joined by Chris Bryant for a wider discussion about privacy in public life. And Mary Beard joins us to discuss another imperial endeavour, Rome. Howard Brenton's new play Lawrence After Arabia runs at the Hampstead Theatre from April 28th to June 4th. Adrian Noble is directing Terence Rattigan's pla...
Free Thinking - The Winter's Tale Landmark
April 27, 2016 21:45 - 43 minutes - 40.3 MB“To unpathed waters, undreamed shores” Matthew Sweet discusses The Winter’s Tale, written just 6 years before Shakespeare died and still regarded as one of his most intriguing works. With actor Samuel West, and scholars Michael Dobson(University of Birmingham) and Carol Rutter( University of Warwick) joining Matthew in Stratford-upon-Avon in the Radio 3 prop up studio at the Royal Shakespeare Company's The Other Place theatre as part of Radio 3's Sounds of Shakespeare season. The Winter's T...
Free Thinking - Sounds of Shakespeare: Shakespeare's Bookshelf
April 26, 2016 21:45 - 44 minutes - 40.3 MBRana Mitter is joined by Edith Hall, Nandini Das and Beatrice Groves to explore the books which inspired Shakespeare from the Bible and classical stories to the writing of some of Shakespeare's contemporaries. Edith Hall is Professor in the Classics Department and Centre for Hellenic Studies at King's College London. Her most recent book is Introducing The Ancient Greeks. Nandini Das is Professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool. She is also a New Generation Thinker on...
Free Thinking - Sicily. John Hardyng's Chronicle. The London Library
April 21, 2016 21:15 - 45 minutes - 41.3 MBAs Sicily: culture and conquest opens at The British Museum, Anne McElvoy gathers three experts round the Free Thinking table - the historian of Sicily, John Julius Norwich, Helena Atlee who approaches the island from the point of view of its legendary citrus fruit and Anna Sergi, a criminologist at the University of Essex who explains how Cosa Nostra reflects much of the closed culture of the modern island. Tom Stoppard drops by to celebrate The London Library at 175 and as the 400th annive...
Free Thinking - Slavoj Zizek.
April 21, 2016 11:04 - 44 minutes - 40.5 MBSlavoj Zizek is in conversation with Philip Dodd. The title of the latest book from the Slovenian philosopher, cultural critic and Marxist scholar is 'Against the Double Blackmail: Refugees, Terror and Other Troubles with the Neighbours'. Producer: Laura Thomas
Free Thinking - Landmark: Tarkovsky's Stalker.
April 19, 2016 21:15 - 44 minutes - 40.3 MBIn a special Landmark edition, Matthew Sweet discusses Tarkovsky's 1979 film Stalker with the director Sophie Fiennes, the journalist Konstantin Von Eggert, whose family knew Tarkovsky, film critic Larushka Ivan-Zadeh, the writer Geoff Dyer, and the academic and former tour guide in the Chernobyl Zone Dr Nicholas Rush Cooper from Durham University. Stalker tells the story of three men - Writer, Professor, and Stalker. We are never quite sure who Stalker is, or what he represents, but it's ...
Free Thinking - Syrian buildings. Judging Book Prizes. Georgian Literature
April 14, 2016 21:30 - 43 minutes - 40.1 MBAnne McElvoy talks to Syrian architect Marwa Al-Sabouni about her country's built environment its impact on the behaviour of the people who live there. Also the politics of judging book prizes is debated by Professor Geoffrey Hosking, emeritus professor of Russian history, School of Slavonic & East European Studies, University College London and Fleur Montanaro, Administrator of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Writers Lasha Bugadze and Aka Morchiladze discuss Georgian literature ...
British Conceptual Art.
April 13, 2016 21:58 - 45 minutes - 41.6 MBPhilip Dodd is joined by artist Bruce McLean and critic Sarah Kent to consider the history and politics of British Conceptual Art on show at Tate Britain. Also Richard Nisbett gives his view on how "smart thinking" can help us improve our lives. Richard Nisbett is Theodore M. Newcomb Distinguished Professor of Social Psychology and Co-director of the Culture and Cognition program at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He is cited by Malcolm Gladwell as an influence and is the author o...
