Arts & Ideas
BBC Radio 4
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
Mentioned books
Jul 28, 2015 • 21min
Proms Extra: Holst's The Planets Suite
Oscar-winning composer Steven Price on the inspiration of Holst's Planets Suite.
Jul 25, 2015 • 21min
Proms Extra: Fiddler on the Roof
Award-winning actor Henry Goodman and director and designer Antony McDonald discuss the enduring appeal of the 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof - one of the most successful in Broadway history - which tells the story of a Jewish community in 1905 Tsarist Russia. Rana Mitter presents.
Jul 24, 2015 • 21min
Proms Extra: Beethoven and German Romantic Poetry
Professor Karen Leeder and Professor Robert Vilain explore the great German Romantic poetry which inspired Beethoven throughout his life from Schiller's Ode to Joy to Goethe's Egmont and Treitschke's Fidelio.Recorded in front of an audience at the Royal College of Music
Jul 19, 2015 • 21min
Proms Extra: 1895 The First Proms
Rana Mitter with Nicholas Kenyon and Leanne Langley
Jul 16, 2015 • 55min
Free Thinking - Chalke Valley History Festival: 16 July 15
Anne McElvoy discusses heroic triumph and failure with a trio of eminent historians
Jul 15, 2015 • 45min
Free Thinking - Bryan Stevenson, Slunglow Camelot, Go Set A Watchman, Utopia at the Roundhouse: 15 July 15
Philip Dodd discusses Camelot: The Shining City and reviews the new Harper Lee
Jul 9, 2015 • 45min
Free Thinking - French Thought - The prophecies of Thomas the Rhymer - French rom-com
Anne McElvoy on French intellectual traditions & rom-com; prophecies of Thomas the Rhymer
Jul 8, 2015 • 45min
Free Thinking - Legal Aid, Law, Language and Gore Vidal v William F Buckley Jr: 8 July 15
Philip Dodd discusses Legal Aid, Law, Language and Gore Vidal v William F Buckley Jr
Jul 7, 2015 • 44min
Free Thinking: Landmark Jaws: 7 July 15
Matthew Sweet on Jaws and the film-maker's role in creating the myth of a man-eating machine. Good or bad for the shark? Gareth Fraser, Ian Hunter, Will Self and Fiona Tan discuss.
Jul 6, 2015 • 44min
Free Thinking - Pather Panchali: Sunjeev Sahota; Neil Bartlett: 6 July 15
Tariq Ali discusses Satyajit Ray's 1955 film Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road) 60 years on. Rana Mitter is also joined by novelist Sunjeev Sahota and Neil Bartlett.
