The Oscar winning Midnight Cowboy was followed up by this drama about an artist who has relationships with a female job consultant and a male doctor. Director John Schlesinger, writer Penelope Gilliatt, actors Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch were all nominated for Academy Awards but it performed poorly at the box office. Was the film - released on July 1st 1971, ahead of its times? Matthew Sweet re-watches it with guests including Glenda Jackson, playwright Mark Ravenhill, film historian Melanie ...
Jul 01, 2021•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast HIV's origins and colonial history have inspired the collection of poems by Kayo Chingonyi, which has been nominated for the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2021. Paisley Rekdal is currently the Poet Laureate of Utah. Her latest collection of poems was inspired by Ovid. She's been thinking about where stories come from and what we mean by appropriation. Dr Nasser Hussain is interested in ‘lost’ fragments of language and in what we notice and what we ignore. New Generation Thinker Florence Hazr...
Jun 30, 2021•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast Cities produce more than half the world’s carbon emissions and are home to more than half the world’s population. So what role might cities play in tackling the climate emergency and how can their inhabitants be inspired to help design their own solutions? Des Fitzgerald asks Nicole Metje and Andy Gouldson how engineering, finance and local projects might combine to make city living greener and more sustainable. Professor Nicole Metje is Head of Enterprise, Engagement and Impact and Head of the ...
Jun 29, 2021•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Bait depicted Cornish second-home owners in a tense relationship with local fishermen. The 2019 film's director Mark Jenkin is one of Laurence Scott's guests along with author Wyl Menmuir, and Joan Passey, from the University of Bristol, where she is researching ideas about the sea as a monstrous space. Their conversation ranges from The Jewel of the Seven Stars by Bram Stoker via Wyl's novel The Many, centred on a derelict home in a coastal village and ideas about outsiders, to Celtic Cornish B...
Jun 29, 2021•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast What role do museums and heritage organisations have to play in the climate emergency? How do we stop cultural and historical landmarks from falling into the sea, or is it time to learn to say goodbye? Rodney Harrison and Caitlin DeSilvey share their expertise, from lost lighthouses to net-zero carbon museums, and their work on a shared project, Heritage Futures www.heritage-futures.org. Rodney Harrison is Professor of Heritage Studies at University College London and AHRC Heritage Priority Area...
Jun 25, 2021•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast From the Great Exhibition of 1851 to Shanghai 2010, Owen Hatherley, Emily MacGregor and Paul Greenhalgh explore visions of the future offered by world's fairs and expos with Matthew Sweet. Emily MacGregor describes the row which blew up over music commissioned by William Grant Still for the 1939/40 New York World's Fair. Paul Greenhalgh tells us about world's fairs from London and Paris to Shanghai. Owen Hatherley describes visiting an expo in Kazakhstan. Owen Hatherley's new book is called Clea...
Jun 24, 2021•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast Poets Yvonne Reddick and John Wedgewood Clarke are using poetry and creative writing to explore our, and their, relationships with the environment. John is focusing on a small polluted river in Cornwall, while Yvonne explores her family relationships. And they aren’t the first poets to do so - she also shares her research into how previous poets, including Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney, were concerned about the climate emergency. Dr Yvonne Reddick is Research Fellow at the University of Central L...
Jun 24, 2021•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Peace, prosperity and formica - that's one way of describing the vision on show at the Festival of Britain in 1951. But domesticity had a radical side and in this Free Thinking conversation, Shahidha Bari talks to researchers Sophie Scott-Brown and Rachele Dini and looks at the domestic appliances selected for display in the newly re-opened Museum of the Home, talking to Director Sonia Solicari about how ideas about home, homelessness and home-making have shaped what is on show. Museum of the Ho...
Jun 23, 2021•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast Stew, the name for brothels in London. A townhouse set to become luxury flats in the centre of Soho is the focus of the new novel Hot Stew from Fiona Mozley, who was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for her debut book Elmet. SI Martin founded the 500 Years of Black London walks nearly 20 years ago. In his novel Incomparable World he depicts a bustling eighteenth century London which offers a refuge for the many black Americans who fought for liberty on the side of the British. Plus pianist and c...
Jun 22, 2021•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast From Greek tragedy to Covid conspiracies via LGBTQI activism in Uganda, artist Leilah Babirye, classicist Natalie Haynes and BBC correspondent Marianna Spring join Matthew Sweet to explore the many roles of masks. Leilah Babirye's first solo exhibition in Europe - Ebika Bya ba Kuchu mu Buganda (Kuchu Clans of Buganda) II - is at the Stephen Friedman Gallery, London until 31st July. Pandora's Jar: Women in Greek Myths by Natalie Haynes is now out in paperback. You can hear Natalie sharing her mus...
