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 - Prisons & Anthropomorphism
Tue 15 Jul 2014
Matthew Sweet interviews Karen Joy Fowler author of a novel which looks at the of a a...
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Free Thinking - Virginia Woolf & Richard Flanagan
Thu 10 Jul 2014
With Anne McElvoy. Curator Frances Spalding and Dr Alexandra Harris discuss what of of...
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Free Thinking - History of Pain, Richard III, Animal Rights
Wed 9 Jul 2014
Philip Dodd is joined by political commentator Steve Richards to discuss the new of is...
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Free Thinking - The Digital Age & Boyhood
Tue 8 Jul 2014
Richard Linklater filmed the actor who stars in Boyhood over 12 years from a 6 year to...
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Free Thinking - Oh What a Lovely Savas
Thu 3 Jul 2014
'€˜Oh what a lovely Savas' begins Rana Mitter in this edition of Free Thinking, the...
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Free Thinking - Yael Farber & Liberalism
Wed 2 Jul 2014
Yael Farber directs Richard Armitage in the Crucible at the Old Vic. She talks to Dodd...
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Free Thinking - Woods in War and Peace
Tue 1 Jul 2014
From Paul Nash paintings of blasted tree stumps in the first world war to today's Paul...
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Free Thinking - Balancing Power in World War One
Thu 26 Jun 2014
Jonathan Powell and historians Margaret MacMillan, Orlando Figes and Adam Tooze the...
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Free Thinking - Barbara Kruger & Laurie Penny
Thu 26 Jun 2014
Samira Ahmed discusses feminism with American artist Barbara Kruger and journalist the...
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Free Thinking - The Thirty-Nine Steps
Tue 24 Jun 2014
The Thirty-Nine Steps first appeared in Blackwoods Magazine in August and September on...
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Free Thinking - Libertarianism & Trevor Paglen
Thu 19 Jun 2014
A new collection of Ranter writings from the English Civil War sheds light on their...
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Free Thinking - Sean Scully & Colour
Wed 18 Jun 2014
Philip Dodd talks to the artist, Sean Scully, about his latest show and explores our...
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Free Thinking - Radical Bookshops
Tue 17 Jun 2014
Matthew Sweet talks to Philip Hensher, who's novel The Emperor Waltz draws together a...
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Free Thinking - Eimear McBride & Nathan Filer
Thu 12 Jun 2014
Prize-winning first novelists Eimear McBride and Nathan Filer join Anne McElvoy to...
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Free Thinking - Community & The Human Figure
Wed 11 Jun 2014
The director of the Hayward Ralph Rugoff, former principal Royal Ballet dancer Deborah...
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Free Thinking - Belle & Turgenev's Fathers and Sons
Tue 10 Jun 2014
Amma Asante's film Belle depicts an illegitimate mixed-race girl brought up in London...
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Free Thinking - Kenneth Clark & Arts Broadcasting
Thu 5 Jun 2014
Philip Dodd discusses Kenneth Clark's Civilisation and arts broadcasting with Janina...
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Free Thinking - Tiananmen Square
Wed 4 Jun 2014
Rana Mitter remembers what happened in Tiananmen Square on June 4th 1989 with people...
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Free Thinking - London's Skyline & Joshua Ferris
Tue 3 Jun 2014
Matthew Sweet discusses online identity theft and religious belief with American as he...
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Free Thinking - PJ O'Rourke, Stephen Dubner, Steven Levitt
Wed 28 May 2014
Presenter Rana Mitter, is joined on the BBC stage at the Hay Festival by writer and PJ...
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Free Thinking - Export of Empire & India's New Story
Tue 27 May 2014
Rana Mitter talks to historian and MP Tristram Hunt about how Britain's experience of...
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Free Thinking - Essay Writing & Tim Winton
Thu 22 May 2014
Anne McElvoy looks at the resurgence of non-fiction writing and the essay as a form...
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Free Thinking - Writers and Their Notebooks
Wed 21 May 2014
As the British Library launches a website devoted to writers' notebooks and novelist a...
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Free Thinking - John Clare & Jimmy Wales
Tue 20 May 2014
Matthew Sweet talks to Iain Sinclair and New Generation Thinker Dr Greg Tate about a...
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Free Thinking - Nick Payne & Penny Dreadful
Thu 15 May 2014
Nick Payne talks to Anne McElvoy about his play Incognito and the man who stole brain...
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Free Thinking - Does Europe need an East?
Wed 14 May 2014
Interview with the prominent Czech writer who has just published memoir, My Crazy by a...
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Free Thinking - Godzilla and Hayao Miyazaki
Tue 13 May 2014
MJ Hyland reviews Simon Armitage's The Last Days of Troy at the Royal Exchange Lily...
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Free Thinking - Representing Cities
Thu 8 May 2014
Anne McElvoy looks at the benefits and challenges of cities pooling resources.
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Free Thinking - David H Hwang & Eleanor Marx
Wed 7 May 2014
David Henry Hwang tells Philip about his 2007 drama Yellow Face, reflecting life of in...
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Free Thinking - Charles Kingsley's Water Babies
Tue 6 May 2014
As a musical version of The Water Babies opens Simon Heffer and New Generation Thinker...
