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 - Northern Lights Landmark: Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries
Mon 14 Dec 2015
Colm Toibin, critic Larushka Ivan-Zadeh and Ellen Wettmark join Matthew Sweet.
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Free Thinking - Must The Arts Be Relevant?
Thu 10 Dec 2015
Mark Baldwin, Catherine Wood, Jennifer Walshe, Sarah Kent and Vayu Naidu debate the arts.
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Free Thinking - Northern Lights: crime fiction and cold settings
Wed 9 Dec 2015
Margaret Atwood, Arnaldur Indriadason and MJ McGrath talk about crime fiction and cold.
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Free Thinking Festival: Northern Lights: Joanne Harris on the Norse god Loki
Tue 8 Dec 2015
Joanne Harris and Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough discuss the god Loki and Norse beliefs.
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Free Thinking - Mein Kampf; Larissa MacFarquhar; Julia Margaret Cameron
Mon 7 Dec 2015
Anna Fox and Chantal Joffe discuss Julia Margaret Cameron plus altruism's wilder shores.
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Free Thinking - Kenzaburo Oe, Artist and Empire at Tate Britain, Japan and Cool Now
Wed 2 Dec 2015
Philip Dodd reviews the newly translated novel from Nobel prize winner Kenzaburo Oe.
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Free Thinking - Umberto Eco
Tue 1 Dec 2015
Italian author Umberto Eco talks to Matthew Sweet about conspiracy theories and war.
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Rule Making and Rule Breaking for Women and Men.
Wed 25 Nov 2015
Sheila Hancock, Neil Bartlett, Bim Adewunmi and head teacher Jonny Mitchell debate rules.
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Free Thinking Festival - Work Available: No Humans Need Apply
Wed 25 Nov 2015
Paul Mason, Lucy Armstrong and Richard and Daniel Susskind debate the future of work
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Free Thinking Festival - Stage Directions
Wed 25 Nov 2015
A discussion of the actor/director relationship and are there rules for good theatre?
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Free Thinking Festival - Breathalysing Britain: Free Spirits or a Drain on Society?
Tue 24 Nov 2015
David Yelland, Shelina Zahra Janmohamed, Dr Sally Marlow and Prof Barry Smith on alcohol
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Free Thinking Festival - The Family Is Dead! Long Live the Family!
Tue 24 Nov 2015
Anne Fine, Tobias Jones, Tom Shakespeare and Professor Sarah Cunningham Burley debate.
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Free Thinking Festival – Landmark: Angela Carter
Thu 19 Nov 2015
Joanna Kavenna, Natasha Pulley, Susannah Clapp and Christopher Frayling on Angela Carter
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The Free Thinking Festival Essay : Sculpture and Seduction in the 18th Century
Wed 18 Nov 2015
Danielle Thom looks at the links between bawdy prints and classical sculpture.
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The Free Thinking Festival Essay : Jews in Occupied France: Coexistence with the Enemy?
Wed 18 Nov 2015
Daniel Lee revisits Vichy France to uncover a different history of Jewish life there.
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The Free Thinking Festival Essay - Beer and the British Empire
Wed 18 Nov 2015
Sam Goodman looks at the way beer was used as both beverage and medicine in Colonial India
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Free Thinking Festival - The Rules Of Good Science
Tue 17 Nov 2015
Jim al-Khalili, Carlos Frenk, Katy Price and Tom Shakespeare debate scientific discovery
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The Free Thinking Festival Essay - Inside a Pirate’s Cookbook: A Culinary Journey through the 17th Century
Tue 17 Nov 2015
Joe Moshenska on Sir Kenelm Digby - alchemist, astrologer, diplomat and recipe collector.
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The Free Thinking Festival Essay: The Medieval Scottish Dream State
Thu 12 Nov 2015
Kylie Murray explores visions of Scottishness in The Wallace and The Scotichronicon.
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Free Thinking Festival - Old Ways, New Directions.
Thu 12 Nov 2015
"Tweeting" shepherd James Rebanks and Professor Veronica Strang on traditional thinking.
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Free Thinking Festival - Putting Competition to the Test
Thu 12 Nov 2015
Margaret Heffernan, Matthew Syed, Cath Bishop and Christopher Frayling explore success.
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The Free Thinking Festival Essay - Kilts, Celts and Clearances in World War One
Wed 11 Nov 2015
Peter Mackay on what kilt wearing meant for some soldiers fighting World War One
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The Free Thinking Festival Essay - Nancy Cunard: The Rebellious Heiress
Wed 11 Nov 2015
Sandeep Parmar on the life of the anti racist campaigner, modernist muse and heiress
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The Free Thinking Festival Essay - Women on Their Own: Widows in Britain, Now and Then
Wed 11 Nov 2015
Nadine Muller on the status of the widow in fact and fiction “
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Free Thinking Festival - In Conversation With Richard Dawkins
Wed 11 Nov 2015
Richard Dawkins explores religion, culture and science talking to Philip Dodd.
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Free Thinking Festival - Breaking News - Telling Stories in Fact and Fiction
Tue 10 Nov 2015
Bim Adewunmi John Yorke Emily Woof and Allan Little join Matthew Sweet at Sage Gateshead
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The Free Thinking Festival Essay - Politician and Pioneer: Writing the Life of Arthur Kavanagh
Tue 10 Nov 2015
Clare Walker Gore on what a C19th MP without hands and feet tells us about stereotypes.
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The Free Thinking Festival Essay - The Moor of Florence A Medici Mystery
Mon 9 Nov 2015
Catherine Fletcher on claims that the first Medici Duke of Florence was mixed race
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Free Thinking Festival - Rule Breakers or Rule Makers?
Mon 9 Nov 2015
Simon Heffer, Peter Tatchell and Joyce Quin in a Free Thinking Festival debate.
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The Free Thinking Festival Lecture: Claudia Rankine
Mon 9 Nov 2015
Prize-winning poet Claudia Rankine explores language and racism past and present.