Jun 17, 2021•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Are you coming back? That is what potter Edmund de Waal was asked by readers when he published his best-selling book about his family's refugee history The Hare with Amber Eyes. It's not a question he had easy answers for. In Refugee Week, Anne McElvoy and her guests, Edmund de Waal, Frances Stonor Saunders and Fariha Shaikh look at what it means to have to move your family and belongings - from the Jewish people who fled from central Europe to the colonial settlers of Charles Dickens's novels. ...
Jun 16, 2021•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast A Somali man arrested for murder in 1950s Cardiff inspired the latest novel from Nadifa Mohamed. She talks to Rana Mitter about uncovering this miscarriage of justice in a newspaper cutting with the headline, "Woman Weeps as Somali is Hanged". On stage at the National Theatre in London, Michael Sheen, Karl Johnson, and Siân Phillips lead the cast in a production of Under Milk Wood, so we look at the craft of Dylan Thomas's writing and talk to Siân Owen about her framing of the story for the Nati...
Jun 15, 2021•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Does climate change force people to flee their homes and livelihoods? Does it cause wars that create refugees? Dr Helen Adams and Professor Michael Collyer explain how various factors are at play, from resources, to politics, to family ties. Dr Helen Adams is an environmental social scientist based at King’s College, London. Her research looks at the interactions between humans and climate change, well-being and resources. Professor Michael Collyer is Professor of Geography at the University of ...
Jun 15, 2021•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast "Tunnel vision is deadly. We need lateral vision. That is what anthropology can impart: anthro-vision." So says renowned economist GillianTett, who trained as an anthropologist. She joins Anne McElvoy along with Tulsi Menon, who trained in anthropology and now works in advertising, for a debate about what the discipline offers business. We look back at the history of anthropology with Frances Larson, author of a new book about forgotten women anthropologists, and a previous book which looked at ...
Jun 11, 2021•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast "Tunnel vision is deadly. We need lateral vision. That is what anthropology can impart: anthro-vision." So says renowned economist GillianTett, who trained as an anthropologist. She joins Anne McElvoy along with Tulsi Menon, who trained in anthropology and now works in advertising, for a debate about what the discipline offers business. We look back at the history of anthropology with Frances Larson, author of a new book about forgotten women anthropologists, and a previous book which looked at ...
Jun 11, 2021•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast From Bitcoin mines to green investment bonds: how easy is it to change the way finance works to make it greener? Professor Yu Xiong and Professor Nick Robins share their research, knowledge and concerns of these high-tech financial systems with Professor Des Fitzgerald. Professor Yu Xiong is Associate Dean International and director of the Centre for Innovation and Commercialization at the Surrey Business School, University of Surrey. His research focuses on sustainability and technological issu...
Jun 10, 2021•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast From Frankie Howerd to Sherlock: Beryl Vertue is the producer of some classic TV shows including Men Behaving Badly. She took Steptoe and Son to America, negotiated for writer Terry Nation to retain some of the rights for his Dr Who Daleks creation, and back when she began in the 1960s, worked with a Who's Who of comedy writing talent at Associated London Scripts as well as representing Tony Hancock and Frankie Howerd as their agent. As chairman of the family firm Hartswood Films, her more recen...
Jun 09, 2021•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast A Bouillabaisse soup inspired hat paraded by the surrealist artist Eileen Agar in 1948 caused raised eyebrows to the passers-by captured in the Pathé news footage on show in the Whitechapel Gallery's exhibition exploring her career. It's just one of many displays showcasing women's art open this summer at galleries across the UK, so today's Free Thinking looks at what it means to put women's art back on the walls and into the way we look at art history. Shahidha Bari is joined by Whitechapel cur...
Jun 08, 2021•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast How real are flooding dangers in Britain and Ireland? Two researchers who have been working with local communities in Wales, Norfolk and Ireland tell Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough about the impact of changing landscapes, how sand dunes beat concrete, and how audio postcodes can help the people of Norfolk reflect on their with local wildlife along the longest protected coast in Europe. Dr Emma McKinley is a research fellow at the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Cardiff University, an...
Jun 08, 2021•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Is climate change to blame for global conflicts and disputes over resources? Or is this rush to blame water shortages just post-Colonial thinking? Dr Ayesha Siddiqi and Professor Jan Selby talk to Professor Des Fitzgerald talk about their research, where geography and politics collide. Dr Ayesha Siddiqi is a development and postcolonial geographer at the University of Cambridge. She shares her expertise in natural disasters and politics, security and development in the Global South. Professor Ja...
