Arts & Ideas

As Caryl Churchill's Light Shining in Buckinghamshire is revived at The National's Lyttelton Theatre, Anne McElvoy hears how it resonates with current historical research with historians Justin Champion and Emma Wilkins. Anne also visits the British Museum's exhibition Indigenous Australia: Enduring Culture in the company of curator Gaye Sculthorpe, and hears from australian aboriginal scholar Christine Nicholls. And then joined in the studio by anthropologist Howard Morphy to discuss the difficulty of translating the concept of Dreamtime into english and the role its related art has played in shaping views of aboriginal history and contemporary frustrations.

Philip Dodd explores what a world view of Shakespeare means. Guests include Globe Director Dominic Dromgoole, Professor Sonia Massai from Kings College London, Preti Taneja, Global Shakespeare Research Fellow and a Radio 3 New Generation Thinker and Professor David Schalkwyk, head of Global Shakespeare.

Caryl Phillips talks to Matthew Sweet about his new novel The Lost Child which re-imagines Heathcliff. The Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells will be discussing his new book, Great Shakespearean Actors. The writer Lesley Lokko joins Matthew to discuss the events in South Africa after statues have been removed and vandalised. And a first night review of Eugene O'Neill's only comedy Ah, Wilderness! with Susannah Clapp.

Anne McElvoy is joined by the German novelist Eugen Ruge, British author Lawrence Norfolk, the journalist Oliver Kamm; and the literary historians, Karen Leeder and Julian Preece for a programme devoted to Günter Grass and his landmark novel, The Tin Drum published in 1959.

Philip Dodd considers violence in culture with crime writer Frances Fyfield, historian Professor Richard Bessel, Forensic Psychiatrist Mayura Deshpande, and writer Peter Stanford

As Mexico takes centre stage at London's Book Fair Matthew Sweet speaks to two of the country's award-winning writers - Valeria Luiselli and Francisco Goldman. Playwright Simon Stephens talks about transplanting Carmen into a modern urban idiom. And Christopher Doyle: No Glass Twice as Big as It Needs to Be - the cinematographer and film director has his first solo art show in Europe opening at London Gallery Rossi & Rossi.

Rana Mitter discusses a new model for understanding the brain, with researcher and writer Norman Doidge. Polish film director Krzysztof Zanussi talks about his latest film - Foreign Body - and a new touring festival of classic Polish cinema selected by Martin Scorsese. Activist Srdja Popovic is a proponent of non-violent protest and was a founder of the student movement Otpor! which helped to bring about the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic. He and writer Kate Maltby talk about the strengths and weaknesses of peaceful resistance.

This evening Free Thinking is devoted to one of the pinnacles of Victorian England – Anthony Trollope’s massive novel The Way We Live Now. To examine the book and its social and historical context Philip is joined by Jerry White, Simon Heffer, Kathryn Hughes and Jonathan Myerson. .

With the publication of the widest survey of sexual behaviour since the Kinsey Report, Matthew Sweet picks apart the data with its author, David Spiegelhalter, and New Generation Thinker, Fern Riddell, author of The Victorian Guide to Sex. Nick Broomfield discusses his latest documentary, Tales of the Grim Sleeper, about a serial killer in LA which exposes the deep divide still evident in America today. Plus, Queen Mary's Matt Rubery on the fascinating history of the audio book.

Patricia Duncker talks to Anne McElvoy about her new novel which imagines George Eliot's relationship with her German publishers, Max and Wolfgang Duncker. Adrienne Mayor discusses the strength of women with Professor Melvin Konner. As an exhibition featuring empty Sansovino frames opens at The National Gallery in London, Anne speaks to Head of Frames Peter Schade about their history and Dame Harriet Walter and Guy Paul discuss collaborating on stage as a real life couple ahead of appearing in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.