Free Thinking Podcast
Leading thinkers discuss the ideas shaping our lives - looking back at the news and making links between past and present. Fridays at 9pm on BBC Radio 4. Presented by Matthew Sweet, Shahidha Bari and Anne McElvoy.
Episodes to download
-
![]()
Modernism around the world
Thu 21 Jul 2022
Rana Mitter looks at Bauhaus in Delhi, Japanese and South African novels and Mexican art
-
![]()
The Daleks
Thu 14 Jul 2022
Matthew Sweet's guests include the voice of the Daleks, and the Doctor's granddaughter
-
![]()
Satyajit Ray's films
Thu 14 Jul 2022
Tariq Ali, Sarah Jilani, Sangeeta Datta, Chandak Sengoopta discuss Ray with Rana Mitter
-
![]()
France, music hall and history
Wed 13 Jul 2022
An outdoor history of France and a look inside popular French theatre's view on Britain
-
![]()
Women warriors and power brokers
Wed 13 Jul 2022
Shobana Jeyasingh, Cat Jarman and Janina Ramirez with Shahidha Bari
-
![]()
The Black Fantastic
Thu 7 Jul 2022
How the speculative and the mythical have shaped and continue to shape Black art.
-
![]()
Writing about money
Wed 6 Jul 2022
Orwell Prize finalist Kojo Koram plus poetry interested in economics
-
![]()
Vampires and the Penny Dreadful
Thu 30 Jun 2022
Matthew Sweet, Joan Passey, Roger Luckhurst and Sam George look at Varney the Vampire
-
![]()
David Chalmers & Iain McGilchrist
Wed 29 Jun 2022
Two leading thinkers investigating the nature of mind and its place in the world
-
![]()
Belief, Habit & Religion
Tue 28 Jun 2022
Rana Mitter discusses religion, evolution, neuroscience and history
-
![]()
Late works
Thu 23 Jun 2022
Geoff Dyer and Dame Sheila Hancock discuss endings and lateness with Matthew Sweet.
-
![]()
ETA Hoffmann
Wed 22 Jun 2022
Anne McElvoy and guests look at the life of the German Romantic who died 25 June 1822.
-
![]()
Sheffield reinvented
Tue 21 Jun 2022
New words, music and film from the "City of Steel", presented by John Gallagher.
-
![]()
Slow Film and Ecology
Thu 16 Jun 2022
Matthew Sweet discusses environmental thinking and a film made about rice over 18 years
-
![]()
Bloomsday, Dalloway Day and 1922
Wed 15 Jun 2022
Shahidha Bari looks at the writing of Woolf and Joyce and what was really popular in 1922
-
![]()
South African writing
Tue 14 Jun 2022
Damon Galgut discusses his Booker winning novel, The Promise, with Anne McElvoy
-
![]()
John McGrath's Scottish Drama
Fri 10 Jun 2022
Anne McElvoy revisits the 1973 play The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil
-
![]()
Victorian streets
Thu 9 Jun 2022
Is that strong inescapable image of 19th century city streets in our heads the right one?
-
![]()
The Wolfson Prize 2022
Tue 7 Jun 2022
Rana Mitter interviews the shortlisted authors for this prize for history writing.
-
![]()
Get Carter
Thu 2 Jun 2022
Digging beneath the surface of the classic Brit noir film with director Mike Hodges.
-
![]()
Amia Srinivasan and Philosophical Genealogy
Wed 1 Jun 2022
The Right to Sex is the title of Amia Srinivasan's new book. Christopher Harding hosts.
-
![]()
Oceans and the Sea
Wed 1 Jun 2022
Abdulrazak Gurnah, Emily Shuckburgh and Joan Passey join Rana Mitter at Hay Festival
-
![]()
Tudor families
Thu 26 May 2022
Tangled bloodlines, executions and a big, gold inflatable thing belonging to Henry VIII
-
![]()
The Tudor Mind
Wed 25 May 2022
Donne, Hamlet, 16th century psychology and mathematics, Tudor portraits
-
![]()
Tattoos
Thu 19 May 2022
Shahidha Bari traces the move from markings on convicts and aristos to today's body art.
-
![]()
Goddesses
Wed 18 May 2022
Christopher Harding explores the feminine divine with Ronald Hutton and others
-
![]()
Gandhi, Indian Architecture
Wed 18 May 2022
Rana Mitter looks at a new play at the National Theatre about the man who murdered Gandhi
-
![]()
-
![]()
Speaking Welsh
Mon 16 May 2022
Catherine Fletcher with Richard King, Caryl Lewis, Elen Ifan and Seiriol Davies
-
![]()
Soho
Fri 13 May 2022
130 acres of central London synonymous with sex and shadiness immortalised in film
Discussions and talks from the Free Thinking Festival 2019
Angry politics, what we can’t say, being diplomatic, weeping, emotion in music, film & TV
Click to listen to discussions, talks and music as the Free Thinking Festival 2019 Gets Emotional
Angry politics, what we can’t say, being diplomatic, weeping, emotion in music, film & TV
CLICK to LISTEN & SEE programmes from the Free Thinking Festival 2018: The One & the Many
We examine the fast-changing relationship between the individual & the crowd
CLICK to LISTEN & SEE all programmes, images, clips & features from 2017's festival
Free Thinking Festival 2017: The Speed of Life