Jonathan Coe and Richard Cameron on stage at Birmingham Rep
April 12, 2016 21:15 - 44 minutes - 40.3 MBJonathan Coe, author of books including The Rotter's Club, What a Carve Up and his most recent novel Number 11, joins playwright Richard Cameron and presenter Matthew Sweet in a programme recorded in front of an audience at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Jonathan Coe's 2001 novel, The Rotter's Club, depicts teenage life in Birmingham in the 1970s, against a backdrop of strikes at the local car factories. It's been adapted for the stage by Richard Cameron - whose other plays include The G...
Free Thinking - Economics: Liam Byrne, John Redwood, Luke Johnson, Juliet Michaelson and Matt Wolf
April 07, 2016 22:06 - 45 minutes - 41.4 MBAnne McElvoy looks at current debates about economics, British manufacturing and entrepreneurialism talking to Juliet Michaelson from the New Economics Foundation, the politicians Liam Byrne and John Redwood and entrepreneur Luke Johnson. They also consider the arguments in new books from Yanis Varoufakis and Thomas Piketty. The panel is joined by theatre critic Matt Wolf who'll be reflecting on the way business and economics are represented on stage reporting on recent openings on Broad...
Free Thinking - Saki. Ria Sattouf. Anders Lustgarten. ‘A Thing’
April 06, 2016 21:30 - 44 minutes - 40.6 MBRana Mitter talks to playwright Anders Lustgarten whose latest work is set in a small village in China, Rotten Peach Village, over 60 years. Communism arrives and the villagers embrace it. Lustgarten has also written a new play partly inspired by the painter Caravaggio which opens at the RSC at the end of this year. Also a consideration of the satirical short stories about Edwardian England published by Saki - the pen name of Scottish author Hector Hugh Munro (1870 - 1916). Rana is joined ...
Evelyn Waugh.
April 05, 2016 22:01 - 44 minutes - 40.8 MBA celebration of Evelyn Waugh to mark the 50th anniversary of his death. Matthew Sweet is joined by two writers who are long term admirers - Adam Mars-Jones and Bryony Lavery and by Waugh's latest biographer, Philip Eade and his grandson and editor, Alexander Waugh. Brideshead Revisited - adapted by Bryony Lavery - runs at York Theatre Royal from Fri 22 Apr - Sat 30 Apr and then goes on tour to Bath, Southampton, Cambridge, Malvern, Brighton, Oxford, Richmond. Evelyn Waugh - A Life Revisi...
Free Thinking: Light: Ann Wroe, Dan Flavin, Blackpool Illuminations, The Sun.
March 31, 2016 21:45 - 44 minutes - 40.4 MBIn a programme exploring light, Anne McElvoy is joined by Ann Wroe - who has walked the South Downs for her latest book considering painters including Ravilious and Samuel Palmer. Prof. Lucie Green has written a journey to the centre of the sun. The fluorescent creations of Dan Flavin the post war American artist go on show at Birmingham's Ikon Gallery curated by director Jonathan Watkins. And in Blackpool - home of the Illuminations - the Grundy Art Gallery is adding to its collection of li...
Nationalisms: Jerry Brotton, Elif Shafak, John Breuilly
March 30, 2016 21:15 - 44 minutes - 40.5 MBJerry Brotton talks to Rana Mitter about the links between Elizabethan England and the Islamic World. They're joined in studio for a conversation about the history and growth of nationalism around the world by the Turkish novelist Elif Shafak, by Professor John Breuilly from the London School of Economics and by the novelist Gillian Slovo - who has written a thriller inspired by the Tottenham riots and a verbatim drama based on interviews asking why young Muslim men and women from across Wes...
Suits. Neil LaBute
March 24, 2016 22:15 - 44 minutes - 40.7 MBAnne McElvoy is joined by New Generation Thinker Shahidha Bari to explore the history of the suit as the Jewish Museum in London opens an exhibition on men's fashion. American playwright Neil LaBute is the author of plays including The Shape of Things, Bash, The Mercy Seat and Fat Pig. He discusses happiness as he follows up Reasons to be Pretty with a new drama called Reasons to be Happy. Moses, Mods and Mr Fish: The Menswear Revolution runs at the Jewish Museum in London from March 31st ...
Free Thinking - The Green Man. George Monbiot.
March 23, 2016 23:05 - 45 minutes - 41.4 MBRana Mitter considers the myth of the Green Man and our relationship to Nature, talking to George Monbiot, writing at the interface of politics, equality and nature, Nina Lyon whose exploration of Green Man rising takes her from Wales to London and american novelist Charlie Jane Anders whose sci-fi story takes in wicca magic and technological uber-geekiness. Joining them in the studio, Kate Maltby, expert in renaissance literature and political commentator. All the Birds in the Sky by Charl...
