Arts & Ideas

What do meatballs, The Square and Henning Mankell have in common? The answer is Sweden as you’ve no doubt guessed. As ABBA’s Cold War musical, Chess, is poised to return to the British stage Matthew Sweet considers what Sweden’s taught us – whether in films such as I am Curious Yellow or in the aisles at IKEA - and what the Swedes might have gained from their brushes with Britain. His guests include Anders Sandberg from the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford, the Swedish cultural attache, Pia Lundberg, Lars Blomgren, one of the people behind The Bridge, the social scientist, Tom Hoctor and Kieran Long - once of the V&A but now the director of the Swedish centre for Architecture and Design.Chess runs at English National Opera from 26 Apr - 02 Jun 2018 Producer: Zahid Warley

The real Cleopatra examined by New Generation Thinker Islam Issa plus Ros Barber on Warwickshire words in Shakespeare's verse, two leading neurologists, Suzanne O'Sullivan and Jules Montague explore the intricacies of the brain and the infinite capacity for experience and imagination, the playwright Ella Hickson on her new production in which she explores the personal cost of creative gain and Philip Horne on the notebooks left behind when the novelist Henry James died. Anne McElvoy presents. Brainstorm by Suzanne O'Sullivan published by Chatto and Windus Lost and Found by Jules Montague published by Sceptre Tales from a Master's Notebook edited by Philip Horne published by Vintage The Writer by Ella Hickson runs at the Almeida Theatre in London from April 14 to May 26. It stars Romola Garai and Samuel West and is directed by Blanche McIntyre. Producer: Fiona McLean

Scrumbly Koldewyn remembers the '60s San Francisco theatre scene; Jenny Gilbert & Shahdiha Bari debate environmentalism and fashion at the V&A and Clare Lilley Director of Programmes at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park looks at the use of thread and textiles in art. Plus drag at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern in London with performers Lavinia Co-op and Rhys Hollis, plus Ben Walters who is researching this history.The environmental impact of fashion over more than 400 years is examined in the first UK exhibition to look at this topic. That's how the V&A is billing its new show Fashioned From Nature. Jenny Gilbert from De Montfort University visits the display and talks to Shahidha Bari about her research into textiles. Fashioned from Nature runs at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London from April 21st to January 27th 2019. The Yorkshire Sculpture Park is displaying Beyond Time an installation in the C18th chapel by Chiharu Shiota until September 2nd.Scrumbly Koldewyn is one of the founding members of the Cockettes, the legendary psychedelic hippie theatre troupe based in San Francisco in the 60s The tenth season of RuPaul's Drag Race has just started to air on Netflix. The Royal Vauxhall Tavern is South London's oldest surviving gay venue and is the UK's first building to be Grade II listed in recognition of its importance to LGBTQ community history. Producer: Debbie Kilbride

When President Obama met the American essayist and fiction writer Marilynne Robinson they discussed shared values, citiizenship and Christianity. She talks to Rana Mitter about her definition of Puritanism, the radical history of the mid west states, the use of religion in current American political rhetoric and the biblical cadences of her fiction. Marilynne Robinson is the author of novels including Gilead, Lila, Home and her new collection of Essays is called What Are We Doing Here ? Producer: Fiona McLean

Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbø on his novel based on Macbeth; playwright Mark Ravenhill on why the play rarely works on stage, James Shapiro on the contemporary events which shaped it and Emma Whipday on the elements that Shakespeare borrowed from 16th century domestic dramas. Plus Ellah Wakatama Allfrey on rereading Chinua Achebe's 1958 novel and the echoes of Macbeth she found there. Presented by Shahidha BariA 60th anniversary reading of Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe and abridged by Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, Publishing Director at The Indigo Press, is taking place at London's Southbank Centre in the Queen Elizabeth Hall on April 15th, with readers including Lucian Msamati, Chibundu Onuzo, Margaret Busby and Olu Jacobs. Jo Nesbø's Macbeth is published now and the plot summary reads: When a drug bust turns into a bloodbath it’s up to Inspector Macbeth and his team to clean up the mess. He’s also an ex-drug addict with a troubled past.Macbeth - starring Rory Kinnear and Anne-Marie Duff - is on stage at London's National Theatre until June 23rd and will be broadcast live to cinemas on 10 May. It's also at the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon - starring Christopher Eccleston and Niamh Cusack - until September 18th and will transfer to London between Oct 15th and Jan 18th 2019. Mark Bruce Company are on tour with their dance-theatre version visiting Ipswich, Blackpool, Exeter, Salisbury and Milton Keynes. Macbeth directed by Kit Monkman is in cinemas around the UK. Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Matthew Sweet talks to the painter, Maggi Hambling about Cedric Morris one of British art's lost masters and with Joely Richardson and Melanie Williams, evaluates the impact and legacy of Woodfall Flims - the company that gave Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay and Rita Tushingham their first breaks and introduced us to films such as Look Back in Anger, A Taste of Honey and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. To round things off he'll also be talking to Daniel Kalder about his fascination with the literary works of politicians such as Lenin, Mao, Hitler and Kim Jong-Un.The BFI is having a season focusing on Woodfall films, which are also being released on DVD. Daniel Kalder's book is published as Dictator Literature in Britain and as The Infernal Library in the US.Producer: Zahid Warley

