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
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Proms Plus: Kipling's Jungle Books
Wed 21 Aug 2019
Anindya Raychaudhuri discusses Kipling's Jungle Books with Frances Hardinge and Sue Walsh
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Proms Plus: Russian Folktales
Wed 21 Aug 2019
Marina Warner & Sophie Anderson enter a world of walking huts and fish that grant wishes
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Revisit Slavery Stories, William Melvyn Kelley & Esi Edugyan
Sun 18 Aug 2019
Laurence Scott meets the family of a rediscovered African American writer & 3 historians
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Prom Plus: What Victorians Did For Fun
Fri 16 Aug 2019
Historians Kathryn Hughes & Lee Jackson discuss 19th century entertainment.
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Proms Plus: Literary Hoaxes
Fri 16 Aug 2019
Shahidha Bari and Nick Groom on invented monks, fake Shakespeare and a "discovered" diary
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Revisit Napoleon in Fact and Fiction
Thu 15 Aug 2019
Anne McElvoy looks at Napoleon's biography, caricatures and professional impersonators.
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Revisit Mike Leigh in Conversation about Peterloo, politics and his Salford upbringing.
Wed 14 Aug 2019
The film-maker talks to Matthew Sweet about depicting history and politics on film.
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Proms Plus: Childhood, innocence and experience
Tue 13 Aug 2019
Books for children and children in books from Romanticism via the Victorians to now.
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Proms Plus: 'Queering' Tchaikovsky
Mon 12 Aug 2019
Shahidha Bari and Rolf Hind discuss Tchaikovsky’s letters, with readings from Tom Stuart
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Proms Plus: Tragedy
Thu 8 Aug 2019
Tragedy ancient and modern with Clare Pollard and Jennifer Wallace
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Proms Plus: Swans
Mon 5 Aug 2019
Sacha Dench & Sarah Crompton discuss swans in the natural world & on the ballet stage.
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Revisit Spike Lee in Conversation on Free Thinking
Mon 5 Aug 2019
The film-maker talks to Matthew Sweet about BlacKkKlansman & his 2000 film Bamboozled
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Proms Plus: Nordic Summers Light and Dark
Sun 4 Aug 2019
The legends and landscapes that inspire composers from Finland and Russia
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Proms Plus: 1969 The Sound of a Summer
Fri 26 Jul 2019
Poets Rachael Allen & Jacob Polley join Preti Taneja to reflect on the summer of 1969.
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Proms Plus: Music and Health
Wed 24 Jul 2019
Naomi Paxton discusses the latest science and clinical practice
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Proms Plus: Moon Landing
Mon 22 Jul 2019
Richard Wiseman and Melanie Vandenbrouck discuss the impact of the first Moon landing
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Book Parts and Difficulty
Fri 19 Jul 2019
Matthew Sweet looks at frontispieces, titles and marginalia, and hard texts.
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New angles on post-war Germany and Austria
Wed 17 Jul 2019
Anne McElvoy with Florian Huber, Sophie Hardach, Adam Scovell, Tom Smith
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New Thinking: Neolithic Revelations
Wed 17 Jul 2019
A lack of Neolithic dental floss proves to be a boon for archaeologists,
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New Thinking: Shakespeare's Language
Wed 17 Jul 2019
From Juliet's uncertainty, to finding a phrase for descending the stairs
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New Thinking: City Talk
Wed 17 Jul 2019
Mapping the accents of Greater Manchester with a camper van and a laptop
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Camille Paglia
Tue 16 Jul 2019
Camille Paglia in conversation with Philip Dodd about free speech and feminism
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An insider's view of war
Thu 11 Jul 2019
Ex-Marine & journalist Elliot Ackerman on Al Qaeda and the Iraq War. Rana Mitter presents
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Caine Prize. Ivo van Hove. Female Desire.
Wed 10 Jul 2019
Shahidha Bari looks at staging Ayn Rand's ideas and meets the 2019 Caine Prize winner.
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Landmark: Iris Murdoch's The Sovereignty of Good
Wed 10 Jul 2019
Matthew Sweet discusses Iris Murdoch's philosophical essay of 1970
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Reinventing the 'Mistake on the Lake'.
Thu 4 Jul 2019
Philip Dodd visits the US rust belt city of Cleveland.
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Russia and Fear.
Thu 4 Jul 2019
Rana Mitter considers fearing Russia past & present with Mark B Smith & Tamar Koplatadze.
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Free Thinking: Language and Belonging
Wed 3 Jul 2019
Preti Taneja with Guy Gunaratne,Dina Nayeri, Michael Rosen, Momtaza Mehri & Deena Mohamed