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 BBC Radio 4. Presented by Matthew Sweet, Shahidha Bari and Anne McElvoy.
Episodes to download
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Humours and The Body
Wed 18 Oct 2023
From mitochondrial medicine to 17th century cancer treatments, via Bach's Cantatas
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Victorian colour, jewellery and metalwork
Tue 17 Oct 2023
Nandini Das visits Colour Revolution at the Ashmolean in Oxford and talks to a jeweller
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New Thinking: Work and protest
Fri 13 Oct 2023
From Luddite protests in 1811 in textile mills to school strikes in 1911
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The Frieze/Radio 3 Museum Directors Debate 2023
Wed 11 Oct 2023
The art museum as community space, immersive art experiences & other hot topics.
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Art, Kew, a symphony and nature
Tue 10 Oct 2023
Artist Mat Collishaw, composer Jimmy López Bellido, academics Vid Simoniti & Sarah Casey
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New Thinking: Modernism, exile and homelessness
Mon 9 Oct 2023
Nathan Waddell and Laura Ryan talk to Jade Munslow Ong about writers depicting precarity
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Faith, consciousness and creating meaning in life
Thu 5 Oct 2023
Philosophers Daniel Dennett, Philip Goff, podcaster Liz Oldfield & a faith museum curator
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Refuge and National Poetry Day
Wed 4 Oct 2023
Poets Momtaza Mehri, Julianknxx and historian Jesús Sanjurjo join Matthew Sweet
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Slavic culture and myth
Tue 3 Oct 2023
Matthew Sweet looks at the origins of creatures like Baba Yaga, Banniks and Rusalkas.
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Hobbes and New Leviathans
Thu 28 Sep 2023
John Gray on why re-reading Hobbes can help us understand contemporary politics
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Childbirth and parenthood: Contains Strong Language Festival
Tue 26 Sep 2023
Testament, Hannah Silva, historian Jessica Cox and Thackray museum curator Laura Sellers
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Betty Miller and Marghanita Laski
Tue 26 Sep 2023
Howard Jacobson, Lara Feigel and Lisa Mullen with Matthew Sweet
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Notebooks and new technology
Thu 21 Sep 2023
Authors Jonathan Coe, Roland Allen, Lesley Smith and art book maker Gill Partington
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Why go into space?
Wed 20 Sep 2023
Christopher Harding investigates the history, culture and science of space exploration
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Black Atlantic
Tue 19 Sep 2023
Artist Jaqueline Bishop and curator of an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge
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The Red Shoes
Thu 14 Sep 2023
Ahead of a BFI festival, Matthew Sweet and guests discuss Powell and Pressburger's film
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Queer history, new narrative in San Fransisco
Wed 13 Sep 2023
Diarmuid Hester & Dodie Bellamy on a '70s US writing group. Lauren Elkin on art monsters
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Wolfson Prize 2023
Tue 5 Sep 2023
Rana Mitter talks to the six authors shortlisted for the UK's main history writing prize
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Writing and Place: The Cairngorms
Mon 4 Sep 2023
Amanda Thomson and Merryn Glover talk to Kate Molleson about Scots nature writing
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The Black Country past and present
Fri 25 Aug 2023
Matthew Sweet and guests with an audience at the 2022 Contains Strong Language Festival
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Depicting AIDS in Drama
Wed 23 Aug 2023
Russell T Davies, Jill Nalder, Sabina Dosani and Matthew Sweet recorded with an audience
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Landladies
Wed 23 Aug 2023
Historical accounts and fictional depictions of the women who ran boarding houses.
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Late works
Tue 22 Aug 2023
Dame Sheila Hancock , viola player Rachel Stott and writer Geoff Dyer discuss endings
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Dark Places
Mon 21 Aug 2023
A poet, crime writer, theologian, marine biologist and Matthew Sweet explore darkness
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ETA Hoffmann
Fri 4 Aug 2023
Anne McElvoy and guests look at the writing of the German Romantic writer and musician
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My Neighbour Totoro
Thu 3 Aug 2023
Japanese ideas about childhood innocence and the influence of a 1988 Studio Ghibli film.
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Oliver Postgate
Wed 2 Aug 2023
Matthew Sweet & Daniel Postgate, musicians Sandra Kerr & Neil Brand, critic Samira Ahmed
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The Wife of Bath
Tue 1 Aug 2023
Shahidha Bari is joined by Professor Marion Turner, poet Patience Agbabi and Hetta Howes