Jun 05, 2021•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast How green is office working? Have changes since Covid helped us plan for a more environmentally friendly way of working? Philosopher Dr Alexander Douglas and Dr Jane Parry, who works on Work after Lockdown, talk to Des Fitzgerald about the future of work in a post-Covid-19 world and the implications for our environment. Dr Alexander Douglas is a Lecturer in Philosophy in the School of Philosophical, Anthropological and Film Studies at the University of St Andrews. He is a founder and co-director...
Jun 04, 2021•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Is encouraging action still art? What does it mean to make art about the environment? Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough brings together a curator, researchers and artists to discuss these questions. She hears about suggestions from artists, inspired by the forward thinking Gustav Metzger (1926 - 2017), collated by curator Hans Ulrich Obrist. These include the idea from Futurefarmers that we "make an unannounced visit to a farm and take a good long look at the farmer's bookshelf" or Forensic Architect...
Jun 03, 2021•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast "Before there were books there were stories". Salman Rushdie's opening words in his collected Essays from 2003-2020. In one of them he reveals that Alice in Wonderland made such an impression on him as a child that he can still recite Jabberwocky. So Free Thinking brought him together with the literary historian Lucy Powell and with Mark Blacklock, who has studied literature about the fourth dimension, for a conversation about the power of dreams, the place of logic and irrationality and the tru...
Jun 02, 2021•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Should Kew re-label its plants? What do you see when you study a still life painting on the gallery walls? How do nineteenth century authors depict deadly plants? New Generation Thinker Christienna Fryar discusses new ways of understanding British history through horticulture with her four guests: Lauren Working, is one of the 2021 New Generation Thinkers. She has studied the Jamestown colony, and delivers a postcard about still life painting and its connection to the exotic luxuries of early em...
Jun 01, 2021•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast 'What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence'. Thus ends the only book the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein published in his lifetime. But it's a book that's had people talking ever since it was published a century years ago. In an event hosted by the Austrian Cultural Forum, and in collaboration with the British Wittgenstein Society, Shahidha Bari discusses the contexts and contents of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus at 100 with Wittgenstein's biographer Ray Monk, the philosophers...
May 27, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast Wearing denim, workwear, or sharp tailoring makes a statement about how we think of ourselves. Charlie Porter has been exploring the relationship between artists and clothes. He joins writer Olivia Laing and Ekow Eshun for a conversation about clothing, bodies, and our expression of our sexuality, hosted by Shahidha Bari. Olivia Laing's latest book is called Everybody: A Book About Freedom Charlie Porter has published What Artists Wear. A former Turner prize judge, he writes and curates and is a...
May 26, 2021•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Startup Wife is the title of Tahmima Anam's latest novel. Anne McElvoy talks to her about writing about the work/life balance and ideas about risk. New Generation Thinker Mirela Ivanova, from the University of Oxford, is researching Balkan history. She writes us a postcard about the strangely changing look of the main museum in Sofia, Bulgaria and why it's significant. And we look back at Roman history as the British Museum opens an exhibition Nero: the man behind the myth, talking to curato...
May 25, 2021•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Is Gogglebox the main place on TV where you now find criticism? What does that tell us about the role of the critic today? Suzi Feay, Arifa Akbar and Charlotte Mullins join Matthew Sweet to review a new art exhibition at the Barbican showcasing the art and ideas of Jean Dubuffet and to reflect on what being a critic means. Matthew pays tribute to the thinking of Kevin Jackson (3 January 1955 – 10 May 2021) who took part in many critical discussions on BBC Radio 3. New Generation Thinker Vid Simo...
May 20, 2021•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast A ghostly Franco visits an elderly man in the latest novel by Patrick McGrath. He joins historian Duncan Wheeler and the makers of a prize winning documentary Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar, as Rana Mitter's guests for a discussion of the Spanish Civil War, the ghosts and silences that remain and how history is now being written. The Silence of Others, backed by Pedro Almodóvar and directed by Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar has been screened at festivals across the world and has picked...
May 19, 2021•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Toussaint Louverture's revolutionary leadership in Haiti; Ravenna's place as a hub of culture and a meeting point of East and West; how motherhood and work have changed from Victorian Manchester factories to the modern boardroom; a 3,000 year history of attacks on libraries and book burnings; battles in the Atlantic from the Vikings to conflicts over slavery in the Caribbean and on the North American coast; recovering the voices of children who experienced the Holocaust: Rana Mitter looks at how...
May 18, 2021•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
