The Silence of My Pain
Hannah French explores a hidden disability for many musicians: pain.
Nov 08, 2020•44 min
The Radio 3 Documentary
In-depth documentaries which explore a different aspect of history, science, philosophy, film, visual arts and literature. The Sunday Feature is broadcast every Sunday at 6.45pm on BBC Radio 3.
Episodes
New Generation Thinker short Feature: COVID and The Black Death, an imperfect fit.
It's understandable that, with the onset of a global pandemic, commentators have looked to the past for comparisons. But Dr Seb Falk is concerned that with the easy headlines about the mortality rate or the economic damage, or even the positive transformations inspired by plagues of the past and particularly in his field, the Black Death of the medieval period, more subtle comparisons emerging from exciting new Plague research are being overlooked. He hears from Dr Monica Green, a leading author...
Oct 18, 2020•14 min
Silent Witness: John Cage, Zen and Japan
John Cage is arguably the most important composer of the 20th century, even though he's perhaps famous, or infamous depending on your point of view, for writing a piece of music that is 4'33" of silence. Famous because it made his reputation - after all composers write music not silence – and infamous because not unsurprisingly, it's outraged, perplexed and fascinated audiences since its premiere in 1952. Cage though was deadly serious about his silent piece, and Robert Worby goes on an odyssey ...
Jul 15, 2020•44 min
The Crankiness of C.W.Daniel
New Generation Thinker Elsa Richardson on the radical 20th century publisher C.W.Daniel.
Apr 26, 2020•14 min
The Queen Of Technicolor
Marie-Louise Muir traces her childhood idol Maureen O’Hara’s journey from Dublin's suburbs to star of the Golden Age.
Mar 13, 2020•44 min
The East Speaks Back
We are used to getting a worldview from the west, but what did the east make of us? Jerry Brotton heads to Istanbul on the trail of one the world's great travellers, Evliya Celebi
Mar 12, 2020•43 min
Ken Campbell as Never Heard Before
David Bramwell with actors whose lives were transformed by director Ken Campbell.
Jan 19, 2020•44 min
Glitter and Villainy
Daisy Black, Radio 3 New Generation Thinker, investigates the camp villain in history.
Dec 29, 2019•14 min
Rewiring Raymond Scott
At the height of his fame as a jazz composer and band leader in the late 1930s, Raymond Scott was billed as ‘America’s Foremost Composer of Modern Music’. Jazz legend Art Blakey confessed that his music ‘scared the hell out of me’. Electrical engineer, inventor, composer and musician Raymond Scott became adept at creating music that demonstrated a unique commercial appeal. He wrote for Broadway and Hollywood, he appeared weekly on national radio, his ‘novelty jazz’ tunes were licensed to Warner ...
Dec 22, 2019•43 min
Poles Apart
The unknown tale of cold war communist Poland’s unlikely love affair with electronic music. Robert Worby finds out Warsaw was a beacon of musical freedom behind the iron curtain. It was here that the remarkable Polish Radio Experimental Studio was established in 1957, and this was the first electronic music studio in the Eastern Bloc and the fourth in Europe. This futuristic facility was at the cutting edge of modern music, and was a serious rival for existing studios in Paris, Milan, and Cologn...
Nov 15, 2019•44 min
The Hidden Reservoir
Carlo Gebler on the role of art in remembrance and reconciliation in Northern Ireland
Nov 15, 2019•44 min
Power Plays
As East Germany crumbled in 1989, actors were centre stage. Andrew Dickson discovers how had theatre had survived under communist rule, with its censors and secret police spies. Focusing in particular on the playwright Heiner Mueller he explores the brilliant creativity and unique relationship with audiences that made theatre so important. But there were compromises and setbacks too. And after the end of communism actors and writers struggled for relevance - though Mueller's work on global theme...
Nov 03, 2019•44 min
Al Andalus - The Legacy
Andrew Hussey journeys through Andalusia searching for the legacy of Muslim Spain
Oct 24, 2019•44 min
Plot 5779: Unearthing Elizabeth Siddall
Actor Lily Cole plays Elizabeth Siddall who climbs out of her grave to tell her story.
