What is an outsider? Gary Lachman and Suzi Feay discuss the writings of Colin Wilson with presenter Matthew Sweet 60 years on from the publication of Wilson's best-seller which analysed literary characters in works by Camus, Hemingway, Dostoyevsky and figures including Van Gogh, T.E. Lawrence and Nijinsky. The Vulgar is the title of an exhibition of fashion on display at the Barbican - Linda Grant and Sarah Kent discuss the messages our clothing choices send out. And New Generation Thinker Elean...
Oct 11, 2016•44 min
Margaret Atwood and Naomi Alderman share an interest in science fiction, the role of women and the power of fiction. They are in conversation with Philip Dodd as part of a week of Free Thinking broadcasts tying into this year's London Literature Festival at Southbank Centre, London and its theme of Living in Future Times. Margaret Atwood's new novel Hag-Seed is a re-imagining of Shakespeare's The Tempest. She is also being awarded this year's Pen Pinter Prize. Naomi Alderman's new novel The Powe...
Oct 06, 2016•44 min
H G Wells -- the man, his women and his writing. Matthew Sweet chairs a discussion about the father of science fiction to open the London Liteature Festival at South Bank Centre. Joining him for the event are Louisa Treger, Mark Blacklock, Joanna Kavenna and Christopher Priest. Louisa Treger's novel The Lodger was inspired by Dorothy Richardson, one of the key women in Wells’ life. Christopher Priest's books include The Space Machine and his latest, The Gradual which explores ideas about time. H...
Oct 06, 2016•45 min
Rana Mitter and guests will be broadcasting live from the Radio 3's pop up studio at Southbank Centre, London. Norman Ohler, author of Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany, will be revealing the role played by drugs such as methamphetamine in Hitler's downfall. Nikesh Shukla, a former writer in residence at the Royal Festival Hall, has edited a collection of essays called The Good Immigrant. He'll be joined by novelist Kamila Shamsie, who has been involved in a project re-imagining the Canterbury Tale...
Oct 05, 2016•45 min
The novelist Benjamin Markovits, the literary historian Lara Feigel and the broadcaster and essayist Kevin Jackson join Matthew Sweet and an audience at Southbank Centre, London to explore some of the key books published in 1946 – a year in which Penguin Classics launched in the UK with a version of the Odyssey, Herman Hesse won the Nobel Prize for Literature, popular fiction included crime stories by Agatha Christie, Edmund Crispin and John Dickson Carr and children were reading Tove Jansson’s ...
Sep 29, 2016•48 min
Historian Peter Frankopan and Classicist, Edith Hall, join the author and drama practitioner Kwame Kwei-Armah in a Free Thinking session, chaired by Anne McElvoy, on the concept of success. Success was scrutinised in a documentary on the Third Programme in 1967. Personal or public - how do we imagine success in the contemporary world? Have our hopes for a successful society grown or diminished, is a sense of personal integrity as strong as it was? Archives from the Third Programme include a tran...
Sep 29, 2016•45 min
John Bew, Kwasi Kwarteng, Helen Lewis and Alison Light join Philip Dodd live in Radio 3's pop-up studio at London's Southbank Centre. In the week of the Labour party conference, when Radio 3 marks the founding of the Third Programme, which sought to disseminate the arts, by broadcasting from a building constructed as part of a people's festival, this edition of Free Thinking looks at people power, changing politics and cultural tastes and Bertold Brecht's satirical idea that we might need to ele...
Sep 29, 2016•45 min
Medieval illuminated manuscripts are our key to European art for hundreds of years but also to political and social movements. Christopher de Hamel, keeper of possibly the oldest gospel in the Latin world, talks to Matthew about the stories these books can tell beyond their glowing illustrations. We also visit Colour: The Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts, currently glowing at Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum; Kylie Murray, expert on Scottish medieval literature and a New Generation Think...
Sep 22, 2016•44 min
Pulitzer prize winning American dramatist Suzan-Lori Parks talks to Philip Dodd about putting on stage the story of a slave fighting against those seeking to abolish slavery. Journalist Gary Younge discusses American violence, gun culture and the Black Lives Matter movement. Plus Abstract Expressionism at the Royal Academy - how does this art which was used by the CIA to promote American power look today ? Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3) by Suzan-Lori Parks is at the Royal C...
Sep 21, 2016•44 min
Shelina Janmohamed on the modern Muslims whom she calls "Generation M". New novels by Amos Oz, Jonathan Safran Foer and Ayelet Gundar-Goshen explore aspects of Jewish identity and the history of Israel. Jonathan Freedland discusses these with Ayelet Gundar-Goshen. Plus Alan Powers and Christianna Ardizzone, the daughter of the artist who created the "Little Tim" series of books, talk to Anne McElvoy about his war art, ceramic figures and murals for ocean liners and his illustrations for both adu...
