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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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...
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Free Thinking - 3 American Authors
Wed 26 Nov 2014
Matthew Sweet looks at depictions of American life and history in a special edition...
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Free Thinking Festival - Fear or Wonder
Tue 25 Nov 2014
Naomi Alderman, Roger Luckhurst and BALTIC curator Alessandro Vincentelli join Matthew...
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Free Thinking Festival - Free Information
Thu 20 Nov 2014
The Cost of Free Information. Against a backdrop of perceived excess of intellectual a...
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Free Thinking Festival: Happy Talk
Wed 19 Nov 2014
How much self-knowledge do you need to be happy – and what are the limits to what to...
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Free Thinking Festival - Characters
Tue 18 Nov 2014
Knowing Your Characters. Matthew Sweet talks to playwright David Greig and actor about...
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Free Thinking Festival: Antarctica
Mon 17 Nov 2014
A hundred years ago, Ernest Shackleton set out on his Trans-Antarctic expedition which...
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Free Thinking Essay - The Spin Doctors
Fri 14 Nov 2014
The Spin Doctors of 19th-Century America. Embracing the emerging sciences of the age,...
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Free Thinking Essay - Shakespeare & India
Thu 13 Nov 2014
Drawing on Shakespeare's plays and Indian translations of them from recent times - and...
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Free Thinking Festival - Animals
Thu 13 Nov 2014
Animals: Watching Us Watching Them Watching Each Other. Rana Mitter talks to the of at...
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Free Thinking Essay - Women's Theatre
Wed 12 Nov 2014
Naomi Paxton from the University of Manchester explores the international movement for...
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Free Thinking - Language of Money
Wed 12 Nov 2014
John Lanchester talks to Matthew Sweet about his novel Capital, our understanding of...
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Free Thinking Essay - Speech Before Words
Tue 11 Nov 2014
Where did language come from? It's often been described as the fundamental barrier and...
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Free Thinking Festival - Elif Shafak
Tue 11 Nov 2014
Turkey's best selling female writer, Elif Shafak, talks to Anne McElvoy about and as...
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Free Thinking Festival - From Flat Caps
Mon 10 Nov 2014
Anne McElvoy explores whether it is worth getting hot under the collar about blue with...
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Free Thinking Essay - Beastly Politics
Mon 10 Nov 2014
Is man the only political beast? Can other animals be regarded as members of our with...
