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 ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio 4. Presented by Matthew Sweet, Shahidha Bari and Anne McElvoy.
Episodes to download
-
Prison Break
Fri 26 Aug 2022
New Generation Thinker Jeffery Howard asks if it is ever ok to escape from prison
-
-
1922: Nanook of the North
Wed 17 Aug 2022
Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough looks at this ground-breaking documentary about Arctic life.
-
-
1922: Food
Tue 16 Aug 2022
John Gallagher explores eating fads in the 1920s with Annie Gray and Elsa Richardson
-
Not Quite Jean Muir
Fri 12 Aug 2022
How does sewing a dress add to Jade Halbert's understanding of disappearing skills?
-
Tudor Virtual Reality
Thu 11 Aug 2022
The link between VR dinosaurs and a Tudor wall painting of the Judgment of Solomon
-
Coming Out Crip and Acts of Care
Wed 10 Aug 2022
Ella Parry-Davies draws on experiences of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon and the UK
-
Digging Deep
Tue 9 Aug 2022
Susan Greaney asks whether Neolithic attitudes to the earth could shape our thinking
-
Berlin, Detroit, Race and Techno Music
Tue 9 Aug 2022
Tom Smith's essay on early pioneers of Berlin's music scene and arguments about whiteness
-
Yolande Mukagasana - women writers to put back on the bookshelf
Fri 5 Aug 2022
Zoe Norridge describes translating the testimony of a Rwandan survivor of the civil war.
-
Margaret Oliphant - women writers to put back on the bookshelf
Wed 3 Aug 2022
The Scottish writers whose comic heroine Miss Marjoribanks bucks 19th century conventions
-
Lady Mary Wroth - women writer to put back on the bookshelf
Tue 2 Aug 2022
The English Renaissance poet whose reputation at court was ruined by her writing
-
1922: Wimbledon
Tue 2 Aug 2022
Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough finds out about the All England Club's move to a new home.
-
Charlotte Smith - women writers to put back on the bookshelf
Mon 1 Aug 2022
The Romantic poet who inspired Wordsworth is profiled by Sophie Coulombeau
-
1922: Reader's Digest
Mon 1 Aug 2022
The "agreggator" of trending stories of its day - how a magazine revolutionised reading.
-
Touki Bouki
Tue 26 Jul 2022
The Journey of the Hyena mixes West African oral tradition with New Wave and Soviet style
-
Filming Sunday Bloody Sunday
Mon 25 Jul 2022
Glenda Jackson talks to Matthew Sweet about John Schlesinger's 1971 love triangle drama
-
New Thinking: Archiving the Commonwealth Games and Commonwealth ties
Mon 25 Jul 2022
What Birmingham can learn from Scotland + commonwealth commercial connections in the past
-
Futurism
Fri 22 Jul 2022
Matthew Sweet and guests look at the manifesto celebrating youth, technology and violence
-
Modernism around the world
Thu 21 Jul 2022
Rana Mitter looks at Bauhaus in Delhi, Japanese and South African novels and Mexican art
-
New Thinking: Citizen researchers and the history of record keeping
Thu 21 Jul 2022
Dr William Butler and Jenny Bunn from the National Archives discuss record keeping.
-
The Daleks
Thu 14 Jul 2022
Matthew Sweet's guests include the voice of the Daleks, and the Doctor's granddaughter
-
Satyajit Ray's films
Thu 14 Jul 2022
Tariq Ali, Sarah Jilani, Sangeeta Datta, Chandak Sengoopta discuss Ray with Rana Mitter
-
France, music hall and history
Wed 13 Jul 2022
An outdoor history of France and a look inside popular French theatre's view on Britain
-
Women warriors and power brokers
Wed 13 Jul 2022
Shobana Jeyasingh, Cat Jarman and Janina Ramirez with Shahidha Bari
-
The Black Fantastic
Thu 7 Jul 2022
How the speculative and the mythical have shaped and continue to shape Black art.
-
Writing about money
Wed 6 Jul 2022
Orwell Prize finalist Kojo Koram plus poetry interested in economics
-
New Thinking: India in the archives
Wed 6 Jul 2022
Dr Naomi Paxton explores archives for stories of Indian culture and history.
-
Vampires and the Penny Dreadful
Thu 30 Jun 2022
Matthew Sweet, Joan Passey, Roger Luckhurst and Sam George look at Varney the Vampire