Language, the Victorians, and Us

From Lancashire dialect protest poetry to Hardy's Dorset vowels. John Gallagher hosts.

• 44 mins

Trapeze acts and circus celebrities

Shahidha Bari hears about aerialists Lillian Leitzel and Pablo Fanque.

• 44 mins

Depicting AIDS in Drama

Russell T Davies, Jill Nalder, Sabina Dosani and Matthew Sweet, recorded with an audience.

• 44 mins

Lists

Are lists a good way of organising chaos? Lisa Mullen and guests discuss

• 44 mins

Beasts and animals

Shahidha Bari investigates the human invention of animals.

• 44 mins

Landladies

Historical accounts and fictional depictions of the women who ran boarding houses.

• 44 mins

Katherine Mansfield and Mavis Gallant

Claire Harman, Kirsty Gunn, Laurence Scott and Shahidha Bari discuss short story writing.

• 44 mins

Amílcar Cabral

Rana Mitter and guests discuss the pan-Africanist poet and anti-colonial leader.

• 44 mins

Wilkie Collins and disability

How the Victorian author’s own pain and drug dependency fed into his sensational novels.

• 44 mins

Phillis Wheatley

Christienna Fryar explores the life and writing of the enslaved American poet (1753-1784).

• 44 mins

Anna Kavan

Matthew Sweet looks at the writer of a dystopian psychodrama, Ice, who died in 1968.

• 44 mins

Language Loss and Revival

John Gallagher is joined by Gwenno, who writes and sings in Cornish, and others.

• 44 mins

The Wife of Bath

Shahidha Bari is joined by Professor Marion Turner, poet Patience Agbabi and Hetta Howes.

• 44 mins

Higher education for women and working-class students

Anne McElvoy hosts a conversation about higher education and the history of its expansion.

• 44 mins

Audrey Hepburn

Matthew Sweet marks the 30th anniversary of the death of this icon of film and fashion.

• 44 mins

Aztecs and Otherness

Caroline Dodds Pennock discusses how Aztecs, Inuit, Mayans and others discovered Europe.

• 43 mins

William Stukeley

The English antiquarian (1687-1765) who may be the father of modern archaeology.

• 44 mins

Holocaust Memorial Day 2023

Matthew Sweet looks at the experiences of Portuguese Jewish and Roma communities.

• 44 mins

The English Civil War

The resonances of C17 history now, discussed by Jonathan Healey, Anna Keay, Clare Jackson.

• 44 mins

Crossroads and TV soaps

Russell T Davies and Paula Milne on the power of soap operas.

• 44 mins

Gwendolyn Brooks

Shahidha Bari looks at the writing of a Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet (1917-2000).

• 44 mins

Lady Macbeth

From Kurosawa and Shostakovich to Zinnie Harris. New takes on the Scottish play.

• 44 mins

Donkeys

From Aesop and the bible to the film EO which looks at a donkey born in a Polish circus.

• 44 mins

Stories of Love

Romeo and Juliet reworked, Proust and Rita Mae Brown's coming-of-age tale Rubyfruit Jungle

• 44 mins

People's History

The people's history of banners, a dress diary, Sheffield sculptures and a new musical.

• 44 mins

Idrissa Ouédraogo

Matthew Sweet and guests explore the work of Burkinabé film-maker Idrissa Ouédraogo.

• 44 mins

Phaedra, Cretan palaces and the minotaur

Knossos, birthplace of myths and tragedies, is explored by Rana Mitter and Natalie Haynes.

• 44 mins

Ghosts of Caribbean history

New writing by Colin Grant and Kevin Jared Hosein; art by Michael Elliott and Mary Evans.

• 44 mins

Climate change and empire building

The long history of climate change and empire: historians Nandini Das and Peter Frankopan

• 44 mins

Tin cans, cutlery and sewing

New research into the history of stainless steel cutlery, tinned food and sewing machines.

• 44 mins