Oct 16, 2019•47 min
Literary Pursuits: Lord of the Flies
Golding's classic novel was saved from being rejected by Faber by the luckiest chance.
Sep 23, 2019•43 min
Cold War in Full Swing - Louis Armstrong in the GDR
Jazz and communist East Germany seem unlikely bedfellows. Yet in 1965 Louis Armstrong became the first American entertainer to play jazz there at the height of the Cold War. East Germans celebrated Armstrong, and his visit became a propaganda victory for East Germany, helping it to boost its reputation in the wake of its oppressive government building the Berlin Wall in 1961. On his brief and only tour through East Germany Armstrong played to packed houses. His popularity surprised the authoriti...
Jul 14, 2019•45 min
Sir Isaac Newton and the Philosopher's Stone
Dafydd Mills Daniel investigates Isaac Newton's more obscure studies in Alchemy.
Jun 30, 2019•14 min
A Unicorn Quest
Hetta Howes sets off to find the unicorn of myth in 21st century Britain.
Jun 27, 2019•15 min
Robinson Crusoe Road-Trip
300 years since Robinson Crusoe was published, Emma Smith traces it across the centuries
May 26, 2019•43 min
Alexander Korda: Producer, Director, Exile, Spy
Matthew Sweet unearths the film-maker Alexander Korda's wartime role as a British agent.
May 19, 2019•44 min
WATERLOG
Wild swimming enthusiast Alice Roberts examines the legacy of Waterlog by Roger Deakin.
May 12, 2019•43 min
John Ashbery - Portrait in a Convex Mirror
Drawing on the testimony of many who knew him, Colm Toibin presents an intimate portrait of the brilliant, playful, Pulitzer-winning American poet John Ashbery, who died in 2017. Produced in Cardiff by Steven Rajam and Lyndon Jones
May 05, 2019•44 min
Hotel Genius
It’s been described as one of the most remarkable collections of minds on the planet. It has a brilliant international faculty, but no students. Its researchers have made some of the most significant scientific discoveries of the 20th century, but it has never had a laboratory. Sally Marlow joins scholars for the start of a new term at The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton New Jersey, conceived as a paradise for curiosity-driven research in mathematics, natural sciences, social science and...
Apr 26, 2019•44 min
The Deluxe Edition
Dr Seán Williams takes a first class trip through the enduring contradictions of luxury.
Mar 24, 2019•44 min
Jazz Japan
Musician and journalist Katherine Whatley explores the rich and surprising history of jazz in Japan. Surprising because the chaotic individualism of this American art form appears at first to go against the very grain of Japan’s communitarian sprit. More surprising still that, having been banned as ‘enemy music’ during the second world war, jazz music was wholeheartedly embraced in Japan during the immediate post war period and the US-led allied occupation. In fact the market for jazz within Jap...
Mar 11, 2019•43 min
A History of the Tongue
A succulent & mouth watering portrait of one of the least talked about organs of the body.
Feb 11, 2019•44 min
Literary Pursuits: Victor Hugo's Les Miserables
Sarah Dillon explores the stories behind how great works of literature were written.
Dec 30, 2018•44 min
Sunday Feature: Into the Forest - The Pine Tree
Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough tells the magical story of the tree that sits at the heart of Christmas day - the pine tree. A tale of power, biological wonder and baubles.
Dec 23, 2018•43 min
Harlem on Fire
'Fire!!' was a short-lived literary magazine from the Harlem Renaissance published in 1926, created by and for the young black artists of the movement. Featuring poetry, prose, drama and artwork from some of the biggest names of the Harlem Renaissance including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Bruce Nugent, Wallace Thurman and Aaron Douglas, the magazine was an explosive attempt to burn down the traditional western canon and replace it with a series of brutally honest and controversi...
Nov 25, 2018•44 min
The Kristapurana
Amazing travels of the first Englishman in India & a hunt for a lost poetic masterpiece.
Nov 18, 2018•44 min
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