Former Bishop Richard Holloway, author of My Father’s Wake Kevin Toolis and palliative care consultant Kathryn Mannix join Philip Dodd to consider mortality. “In this world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes” Benjamin Franklin once wrote, but as we face the final curtain what can death teach us about ourselves and the ones we love?Richard Holloway is a writer, broadcaster and cleric, formerly Bishop of Edinburgh. His books include A Little History of Religion and Leaving Alexandria: A Memoir of Faith and Doubt. Kathryn Mannix is a pioneer of palliative medicine, who has worked in hospices, hospitals and patients’ homes, helping enhance people’s quality of life as they near death. Kathryn started the UK’s first CBT clinic exclusively for palliative care patients. Her new book With the End in Mind: Dying, Death and Wisdom in an Age of Denial explores the process of dying.Kevin Toolis is a BAFTA winning filmmaker who has encountered death often in his work as a foreign correspondent in places of famine, war and plague all around the world. In his memoir My Father’s Wake: How the Irish Teach us to Live, Love and Die Kevin asks ‘Why have we lost our way with death?’ He offers both an intimate account of his father’s death and a history of the Irish way of dying. Producer: Debbie Kilbride

Kit de Waal, Darren McGarvey, Adelle Stripe and Michael Chaplin join Shahidha Bari to examine what we mean by ‘working class writing’. Crowd funding has helped bring a new generation of authors into print but is this because mainstream publishing has neglected diverse voices? What experiences do we want to see on the page and stage? Recorded at Sage Gateshead.Kit de Waal’s short stories include “Crushing Big”, “I am the Painter's Daughter” and “The Beautiful Thing” - which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her debut novel My Name Is Leon was shortlisted for the Costa First Book Award 2016. De Waal used some of her advance for My Name Is Leon to found the Kit de Waal Creative Writing Fellowship to improve working-class representation in the arts. Her new novel is called The Trick To Time. Darren McGarvey, author of Poverty Safari, is also known as Loki, a Scottish hip-hop artist, writer and community activist. Darren was rapper-in-residence at Police Scotland’s Violence Reduction Unit. Adelle Stripe and written 3 collections of poetry and her debut novel Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile is inspired by the life and work of Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar. It was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and received the K Blundell Trust Award for Fiction. Michael Chaplin has written extensively for TV, radio and theatre. A journalist, TV documentary producer and executive and now full time writer, he created the TV series Grafters and Monarch of the Glen and has written 8 theatre plays and numerous works for radio including Two Pipe Problems and Tommies. He is also the editor of Hame, a collection of essays, short stories and poems by his father Sid Chaplin, the acclaimed writer whose works are mostly set in the North East. Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival.Producer: Zahid Warley

The New Generation Thinkers is an annual competition run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. In this event, recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead, the 2018 selection make their first public appearance together. Hosted by Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough of the University of Durham and a New Generation Thinker class of 2013.This year’s specialisms include explorations into 18th-century masculinity and the medical history of George Orwell, early 20th-century vegetarianism in Britain, and how the Ottoman Empire dealt with piracy. Others in the new intake are exploring more contemporary issues, such as the way globalisation is impacting how films are made around the world, or how the ethics of commercial surrogacy in India can be understood.Dr Ben Anderson Lecturer in Twentieth-Century European History, School of Humanities, Keele University. Dr Gulzaar Barn Lecturer in philosophy at the University of Birmingham, where she is also a member of the Centre for Global Ethics. Dr Daisy Black Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Wolverhampton, who also works as a freelance theatre director, storyteller, writer and arts advisor Dr Dafydd Mills Daniel McDonald Departmental Lecturer in Christian Ethics and Lecturer in Theology Jesus College, University of Oxford Dr Des Fitzgerald a sociologist working at Cardiff university, where he teaches courses on the sociology of science and the sociology of health and illness Dr Sarah Goldsmith Leverhulme Early Career Fellow Centre for Urban History and School of History, University of Leicester Dr Lisa J Mullen Steven Isenberg Junior Research Fellow Worcester College, University of Oxford is writing a book on the novels & journalism of George Orwell Dr Elsa Richardson Chancellor’s Fellow Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare Strathclyde University, Glasgow Dr Iain Smith King’s College London His research investigates the impact of globalisation on popular films made around the world. Dr Michael Talbot Lecturer in the History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Middle East Department of History, Politics and Social Sciences, University of GreenwichProducer: Jacqueline Smith

In a space of less than a mile, seven bridges link Newcastle with Gateshead including the distinctive shape of the Tyne Bridge. But what kind of human endeavour goes into imagining and realising such man-made wonders? Newcastle University’s Sean Wilkinson, Erica Wagner author of Chief Engineer, and architect Simon Roberts look at the bond between the visionaries and the grafters with Rana Mitter and an audience at Sage Gateshead. Erica Wagner is the author of Chief Engineer: The Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge, a biography of civil engineer Washington Roebling. Erica is former literary editor of The Times, the author of several books and is a lecturer in English and Creative Writing at Goldsmith’s University of London. Sean Wilkinson is a Reader in Structural Engineering at Newcastle University whose research includes work on resilient communities, the design of high rise buildings and earthquakes. Architect Simon Roberts works for Wilkinson Eyre who designed the Gateshead Millennium Bridge and has worked solely on bridge projects for the past decadeProducer: Debbie Kilbride

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Afua Hirsch and Tarjinder Gill debate activism, social change and identity with Philip Dodd.Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is a journalist and broadcaster who regularly comments on immigration, diversity, and multiculturalism. She’s a founding member of British Muslims for Secular Democracy and the author of books including, Exotic England: The Making of A Curious Nation and Refusing The Veil. Afua Hirsch is a writer and broadcaster. She has worked as a barrister, as the West Africa correspondent for the Guardian, and as social affairs editor for Sky news. Brit(ish) is her first book and was awarded a RSL Jerwood Prize for Nonfiction. Tarjinder Wilkinson is a primary school teacher working with children from disadvantaged backgrounds in Birmingham, Leicester and London. She blogs on race, culture and identity at All In Britain and writes on the failure of left-wing progressive methods in education, making the case for a more traditional, academic approach for all. Producer: Zahid Warley

