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 - Class in Britain
Tue 18 Feb 2014
Shelagh Delaney wrote A Taste of Honey when she was 18. First performed in 1958, a new...
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Free Thinking - Stuart Hall
Mon 17 Feb 2014
To mark the death of cultural historian Stuart Hall, another chance to hear his with...
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Free Thinking - Literary Heroines
Thu 13 Feb 2014
Ofsted chair Sally Morgan and Tim Montgomerie debate Ed Miliband's speech about parent...
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Free Thinking - Atheism and Belief
Wed 12 Feb 2014
Two books published this month include the idea of "the death of God" in their titles:...
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Free Thinking - Spike Jonze's Her
Tue 11 Feb 2014
Spike Jonze's new film Her depicts a writer developing a relationship with his system...
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Free Thinking - Hanif Kureishi
Thu 6 Feb 2014
Hanif Kureishi's career has included screenplays My Beautiful Launderette, Venus, Me...
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Free Thinking - First World War, Empathy
Wed 5 Feb 2014
Matthew Sweet revisits Alan Bleasdale's 1986 World War One TV series The Monocled by...
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Free Thinking - Christine Lagarde
Tue 4 Feb 2014
As International Monetary Fund Director Christine Lagarde gives this year’s Anne...
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Free Thinking - Ukraine and Russia
Thu 30 Jan 2014
Anne McElvoy on unrest in Ukraine and the state of dissent in Russia today with Boris...
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Free Thinking - Australia
Tue 28 Jan 2014
Christos Tsiolkas, Germaine Greer and the Aboriginal leader Pat Dodson talk about the...
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Free Thinking - Feminism in Theatre
Tue 28 Jan 2014
American novelist Jonathan Lethem discusses the singer Pete Seeger, whose death has...
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Free Thinking - Derek Jarman
Thu 23 Jan 2014
The actor Simon Russell Beale discusses playing the role of King Lear.
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Free Thinking: Japanese History, Chinese Democarcy
Wed 22 Jan 2014
Zhang Weiwei, one of China's foremost public intellectuals, talks to Rana Mitter about...
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Free Thinking - Suicide discussion
Tue 21 Jan 2014
Matthew Sweet discusses the way we talk about suicide with Jennifer Michael Hecht, of...
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Free Thinking - Steve McQueen
Thu 16 Jan 2014
Matthew Sweet talks to director Steve McQueen about his new film '12 Years A Slave' of...
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Free Thinking - Girls & Constitution
Wed 15 Jan 2014
Samira Ahmed looks at the appeal of Lena Dunham's US TV series Girls with comedian and...
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Free Thinking - T S Eliot prize
Tue 14 Jan 2014
Sinead Morrissey is the winner of this year's T S Eliot Prize for her anthology Parallax.
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Free Thinking - Liberal England
Thu 9 Jan 2014
As part of BBC Radio 3's Music on the Brink season Professor Roy Foster, the and Nick...
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Free Thinking - Robert Musil
Wed 8 Jan 2014
Joining Matthew Sweet for a Landmark discussion about Robert Musil's book, The Man its...
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Free Thinking - Brink of War
Tue 7 Jan 2014
As part of Radio 3's Music on the Brink, Free Thinking takes the cultural temperature...
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Night Waves - Feminism in 2013
Thu 19 Dec 2013
Anne McElvoy discusses the state of Feminism in 2013. From women in the boardroom to...
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Night Waves - Tokyo Story
Wed 18 Dec 2013
50 years ago this month director Yasujiro Ozu died after making 53 films.
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Night Waves - Neil Tennant
Tue 17 Dec 2013
Singer and song writer Neil Tennant in conversation with Philip Dodd. He discusses the...
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Night Waves - Peter O'Toole
Mon 16 Dec 2013
To pay tribute to the actor Peter O’Toole, Matthew Sweet is joined by director Roger...
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Night Waves - American Psycho
Thu 12 Dec 2013
Susannah Clapp and Cleo Van Velsen join Anne McElvoy to review the musical stage of...
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Night Waves - Psychotherapy
Tue 10 Dec 2013
The Science Museum in London is staging Mind Maps, an exhibition on the history of and...
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Night Waves - The Early 1960s
Mon 9 Dec 2013
As Andrew Lloyd Webber prepares to open his new musical about Profumo and Stephen 1963...
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Night Waves - Nelson Mandela
Thu 5 Dec 2013
In a change to our usual programme and podcast, Philip Dodd introduces two interviews...
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Night Waves - Big Business
Wed 4 Dec 2013
Has "business become a dirty word?" Stefan Stern and Linda Yueh join Samira Ahmed to...
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Night Waves - Black Nativity
Tue 3 Dec 2013
Matthew Sweet has a first night review from Susannah Clapp of Jude Law as Henry V by...