Sep 20, 2016•46 min
Large-scale photographs showing the impact of humans on urban and natural environments are discussed by Canadian artist and 2005 TED prize winner Edward Burtynsky. Ella Hickson's new play Oil, directed by Carrie Cracknell, explores the politics of this natural resource from 1889 to present day. She's in conversation with Joe Douglas, director of a Dundee Rep production of John McGrath's drama The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black Black Oil which is on tour this autumn. Plus, presenter Philip Dodd ...
Sep 15, 2016•44 min
From Dickens, through wartime defences to Doctor Who - as a new festival looks at the landscape of the Thames Estuary, Matthew Sweet is joined by the author Rachel Lichtenstein and photographer Chloe Dewe Mathews. Jatinder Verma explains why a novel by Abdul Halim Sharar written in 1899 about the cult of the Assassins is relevant to put on stage now. And as the writings of Arne Næss are republished in English what was the influence of this Norwegian ecologist? Producer: Luke Mulhall Rachel Licht...
Sep 14, 2016•45 min
Judges Ian McMillan - poet and presenter of The Verb, Jackie Kay - Scottish Makar and Judith Palmer - director of The Poetry Society are joined on stage by the winning poets whose writing has been prompted by music from this year's Proms. The reader is Stella Gonet. Winner over 18 Category: Anna Kisby Runners-up: Graham Burchell and John Scrivens Winner 12-18: Lucy Thynne Runners-up: Katherine Spencer-Davis and Jason Khan Producer: Fiona McLean
Sep 14, 2016•39 min
Playwright, poet, spy. Anne McElvoy discusses Aphra Behn with Professor Elaine Hobby and director Loveday Ingram who has given Behn's play The Rover a South American carnival setting at the RSC. Plus Iain Sinclair and Professor David Bates on the events of 1066 which changed the course of English history. And an interview with Mark Thompson, former Director General of the BBC and current Chief Executive Officer of The New York Times Company. The Rover runs in rep at The Swan Theatre, Stratford-U...
Sep 13, 2016•44 min
On the 300th anniversary of the birth of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, garden writer Anna Pavord talks about his work and his legacy. Author of many books , her most recent is called Landskipping. She is interviewed by Ian McMillan, presenter of Radio 3’s The Verb and judge of the Proms Poetry competition.
Sep 07, 2016•36 min
On this day 350 years ago the capital was in ruins after the Great Fire of London. Historian Adrian Tinniswood describes the massive clearing-up operation, and talks to New Generation Thinker Thomas Charlton of Dr Williams’s Library. Producer: Katy Hickman
Sep 07, 2016•34 min
Tonight’s Prom features a setting by Zemlinsky of ‘The Gardener’ by the great Bengali poet and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Novelist Tahmima Anam and New Generation Thinker Preti Taneja, from the University of Cambridge, discuss the poem and Tagore’s place in both Bengali and world culture. The discussion is chaired by Rana Mitter who is a regular presenter of Radio 3’s Arts and Ideas programme Free Thinking and of Sunday Features. Producer: Jacqueline Smith
Sep 01, 2016•37 min
The border separating East and West Germany was first breached in Leipzig. As the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra perform at the Proms, novelist Philip Kerr and historian Karen Leeder from the University of Oxford talk about East and West Germany, their differences and similarities and how massive peaceful demonstrations in Leipzig in 1989 triggered the fall of the Berlin Wall. The discussion is chaired by Rana Mitter who is a regular presenter of Radio 3’s Arts and Ideas programme Free Thinking an...
Aug 30, 2016•40 min
The composer and performer Paganini is alleged to have sold his soul to the Devil in order to become a musical prodigy. The Reverend Richard Coles and poet Imtiaz Dharker discuss the Devil in Christian and Islamic cultures. The discussion is chaired by Dr Christopher Harding from the University of Edinburgh who was selected as one of ten New Generation Thinkers in 2013. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select academics who can...
Aug 24, 2016•20 min
Michael Pennington is a leading Shakespeare actor who co-founded the English Shakespeare Company with director Michael Bogdanov and has performed at theatres across the world. He is the author of several books about Shakespeare’s plays - the most recent of which is King Lear in Brooklyn. He also performs a solo Shakespeare show Sweet William. He is interviewed by Dr Sarah Dillon from the University of Cambridge and one of the BBC and AHRC’s New Generation Thinkers. Part of a series of discussion...