Free Thinking – Daniel Clowes; Alan Clarke's TV career; Ken Loach tribute to Barry Hines
March 22, 2016 23:01 - 45 minutes - 41.6 MBAhead of a major retrospective at the British Film Institute, Matthew Sweet shines a light on the career of director Alan Clarke with filmmaker Clio Barnard, his daughter Molly Clarke, and actor Phil Davis, who appeared in The Firm alongside Gary Oldman. Ken Loach pays tribute to Barry Hines, the Yorkshire writer behind one of his most memorable films, Kes. The American cartoonist Daniel Clowes talks about his latest graphic novel, Patience. The Alan Clarke BFI retrospective runs from ...
Free Thinking - Russia and the Arts: Julian Barnes, Roxana Silbert and Suhayla El-Bushra
March 17, 2016 22:15 - 44 minutes - 40.5 MBAnne McElvoy and Julian Barnes discuss images of Russian cultural figures on display at the National Portrait Gallery. Director Roxana Silbert and playwright Suhayla El-Bushra discuss putting Russian satirical dramas on stage in Britain. And Soumaya Keynes from teh Institute of Fiscal Studies, journalist Ann Treneman and journalist and director of the Institute for Government Peter Riddell discuss the theatre of the budget. Russia and the Arts: The Age of Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky runs at th...
Free Thinking - Philosophy: Bryan Magee
March 16, 2016 22:15 - 44 minutes - 40.4 MBMatthew Sweet and guests discuss the state of academic philosophy in the UK today. It’s often thought of as being difficult, abstract, and far-removed from the concerns of every-day life. It even came up recently in the US Presidential campaign, when Republican hopeful Marco Rubio claimed America needs fewer philosophers and more welders. So what is the place of philosophy in today’s universities? And what role can it play in wider culture? Few people in the UK have done more to help phil...
Free Thinking – Identity in Britain: Martin Parr.
March 15, 2016 22:15 - 44 minutes - 40.5 MBMartin Parr has curated an exhibition bringing together views of the UK taken by international photographers including Tina Barney from the USA. Both join Philip Dodd, plus journalists Tim Stanley and Ben Judah, and philosopher Mahlet Zimeta to examine what British identity looks like in 2016. Strange and Familiar: Britain as Revealed by International Photographers runs at the Barbican 16 March 2016 - 19 June 2016 Unseen City: Photos by Martin Parr City of London photographer-in-residenc...
Free Thinking – The Holy Roman Empire; Peter H Wilson, Janet Soskice, Rupert Shortt. Iranian art
March 10, 2016 23:05 - 45 minutes - 41.4 MBRana Mitter reads a new history of the Holy Roman Empire written by Chichele Professor of History Peter H Wilson and discusses Christianity today with the religion editor of the TLS Rupert Shortt and Professor Janet Soskice. Iranian artist Reza Derakshani is presenting new work including paintings from his ongoing Hunting series, which draws on traditions of Persian miniature painting and upon the American Abstract Expressionist movement which he encountered while living in exile in New Yo...
Free Thinking – Javier Marias; Cervantes; Spanish politics today
March 09, 2016 22:15 - 44 minutes - 40.5 MBIn a programme exploring Spanish culture and politics, Philip Dodd is joined by the influential novelist, columnist and translator Javier Marias - author of 16 books and former winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Also, following the opening of a new musical version of Don Quixote at the Royal Shakespeare Company, what is the the influence of Cervantes 400 years after his death? Ben Okri has been to Stratford and joins Javier Marias to discuss Cervantes. Plus, as the country's politica...
Free Thinking - International Women's Day: Hollie McNish, Emily Hall, Helen Pearson, Edwina Attlee and Ailsa Grant Ferguson
March 08, 2016 23:04 - 45 minutes - 41.3 MBPerformance poet Hollie McNish has written a book and a series of poems about motherhood. Composer Emily Hall has been commissioned to write a childrens' opera for Hull 2017. Scientist Helen Pearson has researched and written about the longest runnning study of human development. Edwina Attlee is a writer with an interest in launderettes, sleeper trains, fire escapes, greasy spoons, postcards, and the working lives of women. She'll be sharing audio tales from the National Life Stories Archiv...