Comedians Alexei Sayle, Jen Brister and Sanjeev Kohli join Matthew Sweet to offer a masterclass in making the many laugh. Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead. Jen Brister is a stand-up comedian, writer and actor. She is a regular performer on the UK and international comedy circuits. She has written for BBC Scotland, presented for BBC 6 Music and Juice FM, and has been a regular contributor to magazines and online sites including Diva and The Huffington Post.Sanjeev Kohli is a comedian, writer, actor and broadcaster. Sanjeev co-writes the Radio 4 sitcom Fags, Mags and Bags and has appeared in Cold Feet, River City and as shopkeeper Navid Harrid in the long running Scottish sitcom, Still Game. Alexei Sayle was a central figure in the alternative comedy movement in the 1980s and original MC of London’s first modern comedy club, the Comedy Store. As well as writing and performing stand-up and on TV sitcoms, Alexei has also had a hit single, written short stories, novels and non-fiction including Thatcher Stole My Trousers and his series for BBC Radio 4, Alexei Sayle’s Imaginary Sandwich Bar. Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Anne McElvoy enlists the help of Diversify author June Sarpong, doctor and medical historian Gavin Francis, performer and transgender activist Emma Frankland and philosopher Julian Baggini to tackle contemporary ideas about the ever changing notions of the self. Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead. June Sarpong is the author of Diversify, a celebration of those who are often marginalised in our society including women, those living with disabilities, and the LGBTQ community. A successful TV presenter and an ambassador for the Prince’s Trust, June is also the co-founder of the Women: Inspiration and Enterprise Network. Emma Frankland is an international performance and theatre artist. She is the director of None of Us is Yet a Robot, a contemporary performance company that creates work based on 'transgender identities & the politics of transition'.Gavin Francis is a GP, explorer and author whose Adventures in Being Human considered the landscapes, history and myths of the body. His new book, Shapeshifters: On Medicine & Human Change examines the impact of constant change on our minds and bodies. Julian Baggini is a philosopher. His books include his latest A Short History of Truth: Consolations for a Post-Truth World, plus The Edge of Reason: A Rational Skeptic in an Irrational World and Freedom Regained: The Possibility of Free Will.Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival.Producer: Fiona McLean

New Generation Thinker Simon Beard, from the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, looks at AI and what the writing of Douglas Adams tells us about questions of morality and who should be in control. This year is the 40th anniversary of BBC Radio 4’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.Recorded at the 2018 Free Thinking Festival and includes Questions and Answers from the audience at Sage Gatesthead.Producer: Fiona McLean

As the BBC screens its new arts series, Civilisations, one of the presenters, David Olusoga, joins presenter Philip Dodd, anthropologist Kit Davis and the historian Kenan Malik to consider our different notions of world history from the dawn of human civilisation to the present day. David Olusoga is a historian, writer and broadcaster who has presented several TV documentaries including A House Through Time; The World's War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire and the BAFTA award-winning Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners. His most recent book is Black and British: A Forgotten History.Dr Kit Davis is a lecturer in social anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies who has written about travels across Europe and about Rwanda. She is a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Review. Kenan Malik’s books include From Fatwa to Jihad and The Quest for a Moral Compass: A Global History of Ethics. Kenan is a writer, lecturer and broadcaster who presented Nightwaves on BBC Radio 3 and has written and presented radio and TV documentaries including Disunited Kingdom, Are Muslims Hated?, Islam, and Mullahs and the Media.Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival.Producer: Fiona McLean

New Generation Thinker Emma Butcher looks at what we learn about war from the writing of child soldiers in The Battle of Trafalgar and the childhood writings of the Bronte family who were avid readers of newspaper accounts of battles and memoirs of soldiers. Does their fantasy fiction show an understanding of PTSD and the impact of battle on fighters before such conditions were diagnosed? Dr Emma Butcher, literature historian at the University of Leicester, uncovers the history of Robert Sands, a powder monkey in the Battle of Trafalgar,. Does his experience muddy our sense of what childhood is ? New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radioRecorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival.Producer: Torquil MacLeod

From Monarchs to Presidents. Joanne Paul on satire, flattery and document leaks in the C16 and C17 centuries and the relevance of strategies for telling truth to those who hold power over us now. Five hundred years ago a miscalculation on this front could leave you without a head. Today, the personal stakes may not be as high, but globally, we’ve never had so much to lose. Renaissance historian and New Generation Thinker Dr Joanne Paul, from the University of Sussex, takes us back to the 16th and 17th century techniques for challenging the establishment and the writings of Gegorge Puttenham, Thomas More and Sir Thomas Elyot and debates over the merits of flattery versus honesty, and whether it was better to lead or to compel. Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival.New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select 10 academics each year who can turn their research into radioProducer: Torquil MacLeod

From Brighton Rock and Goodfellas to the streets of Glasgow, London’s East End and Chicago, what’s it really like to be part of a gang and do gangs lead to organised crime? Matthew Sweet calls a meeting with Criminologist Alistair Fraser, journalist Symeon Brown and James Docherty of Scotland's Violent Reduction Unit Symeon Brown describes himself as an ’activist/writer on youth, justice and urbanism’ and is a journalist for Channel 4 News. He was senior researcher for The Guardian’s investigation team on their in-house study, Reading the Riots about the English riots of 2011. Alistair Fraser researches gang culture with a particular focus on youth ‘gangs’, street-based teenagers involved in criminal activity in Glasgow, Chicago and Hong Kong. His book Urban Legends: Gang Identity in the Post-Industrial City, was awarded the British Society of Criminology Book Prize.James Docherty has worked with a leading children’s charity helping young people on the cusp of organised crime and with the ‘Violence Reduction Unit’ in Glasgow. He advocates for change in the way we address the hidden cost of untreated trauma in our communities.Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival.Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