Aug 23, 2016•21 min
References to sheep, lambs, fleeces, wool and shepherds are to be found in many of Shakespeare’s plays. From Corin in ‘As You Like It’ who describes himself as a ‘natural philosopher’ to Perdita’s saviour in ‘The Winter’s Tale’, they are key characters in the plots and reflect the importance of the wool trade in Elizabethan England. James Rebanks, talks about his life as a shepherd in Cumbria and how much – if at all – the shepherd’s life has changed over the past 400 years. He will be joined on...
Aug 22, 2016•42 min
No-one attributed more importance to naming the baby than Laurence Sterne's Walter Shandy but his attempts to ensure his son's future success came to naught and all because he couldn't get his trousers on. As the 2016 list of top baby names is revealed to a waiting world, Sophie Coulombeau explores literary archives to uncover the true story of What's In a Name? Just the fears, hopes and frustrations, ambitions and proclivities of British society over the centuries.
Aug 14, 2016•20 min
HG Wells was born 150 years ago this year. Although a prolific writer in many genres, he is best known today for his science fiction books, ‘The War of the Words’ and ‘The Time Machine’. As the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain prepare to perform Holst’s suite The Planets, novelist Stephen Baxter, who has been commissioned to write a sequel to ‘The War of the Worlds’ examines Wells’s novels and philosophy. He’s joined by science fiction expert and New Generation Thinker Dr Sarah Dillon f...
Aug 09, 2016•40 min
In the third discussion about the way Shakespeare depicted different professions in his plays, veteran sailor Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, the first man to circumnavigate the world single-handed, looks at playwright's view of the sea, shipwrecks and sea captains. He's joined on stage at Imperial College Union by New Generation Thinkers Dr John Gallagher from the University of Cambridge, and Nandini Das from the University of Liverpool who chairs the discussions. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme r...
Aug 03, 2016•21 min
Novelist Patricia Duncker, discusses George Eliot, her travels in Germany in the 19th century and the German music she refers to in her novels and diaries. Duncker's novel Sophie and the Sybil is a fictional version of George Eliot’s time in Germany just before the publication of the final part of Middlemarch. Alongside her on stage is Clare Walker-Gore of Trinity College, Cambridge, one of the academics selected last year by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Council to be a New Generation Thi...
Aug 03, 2016•20 min
Continuing our exploration of the ways in which Shakespeare portrayed aspects of professional life, Geoffrey Robertson QC talks about the law and lawyers, contending that Shakespeare must either have studied at the Inns of Court or was close friends with those who did, illustrated with readings performed by Bill Paterson. Highlights of a discussion hosted by Anne McElvoy and recorded at Imperial College Union earlier this evening. Producer: Luke Mulhall
Aug 02, 2016•41 min
Shakespeare's depiction of religion and clerics is discussed by the Rt Revd and Rt Hon Richard Chartres, Bishop of London, Ewan Fernie from the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham and presenter Rana Mitter. Highlights of a discussion recorded at Imperial College as part of a series exploring different professions and vocations in Shakespeare's work. Producer: Zahid Warley
Aug 01, 2016•27 min
The first of a series of six events looking at Shakespeare's depiction of different professions in his plays. Colonel Tim Collins OBE, whose rousing eve of battle speech to his troops as they prepared to go into Iraq in March 2003 has become famous, and Shakespearean expert Professor Emma Smith will discuss soldiers and war in plays including Henry V with presenter Rana Mitter. Recorded in front of an audience at the Imperial College Union earlier this evening. Producer: Torquil MacLeod....
Jul 28, 2016•21 min
From the wily Figaro to the murderous Sweeny Todd, barbers and the politics of shaving cast an interesting light on the history of 18th and 19th century Britain. Historian and expert on the Victorian Body, Kathryn Hughes and Alun Withey from the University of Exeter, who is studying hair and health over the centuries consider why clean-shaven Georgians gave way to the hairy wonders of bearded Victorians and why soldiers returning from Empire were the fore-runners of increasingly hirsute fashions...
Jul 26, 2016•33 min
Rana Mitter talks to the novelist Philip Hensher and Professor Philip Horne about the impact of Italy on the writing of Henry James, James, the centenary of whose death falls this year, first visited Italy when he was 26. It was love at first sight. Over the next forty years he made many more trips to the country and published an acclaimed collection of essays called Italian Hours. Henry James: A Life in Letters edited by Philip Horne is out now. Philip Hensher's most recent book is a collection...
Jul 25, 2016•21 min
