Night Waves - Nelson Mandela
In a change to our usual programme and podcast, Philip Dodd introduces two interviews with Athol Fugard and Janet Suzman on the day that Nelson Mandela died, aged 95.
Dec 05, 2013•33 min
Arts & Ideas
Leading 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
Night Waves - Big Business
Has "business become a dirty word?" Stefan Stern and Linda Yueh join Samira Ahmed to look at whether business has separated itself from society and lost the confidence of its customers. Acclaimed children's author Meg Rosoff discusses one of the most eagerly awaited films of the year - Alexander Payne's Nebraska. And Samira will also be discussing art and the Middle East with the British Museum's Venetia Porter, the critic Godfrey Barker, and Saudi Arabia's best known artist, Abdulnasser Gharem....
Dec 05, 2013•45 min
Night Waves - Black Nativity
Matthew Sweet has a first night review from Susannah Clapp of Jude Law as Henry V directed by Michael Grandage. He also talks to maritime geographer Phil Steinberg and expert in international public law, Steve Haines, about what the Freedom of the Seas means now and how maritime governance may develop this century. And Hughes biographer Bonnie Greer and the writer Fred D'Aiguiar have watched a new version of Langston Hughes' 1961 retelling of the nativity story; Black Nativity and talk to Matthe...
Dec 04, 2013•45 min
Night Waves - Turner Prize, Candide, Letters
Art critic for The Times Rachel Campbell-Johnston profiles the work of Laure Prouvost, winner of the Turner Prize 2013. Theatre critic Mark Shenton and Dr Caroline Warman review a new staging of Leonard Bernstein's Candide, choreographed by former Royal Ballet star Adam Cooper. Writers Hermione Lee and Simon Garfield discuss the insight personal letters give into writers' lives and creative processes. And Night Waves reflects on how experimental band Can melded the ideas of Karlheinz Stockhausen...
Dec 03, 2013•45 min
Night Waves - Amy Tan, Strange Blooms, François Mitterrand
Bestselling writer Amy Tan joins Anne McElvoy to discuss her new novel, The Valley of Amazement. Choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh's latest work, Strange Blooms, is inspired by the visual flamboyance of flowers; she is joined by fashion historian Caroline Cox to explore the changing depictions of flowers in fashion and culture. Writer Philip Short discusses his biography of one of the key architects of modern Europe, François Mitterrand.
Nov 29, 2013•45 min
Night Waves - Gandhi
Rana Mitter looks forward to an Age of the Happy City with innovative urban scholar, Richard Burdett, and journalist and urban experimentalist, Charles Montgomery. One of India's leading historians Ramachandra Guha tells Rana about Gandhi before India. He traces the friendships, set-backs, struggles and events which shaped Gandhi's thinking and honed skills he would take back into India's struggle for independence. And Jacky Klein reviews a major retrospective of artist brothers Jake and Dinos C...
Nov 28, 2013•45 min
Night Waves - Orwell & Stoicism
As Scotland and England consider the future of the United Kingdom, Philip Dodd discusses what Orwell and his version of Englishness might have to offer the debate, with Robert Colls, author of 'George Orwell: English Rebel', historian Selina Todd, and singer and author Pat Kane. As an exhibition of glasswork by contemporary British artists opens in London, Philip talks to two of the contributors Gavin Turk and Sue Webster about working in the medium. Philip is joined by Radio 3 New Generation Th...
Nov 27, 2013•45 min
Night Waves - Tony Benn, PL Travers, Guy Debord
Veteran politician Tony Benn talks to Matthew Sweet about his final volume of diaries, A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine. Historian Eliza Filby and journalist David Aaronovitch examine how much political traditions shape contemporary politics. Writer Brian Sibley reveals the lesser-known side of Mary Poppins author PL Travers. Writer Will Self discusses Guy Debord’s prescient polemic, The Society of the Spectacle.
Nov 26, 2013•45 min
Night Waves - Britten 100, Theatre Uncut, John F Kennedy
With the return of the Young Vic's Theatre Uncut season, Anne McElvoy is joined by Neil LaBute, Hannah Price and Tiffany Jenkins to discuss the role and nature of political theatre. Writer Scott Turow reflects on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, 50 years on. As part of Radio 3's Britten 100 celebrations, Alexandra Harris and Francis Spalding discuss the life and work of his librettist Myfanwy Piper.
Nov 22, 2013•45 min
Free Thinking 2013 - Penny Woolcock
Penny Woolcock talks to Samira Ahmed about directing a film version of John Adams's opera The Death of Klinghoffer. For the Free Thinking Festival, she returned to the city where she began her career. During her work at Trade Films in Gateshead she depicted the aftermath of the closure of the steelworks in Consett in When the Dog Bites. Her most recent project involved negotiating a truce between rival Birmingham gangs which she documented in One Mile Away. Recorded on Saturday 26th October 2013...