Anne McElvoy hosts Rod Liddle, associate editor of The Spectator; David Runciman, author of How Democracy Ends; Caroline MacFarland, the head of a think tank promoting the interests of ‘millennials’ and geographer Danny Dorling in an assessment of the influence of people power. Democracy was the most successful political idea of the last century but can it survive the digital age? Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead. David Runciman is Professor of Politics at Cambridge University currently working on a project about the pervasiveness of conspiracy theories in the twenty-first century. David’s books include Politics: Ideas in Profile, The Confidence Trap, and the forthcoming, How Democracy Ends.Caroline MacFarland is the founder and director of Common Vision (CoVi), an independent think tank with a mission to ‘inspire civic engagement and policy understanding amongst the millennial generation’. Previously, she was managing director at the think tank ResPublica, one of the founding team members of the foundation Power to Change, and a special advisor to the Big Lottery Fund. Rod Liddle is an associate editor of The Spectator and a columnist for The Sunday Times and The Sun. The author of Selfish Whining Monkeys: How we Ended Up Greedy, Narcissistic and Unhappy, Liddle is a former editor of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Danny Dorling is Professor of Geography at Oxford University and the author of Population 10 Billion. His research focuses on housing, health, employment, education and poverty. His recent books include Do We Need Economic Inequality?, The Equality Effect and he co -wrote Why Demography Matters.Producer: Luke Mulhall

April 1916. By the Nile, the foremost poets of the Middle East are arguing about Shakespeare. In 2004, Egyptian singer Essam Karika released his urban song Oh Romeo. Reflecting on his travels and encounters around the Arab world, Islam Issa, from Birmingham City University, discusses how canonical English writers (Shakespeare and Milton) creep into the popular culture of the region today. Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival. Islam’s Issa's book, Milton in the Arab-Muslim World, won the Milton Society of America’s ‘Outstanding First Book’ award. His exhibition Stories of Sacrifice won the Muslim News Awards ‘Excellence in Community Relations’ prize.New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radioProducer: Fiona McLean

Author of A Book of Silence Sara Maitland, medievalist John-Henry Clay, and writer Lionel Shriver face the crowd to contemplate the many sides to solitude. Chaired by Rana Mitter with an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead. “If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company”. Was Jean Paul Sartre right or are we just hot-wired to prefer the company of others? Is it even possible - as the famous hermit St Cuthbert once did - to experience true seclusion in our age of hyperconnectivity? And as we flock to cities in increasing numbers why do so many of us feel so isolated and alone? Sara Maitland has lived by herself for the last twenty years on an isolated moor in northern Galloway, taking pleasure in silence and solitude. She is the author of numerous short stories, novels and non-fiction books including A Book of Silence. Lionel Shriver’s novels include The Standing Chandelier, The Mandibles, and We Need to Talk About Kevin. Her forthcoming collection of stories Property, explores how our possessions act as proxies for ourselves. John-Henry Clay is Associate Professor in the Department of History at Durham University whose main research interests are in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon history and archaeology, and the themes of conversion and religious identity. John is also the author of historical fiction including The Lion and the Lamb and At the Ruin of the World. Producer: Luke Mulhall

A fashion show in Buenos Aires was put on for propaganda but football fixtures were deemed too risky. New Generation Thinker Dr Christopher Bannister, from the University of Manchester, looks at attempts to influence opinion about World War II in Latin America. Although relatively untouched by violence, support in such a strategically important region was vital to the British war effort. Bombs and bullets were no use here, so fashion shows, book launches, soap operas and films became the British Ministry of Information's weapons of war as New Generation Thinker Dr Christopher Bannister, from the University of Manchester, explains. Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead for BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.Recorded at the 2018 Free Thinking Festival and includes questions and answers from the audience at Sage GatesheadProducer: Jacqueline Smith

Alastair Fraser talks about teenagers, street life and filling time. Doing nothing has become the mantra of twenty-first century life. In an accelerated world, we yearn for a space where minds are emptied, iPhones left at the door. But doing nothing is not always a choice. For young people, bored on the streets, it’s all there is. And for them doing nothing is always doing something. New Generation Thinker Alastair Fraser, from the University of Glasgow, has written books including Gangs and Crime: Critical Alternatives and Urban Legends: Gang Identity in the Post-Industrial City, which was awarded the British Society of Criminology Book Prize.Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.Recorded at the 2018 Free Thinking Festival and includes questions and answers from the audience at Sage Gateshead.Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Author of Fully Connected Julia Hobsbawm, Social Media director at DEMOS Jamie Bartlett, writer Laurence Scott and tech blogger Abeba Birhane switch off their phones to focus on the impact of tech on the way we behave. Social media has allowed us to express our individuality and at the same time to interact like never before. But as the forces behind our digital lives become more sophisticated and powerful, are we in danger of succumbing to mass manipulation? Presented by Anne McElvoy with an audience at Sage Gateshead. Julia Hobsbawm’s most recent book Fully Connected explores how to cope in an age of data and deadline overload by proposing new ways to develop healthy connectedness with and without technology. She writes and speaks about Social Health and about how to form satisfying interpersonal relationships with each other. Jamie Bartlett is Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos with the University of Sussex. His book The Dark Net describes underground and emerging internet subcultures and his forthcoming Radicals looks at how the influence of radical groups on the political fringes is growing. Laurence Scott teaches at Arcadia University and became a Radio 3/AHRC New Generation Thinker in 2011. In his book, The Four–Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World, Laurence explores how life is being reframed in a digital age. Abeba Birhane is pursuing a PhD in cognitive science at University College Dublin. She blogs regularly about the evolution of algorithms and the ethical considerations around such technology. Producer Craig Smith.

