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
-
Landmark: Watership Down
Thu 20 Dec 2018
An ecological fable about a perfect society ? Matthew Sweet reads Richard Adams' classic.
-
What does game playing teach us?
Wed 19 Dec 2018
Bobby Seagull & Irving Finkel join Shahidha Bari to look at competitiveness and games.
-
-
Ice
Thu 13 Dec 2018
Anne McElvoy & guests travel to the frozen ends of the Earth & C17 theatrical magic...
-
Linton Kwesi Johnson
Wed 12 Dec 2018
The reggae poet and recording artist talks politics religion and writing with Philip Dodd
-
Writing and Frankness
Tue 11 Dec 2018
Deborah Levy, Adam Phillips & Amia Srinivasan join Matthew Sweet at the British Library.
-
Are we being manipulated?
Thu 6 Dec 2018
Who's pulling your strings - Matthew Sweet and guests track down today's hidden persuaders
-
Is there a great divide between the arts and science?
Wed 5 Dec 2018
Sir Paul Nurse and Tristram Hunt debate with an audience at Queen Mary University London.
-
Natasha Gordon. Bessie Head. Rwanda Representation and Reality
Wed 5 Dec 2018
Gordon's play Nine Night, the life of Botswana's most influential writer, Rwanda on TV
-
Mike Hodges; Dark Sweden.
Thu 29 Nov 2018
The director of Get Carter talks to Matthew Sweet about writing his own crime stories.
-
Slavery Stories
Wed 28 Nov 2018
A long lost classic now published, Esi Edugyan's Booker shortlisted novel & new research
-
Plagues, Urban Inequality and Restricted Books
Tue 27 Nov 2018
Artist Penny Woolcock, global health researcher Thomas Bollyky and Jane Stevens Crawshaw
-
Leadership: lessons from US Presidents and campaigners.
Fri 23 Nov 2018
POTUS, crisis management and ambition - Doris Kearns Goodwin talks to Anne McElvoy
-
The Left Behind
Wed 21 Nov 2018
Eric Kaufmann talks to Philip Dodd about white identity, populism and immigration
-
What kind of history should we write?
Wed 21 Nov 2018
Peter Frankopan & Maya Jasanoff, winner of richest prize for history with Rana Mitter
-
Buses, beer and VR - a taste of university research.
Thu 15 Nov 2018
From ancient religion to London's Greek Cypriot community & the 29 bus route
-
Death rituals
Wed 14 Nov 2018
From death cafes to bronze age burials, C19th mourning rings to the way doctors cope.
-
Lost Words and Language
Wed 14 Nov 2018
Shahidha Bari looks at research showcased in the Being Human Festival at UK universities
-
Why are we silent when conflict is loud?
Thu 8 Nov 2018
Is public silence still the best way to honour our war dead?
-
Butterflies and Bloodstains: Fragments of the First World War
Thu 8 Nov 2018
Can public Acts of Commemoration ever encompass multiple individual experience?
-
Landmark: Journey to the End of the Night
Wed 7 Nov 2018
Marie Darrieussecq, Andrew Hussey , Tibor Fischer& Damian Catani on Céline's masterpiece
-
Wilfred Owen: Poetry and Peace.
Tue 6 Nov 2018
Gillian Clarke. Sabrina Mahfouz and Michael Symmons Roberts respond to the war poet.
-
Re-thinking the Human Condition
Thu 1 Nov 2018
Thomas Woolston Free Thinker, Isaiah Berlin philosopher plus memory and neuroscience.
-
Religious divisions, puppet shows and politics.
Wed 31 Oct 2018
The exile of English Catholics 450 years ago and suffragette Punch and Judy.
-
The Memes that Make Us Laugh
Tue 30 Oct 2018
Julian Baggini, Tiffany Watt Smith & Christopher Harding
-
From the Gallows to the Holy Land: Medieval Pilgrimage
Fri 26 Oct 2018
Reconstructing the thought-world of the middle ages
-
The Dark and Political Messages of Kids Fiction.
Thu 25 Oct 2018
Michael Rosen looks at socialist fairy tales and radicalism in books for children.
-
Mike Leigh
Wed 24 Oct 2018
The film director talks to Matthew Sweet as his historical epic Peterloo opens in cinemas
-
Playing God
Tue 23 Oct 2018
Patrick Barlow on his play The Messiah, Daisy Black on Stoke's new medieval mystery play
-
Enchantment, Witches and Woodlands
Thu 18 Oct 2018
Marie Darrieussecq, Lisa Mullen, Dafydd Daniel on magic and dystopias with Matthew Sweet.