Free Thinking - Botticelli Reimagined, A New Biography of Hitler
March 03, 2016 22:15 - 44 minutes - 40.7 MBAs a best-selling German biography of Hitler is published in English Anne McElvoy explores the way German historians view Hitler now talking to Volker Ullrich and historian Richard J Evans from the University of Cambridge. New Generation Thinker Catherine Fletcher reviews Botticelli Reimagined at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Botticelli Reimagined runs at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London from 5 March - 3 July 2016. Hitler by Volker Ullrich is now published in English. Catherine...
Anger.
March 02, 2016 22:15 - 44 minutes - 40.4 MBIn the year that John Osborne's Look Back In Anger turns 60 Philip Dodd considers the eruption of rage in the recent politics of the US and India with Jonah Goldberg, Kit Davis, Pankaj Mishra and Sunil Khilnani. Pause for a moment and you realise it's impossible to ignore the Black Lives Matter protests or the urgent polemics of the writer and activist Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose passionately angry new book about race in the US, The Beautiful Struggle, comes out this week. It's difficult to tur...
Free Thinking – Neil Jordan, The Lonely City
March 01, 2016 23:02 - 45 minutes - 41.3 MBNeil Jordan talks to Matthew Sweet about his novel The Drowned Detective and the difference between writing fiction and making films. Olivia Laing and John Haldane explore loneliness and solitude in art, philosophy and religion. Rowan Moore on creating contemporary global cities that answer the needs of the people who live and work in them. The Drowned Detective by Neil Jordan is published by Bloomsbury The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing is published by C...
Free Thinking – Russian Culture Inwards and Outwards
February 25, 2016 22:15 - 44 minutes - 40.4 MBAnne McElvoy investigates the role of culture within historic Soviet expansionism and current Russian geopolitics. She talks to Charles Clover, author of Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of Russia's New Nationalism about Eurasianism, an old idea with considerable traction in Putin's Russia and why bad ideas tend to win out over good ones . Historian Polly Jones, author of Myth Memory Trauma: Rethinking the Soviet past, 1953-70 and Clem Cecil, in-coming Director of Pushkin House, are in th...
Free Thinking
February 24, 2016 23:00 - 44 minutes - 40.5 MBThe novelist, Karl Ove Knausgård , talks to Philip Dodd as the fifth instalment of his acclaimed My Struggle series is published in the UK. The programme also considers what it means to be Scandinavian today with the Swedish journalist, Ingrid Carlberg - author of a new biography of Raoul Wallenberg; the Danish writer and translator, Dorthe Nors; and Nicholas Aylott, an expert on models of democracy in Nordic and Baltic Europe who teaches in Stockholm. Some Rain Must Fall by Karl Ove Knausg...
Free Thinking
February 24, 2016 23:00 - 44 minutes - 40.5 MBThe novelist, Karl Ove Knausgård , talks to Philip Dodd as the fifth instalment of his acclaimed My Struggle series is published in the UK. The programme also considers what it means to be Scandinavian today with the Swedish journalist, Ingrid Carlberg - author of a new biography of Raoul Wallenberg; the Danish writer and translator, Dorthe Nors; and Nicholas Aylott, an expert on models of democracy in Nordic and Baltic Europe who teaches in Stockholm. Some Rain Must Fall by Karl Ove Knausg...
Free Thinking - Religion Without Belief: Buddhist thinker Stephen Batchelor; Kader Abdolah; Linda Woodhead
February 23, 2016 22:15 - 44 minutes - 40.3 MBRana Mitter discusses religion and modernity, including a conversation with Buddhist thinker Stephen Batchelor on how ancient traditions can adapt to meet modern needs. They are joined by Kader Abdolah, who's recently produced a new translation of The Qur'an, classicist Tim Whitmarsh, who has written on atheism in the Ancient Greek World, and the sociologist of religion Linda Woodhead who has investigated what people really mean when they tick the 'No Religion' box on surveys. Tim Whitma...
Free Thinking - Utopianism in Politics
February 18, 2016 22:15 - 1 hour - 73.3 MBIs politics about building a better world, or simply the art of the possible? In a special debate recorded at the London School of Economics to mark the anniversary of Thomas More's Utopia, politicians and historians debate the balance between idealism and realism in politics, international relations and political history. Chaired by Anne McElvoy. With Justin Champion, Professor of the History of Early Modern Ideas at Royal Holloway, University of London Dr John Guy, Fellow of Clare College...
