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
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Free Thinking - Buddhism
Wed 18 Feb 2015
Rana Mitter discusses Buddhism, in Western therapy and in Eastern politics with Mark -...
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Free Thinking Landmark - 1001 Nights
Tue 17 Feb 2015
It's three hundred years since the death of Antoine Galland, a French orientalist and...
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Free Thinking - Britain's Economy
Thu 12 Feb 2015
Will Hutton joins Anne McElvoy for a programme focusing on economics and wealth in...
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Free Thinking - Karim Miske; Aatish Taseer: 11 Feb15
Wed 11 Feb 2015
Karim Miské and Aatish Taseer discuss their recent novels, the French tradition of of...
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Free Thinking - Eroticism & Utopia
Tue 10 Feb 2015
Dylan Evans tells Matthew Sweet about his experimental community in the Scottish and...
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Free Thinking - Greece & Russia
Thu 5 Feb 2015
Anne McElvoy assesses reports that members of the new Greek government are age-old and...
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Free Thinking - Paul Muldoon, Roy Foster. Rona Munro: 4 Feb15
Wed 4 Feb 2015
Poet Paul Muldoon explores the history of Ireland in his new collection, One Thousand...
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Free Thinking - Eddie Marsan
Tue 3 Feb 2015
Andrew O'Hagan talks to Matthew Sweet about identity, capturing memories and the of in...
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Free Thinking - Race in America
Thu 29 Jan 2015
Joyce Carol Oates new novel The Sacrifice depicts an act of racial violence which a...
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Free Thinking - Tom Stoppard's The Hard Problem
Wed 28 Jan 2015
Surgeon Henry Marsh and critic Susannah Clapp review the opening of Tom Stoppard's at...
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Free Thinking - Holocaust
Tue 27 Jan 2015
Rana Mitter talks to Richard J Evans' about his new book The Third Reich in History on...
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Free Thinking - Cities & Resilience
Thu 22 Jan 2015
New Generation Thinker Daisy Hay talks to Anne McElvoy about the relationship between...
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Free Thinking Churchill & Englishness 21Jan15
Wed 21 Jan 2015
Philip Dodd plus guests David Reynolds, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Simon Heffer and David...
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Free Thinking - Dramatising Democracy
Tue 20 Jan 2015
Author Michael Dobbs, dramatists James Graham and Paula Milne and TV producer Tierney...
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Free Thinking - Russell T Davies
Thu 15 Jan 2015
Matthew Sweet looks at today's announcement of this year's Oscar nominations focusing...
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R3 Arts: Free Thinking - Looking at Art
Wed 14 Jan 2015
Philip Dodd explores the way we look at art with documentary maker Fred Wiseman, Iwona...
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Free Thinking - TS Eliot Prize
Tue 13 Jan 2015
The Scottish poet Robert Crawford and fellow-TS Eliot biographer, Lyndall Gordon join...
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Free Thinking - Mike Bartlett
Thu 8 Jan 2015
Mike Bartlett talks to Anne McElvoy about his play Bull which takes to the stage at at...
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Free Thinking - Sleep and Creativity
Wed 7 Jan 2015
Rana Mitter explores why we sleep with pioneering researcher into the body clock, Matt...
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Free Thinking - Antonia Fraser
Tue 6 Jan 2015
Lady Antonia Fraser talks to Matthew Sweet about her childhood in Oxford and London in...
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Free Thinking - Clive James
Thu 18 Dec 2014
In an extended interview, Philip Dodd talks to Clive James whose writing and in the of...
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Free Thinking - Pantomime past to present
Wed 17 Dec 2014
Matthew Sweet on Pantomime past to present with writer Jeffrey Richards and Tony...
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Free Thinking - Protest
Tue 16 Dec 2014
Philosopher Slavoj Žižek speaks to Philip Dodd about the re-emergence of a radical a...
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Free Thinking - TV Drama
Thu 11 Dec 2014
TV dramatist Jed Mercurio, producer Caryn Mandabach and writer-director, Dominic talk...
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Free Thinking - Wonder Woman
Wed 10 Dec 2014
American author Rebecca Solnit discusses the impact of "mansplaining" which she in her...
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Free Thinking - Mecca, Qur'an, Islam
Tue 9 Dec 2014
Mona Siddiqui talks to Philip Dodd about her book called My Way: A Muslim Woman's Journey.
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Free Thinking - British Monarchy
Thu 4 Dec 2014
Philip Dodd and a panel including historians Philip Ziegler and John Guy, biographer a...
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Free Thinking - Political Theatre
Wed 3 Dec 2014
Philip Dodd, Roger Scruton and Janet Suzman look at theatre in South Africa - a year...
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Free Thinking - Landmark: 2001
Tue 2 Dec 2014
Scientist Brian Cox and Professor Chris Frayling join the actors Keir Dullea and Gary...
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Free Thinking - Global Crisis
Thu 27 Nov 2014
Anne McElvoy talks to the historian Geoffrey Parker about Global Crisis, his account...
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
