Arts & Ideas Podcast
Leading thinkers discuss the ideas shaping our lives – looking back at the news and making links between past and present. Broadcast as Free Thinking, 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: Born in 1819: Ruskin, Clough and Bazalgette
Wed 9 Jan 2019
Laurence Scott examines the eminent Victorians Ruskin, Bazalgette and Arthur Hugh Clough.
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Landmark: Laurel and Hardy's The Music Box
Tue 8 Jan 2019
Matthew Sweet pays tribute to Hollywood's most famous comedy duo Stan and Ollie
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The Digital Humanities
Fri 21 Dec 2018
How new technology is transforming research in the Humanities.
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Landmark: Watership Down
Thu 20 Dec 2018
An ecological fable about a perfect society ? Matthew Sweet reads Richard Adams' classic.
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What does game playing teach us?
Wed 19 Dec 2018
Bobby Seagull & Irving Finkel join Shahidha Bari to look at competitiveness and games.
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Ice
Thu 13 Dec 2018
Anne McElvoy & guests travel to the frozen ends of the Earth & C17 theatrical magic...
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Linton Kwesi Johnson
Wed 12 Dec 2018
The reggae poet and recording artist talks politics religion and writing with Philip Dodd
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Writing and Frankness
Tue 11 Dec 2018
Deborah Levy, Adam Phillips & Amia Srinivasan join Matthew Sweet at the British Library.
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Are we being manipulated?
Thu 6 Dec 2018
Who's pulling your strings - Matthew Sweet and guests track down today's hidden persuaders
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Is there a great divide between the arts and science?
Wed 5 Dec 2018
Sir Paul Nurse and Tristram Hunt debate with an audience at Queen Mary University London.
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Natasha Gordon. Bessie Head. Rwanda Representation and Reality
Wed 5 Dec 2018
Gordon's play Nine Night, the life of Botswana's most influential writer, Rwanda on TV
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Mike Hodges; Dark Sweden.
Thu 29 Nov 2018
The director of Get Carter talks to Matthew Sweet about writing his own crime stories.
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Slavery Stories
Wed 28 Nov 2018
A long lost classic now published, Esi Edugyan's Booker shortlisted novel & new research
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Plagues, Urban Inequality and Restricted Books
Tue 27 Nov 2018
Artist Penny Woolcock, global health researcher Thomas Bollyky and Jane Stevens Crawshaw
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Leadership: lessons from US Presidents and campaigners.
Fri 23 Nov 2018
POTUS, crisis management and ambition - Doris Kearns Goodwin talks to Anne McElvoy
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The Left Behind
Wed 21 Nov 2018
Eric Kaufmann talks to Philip Dodd about white identity, populism and immigration
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What kind of history should we write?
Wed 21 Nov 2018
Peter Frankopan & Maya Jasanoff, winner of richest prize for history with Rana Mitter
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Buses, beer and VR - a taste of university research.
Thu 15 Nov 2018
From ancient religion to London's Greek Cypriot community & the 29 bus route
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Death rituals
Wed 14 Nov 2018
From death cafes to bronze age burials, C19th mourning rings to the way doctors cope.
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Lost Words and Language
Wed 14 Nov 2018
Shahidha Bari looks at research showcased in the Being Human Festival at UK universities
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Why are we silent when conflict is loud?
Thu 8 Nov 2018
Is public silence still the best way to honour our war dead?
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Butterflies and Bloodstains: Fragments of the First World War
Thu 8 Nov 2018
Can public Acts of Commemoration ever encompass multiple individual experience?
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Landmark: Journey to the End of the Night
Wed 7 Nov 2018
Marie Darrieussecq, Andrew Hussey , Tibor Fischer& Damian Catani on Céline's masterpiece
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Wilfred Owen: Poetry and Peace.
Tue 6 Nov 2018
Gillian Clarke. Sabrina Mahfouz and Michael Symmons Roberts respond to the war poet.
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Re-thinking the Human Condition
Thu 1 Nov 2018
Thomas Woolston Free Thinker, Isaiah Berlin philosopher plus memory and neuroscience.
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Religious divisions, puppet shows and politics.
Wed 31 Oct 2018
The exile of English Catholics 450 years ago and suffragette Punch and Judy.
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The Memes that Make Us Laugh
Tue 30 Oct 2018
Julian Baggini, Tiffany Watt Smith & Christopher Harding
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From the Gallows to the Holy Land: Medieval Pilgrimage
Fri 26 Oct 2018
Reconstructing the thought-world of the middle ages
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The Dark and Political Messages of Kids Fiction.
Thu 25 Oct 2018
Michael Rosen looks at socialist fairy tales and radicalism in books for children.