Nov 20, 2013•43 min
Night Waves - Doctor Who at 50
50 years of Dr Who is celebrated this weekend by the BBC. Matthew Sweet discusses the TV series with historian Dominic Sandbrook, philosopher Ray Monk and New Generation Thinker and cultural historian Fern Riddell. A Free Thinking career interview with artist William Tillyer, whose work is being celebrated in a retrospective at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art MIMA. Dr Adam Smith reflects on the political philosophy underlying the rhetoric of the Gettysburg address, given by Abraham Lin...
Nov 20, 2013•44 min
Free Thinking 2013 - Whose Strife
Whose Strife Is It Anyway? Amit Chaudhuri, Gaiutra Bahadur and Aamer Ahmed Khan discuss depictions of the powerless in fiction and factual reporting with Rana Mitter. Chaudhuri has explored life in Calcutta in many of his novels and essays; Badhadur's book Coolie Woman: The Odyssesy of Indenture takes the history of her great grandmother and examines the status of women who worked as labourers on sugar plantations; Khan is an editor for the Urdu section of the BBC's World Service. Recorded on Su...
Nov 14, 2013•42 min
Free Thinking 2013 - Audiences
In a bid to reach new audiences, theatre is increasingly moving off the stage and the visual arts are coming out of the gallery, but is this a welcome trend? Matthew Sweet chairs the Free Thinking panel: BALTIC Curator Godfrey Worsdale, critic Sarah Kent, artist Wolfgang Weileder and Helen Marriage, director of Artichoke, the arts company responsible for a puppet elephant parading through London and Durham's Lumiere street light festival. Recorded on Sunday 27th October 2013 in front of a live a...
Nov 12, 2013•43 min
Free Thinking 2013 - Therapy Versus Prayer
Is the idea of counselling as non-judgmental listening flawed? New Generation Thinker Christopher Harding, from Edinburgh University, focuses his talk on attitudes in Japan and the UK. He asks whether prayer involves fewer hidden pressures than a session with a shrink. Recorded on Saturday 26th October 2013 in front of a live audience at Sage Gateshead as part of Radio 3's Free Thinking festival.
Nov 08, 2013•15 min
Free Thinking 2013 - Who's Got Hold of Children's Imaginations?
As we strive to protect our children’s imaginations from negative influences, are we running an even greater risk – of starving those imaginations altogether? Writer Patrick Ness, author of the ‘Chaos Walking’ trilogy, and Dr Charles Fernyhough, whose writing examines the development of childhood language and memories, join Matthew Sweet to explore what stimulates young minds and how children cope in an unstable world. Recorded on Saturday 26th October 2013 in front of a live audience at Sage Ga...
Nov 08, 2013•43 min
Free Thinking 2013 - The Countryside
Are our policy makers too urban in their outlook? Have we lost touch with nature? On stage at Free Thinking to debate the issue are: Dame Fiona Reynolds, former head of the National Trust; Simon Thurley, CEO of English Heritage and author of The Building of England and The Men from the Ministry; Jon Alexander, reformed ad-man and founder of the newcitizenship project; rural sociologist Professor Mark Shucksmith, Director of Newcastle University's Newcastle Institute of Social renewal and Canon D...
Nov 08, 2013•44 min
Free Thinking 2013 - Science and Sensibility
Today many scientists are engaged in exploring the interaction between logical and intuitive aspects of the mind. New Generation Thinker Gregory Tate, from the University of Surrey, argues that novelists have been examining similar psychological questions for centuries, and he outlines the way the novels of Jane Austen shed light on the balance of power between thought and emotion. Recorded on Sunday 27th October 2013 in front of a live audience at Sage Gateshead as part of Radio 3's Free Thinki...
Nov 07, 2013•14 min
Free Thinking - John Waters
John Waters' film Hairspray became a hit musical. His "Trash Trilogy" involved negotiations with film censors. In an extended interview recorded in front of an audience, John Waters talks to Samira Ahmed about a career which has moved from film to hosting a show on American Court TV which featured marriages that ended in murder. Their discussion ranges over the influence of Catholicism, his birthplace Baltimore, the films of Douglas Sirk and the perils of hitchhiking. Recorded in front of an aud...
Nov 07, 2013•45 min
Free Thinking 2013 - Alice Hall
Blogs, YouTube, Facebook and phone apps have changed the way we share our lives, leading to an explosion in the telling of life stories. Alice Hall, from the University of York, explores our changing perceptions of what memory and memoir mean and looks at the way the language of modern fiction has tried to reflect this shift. Recorded on Sunday 27th October 2013 in front of a live audience at Sage Gateshead as part of Radio 3's Free Thinking festival.
Nov 06, 2013•14 min
Free Thinking 2013 - Controlling Moods and Minds
What is the neuroscience of depression, how does it affect decision-making, and what are the ethics of medical treatments? Rana Mitter chairs a discussion looking at how we control our minds. He is joined on stage by Professor Barbara Sahakian who questions the ethics of smart drugs, Richard Bentall the Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Liverpool, and Guardian columnist and author Clare Allan. Recorded on Saturday 26th October 2013 in front of a live audience at Sage Gateshea...