Gilbert and Sullivan gave university-educated women the English comic operetta treatment in their eighth collaboration, Princess Ida (1884) but why did the most famous musical duo of their day choose to make fun of them? To find out, New Generation Thinker Dr Eleanor Lybeck, from the University of Oxford, looks at protests, popular culture and a group of pioneering Victorian women who saw education as the first step towards emancipation. Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radioRecorded at the 2018 Free Thinking Festival and includes questions and answers from the audience at Sage GatesheadProducer: Zahid Warley

Army captain turned MP Johnny Mercer, Theatre Director Elizabeth Newman and former footballer Paul Fletcher compare notes on leadership and teamwork - presented by Rana Mitter with an audience at Sage Gateshead. There is no I in Team .. but there's a ME if you look hard enough”, joked David Brent in the BBC sitcom, The Office. But for individuals with a proven track record in leadership, how do you get the best from your group while handling the demands of the individual? Johnny Mercer served three tours of Afghanistan during his military career before retiring from the army to pursue a future in politics. He was elected Conservative MP for Plymouth Moor View in 2015.Elizabeth Newman is the artistic director of the Octagon Theatre in Bolton. Previously she was an associate director at Southwark Playhouse. In 2014, she was awarded the David Fraser/Andrea Wonfor Television Directors’ Bursary for experienced theatre directors to work with top UK broadcasters and production companies and has recently completed filming an episode of Doctors for the BBC. In 2017 she was named ‘Bolton’s Woman of the Year’. Paul Fletcher played as a striker playing for Bolton Wanderers, Burnley and the England Under 23 team before leg injuries put paid to his playing career. He has been Chief Executive at Huddersfield Town masterminding the building of the Alfred McAlpine Stadium, at Bolton Wanderers when the Reebok Stadium was built, and CEO of Burnley. He has just collaborated with the writer Alastair Campbell on a novel depicting a football manager called Saturday Bloody Saturday and with Ken Sharp he has written The Seven Golden Secrets of a Successful Stadium Producer: Zahid Warley

Tom Simpson looks at a study of suspicion in a 1950s Italian village and the lessons it has for community relations and social tribes now. Edward Banfield's book, The Moral Basis of a Backward Society, depicts a village where everyone is out for themselves. New Generation Thinker Tom Simpson is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. He argues that we are losing the habits of trust that have made our prosperity possible. Unless we learn how to reinvigorate our cultures of trust, we ourselves have a future that is backwards. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio. Producer: Luke Mulhall

An apple a day is said to keep the doctor away but could a poem, painting or play have the same effect? Daisy Fancourt is a Wellcome Research Fellow at University College London. In her Essay, recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead for the Free Thinking Festival, she looks at experiments with results which which prove that going to a museum is known to enhance neuronal structure in the brain and improve its functioning and people who play a musical instrument have a lower risk of developing dementia. What does this mean for our attitudes towards the arts and what impact are arts prescriptions having ?Daisy Fancourt has published a book called Arts in Health: Designing and researching interventions .New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.Recorded at the 2018 Free Thinking Festival and includes questions and answers from the audience at Sage Gateshead. Producer: Zahid Warley

From schools of fish to starlings to atomic particles. what does group behaviour look like in nature? Rana Mitter is joined by BBC Radio 4’s presenter of The Life Scientific Jim Al-Khalili, Melissa Bateson, Andrew McBain and Richard Bevan. Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead for the 2018 Free Thinking Festival. Jim Al-Khalili is Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey and presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The Life Scientific and TV documentaries including Gravity and Me: The Force that Shapes Our Lives and The Beginning and End of the Universe. His books include Paradox: the Nine Greatest Enigmas in Science, Black Holes, Wormholes and Time Machines, Quantum: a Guide for the Perplexed and he’s edited What’s Next ? What Science Can Tell Us About Our Future.Melissa Bateson is Professor of Ethology at Newcastle University, an expert in behavioural biology who has studied the behaviour of starlings, hummingbirds and humans.Andrew McBain is a Professor of Microbiology at the University of Manchester. His research focuses on the responses of biofilms to antimicrobial treatments and the interaction of microorganisms colonising the skin, nasopharynx, oral cavity and intestine with the human host in health and disease Richard Bevan is a lecturer in the School of Natural and Environmental Sciences at Newcastle University. His research interests are in animal ecophysiology; the way that animals interact with their environment both physiologically and behaviourally and how this is vital in understanding and interpreting their biology.Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Hetta Howes looks at male fears and why Margery Kempe was criticised for crying and bleedingMedieval mystic Margery Kempe's excessive, noisy crying made her travelling companions so irritated that they wanted to throw her overboard, while others accused her of being possessed by the devil. But Kempe believed she was using her tears as a way to connect with God, turning the medieval connection between women and water into a form of bodily empowerment and a holy sign. New Generation Thinker Hetta Howes, from City, University of London, explores the connections between medieval women and water.New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.Recorded at the 2018 Free Thinking Festival and includes questions and answers from the audience at Sage GatesheadProducer: Luke Mulhall.