Free Thinking – Delacroix. Petain, De Gaulle. Jonathan Lynn
February 17, 2016 23:10 - 44 minutes - 41.2 MBJonathan Lynn, author of Yes, Minister talks to Philip Dodd about his new play Patriotic Traitor which imagines the relationship between Petain and de Gaulle as that of father and son and follows them from their first meeting in World War I to the end of the Second World War, by which time, each had sentenced the other to death. Suhdir Hazareesingh, author of In The Shadow of the General: Modern France and the Myth of de Gaulle, and writer and political columnist, Anne Elisabeth Moutet joi...
Free Thinking – Hieronymus Bosch anniversary
February 16, 2016 22:15 - 43 minutes - 40.2 MBTom Shakespeare, film director Peter Greenaway and art historian Matthijs Ilsink join Matthew Sweet in Holland for an exhibition marking the 500th anniversary of the death of artist Hieronymus Bosch. Matthew also talks to Plebaan Geertjan van Rossem, priest at St John's Cathedral in 's-Hertogenbosch, to get a religious perspective on Bosch's work. Het Noordbrabants Museum in 's-Hertogenbosch, Holland, presents the Jheronimus Bosch – Visions of a Genius exhibition from February 13 to May 8,...
Free Thinking – Screaming Lord Sutch on Stage. Margaret McMillan. Artificial Neural Networks.
February 11, 2016 22:15 - 45 minutes - 41.5 MBPlaywright James Graham talks to Anne McElvoy about his new comedy which puts Screaming Lord Sutch on stage. Graham's previous plays include The Vote, The Angry Brigade, This House. Historian Margaret MacMillan explores the question 'what difference do individuals make to history?' in her book History's People: Personalities and the Past. Figures include Bismarck, Babur and Roosevelt. Steve Furber, Professor of Computer Engineering at the University of Manchester, talks about his work on...
Free Thinking - Dadaism's 100th anniversary
February 09, 2016 23:00 - 44 minutes - 41.1 MBMatthew Sweet looks at the founding of the Dada movement 100 years ago in Zurich, as the city celebrates the anniversary with a series of exhibitions and cabarets which run throughout the year. New Generation Thinker Will Abberley visits an exhibition in Oxford that plays with our notion of time as Modern Art Oxford begins a year-long celebration of 50 years, Kaleidoscope, with a show called The Indivisible Present. Janet Street Porter and Michael Grade debate when does a celebrity becom...
Dadaism's 100th anniversary.
February 09, 2016 23:00 - 44 minutes - 41.1 MBLong Matthew Sweet looks at the founding of the Dada movement 100 years ago in Zurich, as the city celebrates the anniversary with a series of exhibitions and cabarets which run throughout the year. New Generation Thinker Will Abberley visits an exhibition in Oxford that plays with our notion of time as Modern Art Oxford begins a year-long celebration of 50 years, Kaleidoscope, with a show called The Indivisible Present. Janet Street Porter and Michael Grade debate when does a celebrity...
Free Thinking - Dadaism's 100th anniversary
February 09, 2016 23:00 - 44 minutes - 41.1 MBMatthew Sweet looks at the founding of the Dada movement 100 years ago in Zurich, as the city celebrates the anniversary with a series of exhibitions and cabarets which run throughout the year. New Generation Thinker Will Abberley visits an exhibition in Oxford that plays with our notion of time as Modern Art Oxford begins a year-long celebration of 50 years, Kaleidoscope, with a show called The Indivisible Present. Janet Street Porter and Michael Grade debate when does a celebrity becom...
Free Thinking -Joseph Crawhall; Madame Bovary by Peepolykus; Rona Munro's The James plays; and Matthew Parris on biography.
February 04, 2016 11:32 - 45 minutes - 41.5 MBAnne McElvoy profiles the painter Joseph Crawhall (1861-1913). Born in Northumberland, he exhibited alongside Degas and Whistler and has been credited as the leader of the young radical Scottish painters The Glasgow Boys. His father was also an artist who published "A Beuk o' Newcassell Sangs Collected by Joseph Crawhall" in 1888 - a pictorial book illustrating the lyrics and music with woodcuts. Anne will be joined in her quest by the director of the Fleming Collection in London, James Knox...