Nov 05, 2013•43 min
Free Thinking 2013 - How on Earth
In a world of diminishing natural resources, global economic crisis and constant pressure on time, how does not having enough shape the way we think and act? Professors Sendhil Mullainathan from Harvard, Simin Davoudi from Newcastle and Jeremy Till from Central St Martins discuss scarcity and sustainability with Philip Dodd and an audience at Sage Gateshead. Recorded on Saturday 26th October 2013 in front of a live audience at Sage Gateshead as part of Radio 3's Free Thinking festival.
Oct 31, 2013•45 min
Free Thinking 2013 - Power to the People
Social media allows us to make our views known quickly but where does this public pressure and the increasing emphasis on "choice" and "consultation" leave professional expertise and political instinct? Anne McElvoy chairs a panel at the Free Thinking Festival of Ideas, including the founder of the Renewal campaign David Skelton, the columnist David Aaronovitch and Dame Julie Moore, Chief Executive of University Hospitals Birmingham. Recorded on Saturday 26th October 2013 in front of a live audi...
Oct 30, 2013•44 min
Free Thinking 2013 - Sarah Peverley
A 15th-century English monarch was appointed by God and had absolute supremacy but how was that belief shaken when medieval kings were unfit to rule or the throne was contested? New Generation Thinker Sarah Peverley, from Liverpool University, looks at the way the people viewed their rulers during the Wars of the Roses. Recorded on Saturday 26 October 2013 in front of a live audience at Sage Gateshead.
Oct 30, 2013•16 min
Free Thinking 2013 - Zamyatin's We
Yevgeny Zamyatin's experiences in the Tyne shipyards fed into his dystopian fable "We", which was published in 1919. It depicts a city of glass where citizens are spied upon. Fans of the book have included George Orwell, Kurt Vonnegut and Tom Wolfe and it increasingly resonates with today's concerns about surveillance techniques. Matthew Sweet and an audience at The Free Thinking Festival from Sage Gateshead discuss the novel with poet Sean O'Brien, columnist David Aaronovitch and Radio 3 New Ge...
Oct 30, 2013•43 min
Free Thinking 2013 - Boneless, Bloodaxe and Hairy Breeches: What Did the Vikings Ever Do f
When Lindisfarne monastery was attacked in 793AD the monk Alcuin described the church of St Cuthbert, "splattered with the blood of the priests." New Generation Thinker Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough, from Durham University, takes this moment as the starting point for an exploration of the power battles between Vikings and Anglo Saxons which led to the symbolic battles of 1066. Recorded on Saturday 26th October 2013 in front of a live audience at Sage Gateshead as part of Radio 3's Free Thinking f...
Oct 28, 2013•13 min
R3 Arts: Free Thinking 2013 - Michael Marmot
Sir Michael Marmot delivers the opening lecture of the BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking Festival 2013, exploring the traits that determine a healthy life span and arguing that we need to rethink the relationship between health, wealth and self-control. Professor Marmot is one of the global pioneers of research into health inequalities - how stress, status and diet can affect our wellbeing. His ground-breaking Whitehall Studies followed the health and stress levels of British civil servants over a decad...
Oct 26, 2013•57 min
Free Thinking 2013 - Twenty Minutes - An Interview with Neil Tennant
Neil Tennant, singer of pop duo Pet Shop Boys, grew up in the fishing port of North Shields and went to a Catholic school in Newcastle. He talks to Philip Dodd about the influence of the North East on his career, which began in publishing and magazines. Last year the Pet Shop Boys performed at the closing ceremony of the London Olympics and they have just returned from a tour which has taken them to 29 countries.
Oct 25, 2013•21 min
Night Waves - The Common Reader
Matthew Sweet leads an elite party of literary explorers - Linda Grant, Aminatta Forna, Naomi Alderman and Tim Stanley on an expedition to find "the common reader" -- being stalked by Woolf in the 20th Century and by Johnson in the 18th. Both believed that the common reader "uncorrupted with literary prejudices" was the final arbiter of "poetical honours" so it's a quest that's clearly still relevant today. The question is what does a common reader look like in our digital age? What are they rea...
Oct 24, 2013•45 min
Night Waves - Landmark: Le Grand Meaulnes
A Landmark edition in which Anne McElvoy and guests look at Alain-Fournier's celebrated and nostalgic tale of adolescent romance, Le Grand Meaulnes. Michèle Roberts, Hermione Lee and Patrick McGuiness examine it's enduring appeal and legacy from the poetry of its language, to the interlocking mysteries of its plot to the intriguing romantic life and early death of its author, and the story of the woman who inspired him. With readings by Peter Marinker.
Oct 24, 2013•43 min
Free Thinking - Michael Grigsby
In the second of 2 programmes from Derry Londonderry Radio 3's Matthew Sweet examines the work and legacy of director Michael Grigsby, who died earlier this year, and who made a trilogy of films in Ulster. In the first two, Too Long A Sacrifice and The Silent War, he invited people to talk about how The Troubles had impacted on their lives. Matthew Sweet is joined by two film-makers who worked closely with Michael Grigsby, Rebekah Tolley and John Furse, to pay tribute to his work. This event was...
Oct 22, 2013•45 min
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