The geographer Danny Dorling; Lionel Shriver, the author and patron of Population Matters; and Stephen Emmott, author of 10 Billion, join Matthew Sweet and an audience at Sage Gateshead to debate whether we should have fewer children. In 1968 a Stanford university professor, Dr Paul E. Ehrlich, published The Population Bomb. This call to arms became a global bestseller, influenced public policy and made its author a celebrity. It predicted mass starvation in the US and an England underwater by the year 2000. It also suggested adding ‘temporary sterilants’ to the water supply as a way to stem the ensuing crisis. For decades it has come under fire for its alarmist tone and laughable foresight but with global population set to hit ten billion by 2050, will Ehrlich eventually be proved right? Danny Dorling is Professor of Geography at Oxford University and the author of Population 10 Billion. His research focuses on housing, health, employment, education and poverty. His recent books include Do We Need Economic Inequality? The Equality Effect, and he co-wrote Why Demography Matters.Lionel Shriver’s novels include The Standing Chandelier, The Mandibles, and the award-winning We Need to Talk About Kevin. Lionel is a regular columnist at The Spectator and has written for numerous other publications including for The Wall Street Journal, New Statesman, and The Economist. She is a patron of Population Matters.Stephen Emmott is the author of Ten Billion, which he performed as a drama at the Royal Court Theatre. He is a Professor at Cambridge. His work develops new computational methods and ways of thinking about complex living systems. Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

Leading economic expert, Linda Yueh, delivers her vision for restoring faith in the free market to an audience at Sage Gateshead. Chaired by Philip Dodd. We live in a world where experts of all stripes are struggling to win over the confidence of the general population. Last year, the Bank of England said it was stepping up its efforts to minimise a ‘twin deficit’ of public understanding and trust in an area that has come under particular fire recently: economics. In a timely defence of her profession, and by drawing on ideas put forward by several titans of economic theory, Linda Yueh, the former Chief Business Correspondent for BBC News, opens the Free Thinking festival 2018 with a unique take on how we fix the globalised free market to benefit the one and the many. Linda Yueh is Adjunct Professor of Economics at London Business School and Fellow in Economics at St Edmund Hall, Oxford University as well Visiting Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics IDEAS research centre. She is the author of The Great Economists: How Their Ideas Can Help Us Today.Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival.Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

How did interior design help gain women the vote? Were arson attacks justified? Who took part in a six-week march? What role did an Indian princess play? Helen Pankhurst, Jane Robinson, Fern Ridell, Shahida Rahman and Miranda Garrett discuss the history of women's suffrage with Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough in this centenary year of the Bill which gave some women the right to vote.Fern Riddell is the author of Death in 10 Minutes - Kitty Marion: Activist, Arsonist, Suffragette Helen Pankhurst is the author of Deeds Not Words: The Story of Women’s Rights, Then and Now. Jane Robinson has written Hearts and Minds: The Untold Story of the Great Pilgrimage and How Women Won the Vote. Miranda Garrett is co-editor with Zoë Thomas of Suffrage and the Arts: Visual Culture, Politics and Enterprise

How self-revealing and frank should a writer be? Lara Feigel, David Aaronovitch, Melissa Benn and Xiaolu Guo join Matthew Sweet to look at the life of Doris Lessing and her 1962 novel in which she explores difficult love, life, war, politics and dreams. Inspired by her re-reading of Doris Lessing, Lara Feigel has written a revealing book which is part memoir part biography called "Free Woman: Life, Liberation and Doris Lessing". Melissa Benn's books include Mother and Child, One of Us and School Wars David Aaronovitch is the author of Party Animals: My Family and Other Communists and a former winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Journalism. Xiaolu Guo has written a memoir Once Upon a Time in the East, and novels including UFO in Her Eyes, and Lovers In the Age of Indifference. Producer: Fiona McLean

Laurence Sterne's subjective travel book was published in 1768. Mary Newbould and Duncan Large discuss its influence. Plus novelist Philip Hensher on his new book The Friendly Ones and writing fiction about neighbourliness, families and the Bangladesh Liberation War. Walker Nick Hunt discusses his journeys following the pathways taken by European winds such as the Mistral and the Foehn and the conversations he had about nationalism, immigration and myths. Presented by New Generation Thinker Seán Williams.The Friendly Ones by Philip Hensher is published on March 8th. Nick Hunt's book Where the Wild Winds Are: Walking Europe's Winds from the Pennines to Provence is out now. ‘Alas, Poor Yorick!’: A Sterne 250-Year Anniversary Conference takes place at Cambridge 18 - 21 March and an Essay Collection is being published called ‘A Legacy to the World’: New Approaches to Laurence Sterne’s ‘A Sentimental Journey’ and other Works to be edited by W.B Gerard, Paul Goring, and M-C. Newbould. A new edition of A Sentimental Journey, illustrated by Martin Rowson, has been published by the Laurence Sterne TrustAn evening of music and readings to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the funeral of Laurence Sterne in the church where the original service took place. St George's, Hanover Square, London W1S 1FX on 22 March 2018 features David Owen Norris, Susanne Heinrich, The Hilliard Ensemble, Patrick Hughes, Carmen Troncoso et al.

The archaeologist Francis Pryor tells Shahidha Bari about a lifetime of building vistas of our history and prehistory through the evidence of pottery shards, holes in the mud and broken bones and palaeo-archaeologist Paul Pettitt who co-discovered Britain's first cave art explains why darkness informed a critical component in the development of the human brain and archaeologist Ruth Whitehouse reflects on the use of caves for ritual. They are joined by Sharon Robinson-Calver who has been tasked with the on-going conservation of a piece of London's fatberg and poet Sean Borodale whose latest collection arises from field studies in grave yards, caves and mines. Together they discuss why the past draws them back and how that past signposts itself. Francis Pryor 'Paths to the Past' is out on March 1st 2018 Paul Pettitt, Professor of Archaeology, University of Durham and Member of the Behaviour, Ecology and Evolution Research (BEER) Centre Ruth Whitehouse, Emeritus Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology, University College London Sean Borodale 'Asylum' is out on March 1st 2018 Sharon Robinson-Calver, Head of Conservation and Collection Care at Museum of London: Fatberg! on show until July

Red tape or accountability? Matthew Sweet is joined by Lord Robin Butler, former head of the home Civil Service, writer and lecturer Eliane Glaser and Professor André Spicer whose recent book looks at meaningless management speak. Deborah McAndrew talks about her stage adaptation of Charles Dickens' Hard Times which examines the results of purely utilitarian education. And journalist Richard Lloyd Parry's new book is an account of the tsunami of 2011 - Japan's biggest loss of life since the bombing of Nagasaki.Richard Lloyd Parry’s Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster is out now Japan Now is at the British Library in London 25 February with events also taking place at Sheffield on Saturday 24th - Programmed by Modern Culture in partnership with the Japan Foundation and Sheffield University, at The Forum in Norwich on Saturday and at the University of Manchester on Monday. Business Bullshit by André Spicer is available nowHard Times is at The Viaduct Theatre, Halifax, until 24 February, then The Dukes, Lancaster, from 27 February until 3 March - check the Northern Broadsides website for further dates.

We should ignore newspaper headlines, believe that things are getting better and defend Enlightenment values. That's the message from Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He debates his defence of progress and his optimistic outlook with Philip Dodd. Plus culture wars in Britain. Are the divisions we are seeing today different to previous culture wars? Eliza Filby, Alex Massie & Tarjinder Gill debate. Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker is out now. Eliza Filby is the author of God and Mrs Thatcher and a Visiting Lecturer at Kings College, London. Alex Massie is Scotland Editor of The Spectator and a columnist for The Times and The Sunday Times Tarjinder Gill is a writer and teacher who blogs on race and identity issues at AllinBritain. Producer: Robyn Read

From Napoleon impersonators, his image in caricature and ballads, to a play which asks what if he didn't die in exile - presenter Anne McElvoy is joined by actor and director Kathryn Hunter, biographer Michael Broers, historians Oskar Cox Jensen and Laura O'Brien and journalist Nabila Ramdani who looks at how Napoleon is viewed in 21st century France.Napoleon Disrobed - a play performed by Told By an Idiot which is based on the novel The Death of Napoleon by Simon Leys - is on tour visiting Plymouth, London, Birmingham and Scarborough. Michael Broers has just published the second instalment of his biography which is called Napoleon The Spirit of The Age. Oskar Cox Jensen has published Napoleon and British Song. Laura O'Brien has published The Republican Line: Caricature and French Republican Identity (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015)Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Film maker Clio Barnard and novelist Amanda Craig on rural life. Matthew Sweet presents.

American artist, Mark Dion has a new exhibition on in London: Theatre of the Natural World . Dion is exhilarated by the natural world but tells Anne McElvoy why his art is about how we classify it and what that says about us. Virginia Woolf: An Exhibition Inspired by her Writings opens at Tate St Ives so Anne McElvoy finds out how questions about colour perception and insect behaviour in turn inspired the writer. Literary scholars Claudia Tobin and Rachel Murray discuss. Evolutionary biologists, Menno Schiltuizen and Suzanne Williams, tell Anne about how colour and invertebrate studies in ecosystems old and new are refining our understanding of evolution. Mark Dion: Theatre of the Natural World at Whitechapel Gallery, London until May 13th Virginia Woolf: An Exhibition Inspired by Her Writings at Tate St Ives continues until April 29th. Menno Schiltuizen 'Darwin Comes to Town: How the Urban Jungle Drives Evolution' is out now. Suzanne Williams, Researcher and Head of Invertebrate Division, Natural History Museum, London. Claudia Tobin is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Cambridge Rachel Murray, School of Humanities, University of BristolPresenter: Anne McElvoy

David Willetts, Polly Toynbee, Baroness Simone Finn, Julia Black and Adrian Wooldridge join Anne McElvoy for a debate recorded with an audience at the LSE Festival Beveridge 2.0

Philip Dodd talks to Michael Ignatieff about the political landscape of central Europe.

1968 was one of the most seismic years in recent history -- Vietnam, the Prague spring, Black Power at the Olympics and protests on the streets of Paris and London so this evening's programme -- Rana Mitter's extended interview with Tariq Ali -- is part commemoration, part reassessment. What remains of that turbulent time and where can we discern its features in our political landscape today? Rana takes Tariq back to his life as a boy in Lahore - a city where his radical parents regularly hosted the likes of Pakistan's great 20th century poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz and brings him via his first hand experience of wartime Vietnam and his intellectual engagement with the Russian revolution to the present where he offers assessments of the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn and the US President, Donald Trump. There's time too for a diversion into literature. Tariq shares his love of Kipling and in the longer version of the interview available as one of our Arts and Ideas podcasts - he reads from his novel Night of the Golden Butterfly featuring a character based on the painter, Tassaduq Sohail. Tariq Ali has chosen a mixtape for Radio 3's Late Junction broadcast this week. Producer: Zahid Warley

Buchi Emecheta explored child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education in over 20 books. Born in 1944 in an Ibusa village, she lost her father aged eight, travelled to London and made a career as a writer whilst bringing up five children on her own, working by day and studying at night for a degree. Shahidha Bari talks to her son Sylvester Onwordi, to New Generation Thinker Louisa Egbunike, to publisher Margaret Busby and magazine editor Kadija George. We also hear from other writers and publishers taking part in a day long series of discussions and performances at the Centre of African Studies at SOAS, University of London, on Saturday 3rd February. They include Alastair Niven - former Director of the Africa Centre, Dr Marie Linton Umeh, writer Irenosen Okojie, Professor Akachi Ezeigbo and poet Grace Nichols. Buchi Emecheta's career took off when she turned her columns for the New Statesman about black British life into a novel In The Ditch which was published in 1972. It depicted a single black mother struggling to cope in England against a background of squalor. Two years later Allison and Busby published her book Second-Class Citizen, which focused on issues of race, poverty and gender. Now, a year after her death, the Omenala Press is re-issuing editions of her work. Producer: Robyn Read

Anne McElvoy looks at trade past and present as she discusses a book questioning economists' reliance on GDP with its author, David Pilling, and reports on debates from the world economic forum annual meeting at Davos with American reporter Rob Cox. She also looks at a new novel depicting a "mermaid" displayed as a visitor attraction by an 18th century London-based merchant, and is shown around an exhibition exploring the design and impact of ocean liners with one of its curators, Ghislaine Wood. . Ocean Liners: Speed and Style runs at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London from 3 February – 10 June 2018The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock - the debut novel from Imogen Hermes Gowar is out now. Sarah Peverley is a New Generation Thinker who teaches at the University of Liverpool and a Leverhulme Research Fellow (2016-18) working on a project entitled 'Mermaids of the British Isles, c. 450-1500.'Producer: Luke Mulhall

Writer Bea Campbell, artist Scottee, historian Emma Griffin, journalist Simon Jenkins & economist Guy Standing join Philip Dodd to consider the working class in culture. The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class by Guy Standing is available now Scottee's Working Class Dinner Party is at Camden People's Theatre on 28 April as part of the Common People Festival from 17 to 28 April and his show Bravado continues to tour in April End of Equality by Beatrix Campbell is available now Emma Griffin's Liberty's Dawn: A People's History of the Industrial Revolution is out nowProducer: Debbie Kilbride

Matthew Sweet discusses Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries with the writer Colm Toibin, the film critic Larushka Ivan-Zadeh and the Swedish Cultural Attaché Ellen Wettmark. Released in 1957 and inspired by Bergman's own memories of childhood holidays in a summerhouse in the north of Sweden, Wild Strawberries tells the story of elderly professor Isak Borg, who travels from his home in Stockholm to receive an honorary doctorate. On the way, he's visited by childhood memories. The film stars veteran actor and director Victor Sjostrom, Bibi Andersson and Ingrid Thulin. With additional contributions from the film historian Kevin Brownlow and Jan Holmberg from the Ingmar Bergman Foundation, which administers Bergman's archives.The BFI in London is running a season of Ingmar Bergman films until March 1st 2018 as part of the global celebrations of the centenary of world-renowned Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (1918 – 2007).A Matter of Life and Death: the Films of Ingmar Bergman has been republished with a new introduction by Geoff Andrew of the BFI. Wild Strawberries is being screened on 26 Feb, Newlyn Filmhouse; 8 March, Borderlines Film Festival; 11 March, Chapter Arts Centre. This programme was originally recorded in December 2015. Producer: Laura Thomas

From Ecuador to the Scottish borders: Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough meets Maren Meinhardt and Graham Robb who explore the land on their doorsteps and also follow in the footsteps of others from Humboldt the naturalist and explorer to the forgotten territory of the Debatable Land. They'll be joined by novelist Natasha Pulley whose fascination with Victorian exploration and empire building is reflected in her latest novel The Bedlam Stacks which took her to Peru.Another Burns night and Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough discusses the new radical ways in which Scotlands artists and writers are approaching and getting inspired by the man who almost invented the term National Bard. Burns Unbroke is a festival designed to showcase how Robert Burns speaks to Scotland's creators today and two of the featured artists are David Mach, sculptor, installation artist and poet, and Kevin Williamson of Neu! Reekie! Williamson has been exploring how Robert Burns might have performed his own poetry while David Mach reflects on why he's still in two minds about a poet who was also a tax collector who still speaks powerfully to a Scottish present. Graham Robb's book The Debatable Land is out in February. Maren Meinhardt's book A Longing For Wide and Unknown Things: The Life of Alexander Humboldt is published in January. Natasha Pulley The Bedlam Stacks is out now.Burns Unbroke CONTEMPORARY ARTS INSPIRED BY ROBERT BURNS 25 JANUARY - 10 MARCH 2018 @ SUMMERHALL, EDINBURGHKevin Williamson Independent Minds: New Poetry from HMP Kilmarnock; Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Craig Brown, Afua Hirsch, Robert Jobson, A. N. Wilson and New Generation Thinker Joe Moshenska discuss the monarchy as the Royal Academy and the Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace stage exhibitions exploring the painting collections of Charles I and II. How has patronage changed and, in this year of another Royal Wedding, what impact are depictions in TV dramas such as The Crown and biographies including Craig Brown's Ma'am Darling having on our view of royalty? Philip Dodd presents. Charles I King and Collector runs at the Royal Academy, London from January 27th until April 15th Charles II: Art & Power is running at the Queen's Gallery Buckingham Palace until May 13th Ma'am Darling 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret by Craig Brown is out nowBRIT(ish) by Afua Hirsch is out this week Dr Joe Moshenska is the author of A Stain in the Blood: The Remarkable Voyage of Sir Kenelm DigbyA. N. Wilson's Victoria: A Life is available nowDiana: Closely Guarded Secret by Robert Jobson is out nowRadio 3's Early Music Show on Sun 11th Feb at 1400. Lucie Skeaping presents a concert recorded at Windsor Castle with flautist Ashley Solomon, double-bass player ChiChi Nwanoku and harpsichordist Julian Perkins.Repertoire including Handel, Telemann, Dragonetti, and Barsanti, played on instruments from the Royal Collection. The instruments are a porcelain flute probably owned by George III, a chamber bass bequeathed to Prince Albert by Dragonetti and a harpsichord owned by Frederick Prince of Wales.Producer: Debbie Kilbride